August 31st, 2008 by Craig (email author)

Description

“Liquid Dezign featured many of the Digital Illusions team who developed 21st Century’s hit pinball games, and after the generally-disliked Pinball Mania from another team, they produced one last Amiga pinball game. The game features four different tables, each with different layouts and features. A large number of sub-games are included, as well as a variety of animations on the LCD panel at the top. Each table has multi-ball features, with the view automatically switching to full-screen when this is activated. in total there are six different viewpoints, and no less than 47 different game modes are promised.” [mobygames]

Revisited

I’ve always been a big fan of pinball tables, but never really got on with computer pinball games. Apart from the obvious difference of not having a physical ball in front of you, I always felt they lacked the same feel that you can get at a real table.

One of the first pinball games I played which went some way to rectify this was Pinball Fantasies.  It was the second in a long line of pinball games published by 21st Century Entertainment that were a step ahead of anything else at the time.

Three years and several games later, 21st Century Entertainment published Slam Tilt.  Developed by a new team, Liquid Dezign rather than Digital Illusions, they tried to keep the same look and feel which was such a success with the earlier titles.

[Amiga Version]

Along with the same style, they tried to take the experience of computer-based pinball games forward by added extra features which I had never seen on a pinball table before.

The main addition was the inclusion of mini-games, which are triggered by certain bonuses on the table.  The bonuses will usually lock the ball down on the table before changing the matrix-style scoreboard into a display to animate the game. The mini-games ranged from flying through a space station in the Ace of Space table, to racing around a track in Mean Machines.  The flippers where used to provide simple left or right controls to the gameplay.

Until Visual PinMAME was released which now accurately plays original real-world pinball tables, Slam Tilt was my main fix for computer pinball.  I am pleased to discover the PC version, which feels exactly the same as the original Amiga version but has the added advantage of not having to swap disks when you want to play another table!

Screenshots

[Amiga version]