Creature From the Black Lagoon (Pinball FX Table Review)

Creature From the Black Lagoon
First Released December, 1992
Zen Build Released October 29, 2019
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX 3
Designed by John Trudeau
Conversion by Zoltan Vari
Set: Universal Monster Pack ($6.99)
Links: Internet Pinball Database Listing – Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
Read the Full In-Depth Review at The Pinball Chick

In retrospect, the Creature sticker is a massive waste of real estate that could have been used on something more interactive, or just more lights and more “modes” for lack of a better term. At the end of the day, it’s just one of those 3D stickers that you see on the back of credit cards. I would have much rather had a movie screen target. It’s weird that this is a table themed around a drive-in theater and there’s no screen to shoot. If Zen ever starts to do sequels to Williams pins, they should start with a Creature table where you shoot a screen to FOCUS it.

The best thing Creature from the Black Lagoon has going for it is the near-certainty that it’ll spark a lively debate among silverball enthusiasts. While nobody HATES it, some people are just bored silly by it. Some people think it’s just alright but don’t get what all the hubbub is about. Its biggest fans REALLY like it, like my father for example. Oscar would normally hate a table with scoring as wildly imbalanced as Creature from the Black Lagoon, yet he’s given Creech the highest rating out of all of us. Dad fully admits this table is a guilty pleasure owed largely to an unforgettable theme. Yea, the drive-in concept is inspired, and so is tying it directly to a B-tier Universal Monster. It’s not a table about the Creature. It’s a table about teenagers watching the movie Creature from the Black Lagoon. That’s fantastic, but the shot selection is very limited, and the lack of scoring balance is especially damning. What’s far worse than the imbalance is the fact that risk/reward isn’t factored in at all. Take the jackpots for example. You shoot the snack bar scoop. That’s basically the lowest-risk shot on the board, but it scores the biggest points. What do you light the super jackpot with? The up-the-middle shot into the bumpers, which safely feed the right flipper the ball every single time. What flipper is used to shoot the jackpot? The right one.

Signature Shots – The Snack Bar Targets: One of the most frustrating shots of the DMD era of pinball are these four stand-up targets. In Classic and Arcade modes, you can shoot the scoop located above the right side targets to score the lights instead of shooting them directly, but only until you’ve scored your first jackpot. After that, you have to figure out an angle to hit them directly. I’ve been playing Creech for years and I still haven’t found a safe way to shoot these. It seems like I’m better off shooting other targets and getting the snackbar lights off ricochets if I miss.

I would LOVE for someone to go into Creech and rework every single shot’s value and incentivize full touring of the table. Create a reason for players to not just stick to the four shots that activate multiball. Even though we’ve called Creech’s gameplay “anti-flow pinball” it actually does have good shot selection. Both ramps are quite satisfying to complete. But when they come at a multiple of the risk and a fraction of the reward, there’s really no reason to shoot them besides the fact that it’s more sporting. Even if you reworked the game’s score sheet and created whole new modes, Creech is going to be a stop-and-go table. It’s what we call a “pick ‘n flick” and nothing is going to change that. So be it. With the shot selection as solid as it is, maybe a new scoresheet could turn Creature of the Black Lagoon into the greatest pick ‘n flick table of all-time. The sad thing is, if this had been a modern Stern table, that’s exactly what would have happened by now. They would have released an update that refined the gameplay at no cost to the shots themselves. There’s no reason Zen can’t keep the existing version AND create a more nuanced and elegant ROM for Creech. If any table among their Williams pins needs it, it’s Creech. The Black Lagoon must be freezing, because Creech is one of THE most polarizing tables in pinball history. But, since I know Zen is reading this: if you want to try an experiment with any of the Williams pins, this is the one to do it on.
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: BAD (2 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD
Dash: BAD
Dave: BAD
Elias: GOOD
Sasha: BAD
Scoring Average: 2.65 – OKAY
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.