Pinball Hall of Fame was designed to capture the spirit of great pinball gaming. Working closely with pinball experts from the Pinball Hall of Fame, the developers created a fantastic pinball experience, with sights and sounds captured from actual tables. Multiplayer action for up to 4 people
Features:
•
Historical art and fun facts about each table
•
Tutorial fly-through of each table which allow you to plan your strategy and make every shot count
Average Customer Review:
( 25 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 found the following review helpful:
Excellent 128-bit pinball simulatorNov 26, 2004
By Jerry P. Danzig PS2 owners waiting patiently for a 128-bit pinball simulator have finally got their game! Pinball Hall of Fame features seven classic Gottlieb tables with an unlockable eighth table, along with unlockable Xolten the fortune teller, Gottlieb's Love Meter, and more. The graphics are excellent, and the sounds come from the real tables. Contrary to what you may have heard, the ball physics are right-on, and each table has its own special challenges and rewards. If you like pinball, you will find a lot to like in this game; for the money, it's a no-brainer purchase!
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
The best pinball sim yetNov 30, 2004
By John J. Mezzacappa When I first purchased this game, I wasn't sure what to expect given how poorly older videogames have been emulated in compilations recently released and how unrealistic most pinball sims released for the PSone were, but I was pleasantly surprised by this diamond in the rough.
Having played all but 2 of these pinball games on real machines and having owned one of them in the past, I can tell you from experience that the ball physics are more accurate than any pinball sim that's come through before. Each game has its own unique challenges from the randomness of early games like Aces High to the finesse games like Genie and Black Hole.
The start up menu is very well designed, there is extensive information about each machine, and the extras like the love meter, slide show and fortune teller are nice bonuses. The machines are very easy to navigate through and the designers did an excellent job in selecting pinballs that helped define Gottlieb over a 40+ year span.
My only gripe about this game and the only reason I didn't give pinball hall of fame a 5 out of 5 is that there is an annoying glitch on tournament mode where if you beat the high score, you have to enter your initials for each individual point you have beaten the high score by which can be very cumbersome when you score 403 points and the high score is only 138. Otherwise, I would consider this one a must have for anyone into pinball.
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
Awesome Pinball collection!Jan 13, 2005
By death gleamer This game simulates pinball machines from 50s to 90s. At first I was suspicous about this game because it featured really old tables like 1950-1970s. My idea of a pinball machine are those over the top ones made by Midway during the 90s. Many evolved into more of a spectacle machine while losing 'gameplay'. This is pretty much the only pinball game for ps2. I really like the fact that these machines really exist.
This game blew me away. Right when I saw Genie, Black Hole, Victory, and Tee'd off.... I was like I played and watched people play this before! Brought back memories that otherwise would be forgotten forever.
The graphic and sound for this game is excellent. You will feel like you own the machines. There is voice tutorial and history info for all the tables. The camera angles are excellent. The ball physics very real. The menu screen is nice, all the pinball machines are placed in an old-fashioned arcade and you select them. There is simulated 'background arcade noise' during gameplay, it can't be toggled but its cool. The glass 'shines' effect during gameplay makes the tables look even more real. The gameplay design is SUPERB! Gottlieb knows how to design and make pinball games! Here are the machines:(Name, year, comment, rating.)
Ace high 1957 - a simple but well designed pinball game. Decent.
Central Park 1966 - another simple but well designed pinball game. Good.
Big Shot 1974 - excellent game, beatifully blends pool and pinball together. Great.
Genie 1979 - very popular back then, one of the best single plane pinball machine ever. Great.
Black Hole 1981 - The first pinball game to feature a 'underground' table, or a mini-table built within a pinball table. Great. Pinball machine designs during this time is evolving big time as seen in this table.
Victory 1987 - Very popular back then. Excellent gameplay and ramp design which allows 'double' ramping/looping. Here we see how pinball machines are evolving into little amusement parks. Great.
Tee'd Off 1993 - blends golf and pinball together beautifully. A classic 'basic' over the top pinball machine. Great.
There is a unlockable table called Play-Boy but I haven't unlock it yet. Another unlockable is Xolten the fortune teller machine.
Overall this game is a must buy for all pinball fans!
