Folk Art - http://maxpages.com/pokemonjohtogs/Pinball

OVERALL RATING: 8.6
Graphics: 9
Sound: 8
Control: 6
Fresh Factor: 10
Gamelife: 10

Pokemon , not satisfied with controlling the entire market, from games to accessories to clothes decides to take on pinball. Still using their clever little catch of capturing all the Pokemon , but now with bumpers and tiles ramps instead of Poke Balls.

I have never been a huge fan of video pinball, as I absolutely love playing actual pinball. It just comes off like a cheap imitation of the game I love so much. But then again, I don't have these same feelings about videogame boxing or videogame baseball. Can you see me trying to do those things? Dunno what my hang up is with pinball, guess I'm just stubborn. With that in mind I was surprised that I actually got into this game. Okay, a bit more than got into. I played the hell out of this when it first came to the office. I'm not sure what excuse I used, but I played for a good many days. The only thing I found that I didn't like was the split screen board set-up, where half of the board is on one screen, then it has to scroll up to see the other half when the ball is traveling through that area. But aside from making a regulation-sized Game Boy specifically for pinball I can think of no other way around this, so I can live with it. Nintendo tried their hardest to pull off a feel of actually playing pinball, and though it does have that hokey "shake right" "shake left" feature for the table it also has the intense feeling of impending doom when the timer's down to two seconds and you still have to hit that tile and drop down the hole. The excitement that the timer adds does far more for the game for me than the whole capture them all concept. I can't count the times that I had a rare Pokemon and just couldn't get the thing within the time limit. Or when you've collected every item but one and the timer's running out to evolve your Pokemon. No sir, I don't care too much about catchin' them all, but I will not lose out to a timer, I'm better than that.

An acceptable Pokemon game, even for tough guys, as it's based on pinball, which you can find tough guys playing in anywhere.

Pokemon Johto GS

kcar@sprint.ca

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Page Updated Thu Mar 1, 2001 3:08pm EST