Those who think PHOF is bad - take a look at this!

Richard B · May 28, 2012

This is what we had back in the day when we wanted to play real machines at home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBKxRiDnGgs

Considering the hardware they had to deal with, I think Rare did a pretty good job.

McGuirk · May 28, 2012

I loved the NES Pinbot back in the day. Seemed easier to play than the real table!

Crush3d_Turtle · May 28, 2012

This game dominated my childhood getting much more play on our NES than any of the Mario or Mega Man games ever did. I guess that is the reason I have always loved playing Pinbot and look forward to seeing it at conventions. Even though it is a real drain monster and can be very difficult it is great for learning how to nudge and properly control the ball. It also forces you to learn how to pass since its really heavy on shots from the right flipper. However the standout part of the table for me are the sounds and music which are some of the best I have heard in a pinball machine especially considering its age.

Jeff Strong · May 28, 2012

I loved my NES back in the day, but sadly I never knew about this version of Pinbot for NES until it was much too late.

Rudy Yagov · May 28, 2012

Rare also made a NES version of High Speed with a bunch of weird mini-game stages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpNi7vQ9To

Richard B · May 28, 2012

1986 is really the start of the modern era. It's when sound and music made an enormous leap forward. It's also when deeper rule sheets began to appear. A machine from this year, High Speed, is the first pinball machine I remember playing.

Richard B · May 28, 2012

Rudy Yagov said:
Rare also made a NES version of High Speed with a bunch of weird mini-game stages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpNi7vQ9To

I rented this one once. Pinbot worked surprisingly well, but I think High Speed's playfield is too complicated to work well in this format.

Crush3d_Turtle · May 28, 2012

Rudy Yagov said:
Rare also made a NES version of High Speed with a bunch of weird mini-game stages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZpNi7vQ9To

I have looked for that game for the last few years, but have never found it at a price I am willing to pay. Anything I have ever read about the game says that it is not nearly as good as Pinbot so if I might only go for it if I could find it cheap.

Fungi · May 28, 2012

I still have that cart. I wanted to like it so much, but everytime that Galaxian came out and blew up my flipper, I'd just get pissed off and yell "that ain't pinball!!!"

Brian Clark · May 28, 2012

I like the NES High Speed quite a bit myself. The physics are improved a bit compared to pinbot and the mini games are extremely fun. I also like the graphics of both games. They are limited in color, but have a lot of details for NES. Scoring isn't comparable at all to the original, though.

lettuce · May 28, 2012

I still dont understand how on earth this game came about to be released on the NES, let alone why??

Jeff Strong · May 29, 2012

lettuce said:
I still dont understand how on earth this game came about to be released on the NES, let alone why??

I'm sure it was actually pretty fun at the time.......although real pinball machines were very common then too, which is probably why I never played this on NES. I really didn't get into video pinball untill it became more of a pain to find real machines.

Richard B · May 29, 2012

lettuce said:
I still dont understand how on earth this game came about to be released on the NES, let alone why??

This version only came out 2 years after Pinbot's original release, and remakes of real tables were almost unheard of. Also, the only other pinball game for the NES at the time was Nintendo's own Pinball. It was due to this game that I began to show an increased interest in real pinball, as when I saw an IRL Pinbot, I had to give it a try, because if it was good enough to get it's own Nintendo game, it must be something special.

Brian Clark · May 29, 2012

Richard B said:
This version only came out 2 years after Pinbot's original release, and remakes of real tables were almost unheard of. Also, the only other pinball game for the NES at the time was Nintendo's own Pinball. It was due to this game that I began to show an increased interest in real pinball, as when I saw an IRL Pinbot, I had to give it a try, because if it was good enough to get it's own Nintendo game, it must be something special.

The copyright date on the title screen says 1988, but the dates online list 1990. There were at least two other pinball games, aside from Nintendo's Pinball, around at that time.

RetroBlast · May 29, 2012

Oh the good old days ... a walk down memory lane ...

Animator_pin_fan · May 29, 2012

Lately I've been geeking out on NES emulation, and have discovered many, many gems that I overlooked back in the day. Pinbot is actually one of them. Sure the physics aren't up to TPA standards, but it's tons of fun. And I really dig the old school 8bit graphics. Also, if you get a chance, check out the NES version of Gyruss! It's actually way better than the arcade version- with a super rad soundtrack, and added boss levels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNqmS2MHKsw

Nik Barbour · May 29, 2012

I've got a NES emulator on my phone and just tried out Pinbot - oh man!

Didn't have a NES back in the day, but loved playing 'revenge of the Gator' Pinball on the original gameboy. (think this was late 80's).

SpiffyRob · May 29, 2012

Awesome! Reminds me of Kirby's Pinball Land, which I loved:

szycag · May 29, 2012

HAL developed both Kirby Pinball Land and Revenge of the Gator for the Game Boy, so they're kind of related.

Brian Clark · May 29, 2012

HAL also did Pinball for NES (according to interviews with Iwata, he helped work on it. The gameplay is also extremely similar to Revenge of the Gator), Rollerball for NES, and Rollerball for MSX (a computer that was popular in Japan and Europe).

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