What Am I Playing Right Now #10

Hey everyone. I want to once again say THANK YOU for following me at Indie Gamer Chick. You’ve made this week awesome. Thanks for everyone sharing links to my latest reviews on social media. Closing any social media is tough because you’ve all been so good to me for over thirteen years now. It means THE WORLD to me that you stuck around anyway. And it’s worked out great for me because I’ve been a lot more productive here. I have some FUN projects I’m working on. Contra Force’s review will probably hit Monday, and then Contra III: The Alien Wars. I know that’s the one everyone wants. Sega fans, you’re not left out. I’m doing Hard Corps too. I will have some scary games for Halloween too. Well, Castlevania. I dunno how scary that is to you. I’m doing the family thing this weekend. It’s one of those pinball-centric weekends in the Vice Household. So, what AM I playing?

That’s the AtGames Legends Pinball Micro. This last Christmas, myself, Angela, and Sasha each got one from Santa Claus. Or a fat man who dressed like Santa but looked suspiciously like my father. Weird. It’s long overdue we look at some of the exclusive tables that can only be found if you own one of the now army of Legends Pinball models. I suspect in the near future we’ll finally take the plunge on one of the 4K models. When they first launched, flipper lag was brutal, and frankly, you never know if that will get fixed or not. Well, a lot of people insist it’s been fixed. People I trust. AtGames has multiple models and I think it’s likely we’ll be picking one in the near future. You can only play Zen Studios’ output on 4K, so for god’s sake, please don’t buy the standard “HD” tables thinking Zen’s work will eventually find its way to them. It won’t. Ever. BUT, here’s some good news: Zaccaria Pinball is on there. Magic Pixel’s engine for Zaccaria Pinball is Oscar and Dave’s favorite pinball physics engine. Yes, it’s basically the same as the versions of Zaccaria for Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Steam, only with a lot fewer options but a REAL pinball feel, with a table that you lean over. The lack of bells & whistles is slightly disheartening. As far as we can tell, you can’t do five ball games or change the rules. No special challenges either. It’s just one single build of each table. That’s FINE, by the way, because they’re optimized for the digital pins. Aerobatics shoots just like a real table, with the exception of a teeny tiny stutter at the start of the first ball of each game. I have no clue why it does that.

We keep our pinball ratings sheets live for everyone to view, even when it’s a work on progress. I’ve added a tab for this Legends Pinball Micro project, if you want to keep up with us, or if you want to see our ratings for other platforms like Zaccaria. We know that many of my readers are casual pinball fans who still would like some form of pinball in their family rooms/man caves. Sasha and myself are working to get short-form reviews of all 50 tables that are built in to every Micro PLUS the AtGames exclusive tables with themes like Dr. Seuss, Natural History, and Taito.

Because Zaccaria’s pins, along with 21 tables created by Farsight Studios’ for their Pinball Arcade (which are the built-in tables for the full-sized Legends HD Pinball) are nearly identical to the tables from the Console/PC versions, we’re using the existing ratings for Pinball Chick team members Jordi and Dave (aka Dave Sanders, creator of Alien and Full Throttle for Heighway) for this project, BUT, they don’t own an AtGames device. They’re in Europe, so I’m not even sure if it’s an option where they live. The Vice Familiy ratings will ONLY be from AtGames devices, and we’ve started the review process. We hope to have it done very soon, for those who actually considering it for the holiday season. The Legends Pinball Micro retails for about $500 shipped, and it goes on sale all the time. It’s only $400 right now on Amazon. Here’s a sneak peak of the review, the first alphabetically. The picture is from Zaccaria Pinball but it’s literally the same table.

Aerobatics
Type: EM
Set: Zaccaria Pinball Pack 1
FREE WITH EVERY LEGENDS PINBALL MICRO
Based on “Aerobatics” by Zaccaria (1977)
Vice Versus Winner: Sasha (9,065,700 – “KID”)

We LOVE Aerobatics in the Vice Household. Don’t think of this as a typical EM. It’s more like a high-concept early Solid State. This has some very unusual game flow, with two spinners that feed a saucer, which in turn lights targets on the playfield or advances the bonus. The inlanes are semi-open and a ball is capable of rolling up them and out of play. To make up for this, both outlanes are easily lit, and if the ball falls down a lit outlane, you get an extra ball. Not only that, but every outlane has a puncher’s chance of bouncing back into play, something you can affect directly with a well-timed nudge. Aerobatics can get repetitive, no doubt. Our duels usually devolve into who can get the most extra balls, but it’s every bit as exciting as it is strange. This is the only Zaccaria I’ve given MASTERPIECE status to for a reason. In my opinion, this was their finest hour and one of the most underrated pins ever.
Cathy: MASTERPIECE (5 out of 5)
Angela: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT
Sasha: GREAT
Jordi: GOOD* (3 out of 5)
Dave: MASTERPIECE*
Scoring Average: 4.16 – CERTIFIED EXCELLENT
*Played on Zaccaria Pinball for Consoles/PC