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Pretty darn close to perfectMar 14, 2005
By ski-dragon I just picked this up and I must say I am impressed. I truly love pinball not just as entertainment but as (depending on the machine) works of art, ie. backglass artists, table designers, and programmers have really created some masterpieces over the years - and this game really does them justice. The graphics are 1st rate, and the tables are recreated perfectly. The sound is truly amazing, and the game has exact recreations of each machine's electronics and table sounds. The arcade sound background effect is interesting, but I agree with another reviewer that it might be nice to toggle that down. The only other issue that I can possibly think of is that the gameplay relies on the gamer to choose one of six different camera angles, now some tables are more difficult than others - and this requires different camera angles, but you can only toggle through them in one direction which makes it a little difficult if you need to change angles in mid-gameplay. This is minor in the bigger picture of the game as a whole though. If I could suggest any upgrades on future volumes, I would only suggest that the designers include more attention to the backglasses - as these are a kind of overlooked in this volume, and you really can't get a close up look at them. If it were even possible to show each backglass as they appear when lit with their backlights and dot-matrix displays, that would truly blow me away. But I digress, allow me to simply say that this is a must have for a pinball fan (especially for the low price) and I really look forward to and hope the designers consider making expanded volumes that include more machines. I'd be first in line to pick it up.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
ALMOST a WinnerMar 12, 2009
By Game & Music Addict
"Game & Music Addict"
A bit about me: have played real pinball machines since the mid 70's, have owned several real machines and can play for hours on a single quarter on my favorite (1970's & 1980's) tables (not bragging, many pinball geeks do the same - just defining skill level/knowledge base).
Other reviewers defined the features and tables, so I'll just report my +'s and -'s.
Pros: + Pretty slick physics. The ball did do some crazy things, but it happens rarely enough to forgive. Video pinball lives or dies on the physics - they did a nice job. Controls respond well.
+ A couple of nice play modes including a fun 1-4 player Tournament mode.
+ Multiple Camera angles
+ # of Tables. People complain there aren't enough - but it's rare to find a SOLID pinball simulation that includes this many tables.
+ Some nice unlockable features (unlimited last ball, disable Tilt).
+ Very limited, but still welcome History blurbs and photos.
+ Very good game sound effects, voices, music, graphics.
Cons: - Table selection. It seems they picked technological/historic milestone tables rather than just fun tables. I suspect they ran into two problems when selecting tables: (1) Gottlieb made a lot of theme machines (example: card games). You can't put 3-4 of the same theme on the disc without upsetting casual players. (2) they licensed a lot of game ideas in the 70's/80's (Charlie's Angels, Hulk, Spider-Man, Rocky, James Bond, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.). I suspect they couldn't get the rights for the licensed tables.
Still, there were a bunch of other games I would have taken over these. Hopefully this collection will grow on me, but I'd rather play the Williams package or Pro Pinball PC games.
- Camera Angles. Generally you can find a camera angle that will work for each table, but I found myself having to cycle angles for certain games and the full table view feels like your standing on a step ladder and looking down at it. And the plunger (ball launcher) angle stinks. How difficult would it be to put an isolated top-down view on the plunger? When you have pluger skill shots, you NEED accurate plunger views!
- Score/info boxes can obscure action. You can toggle this OFF, but it turns itself back on FOR EVERY NEW BALL!! Fortunately, you just hit a button to re-toggle it off... but it's annoying!
- Insane Tilt sensitivity. Thankfully you can turn tilt off... if you can unlock it.
- Have to play lame tables with tedious goals to unlock the fun/helpful features. (Do yourself a favor and just search the web for the codes. Then you can skip the annoying/boring tables).
- Flyer photos can't be viewed full screen. Huh? Ridiculous!
- No cool Operator Adjustments, aside from 3/5 balls per game and Tilt. Can't really fault them for not including them ... but it would be WONDERFUL to have them.
Bottom line ... there are 2-3 tables that are geniunely fun and worth [...] bucks. Pinball geeks will want to add Gottlieb PHoF to their collection - it's a solid simulation package and it's history come to life. Casual gamers should buy the Williams Pinball Hall of Fame and/or try to find the PC Pro Pinball games (they're still the best simulations, by far).
based on 25 reviews
( 25 customer reviews )
