Marvel Pinball: Avengers Chronicles Review

Written by Cole Burton Wednesday, 20 June 2012 06:00

The Zen Studio team is back and with them are quite possibly the best pinball tables they’ve delivered to date.  If you’re a Marvel fanatic, this is what you’ve been waiting for.  If you just want some mindless, arcade pinball fun, this content won’t disappoint.  The new DLC contains four new tables, which include:

The Avengers

World War Hulk

Fear Itself

Infinity Gauntlet

The Avengers

This table is clearly the cream of the crop.  At the start of the game, you choose which Avenger you want to take control of.  This will trigger different dialog and request you to perform different actions on the table.  One of the toughest actions to complete is to transport all of the Avengers to their aircraft carrier.  I failed to load up every Avenger, so I do not know what happens when you succeed just yet.

World War Hulk

Guess who the hero is in this table!  Everybody’s favorite tough guy with some anger issues, the Incredible Hulk.  Zen Studios really did a great job in creating the perfect atmosphere for this one.  Hitting the door to the arena makes your controller vibrate, and Hulk yell’s “SMASH”!   Speaking of the arena, when the door is gone, you can enter it to be brought to a new, mini table.  Fun stuff and it’s a great change of pace.

Fear Itself

My expertise ends here, as I know little about the stories behind these next two tables.   At least, not before I played the tables.  While that may not be enough, it does give you a great idea of stories you may have known nothing about prior to playing.  The narration here is perfect, and you will want to know more about what is really going on.  Oh, and did I mention the ball launch at the beginning is the coolest out of all of the tables?  Nail it with the hammer, nice!

Infinity Gauntlet

Again, I know little of what is going on here, but one thing caught my eye immediately.  The Silver Surfer is involved and working with the hero of course!  This table throws in some fun twists; at one point I was defying the villain Thanos, and he flipped the table backwards.  It took a little bit of time to adjust, but it sure kept things interesting.  Another standout part of this table to me was when the Silver Surfer was captured by Thanos and you just had to keep scoring to free him.

Zen Studios is king in the video game world of pinball.  There’s no denying this.  They had me from the very beginning, with the free download of their base pinball game.  All of these expansions just keep bringing me back into pinball, as it’s not like any pinball you’ve ever played before.  The storylines and special actions just make everything feel unique, and the narrations are top notch and can easily drag you into a world you’ve known little to nothing about.  And hey, you may just become a fan from playing a pinball table.  Crazy, huh?