Top 10 pinball tables

In celebration of The Pinball Arcade's first anniversary, here are our top 10 pin games, many of which I've only been able to play because of Far Sight's simulator.

Star Wars Episode 1

I'm going to start with one one of the few in this list I can remember playing and it's mainly because of the special tricks it pulls, such as the light sabre that lights up during the game and the holographic back screen, which allows you to blast droids with the ball. This technology was coined "Pinball 2000" by Williams and was an attempt to re-vitalise the floundering company. The objective of the game was to become a Jedi spirit (whatever that is), which means ascending the ranks of the Jedi and eventually battling Darth Maul. It says a lot about a film when the pinball table is a more memory experience.

Black Hole

Gottlieb's Black Hole is former classic of the month, so it's hardly surprising it also made it to my top 10. Like video games, atmosphere can carry pinball tables a long way and Black Hole's gaunt sound effects and simple layout are very atmospheric. It's tough to get the multi-ball mode to activate on this one, but when you do it's actually possible to have balls on both the main playfield and the inverted lower table; managing balls on both playfields, especially when the balls drop out of the top on the lower field, is only for the true pros.

White Water

If you like tables with lots of ramps, you'll love White Water. In fact, when I saw this table in a bowling alley back in the 90s, it was precisely because of its rapids-themed ramps that I started to play it. The object of the table was to make your way down the river rapids to Wet Willy's shack, encountering dangerous ravines, dark caves and even a yeti along the way.

Taxi

For me, personality also goes a long way when it comes to pinball tables and William's Taxi has personality in spades. The object of the table is to pick up and drop off its colourful cast of passengers, which includes Mikhail Gorbachev, Marilyn Monroe, Santa Claus, Dracula and Pin*Bot (although I have no idea how a planet-sized robot is supposed to get into a Crown Victoria). It still makes  me smile hearing Pin*Bot saying, "Taxi, taxi, taxi" in his robotic voice. The looping ramps, which cross over in the middle also help to give this table a real sense of pace.

The Machine: Bride of Pin*Bot

Talking of Pin*Bot, William's trilogy are true legends of pinball, but when I decided to only include one of the series in this list I had to go with the first lady of pinball, The Machine. Not only did The Machine feature the pinball eyes of its predecessor, players also had to shoot their ball into her mouth to give her speech (which is a little counter intuitive). With each stage of The Machine's unique ball-locking mechanism her whole face rotates. Once she has balls in her mouth (ahem) and eyes, the multi-ball mode kicks in and you can rack up a serious score. I don't have any tattoos, but if I got one, I reckon it would be of this giant, sexy metallic lady.

Big Shot

Originally released in 1973 (when pinball was actually still illegal in New York City), Big Shot is the oldest table in our list. It's also the only electro-magnetic (EM) table in this list, but I love how deceptively challenging this table is. At first glance is looks pretty basic, but lighting all 14 of its drop targets with a single ball is surprisingly tough. There are few purer tests of pinball skill than to light them in order. I certainly can't do it.

Space Shuttle

A lot of the tables in this list are historically significant because of features they introduced to pin games, but Williams' Space Shuttle from 1984 is significant because it not only rescued the struggling Williams company, it also helped with the pinball resurgence that lead to so many great tables in the 1990s. As much as anything, for me it's the sounds this table makes that sends me into a nostalgic swoon. This is before digitised background music, so there's no rousing patriotic score or epic sci-fi theme, just a whole lot of awesome buzzes and beeps that wouldn't be out of place in Defender.

Theatre of Magic

Harking back to the days when magicians like David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy and Lance Burton were master entertainers, Theatre of Magic really captures the feel of those big, complicated and above all extravagant tricks. As your score goes up the sense of the stakes also escalating is palpable. Among this table's many tricks are the rotating magic trunk, which can make balls disappear, the spirit ring and deadly tiger saw. All of which would look perfectly at home in a Las Vegas stage show.

