1995 · DICE · Pinball · Pinball machine

Pinball Illusions

Pinball Illusions is the successor to the Pinball Fantasies, using an upgraded game engine. The tables are Babewatch, Law & Justice, Extreme Sports and (on PC CD versions) The Vikings. These contain ramps, bonus areas and combo sequences to set up. All the artwork were produced in true 256 colors from the ground up for AGA Amigas and the PC, rather than originating in 32 colors on older Amigas.

Released: 1995
Platforms: Amiga Amiga 1200 Amiga CD32 MS-DOS
Genres: Pinball Pinball machine
Developers: DICE
Publishers: DICE
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Languages: English

About

Pinball Illusions is a pinball video game developed by Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by 21st Century Entertainment in 1995 for the Amiga and MS-DOS. It is a sequel to DICE's Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies. A remake of Pinball Illusions with 3D graphics was released in 1996 as True Pinball.

The Amiga version features three pinball tables, while the CD-ROM release for MS-DOS featured a fourth table, higher resolution, and redbook audio.

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Players can choose between playing with 3 or 5 balls, adjust the slope of the table, the maximum number of multiballs allowed, and the number of nudges before tilting. One of the views shows players the entire table on screen.

The LED-style display includes animations such as coppers chasing robbers.

Development

As with prior pinball games developed by DICE, Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies, the game was designed to have four tables, but The Vikings was unfinished for the Amiga versions and only appears in the PC CD-ROM version. This is the only one of DICE's three pinball games to require an AGA chipset, supporting 256 colours. The PC version had support for 800x600 resolution with the floppy disk release otherwise similar to the Amiga version. The CD-ROM release in addition to having the fourth table uses redbook audio instead of the MOD music in the other versions. Unlike the two earlier games, it features multiball.

It also had a later 1996 MS-DOS release as one of five games in the Pinball Gold compilation.

Reception

PC Gamer said "The four tables may not be enough variety for some gamers, but this is as good as pinball gets on the PC -- and you don't need quarters, so you won't even have to take a hammer to your piggy bank" Maximum scored the PC version three out of five stars. They said the four tables are "all excellent in their own way" but that the game lacks the imagination and innovation of other pinball video games. They concluded it to be "solid, if uninspiring, entertainment." Amiga Power enjoyed the multiballs and all three tables, although disliked the music on Extreme Sports. PC Power found the graphics to be immaculate and the ball behaved realistically, with the tables "fiendishly addictive".

The game was ranked the 23rd best game of all time by Amiga Power in 1996.