Fallout 3 review

The RPG that saw me through the late winter months of 2008 and beyond into 2009 was Fallout 3, set in a post apocalyptic world in and around Washington. You begin your epic journey as a lowly vault dweller, but not long into the game you leave the confines of Vault 101 and go looking for your father. It's up to you how you go about finding him though - you could just follow the linear path that the game sets out for you, or you could forgo it altogether and explore the world, picking up the trail later on. What you do when you do finally catch up with your father is also in your own hands, as you can decide to be good, bad or neutral. Not sure if the game is right for you? I'll help you decide.

Format: Xbox 360 (also on PS3, PC)
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Genre: RPG
Region: PAL
Price: £30-£40

Graphics: 8 out of 10
All in all, the graphics in Fallout 3 are fantastic - but they aren't without their faults. The NPC's you speak to all have a glassy stare on their faces which a bit of naturalistic animation could have fixed. This is also a criticism that has been levelled against Oblivion, so it's somewhat annoying that Bethesda hasn't fixed it. There is also a fair amount of repetition across the various areas of the wasteland - you will continually find identical looking metal boxes, radios, sewer systems and other bits and bobs. I understand why the developers would choose to reuse resources wherever they can in a game of this scale, but I appreciate it when teams make a bit of extra effort to make different areas of their world look unique (Dragon Quest VIII remains a shining example of this in my opinion).

Nevertheless, there's still an awful lot to be admired about the visuals - when you're creeping around, unsure what's around the next corner, it can be extremely atmospheric, and when you are suddenly faced with a Feral Ghoul of a Super Mutant Master it can be shit-your-pants scary. The minor quibbles won't spoil your enjoyment of the game too much, but they are serious enough to lower the score to an 8.

Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
Most of the time while playing the game I was tuned into Galaxy News Radio, and I absolutely love the range of old timey music that plays on that station. The list of artists include Cole Porter, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. Great though this music is, there isn't quite a enough of it. By the end of the campaign, I must have heard the same tunes dozens of times. I didn't matter too much, but at the same time I would have appreciated some more. If Bethesda had offered a DLC pack which was nothing but another selection of 20 or so tunes for example, I would have bought it - but that is unlikely to happen.

Apart from the music, there are also a few famous voices amongst the cast. These include Liam Neeson as your father, Malcom McDowell as President John Henry Eden and Ron Perlman, reprising his role as the narrator from the first game in the series. All of them put in solid performances and help give the game more atmosphere. Some of the incidental characters have the same voice (most of the male ghouls sound the same for example) but this is nowhere near as great a concern as it was in Oblivion, where there was seemingly only a half dozen or so actors playing hundreds of people.

Finally, the sound effects. Gun shots and explosions all sound suitably beefy and realistic, monsters sound nicely disgusting and the sound effects of the VATS system, while borrowed from the first game in the series, are unique and very easy to identify.

You can gain several followers during the game including Dogmeat here. He died valiantly defending me from killer robots during my play through.

Game Mechanics: 8 out of 10
My opinion about the game mechanics is much the same as the Graphics - they work well enough but still have a few niggly flaws that prevent them from being great. Firstly, the battle system - you can play Fallout 3 in real time like a first person shooter, but it really doesn't function very well if you do decide to go that route. To get the most out of the game you should use make use of VATS whenever you can, and just use the real time combat as a fall back. Pressing the RB button freezes the action and puts an overlay over the enemy that allows you to target a specific body part and see how likely you are to hit it, and you have a certain amount of ability points to spend on shooting at the enemies. Different weapons will use up different amounts of AP.

The VATS system isn't perfect either, though. The theory is that you can cripple the legs of your enemy to slow them down, but it is almost always better to simply aim for the head and try and get an instant kill instead.

The freeform nature of the quests have also come under a fire a little bit, too. I just recently listened to an episode of the Listen Up podcast where host Garnett Lee was describing how he accidentally managed to skip over several major storyline quests when he decided to do some of the optional quests first. I did exactly the same thing, except I later found out that you can go back and do those quests anyway if you want to (Galaxy News Radio). I see his point but personally it doesn't really bother me that you can direct the path of the main story, because I was planning to play the game a second time as an evil character anyway.

Speaking of which, Fallout 3 is yet another RPG where you can decide to be good or bad, following in the footsteps of pretty much anything by Bioware, and the Fable games. I do like these games that give you moral choices and two ways to play the game, but it has been done to death at this point. Fallout 3 doesn't really add anything new to the idea but hopefully Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins will do something different. Each time you level up your character, you can also choose a perk, and your choice is also effected by your good/bad alignment, how may points you have assigned to a certain skill and how you rolled your stats at the beginning of the game. They include Strong Back, which allows you to carry extra loot, and everybodys favourite, Bloody Mess, which can cause enemies to explode in a shower of guts.

Innovation and Cleverness: 6 out of 10
Much of Fallout 3 is built upon the foundations of the original Fallout (the world, the dark humour) and Oblivion (the game engine, the overall design and structure), but that's not to say that it doesn't bring anything new to the table. The VATS system is a decent attempt to convert the battles of the original game into a real time, 3D world, and there are some very inventive optional quests for you to take on.

