20 April, 2018

Two nice Star Wars tables by Zen

Let me state it right away: I am totally impervious to the Star Wars lore. A Star Wars themed pinball has no extra attraction for me. On the contrary, I am always wondering why the developers decided to disrupt the gameplay in order to insert some movie-inspired scene. So, when I saw that two new Zen tables were available I was somewhat sceptical. Still, my blogger's conscience dictated that I be fair-minded and give them a try. I did so, and I was pleasantly surprised. The two new tables are The Last Jedi


and the Ach-to Island. 


I enjoyed playing both of them. Perhaps the fact that I was on a plane with nothing much to do did influence my perception of the games. However revisiting them just before sitting down to write this review did not alter my first impressions. Both tables are nice. The graphics are as always superb, and while heavily ornamented they manage to keep the ball visible at all times. (Perhaps the contrails do help a little although, as a purist, I do not favour such artefacts). The ball does not drain too easily, and given the accurate physics, the most frequent way to lose a ball is when it goes into the outlanes.

If you are interested in more details concerning these tables I suggest you read the interview of D. Szűcs, who designed the Star Wars tables. He is also talking about the new FX3 engine. And, of course if you would like to have more details on FX3, there's always the blog of Zen Studios.