This requirement for ultra-accuracy just happens because of poor programming and a lack of play testing.Īnother thing I didn't care for in Sci-Fi pinball was that the first ball was no more exciting than the last. On real tables, the ramps and ball locks are very forgiving and even a shot that is fairly close will go in. So instead of a smooth game of moving the pinball around the table, you end up with the ball just banging into worthless barriers for 75% of the game. The other big problem is that you have to hit the ramps and ball locks dead on or else they bounce off the edges and don't go in. They don't "flip" fast enough so the ball kind of slides off the edge instead of being deflected in the direction you really want. The accuracy with the flippers is very bad. This was because of two things, shooting inaccuracy and table design. I found it very difficult to ever hit the spot I was after, whether it was a ball lock or a specific ramp. The best tables allow you to control the ball somewhat and make it possible to hit certain ramps or targets fairly accurately. There is a certain flow in every pinball table and some work better than others. Each table of Sci-Fi pinball looks and feels different but I wasn't thrilled with the design of any of them. A few previous pinball games have offered multiple tables in the same game but have just shuffled the same parts around and slapped on different pictures to make them appear different. Each table is laid out differently and there is no recycling of parts going on here. For this game they have chosen The Fly, Predator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Aliens. Sci-Fi pinball is a FOX product, which gives them the latitude to use any of the movies that they own the rights too. Emulating pinball machines on the PC has been a bumpy ride with many horrible and some decent attempts. Since then, I've played a lot of the more recent tables such as The Adam's Family, Star Wars and Terminator 2. My uncle loaned us a classic pinball machine built in the early 70's and it was probably my first exposure to arcade games.