It’s been a while since we fired up Pinball FX, the confusingly-named fourth version of Zen Studio’s long-running pinball hub series (and that’s not including the various other standalone ones they’ve made including the horror-themed Pinball M). Indeed, Pinball FX released in 2023 to mixed reviews.
Indeed, we had mixed feelings about it with our review commending the fact that Zen always get the physics right and do a great job of using the virtual setting to elevate the tables to do things that you just couldn’t do mechanically in real life but we weren’t thrilled to see that tables purchased in FX1-3 didn’t carry over and that the whole thing felt more geared towards a subscription service than what it used to be. Also, the switch over to the Unreal engine didn’t really seem to add anything.
But we’re not here to talk about that today. Instead we’re looking at their eight Williams Pinball pack. A DLC that offers up three more tables from the legendary pinball manufacturer, Williams.
Black Knight 2000
Based on the 1989 pinball game, this table was designed by Steve Ritchie (best known for making the Terminator 2 table) and was programmed originally by Ed Boon (of Mortal Kombat fame). While well presented and featuring the best sound design out of any of the tables this suffers from a couple of issues. The first is that the deep red colour palette is often quite hard to read, especially when the table’s ramps have a way of luzzing the ball back at you at terrifying speeds.
The other issue, which is common to all the tables here, and basically all of the Williams tables Zen have converted is that the gap between flippers is just a bit wider than Zen’s own tables and always feel unfair. Couple that up with Black Knight 2000‘s unprotected out-lanes and this becomes a tough table to enjoy.
Earthshaker!
1989’s Earthshaker! is an earthquake disaster themed table that featured rumble motors when it first came out. What’s cool is that the table’s original prototype had a building that would fall down but that was removed due to cost constraints but that has been reinstated here, giving fans a chance to play the table as it was originally intended.
This is a fast, fun and well laid out table. Again, it’s easy to lose your ball in the flipper gap and that does temper your enjoyment and, falling building aside, the table layout is a little simplistic but it’s certainly playable enough.
Banzai Run
This table came out in 1988 originally and must have blown minds when it came out as it featured a second, vertically-aligned, playfield to tackle if you could get your ball up there. Of course, the vertical alignment means the ball moves a lot faster and quite differently when it gets up there but it’s certainly a very cool feature.
Banzai Run is probably the most interesting and enjoyable table of the three. Again, the Williams factor means that racking up high scores can be tricky and frustrating but because it was so costly to implement in real life, Williams never went back to the multiple playfield concept again which makes this table super unique.
Of course, Zen’s attention to detail and presentation are spot-on as ever and the physics issues from the 2023 Pinball FX release seem to have been addressed since.
As the eighth Williams DLC pack, all the big hits had already been taken and so this is definitely just a pack for completionists and die hard Williams fans but it does tap into a period where the company was trying out new ideas and looking shake up the tried and tested design formulas of the earlier ’80s. We wouldn’t recommend any of these tables to people who are new to Pinball FX, but they are as well-implemented as anything else converted to the format and will definitely be of interest to a few players out there.
+ Adds features to Earthshaker that weren't seen past the prototype stage
+ As ever, the presentation and physics are great