16 May, 2013

Pinball Gold Pack


From time to time I am visiting the Good Old Games site. I confess that my hope is that one day they will produce a Mac version of Pro Pinballs (since their revival is taking more time that what we initially hoped). Recently I stumbled upon the only pinball for Macs, the Pinball Gold Pack


It contains the (DosBox ported versions of) Pinball Dreams, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions, all great classics of the 90s PC era. I unashamedly copy a comment from the GOG site:
Ok, after playing some of the more realistic pinball games on here you might think that this game would be a complete disappointment. The tables are not as intricate, the physics model is way more simplified, and the table themes are a little cheesy. However, this game makes up for it with pure charm and straight forward fun. Sure, it might not have as many ramps, magnets, and "toys" but I challenge you to put this game down after one play.

Unfortunately my opinion is not the same. I grew up with Tristan and the superb Mac graphics, so these old PC pinballs do indeed look cheesy. Nostalgia does not work for me in this case. Still, they are decent pinballs and would appeal to many Windows2Mac switchers.

1 comment:

  1. Hi! I guess we have a bit of difference here.. I wax nostalgic indeed for the old DOS pinballs..My first pinball was Pinball Fantasies, on a floppy, on my first PC.. I had already had a Mac and I am proud to say that it *was* my first computer, but it was not a "game friendly" unit, as it was a "classic" and the 10" screen made most games not run..
    I still like these PC scrolling pinballs to this day, and if you set them up right, you can get a pretty good resolution and playability, as the flipers work perfectly and the tables tend to be challenging...
    I haven't had to try any of the new "Mac" games from GOG, as I already had the PC versions, and set them up for the Mac. The version of Dosbox I use is far superior to the one included by GOG (MB6) , and if not using dosbox, Boxer works just perfectly.. in fact for any except the real techies, I'd urge using Boxer.. it is the best dos pinball emulator BY FAR.
    In fact, until Cowboy Rodeo redid Pinball Dreams ( the dos version being one of the ones in this Gold pack) it was one of my favorite dos pinballs. The new Pinball Dreams HD is such a good port that I have no reason to ever run the dos one again, but there's still others like Fantasies that do not exist in Mac versions, although there's iDevice versions ...

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