Discovering Pinball

I'm been struggling to find much gaming time lately. Mainly this gaming time has been spent working on the next zone for my World of Warcraft zone quest guides (to follow my Darkshore and Ashenvale guides). I did purchase Baldur's Gate 2 from gog.com (Good Old Games) in a hopelessly ambitious attempt to play it multiplayer with a friend of mine. Whether or not we make progress with that, I did include another game in my purchase: Pro Pinball - Big Race USA.

Now my experience with pinball is close to zero (we have a Star Wars-themed pinball machine at work, but it is rarely functioning). Though even with what little experience I have, it's clear that Big Race USA is a very good reproduction of the real thing. It's just one pinball table but has been really well modeled and detailed, down to actual electronic bits on the playfield.

Close-up detail of the Big Race USA pinball table

The theming is flimsy - I can't imagine how difficult it is to capture a theme in a pinball game - as you complete motor racing challenges across the breadth of the USA by hitting indicated ramps or targets. I've started to get the hang of the gameplay and can often make some progress across the map, but reliably hitting lit targets is harder than you'd think, and it's all too easy to quickly lose your ball in the side drains or between your flippers if you're not adept with nudging the table.

Big Race USA normal play

For what it's worth, there's a lot more gameplay here than I was expecting and it's swallowed more hours than I was anticipating. It does get a bit repetitive after a while (especially the music!) but it was definitely a worthwhile purchase for $5.99 that I'd recommend to anyone who's interested in trying out a good PC recreation of pinball.