All you pinball fans can breathe easy, PlayStation Network is finally getting some pinball arcade action! ZEN Studios is extremely excited to announce that after all the long hours and hard work we finally wrapped up development for ZEN Pinball and have confirmed the release date for May 14, 2009.
In case you haven’t heard, Zen Pinball not only brings some intense pinball action, but it comes packed with options including several in-game missions, head-to-head online bouts and multi-day worldwide tournaments. In addition, we included a solid offering of four tables in the initial download with more to come as DLC after launch. As far as we are concerned, this is pretty much the Ferrari of pinball games. We suggest you check out the trailer to get a better visual of the game.
Also, if you want to get an exclusive look at the list of the ZEN Pinball trophies, you can do so by visiting PSU. Stay tuned for more details as they become available at www.ZENPinball.com.
Looks good, guys — please have a demo up so we can all know for sure, though! Personally, I don’t buy games without demos anymore because I find it reprehensible that developers and Sony want to keep the public uninformed to encourage impulse purchases.
Have you folks at ZEN considered licensing any of the classic pinball tables for use within your engine?
First and foremost would be a recreation of the greatest pinball game of all time:
Addams Family Pinball
I just hope “operators menu with full control of all aspects of the table” means we can make the ball heavier. After seeing videos of Timeshock, I realized I’ve been lied to with Pinball FX. The ball in Pinball FX is too light and fast to be realistic.
I just hope “operators menu with full control of all aspects of the table” means we can make the ball heavier. After seeing videos of Timeshock, I realized I’ve been lied to with Pinball FX. The ball in Pinball FX is too light and fast to be realistic. Hopefully they’ve fixed that with Zen Pinball.
Have you folks at ZEN consider licensing any classic pinball tables for use within your engine?
Top of the list would be a recreation of the greatest pinball game of all time:
Addams Family Pinball.
Is there going to be a demo?
#102 is right! Addams Family Pinball is the greatest.
Sweeeet, can’t wait to get my hands on this one!
@107, so you’ve never played Twilight Zone or Cirqus Voltaire I assume?
First day buy for me. I love pinball. Nostalgia.
LOL Zen Pinball – 16 trophies $9.99 Galactrix 12 trophies $19.99 something just doesn’t add up here. And yeah yeah I know theres a bunch of ingame content but so does zen pinball: missions, multiplayer, online tournaments. I think galactrix lost more sales at 20 bucks then they would have made for charging $10 more. Economics 101 sheesh
I just can’t wait for this game – is it really two more days till release??
I’d also like to chime in on the idea of licensing real world tables. I realize Williams already have their own pinball software and are launching their own pinball game for the PS3 later this year, but what about Bally?
Addams Family, Judge Dredd, Twilight Zone and Elvira. I’d pay 50 bucks for those gladly! Any plans here Zsolt?
Even if they can’t license a game, I’d kill for 1 or 2 pre-80’s classic-INSPIRED electro-mechanical tables. For what it’s worth, these 4 tables look overall more interesting than the 3 that originally shipped with Pinball FX (the DLC tables were great though).
Day one purchase for me. I love pinball games. I just hope future tables will be released(for a decent price of course). I really hate that Savage Moon hasn’t had any new levels to download so I hope more PSN games start to get the DLC love.
I just had to post after reading more info here. Lets break this down:
$9.99
Trophy support
Video Chat support
Save/Load option
multiple camera/sixaxis control
DEMO available
GREAT JOB ZEN!!! Day 1 purchase for me. Another great addition to the PSN. Other dev’s take note! Video chat is something that is awesome and take note of this because the PS3 users want this sort of stuff!
@112: Williams/Bally are the same company; have been for quite a few years. I own Twilight Zone, Cirqus Voltaire, Tales of the Arabian Nights and Revenge from Mars – for real. All in mint condition, so you can bet I’m ready for some PS3 pinball too! Love dem pins.
Naturally, I left town for a week just hours before Zen Pin was released. :-(
@114: Savage Moon DLC is coming in June along with a rework of the original 12 levels; search the Forum for all the details.
Just wanted to say that this game is AWESOME guys. Great JOB! Great price. you got yourselves a satisfied customer.
There are two categories: Williams / Bally original tables (like Medieval Madness), and tables based on Intellectual Property they also licensed (like Addams Family) to be used for a pinball table.
Taking the present status of Midway / WMS, the legal situation is really compex even of those original tables, but to get the right to recreate those licensed tables (Addams Family, Indiana Jones, TZ etc etc etc.) is almost impossible.
Which is a shame – we would work for free to recreate those tables for you :o))
@116 – What an expert pinball collection!! I personally also like Addams Family, STTNG and even some of the newer Stern pinballs (we have Fish Tales and TZ in the office for reference).
First I want to say thanks for putting out a demo. This shows that you believe that your game is good and people would actually buy it after they tried it. Not like some games developers who know that their games are such crap that they don’t even dare to show a demo. As soon as I played the demo, I bought it right away. Though I do have some complaints.
I thought that 1 of the 4 pinball was kind of weak. I hope that if you do have more tables, it’s reasonably priced and that we get to try it before we buy it. I rather have some good ones than a collections of just OK ones.
second, there seem to be a bug that causes me to hard reset my ps3. It has happened a few times already, I don’t remember turning off my ps3 this many times for a game. Once you pass the first few screen it just blanks out and playing the music, never taking you to the start up menu screen. After that it won’t respond to any buttons, I have to shut down the ps3. This is annoying, I hope you patch it real soon.
I confirm the bug mentioned above. It happens all the time when I try to play online with 4 player. everything freezes.
Is there a problem with the scores saving in Zen Pinball? There is some confusion amongst a group of us whether the high scores of you, those on your friends list, etc, are supposed to be saved after logging out of the network. Can you explain how the high score system works?
I love the game, and I’m looking forward to more tables. Maybe a few more view options, too.
I also want to congratulate you all and thank you for your hard work. Great game. Loving each of the four tables! And loving the impressive array of customization options.
I do, however, want to reiterate that there do seem to be some problems with highscore tracking. Not only do my scores and my friends’ scores not track properly, but every time I exit and restart the game, the game forgets my prior highscores.
While it’s gratifying to feel like each time I play I’m setting a new highscore, it’s frustrating that my and my friends’ scores aren’t being saved from session to session.