Star Wars™ Pinball: Rogue One™

​Review by Paul Fiander

Developers; Zen Studios
Publisher; Zen Studios
Formats; PC, PS3, PS4, PSVita, XboxOne, Xbox360, Ios, Andriod,

​​If there is a month where traditions rule it has to be December, from presents to turkeys, Christmas to New Years it's a time of yearly repetition that never seemingly gets old. We have though in the past few years acquired a new event to add to our last lives, the release of Star Wars. Although the film was a hit there was one omission to the films release that was a little worrying the release of a tie in Zen Pinball table. Thankfully a month and a half later this has been rectified and the wait was worth it.

As we have come to exist the game is firmly based on the film property with the wider seeing for the table focusing on the climatic scenery of Scarf. It looks lush add the real Maldivian scenery and points to the lengths the studio go to in the desire fur full player immersion. On to the table itself the central area is monopolised by the faces of the key players from the film. This branding had always been a focus of tables so it would be conspicuous by its absence. 3-D character models however truly are the domain of Zen Studios. Throughout the have we have Jyn and Krennic as constant companions with cameos by Death and Storm troopers as well as the lovingly rendered head of K-2SO. The upper section of the table is dominated by a combination of rails and a collection of ten bumpers covered by a clear surface. At the back of the area is your main target for activating the table's “story modes”.

​The Story modes are the key to achieving large scores in the main. They are not the easiest but this is offset by the flippers being generally very forgiving. They have a nice bounce which can let you easily predict the path of the ball when it’s coming at a rate of knots at you. This is very handy when you are trying to collect an extra ball by utilising Jyn’s quick combat mode to grab an extra ball. Basically look for the ramps with her name flashing after you run over the oval Nightstick buttons close to the flippers. It takes three successful attempts to gain an extra ball but it is worth it to get the scoreboard ticking over.

With a score of just over 150 million on the PS4 (at time of writing) I can certainly say this is a range for all comers. The are times where the more challenging takes can be disheartening for new players and vice versa for the Wizards out there. With its mix of story modes and it's forgiving flippers this can test you but not leave you totally frustrated. Actually that's a lie I'm always frustrated with my scores as I always want to do better. The tables both on Vita and PS4 have not shown any glitches to date with the ball having predictable physics and no obvious areas of slow down.

Rogue One, a Star Wars story was a bit of turning point for the Star Wars franchise in my opinion, it showed a maturity that the series has been lacking to that point in its look at the actual cost of war. While this table does not reflect that aspect (honestly how could it) it does bring some of the fun of the film to the Silver Ball in what constitutes a great way to lose hours of your life on the hopeless pursuit of perfection.