Hot Pinball Thrills

Get this game only if you are a niche pinball game collector or if you rather play a slow paced pinball. It does the job. If you are already familiar with the big 6 pinball games (PFX, TPA, VPX, Timeshock, Zaccaria, Malzbie), then you can also get this one. How did you even get here if you are just considering getting your first pinball game? you would be way out of the beaten path and you should just get back to the main pinball games out there. These tables offer a slow paced game for the most part. It is an enjoyable game overall. it is a relaxing game not to be taken seriously. These tables are challenging enough. Too many salty people in Steam complaining way too much. It is a very cheap game to add to your already established pinball collection for a casual play. Just have fun!

Hot Pinball Thrills is a set of three pinball tables laid out on an ancient pinball simulator. The release date says 2015 but the game seems much older than that. While you get 4K support, the game assets are so low poly and the textures so low resolution that this still somehow looks like it's running at 640x480 or something. You can even see the edges of the polys on the ball! Likewise, choosing 4K resolution doesn't help the aspect ratio for the game... it looks squashed somehow, like it's 4:3 stretched (it may very well be). This game just doesn't look right on modern displays. Putting the substandard visuals aside, the gameplay is equally poor... the pinball physics are just off. The ball will bounce at angles you don't expect. It bounces a little too high and too fast. Catching and trapping the ball is equally ineptly done and just doesn't feel right or play right. The poor quality of this game is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 3 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality game is to be expected. Hot Pinball Thrills is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend. There's free pinball sims on Steam that are higher quality than this, so if pinball emulation is your thing, look elsewhere.