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Platform: Nintendo
DS
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Metroid
Prime: Pinball
When
I was in high school, videogames were good fun, but arcades at the time
were still populated with a healthy serving of pinball machines as well.
These were such deceivingly simple looking devices.
All one had to do was slap a large, silver ball bearing around a
board, hitting bumpers, flying through ramps, hitting targets, and what
not. Getting the idea of
the game never took very long, but mastering it so you could earn the
top score was something else entirely.
Unfortunately, these days pinball is a dying breed, with only one
manufacturer left. This
isn’t stopping Nintendo from bringing a virtual pinball game to the DS,
though, as they have Metroid Prime: Pinball currently in the works.
There’s
a lot of logic in using Metroid as the central franchise for this
pinball outing, since Samus spends much of her time crouched into a ball
to avoid obstacles in the Metroid series.
What will help make things a little bit different from your run
of the mill pinball game, though, is that on occasion Samus will be able
to stand upright in order to fire missiles, and other weapons.
But despite this change from the norm, there are still plenty of traditional elements planned for the game, with a good supply of ramps, spinny, twirly things, extra balls, and the rest of |
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what
many long-time pinball fans have come to expect from this sort of game.
More in the way of traditional pinball will come in the use of
the DS’s two screens, as they will each show part of the pinball
board, helping to give a more realistic feel of dimensions when compared
to other pinball videogames and their sometimes disorienting scrolling
to follow the ball to the upper, and lower reaches of the pinball board.
There’s still some mystery as to what exactly the action elements of Metroid Prime: Pinball will entail, but hopefully Nintendo will do a good job of mixing the new with the old when the game hits |
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shelves in November. Now the question is which will be more popular, this game, or Nintendo’s other upcoming pinball-esque title, Odama.
Mr.
Nash (June 13, 2005)
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