Alien Crush and other early video pinball games

jkonami · Jun 20, 2012

Alien Crush is probably what truly got me into pinball, and to this day I think it's one of the best video game only tables out there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elD3h579d_Q&feature=related

I spent hours playing it as a kid. Under the right circumstances your ball would be swallowed and taken to one of several mini-games
that you could tackle besides the main table. They recently remade this for the Wii, but I haven't put enough time into the new version
to give it a fair assessment. There was also Devil's Crush, made by the same company, if you want to check out more. In fact, here is
good article with a ton of screens at hardcoregaming 101:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/crushpinball/crushpinball.htm

Anyone else have fond memories of video pinball?

I also really enjoyed Slamball on the Commodore 64, Pinball on the Atari 2600, and I guess more recently the hidden PS2 gem, Flipnic.

Slamball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIzBKwy-eJI
Flipnic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXsCrdi0wtQ

Flipnic probably deserves it's own topic, it's pretty awesome too.

an ox · Jun 21, 2012

I played a hell of a lot of Alien Crush on PC Engine, followed by a whole bunch of Devil Crash when that came out. Me and my mates would spend whole weekends just smoking joints, drinking tea and playing those tables. Good times.

Also enjoyed Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies on Amiga.

Prior to that I'd played the likes of David's Midnight Magic and Night Mission and they were cool but never really felt anything like real tables.

Made a bunch of rubbish tables on Pinball Construction Set just like everybody else.

First pinball sim I ever played that felt like a real table was probably 8 Ball Deluxe on the old 486. In fact I've never played a real EBD to this day and I'd love to see it in TPA purely on the strength of that old simulation.

Heretic · Jun 21, 2012

While not orignal i highly Rate pce.emu for ios from cydia....youve never seen a game so clear!

Alien and devil!

Oh my

Kevlar · Jun 21, 2012

Devils crash for me too on an imported pc engine, damn I loved that little machine!. I can still hear the music from devils crash in my head now, great stuff.

Matt McIrvin · Jun 21, 2012

jkonami said:
Anyone else have fond memories of video pinball?

As stated in the "origins of your love of pinball" thread, I played a lot of Atari 2600 Video Pinball in its time, and got peculiar ideas about what pinball was like as a result of that. It had tiny drains, tiny flippers and no slope at the bottom of the playfield, so much of the game was just watching the ball ricochet around at random.

Later, Atari actually came out with another pinball cartridge that was pretty good, called Midnight Magic. The name, box art and some visual details suggest to me that they had the David's Midnight Magic license, but the playfield bore little resemblance to David's Midnight Magic, which was basically a Black Knight clone.

For the 2600, Midnight Magic was actually a respectable pinball sim that played recognizably like pinball. But it came out years after the Great Crash, and I've played it only recently in emulation.

Heretic · Jun 21, 2012

Kevlar said:
Devils crash for me too on an imported pc engine, damn I loved that little machine!. I can still hear the music from devils crash in my head now, great stuff.

Only time i ever got my hands on a real pc engine was a mate who loaned me his dads rental without telling him....li really did loathe to give it back but it was dead in the uk....i settled for nintendo...bah

Kevlar · Jun 21, 2012

Heretic said:
Only time i ever got my hands on a real pc engine was a mate who loaned me his dads rental without telling him....li really did loathe to give it back but it was dead in the uk....i settled for nintendo...bah

Living in the uk ( south Wales ) we were always way behind Japan so I always had import consoles, pc engine with CDROM, pc engine super graphix, Japanese snes, Japanese N64, neo geo ( plus mortgage). I do miss those days where you were one of the gaming elite to own such consoles. Of course I also had a jaguar with Jeff's tempest 2000

Heretic · Jun 21, 2012

Kevlar said:
Living in the uk ( south Wales ) we were always way behind Japan so I always had import consoles, pc engine with CDROM, pc engine super graphix, Japanese snes, Japanese N64, neo geo ( plus mortgage). I do miss those days where you were one of the gaming elite to own such consoles. Of course I also had a jaguar with Jeff's tempest 2000

I offically hate you, wanna be my 90s friend? Hah....kudos man not a cheap hobby, some of that is and was gold dust.

Hope you kept it all!

Kevlar · Jun 21, 2012

Nope, couldn't afford to, usually sold each one to pay for the next. Wish I did, the only old console I have left is my original Xbox.

Heretic · Jun 21, 2012

Kevlar said:
Nope, couldn't afford to, usually sold each one to pay for the next. Wish I did, the only old console I have left is my original Xbox.

Such a pitty man but understandable

Im still rockin my orginal nes and snes among others

Sinistar · Jun 21, 2012

Alien Crush,and I believe , Devil Crush are on the Japan PSN Store , I know that for sure Alien Crush is , when I had my Super NES , I bought a little known Japan sequel JAKI CRUSH , essentially a Oni version of Devil Crush Pinball with the pinball a crystal spell orb , and a giant Oni head target that metamorphed into Buddha and other demons . It was quite cool .

Heretic · Jun 21, 2012

Sinistar said:
Alien Crush,and I believe , Devil Crush are on the Japan PSN Store , I know that for sure Alien Crush is , when I had my Super NES , I bought a little known Japan sequel JAKI CRUSH , essentially a Oni version of Devil Crush Pinball with the pinball a crystal spell orb , and a giant Oni head target that metamorphed into Buddha and other demons . It was quite cool .

