Williams Pinball Volume 5
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The union between Zen Studios and Wiiliams continues to grow with the release of this fifth collection compromising three tables; Cirqus Voltaire, No Good Gofers and Tales of the Arabian Nights. Each table was given a release that meant the greater majority of the game playing public would not get a chance to play them in their physical form At 2704, 2711, and 3128 units created respectively you would be forgiven for never encountering them but now thankfully there is no excuse. At the time of writing there are 18 tables in the dedicated Williams section of the Pinball FX3 home screen.
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Where the majority of the subdivisions of PFX3 have a common thread the Williams section much like the Zen Originals is a mixed bag of experiences that on the whole are both pleasing to the eye and index fingers respectively. This collection continues this trend with the team at Zen Studios adding their digital genius to the representation of the physical tables. From the glowing green representation of the Ringmaster in Ciquis Voltaire to the vibrantGenie in Tales of the Arabian Nights at times you have to take a step back from the screen and remember there are silver balls that need to be kept in play. Obviously these distractions mean nothing if the physics were not on point and despite the odd occasional issue (which is generally patched out within a reasonable amount of time) the team at Zen generally deliver. During my playtime i have not experienced any issues and so can give my stamp of approval to the pack as a whole.
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One of the oddest parts of getting back into pinball with the Original Zen Pinball back on the PS3 was trying to figure out where I stood as a good/bad player. Thankfully I had a community of players that I fell in with to keep me on my toes and add an element of competition. Zen have added this to the end of the game as you see where you rank on the global leaderboard for each table, which is fun. I however have a few metrics to use in order to measure how I'm fairing on a new table. The first is simply just trying to beat my best score, thankfully the game tells you when you approaching this score as well as when you beat it. The next idea is aiming to release an extra ball. This Comes at different scores for each table and can vary from 25 million in Cirquis Voltaire to 8 million for Tales of the Arabian Nights. This hurdle is generally a nice little goal and once you best it you can just aim for the next extra and so on until you are roaming the billion scores.
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One problem with a multiple release pack like this is covering each table in a review. So I'm not going to do this here. I will however say as a pack in impressed with the quality that Zen are maintaining with their tables and this pack is no different. We are going to be releasing reviews of all the tables available on the Pinball FX3 platform starting with Cirquis Voltaire where we can go into a bit more detail so look out for those.