Attack from Mars

This is one of my absolute favourites. Pinball games are famous for their crazy highscores, but Attack from Mars takes it to the extreme. Within seconds of playing even a newbie can rack a score of a few hundred million. As an experiment, I once played a game where I did not press a single flipper, I just launched the ball and let it drop and I still scored 192,000,000! It's a really good beginners table, because of its relatively simple rule set and its open playfield, which helps players to keep track of the action. Just don't be too disappointed when you go back to a different table and find you can only score a tenth of the score you got on this.

Tales of Arabian Nights

Based on the classic saga 'One Thousand and One Nights', this is another table with bags of personality. The objective is to rescue the princess from the demonic genie. Along the way players will be collecting gems, visiting a bazaar, flying a magic carpet and spinning Aladdin's lamp in the middle. I also love tables with great lighting and this table certainly has that. After each ball out, the gems you've collected disappear in time to the music, then with a final flourish from the oud, the whole table briefly illuminates. It looks beautiful. Also, if you haven't tried The Pinball Arcade on your Android or iPhone, this table is free with the basic version.

Choosing the first nine tables for this list was fairly easy, but choosing my final table was tough. The Pinball Arcade really showcases the best the pin games have to offer from the last 50 years and narrowing it down to 10 has been as hard, if not harder, than any of my other top 10s. In the end it was down to Tales of Arabian Nights, Cirqus Voltaire, Black Knight, Centaur and Funhouse. In the end, I had to go with the tables I played the most, which is why three of Pinball Arcade's launch tables are in this list.

Join us again next month for another top 10.

MTW

Classic of the Month - R-Type Leo

Developer:	Eizo
Manufacturer:	Irem
Genre:	Shoot 'em up
Board:	M-92
Year:	1992

After Gradius, the R-Type games are probably the most famous, popular and revered side-scrolling shmups of all time,  but unlike Gradius, there were relatively few arcade sequels.  After the 1987 original there was R-Type II in 1989, a spin off called Armed Police Unit Gallop in 1991, then this installment in 1992 and that's it.  All the other sequels were for home consoles and computers, but that's hardly surprising; R-Type was converted to almost every home platform going, from the ZX Spectrum and original GameBoy to the Xbox 360 and even smart phones - a good 12 years after the original arcade release.

Set before the events of the original game, R-Type Leo tells the story of mankind's exploration of the galaxy and the construction of an artificial world called Eden.  However, Major, the super computer designed to operate Eden, goes haywire and starts to attack the human inhabitants using the planets defence system.  And so a newly developed star fighter, the R9 Leo, is called into action to take out the maniacal AI.

The Leo differs from other R-Type fighters by having neither a Wave Cannon (the main gun that can be charged to release high-power blasts) nor a Force (the satellite that multiplies and increases the fire power of the R9).  Instead when the Leo is powered-up it gets two small pods, later given the name Psy Bits. These Psy Bits stay in formation with the Leo, but can be aimed forwards or backwards by moving left and right.  They can also be charged and released to deliver a one-off high-power attack, similar to a charged Wave Cannon, however you charge them by not using them, meaning you can keep firing your regular weapon until it reaches full power. However, when they launch the Leo is temporarily defenceless, so there is a real risk/reward to using them.

Like other R-Type games, the power-ups in Leo come in three forms:

• Red lasers, which fire powerful horizonal beams
• Blue lasers, which bounce off the scenary and enemies
• Green laser, which are semi-homing lasers, capable of bending at 90°, much like a Tron light cycle's jet stream.

Officially the game was only released in Japan, however the odd unit made it over here, including the one I used to play in Great Yarmouth (yes, that place again).  So why have I made such a little known game a Classic of the Month?  Well, it might be little known and it might not have been developed by Irem, but it's still a great shmup and its influence was felt all the way up to the 2005 PlayStation 2 sequel, R-Type Final.

MTW