Wow cheers dude that jaki is news to me,

Cheers big ears

FurVid · Jun 21, 2012

I played both Alien Crush and Devil's Crush on the Wii, which re-released them about 5 years ago. They also released a newer Alien Crush Returns, which wasn't bad as a new edition in that style.

Loved eight ball deluxe, both the real one and the PC emulation that came out in the 90's. Before PHOF/TPA came along, I'd say that PC eight ball deluxe was my favorite emulated table, and DS metroid prime pinball was my favorite original video pinball table.

Rudy Yagov · Jun 21, 2012

I have Alien Crush on TG-16 (US PC-Engine). That's one unfairly overlooked game console if there ever was one.

Richard B · Jun 21, 2012

Turbografx was different from the PC Engine in that it didn't get many of the Engine's best games, and died a quick death. The Dreamcast of it's time.

jkonami · Jun 21, 2012

Matt McIrvin said:
As stated in the "origins of your love of pinball" thread, I played a lot of Atari 2600 Video Pinball in its time, and got peculiar ideas about what pinball was like as a result of that. It had tiny drains, tiny flippers and no slope at the bottom of the playfield, so much of the game was just watching the ball ricochet around at random.

Later, Atari actually came out with another pinball cartridge that was pretty good, called Midnight Magic. The name, box art and some visual details suggest to me that they had the David's Midnight Magic license, but the playfield bore little resemblance to David's Midnight Magic, which was basically a Black Knight clone.

For the 2600, Midnight Magic was actually a respectable pinball sim that played recognizably like pinball. But it came out years after the Great Crash, and I've played it only recently in emulation.

I was very young when the Atari 2600 was out, but Video Pinball for it was also my introduction to pinball, and I agree a strange one! Never did play Midnight Magic.

Kevlar said:
Living in the uk ( south Wales ) we were always way behind Japan so I always had import consoles, pc engine with CDROM, pc engine super graphix, Japanese snes, Japanese N64, neo geo ( plus mortgage). I do miss those days where you were one of the gaming elite to own such consoles. Of course I also had a jaguar with Jeff's tempest 2000

Tempest 2K is a great game! and one of the only good ones for the Jag.

I'm also a PC Engine / TG-16 collector (and PC-FX too) but I'll leave that for another forum. Nice to see other fans out there besides the usual haunts, though!

Sinistar said:
Alien Crush,and I believe , Devil Crush are on the Japan PSN Store , I know that for sure Alien Crush is , when I had my Super NES , I bought a little known Japan sequel JAKI CRUSH , essentially a Oni version of Devil Crush Pinball with the pinball a crystal spell orb , and a giant Oni head target that metamorphed into Buddha and other demons . It was quite cool .

Jaki Crush is one I need to put more time into. Also, if you check the hardcoregaming101 link in my OP, there was also an unofficial sequel to Devil Crush, but it looks kinda crap to me.

jkonami · Jun 21, 2012

an ox said:
Also enjoyed Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies on Amiga.

I was a big C64 head (and still am) but we never had the Amiga - and I recently found out about Pinball Fantasies - definitely on my list of games to try soon, looks great! Another one I kinda knew about but didn't appreciate pinball then as much as I do now is Revenge of the Gator for the original Gameboy. It gets a lot of high praise so I'm gonna check that out too.

an ox · Jun 21, 2012

just looked up Jaki Crush on YT, I'll have to check that out having been a huge Naxat pinball fan on the PCE. Managed to totally miss that on the SNES, looks like a cool third table in the series. I like the pretty monsters too, particularly the ones that are like little grunting minotaurs

.

And yeah, having a PCE back in the day was a rare privilege in the UK. I had mine imported from Japan, ended up with the CD-Rom addon for it, still got all that kit stashed away in the retro room.

I remember that pinball with the alligators on the Game Boy, it was kinda cute and quite similar to the original Ninty NES pinball - fun to play but nothing like real pinball.

I think the last virtual pinball I bought before getting the PHOF/TPA stuff was one for the DSi whose name I forget now but whose distinguishing characteristic was having Brian Blessed doing the voice acting. It was a laugh having him yelling EXTRA BALL and such while you were playing.

Matt McIrvin · Jun 21, 2012

jkonami said:
I was very young when the Atari 2600 was out, but Video Pinball for it was also my introduction to pinball, and I agree a strange one!

Most of the control you could exert was actually through nudging; the tilt was very generous and you could move the ball all over the place. In that sense it was a little like an easier version of a pinball from the pre-flipper era. I thought it was fun, but it wasn't much like pinball.

Matt McIrvin · Jun 21, 2012

jkonami said:
Never did play Midnight Magic.

At least one online source claims that 2600 Midnight Magic was originally made by Broderbund (the makers of the actual David's Midnight Magic for various personal computers) and that the Atari release was part of a post-crash wave of Atari re-releases of third-party games.

That would make some sense. It certainly doesn't feel like a sequel to Video Pinball. Whereas in Video Pinball nudging was most of the control you had, Midnight Magic has no nudging at all, which puts off some reviewers. But to me it still has much more of a real pinball feel.

Alien Crush and other early video pinball games

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