Series

Pinball Alley

Pinball Alley: Pinball Quest

Pinball Quest is the last stop for the Pinball Alley series, and it is perhaps the most creative experience of all of the NES pinball games. While it does offer traditional pinball experiences by virtue of three unique tables, the game’s biggest draw comes from the RPG Mode. It was a great idea for its time, combining two distinct genres of games and mashing them up into a fairly enjoyable– though occasionally frustrating– experience, and we would see Zen Studios resurrect the RPG/pinball mix via the Epic Quest table in 2012.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and talk about the traditional pinball tables that Pinball Quest has to offer first.

Pinball Alley

Pinball Alley: Rock N Ball

Up to now, I’ve covered the best traditional pinball games that the NES has to offer. The columns have been long and have been splits between reviews and gameplay strategy. The last two pinball games left on the slate– Pinball Quest and Rock ‘n Ball— aren’t really traditional pinball simulations at all. It’s difficult to really break them down as I have the prior games, and especially in the case of this column for Rock ‘n Ball, there really isn’t a lot of strategy to impart. Nevertheless, Rock ‘n Ball does utilize pinball as a central theme… so I’ll take a stab at talking about it.

Pinball Alley

Pinball Alley: High Speed

The first time that I saw High Speed in my local mall arcade, I was in awe.

Pinball Alley

Pinball Alley: Pin*Bot

1987 feels forever ago. Walk Like an Egyptian was popular on the radio. Married With Children debuted on a relatively new television network that Fox had launched. The Iran-Contra affair was seemingly on everyone’s mind.

Me? I was a goofy 15 year-old high school sophomore and was still very much an arcade rat. I spent hours on weekends, and even a little time during the week, just walking around and watching people play, trying to decide what to spend my money on. The arcade that I frequented the most was in Chicopee, MA inside the Fairfield Mall, and the arcade was set up with coin-op machines in the front and two banks of pinball machines in the back. I spent a lot of time playing High Speed, which I’d become adept at (and also became an NES game, which I’ll be covering soon)… but one day, I spotted a new machine alongside it: Pin*Bot.

Pinball Alley

Pinball Alley: Rollerball

To most people, Rollerball evokes memories of a 1975 film starring James Caan that was centered around a violent sport and one man’s fight against corporate control. It’s a pretty good movie, but the Rollerball that I have in mind is much different…

Pinball Alley

Pinball (NES)

It’s kind of a no-brainer to kick off Pinball Alley by talking about, well… Pinball. Sure, there are other pinball games for the Nintendo Entertainment System that are better, more complex, or even recreations of actual licensed pinball tables; however, Pinball from Nintendo is really where my story begins.