Pinball Lockdown

imagine someone who once saw a picture of a pinball table, threw together a bunch of ramps and pops on a playfield. and called it good enough. Yeah, that's what this is. There is no gameplay to speak of.

(First impression based on the "release candidate" version.) "Pinball Lockdown" seems to be a somewhat decent 3D pinball game that is, unfortunately, in every way inferior to the ones already on the market. It contains five tables with generic themes. The complexity of the tables is midway between the simplistic shovelware pinballs and the sophisticated tables of Pinball FX 3. Especially when compared to the latter, Pinball Lockdown feels very plain: the tables have less elements, less effects, less interaction, no decorative animations, no voice acting, no LED display to speak of, less guidance via lights, and are less dynamic. The missions are purely mechanical and do not tell stories. For me (as a casual pinball player with aged reflexes), the ball physics felt too difficult to be enjoyable. In most tables it seemed very easy to lose the ball. The slopes were a bit too steep for my preference, and the ball often shot straight into the drain with so much tempo that I could not react fast enough to prevent it. The presentation is rather plain. Graphics are less colorful than in other pinball games, and there aren't any effects apart from the occasional light, though the tables do sport a few original ideas like the river that runs through "Zen Garden". The sound effects feel cheap and of mediocre quality. Controls are rebindable, which should really be standard for a pinball game, but many neglect this basic usability feature. Pinball Lockdown takes care of it, so that's a plus. 15 years ago, I might have given this game a thumbs-up. And it's somewhat enjoyable even from today's perspective. But in a market with free pinball games that provide a much better experience in every respect, this game unfortunately does not have a leg to stand on. Its biggest problem is that it doesn't know who its audience should be - for casual players it seems too challenging, and for pinball experts (who might enjoy the challenge) the tables probably won't be complex enough. It's cheap though, so if you already played the better pinball games and are looking for new tables, it might be worth a shot, especially on a sale. Personally, I think that pinball games nowadays need a unique angle (be it original stories, settings, or mechanics) to set them apart from highly sophisticated products like Pinball FX 3. You can't compete in terms of production values, so you need to provide something else that makes your game stand out. Unfortunately, Pinball Lockdown does not deliver any of that. It just rehashes old concepts in noticeably lower quality than you can get elsewhere.

Seems to be an underrated Pinball game from all the great ones on Steam. But I really have to say that this one is truely fun to play. Give it a try!

Terrible example of abandonware. Release candidate was made available in early 2020 and quickly abandoned. It's a shame because it had potential. Everything is bad - graphics, the colour palette, sound, controls. They could make up for lack of good graphics with features from Zaccaria but it's now been abandoned. It's not worth a dollar, don't buy it.

I picked this up in early access for a discount. It definitely ins't going to challenge Zen or Zacc anytime the physics and play are acceptable for a cheaper title. If you want another five mediocre tables to pass the time on then grab it for your collection. Otherwise I would spend the coin on more tables from the big players.

I got this for 50 cents and I'm still not impressed. The physics aren't bad, and the background art for the Alice table is quite nice, but these table layouts are whack. They've got a very early 2000's Visual Pinball vibe, but not in a good way. Despite not being garish in the way Malzbie's Pinball is, there's still a distinct lack of visual polish that makes everything feel very unprofessional. I also had trouble with the controller bindings. Pressing A brings up a menu, and then that menu will not go away until I click resume on the mouse. None of the buttons on the controller will actually close it. Pinball Lockdown had potential, but seems to have been abandoned in a pretty rough state - the last update was a year and a half ago - and I definitely do not recommend it.

Abysmal sound design actively makes the experience worse, but even playing on mute can't make these boards playable: laskluster table design throughout.

As a big fan of Pinball Arcade, FX, 90s Epic pinball, others, and of course, physical machines, I found the tables quite boring. Music great, but after less than an hour, just not digging this.

It's hard to describe exactly whats wrong with the machines in this game but I will say don't buy this. The pinball fx game with a ton of micro transactions is better.

Not sure why the hate i didnt think it was that bad but not worth full price i picked this game up for 0.24 cents. One thing didn't really enojy was the music but u can turn that off