Pinball M Reviews

There really is nothing quite like how Zen Studios approaches different pinball IPs. As much as I love physical tables, they are rare if not completely impossible to find in Japan for reasons that escape my understanding. So it’s been a real refuge to have things like Pinball FX for the last few years to tide me over with elaborate and sometimes beyond comprehension designs to play. The latest from Zen is a standalone iteration known as Pinball M, which seeks to capture the attention of mor...

A more mature pinball experience, Pinball M will not only delight horror fans with its creepy machines, but also appease those who were left disappointed with the recent Pinball FX.

A confounding bag of tricks and treats that seems to have missed the boat on Halloween, while also hosting a mixed offering of tables that struggle to stand out in what they're designed for.

Pinball M pinball tables are a new Pinball FX line of tables from Zen Studios. The M stands for Mature and the tables in the initial collection certainly cement the label. This line of adult tables can expand on the content and presentation of tables not possible in the original game. This is also a good move from a business perspective too. Zen Studios has taken a fair amount of heat for its mercenary business practices. This stems from them not providing an upgrade path from the previous console gen to the current one. Plus, their pricing for tables pushes the envelope too.

Pinball M launches at a time when creator Zen Studios’ reputation has been dented. For well over a decade now, the Hungarian developer has dominated the virtual pinball market with its beautiful table layouts and feature-packed apps. But this year’s Pinball FX crushed consumer confidence by failing to carry forward previous purchases, and generally offering a turgid client with slow loading times and some notably absent features.

Thanks to being able to jump in for free, you can’t really go wrong with Pinball M. Featuring the same solid physics as found in Pinball FX along with its its comprehensive list of play modes and features, this is yet another stellar pinball offering by Zen Studios. Jump in and give the free table a go, then if any of the DLC tables pique your interest, expand your game as you see fit. Best viewed as a companion to Pinball FX, it’s going to be interesting to see which tables based on more mature properties are added in the future.

Concluding all that, Pinball M inherits all the best aspects of what is already the mechanically and technically best pinball game on the market, turning it into a standalone experience focusing only on the mature-themed tables that probably could not be included in the previous games for ESRB/PEGI/etc. ratings getting affected. Zen Studios also decided to move away from the controversial subscription and monetization models of the previous game, offering here a high quality starting table for free and, so far, 4 additional tables available to be bought separately, with each having even more content and unlockables than usual. Aside from some surprisingly gory moments, in Chucky’s table in particular, there isn’t much here that Pinball FX players haven’t already seen many times before, making Pinball M a far from essential buy. Yet, it’s more of the studio’s trademark bloody brilliant (pun intended) pinball mechanics, with a couple cool additions, a better progression system and none of the controversial elements of the previous game. Sure it doesn’t have the crazy list of available tables of the other games, but it’s not meant to replicate that game, just to offer something slightly different as a side dish. And that is reason enough to recommend Pinball M to all fans of the pins and metal balls – provided they’re up for the M-rating of these violent tables!