Sonic Pinball Party

"A pinball game which is based on Sonic the Hedgehog and other Sega characters"

When you first hear about the new sonic pinball game, Sonic Pinball Party, you think back to the time when the original sonic spinball game came out on the Megadrive, Master System and Game Gear. The game allowed you to control Sonic the Hedgehog as the ball on 4 pinball tables. This time you get to play on three pinball tables using a small ball instead of Sonic.

Gameplay – Sonic Pinball Party has 6 different modes you can choose to play on, which are Arcade, Story, Tutorial, Party, Casinopolis and Tiny Chao Garden.

The Arcade mode allows you to play on three pinball tables. The first pinball table is called the Sonic Stage, which is based on the Gameboy Advance game Sonic Advance. The second pinball table is called the Nights Stage, which is based on the Sega Saturn game Nights. In the final pinball table you play on the Samba De Amigo Stage, which is based on the Sega Saturn game Samba De Amigo. There may only be three pinball tables but each one of them is fun and challenging.

The Story mode allows to play as Sonic the Hedgehog who has entered a tournament to try and beat Dr Eggman (also known as Dr Robotnik) and turn all of his animals friends, who have been turned into robots, back to normal. The tournament consists of beating five characters, which are Knuckles, Tails, Amy, Metal Sonic and Dr Eggman. To beat each character they give you a task to complete and if you win the task you go on to verse the next character. The story has a poor plot but the tasks are very challenging and hard to beat. It also takes a long time to do plus you need a lot of skill and luck to beat the task that has been set.

The Tutorial mode simply explains how to play each pinball table and is also useful for people who never bother to read the instructions.

The Casinopolis mode gives you the chance by trying to get some rings by gambleling your rings you earned in Arcade or Story mode on one of these three small pinball casino tables.

The Multiplayer mode allows you to link up with two to four players and allows you to play on three multiplayer games called Hot Potato, Hockey and Ladder Climbing. In Hot Potato you have to try and send bombs to the other players pinball table and not let any of the balls go into the gutter on your pinball table. The Hockey multiplayer game is played like air hockey instead you use flippers to hit the balls to the others players side. In Ladder Climbing you are working together as a team to get the ball as high as you can to the top of the pinball table.

In Tiny Chao Garden mode you can raise your very own chao. This happens to be the same as Sonic Advance 1 and 2 but has 1 new mini game in it.

Controls – When I first played the game it felt a little strange using the controls. In the option mode you can change it to suit how you want the controls to be set as. But after doing this myself it still felt really difficult to control. However I started to get use to it.

Graphics – The pinball tables are very bright and colourful. The backgrounds in them are based on Sonic Advance, Nights and Samba De Amigo levels for example on Sonic Advance the first level is Neo Green Hill Zone so the background from the game has been put in as the pinball table. This goes through all of the stages from Sonic Advance and Nights. This makes the pinball tables more interesting to look and play on.

Sound – All the music that you hear when playing Sonic Pinball Party all comes from old games that have been created by Sonic Team. Some of the songs are from the games Sonic 1, Sonic R, Sonic Advance, Sonic Adventure, Chu Chu Rocket, Nights and many more. The music may be old but the music fits in very well in the game.

Play Time – The story mode is fun to play for the first time but once you completed story mode you feel there is no point doing it again. Most people just complete the story mode and never play it again. But people like me still play on the pinball tables to try and get the highest score we can.

Rent it or buy it – If you are mad on playing pinball games then this game is defiantly for you. Even if you don’t like Sonic then this pinball game might change your mind. If you are Sonic fan you probably might want to rent it out first to see what you think about the game. If you really hate pinball games then this game is not one you really want to be buying. I my self happens to be a Sonic fan but not very keen on playing pinball games but this game has turned me into Sonic Pinball madness.

Gameplay – 8/10
Controls – 6/10
Graphics – 9/10
Sound – 10/10
Play Time – 7/10
In Total – 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/07/04