Zen Pinball 3D Review

Zen Pinball 3D achieves just what it sets out to do, offering a portable pinball experience presented in stereoscopic 3D on Nintendo's newest handheld. It's the latest version of Zen Pinball (a PlayStation Network title that later saw release as an iOS download), from the studio that brought us Pinball FX and Marvel Pinball. It's a basic take on the medium, to be sure - with four themed tables and a standard, no-frills, highly authentic approach to gameplay. If you've been dying for a traditional pinball simulator to play on the go, look no further.

Using the L and R buttons to control the flippers, the circle pad to tilt and the X button to adjust the camera, Zen Pinball 3D does an exceptional job of recreating the feeling of playing at a real table, and it handles quite well. The downside is that the 3DS's small screen can make it hard to keep track of some of the table's more complex happenings. You can adjust the camera for a closer view - and, granted, this is a somewhat unavoidable tradeoff when converting such a game to a handheld - but it's still less than preferable.

Don't expect anything out-of-the-ordinary or genre-defining from Zen Pinball 3D. It's an apt replication of the pinball experience that offers an attractive use of the 3D effect. The boards are complex enough to appease pinball enthusiasts, and the online leaderboards are a welcome inclusion, allowing you to challenge yourself to best the top scores of friends and strangers alike. Some online integration for Hot Seat mode - the multiplayer option that has you passing the system around to friends, taking turns at your table of choice - would have been appreciated, but isn't terribly necessary.

While pinball lovers will find a great deal to appreciate about this experience, it does little to appeal to a wider audience. Hopefully future DLC (which the developers have already expressed an interest in releasing at a later time) will provide a few licensed tables to capture the interest of the common gamer. Otherwise, despite how well it does what it sets out to do, Zen Pinball 3D doesn't offer enough innovation or widely marketable hooks to make it worth most gamers' while.

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