Austin Powers Pinball

"Impres... erm, Shagadelic baby, yeah!"

Austin Powers Pinball was made to be a $10 game, and it shows. However, it delivers what it's name is very well. Pinball, with an Austin Powers theme. You have 2 boards to play on based on the first 2 movies, but absolutely no Goldmember features, or even references whatsoever. If that's a good thing or not is all up to you.

Graphics:

The menus are bland. They get the job done, but without any sense of style whatsoever. For example, the main menu has a black background with the game's logo, two thumbnails of the boards (with titles under the thumbnails), and an options button. And the only animations? Two rotating 60's-like flowers to the left and right of the logo. That's it.

The in-game graphics on the table are flourishing, there's plenty to look at, and there are no horribly pixilated objects anywhere, due to the game using only sprites. Unfortunately, the animations are what you'd expect from a pinball machine- A ball, flashing lights, and an LCD screen. The LCD screen shows 5-second clips from the two movies in all of it's orange and black glory. Fans of the movies will enjoy this feature, but crave more. Perhaps a 20-second fullscreen FMV clip of the movie could be granted to the player, should s/he score well? It's but a dream.

The screen scrolls smoothly according to the ball's location. Unlike games such as Pokemon Pinball where the screen switches between the upper and lower sections, you can keep focused on the action throughout the game. This is a definite plus.

Sound:

Like the graphics, the sounds and background music are bland, but do fit very well to the theme of the game. Don't expect anything above MIDI quality, but don't expect GameBoy quality, either. Each of the two tables have their own background music. You could turn off the background music, but why would you want to?

There are some voice clips from various characters scattered around the game, that usually happen when an event occours. Such as when you start the next ball, Mike Myers says ''Yeah, baby!'' (duh)

The sound effects are bland, but there. Most people will see past this, but hardcore pinball fans might get a bit of angst for the lack of realistic sounds. It didn't bother me, however.

Gameplay:

If you've played any pinball, which I know you have, you know what to expect. If you've seen the first two Austin Powers movies, you know what to expect. If you've played a real Austin Powers table, then good for you.

The two tables have ''objectives'' that are completed like any other pinball game. The objectives range from unfreezing Austin, destroying the evil Fembots, and of course, dealing with Mini-Me.

The controls are shagadelic for a $10 game. The flippers are responsive and tight, and there's the table shaking, done with the control pad. That's about it. The flippers utilize the L and R buttons, which (obviously) work very well.

There are four game modes for both tables: Novice, Advanced, Arcade, and Tournament. Sadly though, you'll likely only need arcade mode for the lack of much difference between novice and advanced, and honestly. Are you really going to hold a tournament?

Unfortunately, there is no auto-save or auto-load. This can get irritating after a while, even to the point where it'd be easier to hand-write your high scores on a notebook. But at least it's there.

Buy? Rent?:

Honestly, why would you rent this? Would you rather have it for 4 days for about $5, or would you rather own it for $10? It really is a no brainer.

Summary:

If you're a pinball and Austin Powers fan, this is one to pick up. It shouldn't be at the top of your list of games to buy, but it's worth the $10 price tag. You can't really go wrong with all that holiday money sitting around.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/21/02, Updated 12/21/02