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20 of 20 found the following review helpful:
The Williams Collection Hits a Home RUN!Mar 06, 2008
By Kahres05 Just to give some history of myself, I belong to a pinball league and we currently have over 40 titles the games include makers from Williams, Bally, Stern and Data East. I never expect a video game to replace the actual thing but for $14 bucks; The Williams Collection is the most realistic video Pinball ever! Two hours of playing this title and I couldent stop playing it. The designers did amazing work; from the artwork to the sound to the light shows.... from what I can tell everything is spot on. The ball physics are as real as real could get without being in front of the real thing. I own an Attack From Mars, like all pinball machines they need lots of care and maintenance. The beauty of a title like this is the pinball machines will never break, no lights to replace, no weak flippers and no playfield ware. I could buy 278 copies of this game for what I paid for my AFM. This is a no brainier; if you love pinball this is the game to get. I hope Crave keeps the ball rolling and brings out a Bally or Data East Collection; Stern would be nice but they are still making pinballs so I doubt that is even an option.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Very good game for $15 plus it has FUNHOUSE!Mar 10, 2008
By Michael J. Jackson
"mike_j"
I love Funhouse - what a great pinball table. This is about as close as you are going to get to Funhouse without spending $2K plus for the real thing.
Out of all the tables in the game, Funhouse is the best. Whirlwind and Space Shuttle are OK and they kind of drop from there. But, overall it is a good title for the money.
The physics seem realistic. There is no ball spin so you can make the same shot everytime once you figure out where to hit it.
7 of 7 found the following review helpful:
Great sim, just misses pefectionMar 12, 2008
By Spiehler As others have said, this is a dynamite sim for the price. The "table goals" feature is a nice touch, enabling you to do something other than just go for high score.
I'm a pinball enthusiast, owner (Williams Riverboat Gambler), and sometime tournament player. The ball physics and overall "reality" of the tables is excellent. The left-analog "nudge" is the best of it's kind I've ever encountered. So far, my personal fave on this disc is Taxi. The designer Pat Lawlor is not my cup of tea, so I can take or leave Funhouse and Whirlwind, but that's a personal preference thing, They are great tables, just not to my taste. You might find they're you're favorites.
The "Instructions" feature with each table is brilliant. Video and audio outlining everything you need to do. Most helpful.
Value-10 stars
Fun-5 stars
Overall-4 stars. What keeps me from giving this an overall five star rating is the flipper feel. Many of these machines were known in their day for lightning-quick, precise flippers. I know it's the nature of the beast, but there is a notable flipper lag. Quick two-flipper combo saves are near impossible. The other thing that's not to my liking: the right analog stick as the plunger. Perhaps a superior controller might help (I'm using a standard Dualshock), but it's difficult to get any consistency. It can be a tad frustrating when Funhouse, Taxi, and especially Pinbot have such crucial skill shots.
Still, nitpicks. This is a dynamite game, fantastic value, and it got me to put down my Guitar Hero controller!
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Everything but the balls clacking off the glassMar 17, 2008
By P. Webb
"Trajedi"
I was excited about this compilation as the Gottleib collection had whet my appetite for more accurate Pinball on my PS2. This collection is better in that the ball movement is perfect and the difference in flippers and layout of the included machines are more varied. The WILLIAMS CHALLENGE mode is a fun add on where you try to best high scores on each table in a run, and the inside the arcade feel with credits etc, is passable and easy to manuver. Unlockable goals and slideshows round out the game, but you came to play pinball and each of the 8 tables included delivers in its own way. My only complaint here is THE CONTROLS ARE SET you can't change them so I had no way to make my arcade stick side buttons work with this title as I had hoped otherwise this is just a well made videogame that delivers exactly what it promises at a fair price. Gorgeous graphics great physics and some memorable tables, I know it isn't WILLIAMS but I would love to play HAUNTED HOUSE in one of these compilations as well.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Crave Gets the Highest MarksMar 15, 2008
By Cyberyukon
"cyberyukon"
In heaven, cars would never need oil changes, the weather would always be balmy and great pinball machines would never have to be shopped out for costly repairs. Well, thanks to the folks at Crave the last one has been made possible for us here on earth. Their "Hall of Fame - the Williams Collection" is everything and more. All of the detail, sound bites and logistics have been painstakingly worked out to the finst detail.
Of course the flagship is "Funhouse", probably the best, craziest, over-the-top pinball machine ever. From Rudy's quips, following eyes and advancing clock--it's all here. And who can forget the classic "Whirlwind" ("the storm is approaching!!")? And I almost fell over when I saw "Taxi"--a game that didn't quite rise to the levels of popularity of, say, "Funhouse", but still ate a lot of my quarters in its day. What's not to love about a game that requires you pick up Dracula, Santa Claus, Pinbot and Mikhail Gorbachev? That's Williams' great, quirky style for ya...
The other games are great, too. "Pinbot", "Black Knight" and "Space Shuttle" all come with their mid-80s creepy Williams-esqe vocoder sound bits. And there're the great classic classics, "Gorgar" and "Firepower".
The ball mechanics are fantastic and lovingly recreated for each machine. The player can change the first-person perspective on the tables to one of several presets, from up close and personal to the playing field to high above it. The illusion of the real games is high--many times during play I would start to worry about the ball slamming into targets and bumpers and how much it would cost me to have them fixed if they broke...until I realized that this was a video game.
So hats off to Crave. And the game is only fifteen dollars. The price of a "Funhouse" video game reproduction alone could easily justify a much higher price. I hope they plan on coming out with more similar anthologies and collections ("High Speed", "Comet", "Theater of Magic" and "Attack from Mars", if you please).
If you're a fan of these games then get your copy (I had to order mine--I couldn't find any on the shelves anywhere here in Las Vegas). In the meantime...I'll be over here, trying to get to midnight to put Rudy to sleep. "Go play on the steps!!"
based on 40 reviews
( 40 customer reviews )
