Nukezilla Review: Avatar Pinball (Xbox Live Indie Games)

Pinball is one of our oldest gaming pastimes. I’m not going to get into the history of the game; that’d be boring. Besides this game is boring enough. Avatar Pinball is yet another excuse to shoehorn your created Xbox Live persona into a game it has no earthly right being in. As you can expect from the title, Avatar Pinball has your avatar bouncing around a bare-bones pinball machine. The one (and only) table you’re provided with comes with three bumpers at the top, two corridors (one necessary to activate multi-ball), a couple of light-up areas, and a button that inexplicably makes your “ball” larger. It’s not the most ingenious design, but it does the job. It would be nice if there was more than one goddamn table though.

If you’ve played a pinball game before, you know exactly how this plays. An odd design choice comes in the form of the screen at the top of the table. In most pinball machines that screen displays info about your score, how many balls are left, and a picture of the table’s theme. Avatar Pinball’s screen has the first two items in that list, and it doubles as a screen when you’re avatar is stuck at the top of the table. The screen zooms into your avatar at all times, offering you absolutely nothing but a character close-up. It’s kind of stupid to be honest.

In an attempt to add variety to the proceedings, there are five game modes that don’t really differ from each other. Be The Ball and Avatar Classic both use your own Avatar (the first lets you control the avatar ball while it’s moving). Multi-Ball Mayhem has multiple avatars bouncing around the table until time runs out. Sock Puppet Pinball and Old Skool use a sock monkey avatar (?) and regular silver ball, respectively. Again, none of these options gets you a new table. Aside from what you get to beat around with the flippers, these other modes don’t really do anything.

Still, for all the cut-and-paste action going on here I found some strange enjoyment out of this. A few good runs on the table can be quite enjoyable. The background music is also damn good, until it loops for the 30th fucking time. The entire game is like the music; it’s a grand time watching your little avatar bounce around the first few times, but afterwards it just gets repetitive. It’s a cheap title (only 80 monkey socks), so pick it up if you want a cheap pinball thrill for a half-hour (maybe). Or save your points for one of the million other, better pinball games on Xbox Live.

Disclaimer: Developer Iadron sent us a review copy of the game.