Pinball Deluxe: Reloaded

Good fun tables for a very cheap price. If you loved playing the old 2D tables in dos and amiga... this stuff is just as good or better. A lot of fun and each table has its own theme, gimmicks and strategies. Heck I see we got a new table I haven't even tried this year... FOR FREE. Get this if you like arcade pinball. Wow there's two new tables since I last played... fantastic! It's like Thirteen total tables now? Best deal in pinball nation.

As a child of the nineties, I remember loading up a lot of shareware in my Packard Bell 486. Many of these titles were 2D pinball games, and while the pixel art was entrancing, and the prospect of playing pinball for free (I had probably only seen one or two real machines at that time) was exciting and new, revisiting most of these games today you will find they were pretty deeply flawed: bad or eccentric physics, boring rules, clunky layouts. More outre titles like Devil's Crush (or the modern Demon's Tilt) are good, but they inject so much arcade action that they give up the ghost that animates classic pinball. Now there are hundreds of tables rendered in gorgeous three-dimensional detail (even in VR) available commercially on Steam; not to mention the huge non-commercial ecosystem of Visual Pinball, if you're willing to put the effort into running that (which is probably less work than getting shareware running on DOS in the nineties). So why would you play a 2D pinball game? Well, Pinball Deluxe: Reloaded is nothing like that old shovelware. It has some of the best virtual tables I've ever played. The themes and rules are fascinating, the physics are well executed and all the layouts feel dialed-in. The sound design is excellent and crunchy, and the look of tables designed for 2D has a special appeal akin to examining beautiful maps; all the features are laid out clearly and illustrated beautifully. Most importantly they are all extremely fun. All in a platform with lots of unlockable sugar, well populated leaderboards, and competitive formats. But you don't have to take my word for it. 🌈 This is a mobile-first game, so you can play an ad-supported version on your phone. However, it plays much better ad-free on the big screen with a controller. The list price would be fair for the Rydes table alone. [b]Minor criticisms[/b]: Although designed in such a way that nudging isn't essential (probably because it's difficult to do on mobile), it does have left and right nudges, but [b]omits forward nudges[/b], which I find disorienting. There is [b]no local multiplayer/hotseat[/b]. There is incomplete [b]menu navigation with a controller[/b]; you will sometimes need to use or emulate a mouse. It would be nice to have some [b]options for DMD[/b] size and placement, and in general more QOL for large screen users, but I understand this isn't the primary market. [b]Table guides[/b] are a quick browser link away, but it would be nice if they were [b]rendered in the app[/b], as they are essential to appreciate some of the more complex tables. The developer is still active after all this time (earlier iterations of this game have been around since 2009), making new cosmetic skins, seasonal events, squashing bugs and keeping the platform running smoothly, so continued improvement is a good bet. In my Best of Steam Pinball Ranking I'd put this at #4 behind Pinball FX, Zaccaria, and Pro Pinball Ultra