Customer Reviews

Pinball Hall of Fame The Gottlieb Collection

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!

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.

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!

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.

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).

Gorgar Hurt. You beat Gorgar.

Maybe it's just me becuase I didn't see anyone else comment about it; The ball seems to not last very long in this game in a turn, I mean when I Play the actual pinball machine I can keep it going forever but in this game it seems to always find some way to slip by. ALSO, I didn't notice anyone comment about this either but I played this game from brand new and no scratches, in 'Black Hole' when the ball falls from the right side to the bottom, it's like the game doesnt know that It fell, and a new ball should come. I kept tilting it for 3 minits and it never read it to start a new ball. And it does this every time it falls over there, so 'Black Hole' is just not an option for me though it looks cool. I like the different camera angles I can choose from and the different choices of games to play. and that I can choose my own style ball, that's always fun. I did buy this game in a 3 pac for $10 at Sears so I don't have room to complain too much about the things I don't like. I'd have to say if you're getting this for $3.35 like I did instead of this $15 on Amazon, it's worth getting.

-VickyGeez

This game is a time warp! When I load "Big Shot", I'm 9 years old again and discovering pinball for the first time. When I play "Genie", I'm back in 7th grade hanging out at the arcade in the mall on a Saturday afternoon...

Then it's "Victory" in 1987 as I play game after game to relax after a hard day at work. "Tee'd Off" takes me to 1993 as I try to earn free games because I'm looking for a new job...the other games are OK, but don't hold any memories for me...I never really liked "Black Hole" and am way too young to remember the earlier games.

Buy This Now!

Very poor effort, do not waste your money on this product. I started playing pinball machines from the time I was tall enough to see over the glass, over 35 years ago, I fell in love with them the first game. As a lover and wizard of pinball I'm very disappointed with this simulator, not nearly as good as Crave's second effort, "The Williams Collection". Crave did not take the time to test this product properly, that is obvious. I would recommend "The Williams Collection", but not this one. This one does not play anywhere near the real thing, and there are too many glitches in the programing, poorly done. Major problem: Black Hole pinball simulator, often this game locks down after locking the ball in the black hole (lower level) ball capture. Tee'd Off pinball simulator, the left flipper is almost useless because regardless of what part of the flipper you use to flip the ball it goes pretty much in only 2 areas, up the middle or far to the right, forget about hitting the ramp. Tilt mech: This pinball simulator tilts way too easy, one small nudge and that's it, and there's no way to adjust it unless you unlock all the hidden programs. That would be OK if it wasn't such a piece of junk, I don't have the patience to tolerate it long enough to unlock everything, I'll just play "The Williams Collection" and be happy. Anyway, pinball is suppose to be fun, and this one is not.

I wanted to like it so much more because graphics look fantastic, and it looks like the awesome pinball machines that I grew up with. And secondly there hasn't been a good true collection of the pinball experience.

But the ball is alittle toooooo slow moving! I don't recall the real pinball machines have turtle moving balls. I was actually yawning and waiting for each ball to come about.

If you ever played pinball and enjoyed it, then there's good chance you'll appreciate what this game has to offer. Which is virtual pinball, classic tables, and no coins! (that's the best part)