This is Megaton, likely to be the first town that you come across and home to some of the more interesting quests in the game. There's an unexploded nuclear bomb in the middle of town - will you defuse it or detonate it?

Value & Replayability: 9 out of 10
This is really the major strength of Fallout 3. There's an absolutely massive world out there, and completing the story and the optional quests will only show you a fraction of it. You could spend hours trawling through the the ruins of DC, taking down roaming bands of Super Mutants, or wandering the wasteland to see what you can find. Then of course you can do it all again as a character of the opposite alignment, and maybe focus on sneaking and thievery instead of just blowing everything to kingdom come. The choice is yours.

Overall: 9 out of 10
Despite all of the minor flaws, Fallout 3 is still a fantastic game and it was very nearly my favourite game of 2008. You don't really notice the niggly things while playing the game, you're too busy having fun. It's only after you've finished and think back on the experience that you realise that certain things could have been better.

I haven't covered any of the DLC packs in this review because so far I've only played through Operation Anchorage. I have bought and downloaded The Pitt and Broken Steel, and will play them soon, but I will wait until Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta are released and then write a round up of all of them at the same time.

Kingdom Hearts II review

I have tried and failed to complete the first Kingdom Hearts game several times for various reasons - the broken camera and poorly implemented battle controls being the main culprits. Yet I still picked up Kingdom Hearts II when I saw it for £5 in Woolworths the Christmas before last. It promptly got added to my backlog of games that I may get around to playing one day, and I thought little of it for well over a year. The box caught my eye a few months ago though and something compelled me to give it a try. This time, the game got its hooked into me and I completed it a few weeks ago. I've had some time to mull the experience over now and so it is time to deliver my verdict. Warning: There may be some small spoilers in this review but I'll try not to go into too much detail.

Format: PS2
Publisher: Square-Enix
Developer: Square-Enix
Genre: Action RPG
Region: PAL
Price: Around £10 these days

Graphics: 8 out of 10
Taking into account that this game is running on what is now last generation hardware, it still looks great for the most part. The worlds that are based on Disney animations (including Atlantica, Beast's Castle and the Pride Lands from The Lion King) look just like the feature films that inspired them, except of course they are now in full 3D. Not only do they look great, they are also incredibly well animated. There is one world that you visit that lets the side down, however. When the game was first announced and I started to read about it, there was one new addition that I couldn't wait to check out - namely Port Royal from Pirates of the Caribbean. To be able fight alongside Jack Sparrow. Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan sounded great - but unfortunately the technical limitations of the PS2 let the side down. The characters just don't look natural, and this is really due to the fact that they are recreations of life actors rather than cell shaded drawings. Unfortunately the graphics are not the only area that Port Royal is disappointing...

Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
Yes, the voice acting for the Port Royal sections is underwhelming as well. Johnny Depp was unavailable or simply too expensive to hire, and the actor they cast to try and imitate him just doesn't convince at all. It's a similar story for Will Turner. Thankfully, the rest of the game has amazing voice acting, with a huge array of familiar voice talent, both from film (James Woods, James Earl Jones, Chris Sarandon), TV (Hayden Panettiere, though few had heard of her when she made the game), other games and anime (Tara Strong, Corey Burton). Most of the actors who played characters in Disney films reprise their roles, and even when somebody else subs in for them, they are usually extremely talented people in their own right (for example Dan Castelleneta, aka Homer Simpson plays the voice of the Genie instead of Robin Williams).

The music is also a brilliant fusion of familiar Disney melodies and new compositions created by composer Yoko Shimomura, although sometimes the tunes can sound a little synthy (surprise, Port Royal again). Utada Hikaru also reprises her role from the first game and delivers an amazing opening tune (check out the video below - and be sure to come back for the rest of the review!).

Game Mechanics: 9 out 10
Kingdom Hearts 2 is an action RPG through and through - full of fast paced battles against hundreds of opponents. Thankfully the major problems of the original game - the camera and the controls, have been fixed this time which immediately makes it far more enjoyable than the first game. You control Sora directly but you also have up to two companions helping you out (Donald and Goofy most of the time, and a guest character that takes the place of one of them during one of the Disney themed worlds.

You fight off the enemy Heartless and Nobodies with the help of your keyblade, a sword that is shaped like a key, and also doubles up as a story device to unlock paths between the various worlds. As well as your basic attacks you can also cast spells, summon various characters to help your out or change into one of three forms. As you level up you get the opportunity to spend AP (action points) on new skills that augment your character, be they new attacks, or just something that makes the enemies drop more money. You have to manage both the equipment and skills of yourself and Donald and Goofy, so there's plenty of opportunity for character development.

The length of time spent in each world without a break is typically far less than the first game as well - you rarely stay anywhere for more than an hour or two. This helps keep the pace of the game flowing and ensures that you won't get bored because there's always something new to see or explore just around the corner. Like in the first game, you travel between these worlds in a Gummi Ship, and Square have listened to criticism again and radically improved these sections. Now they are just like and on rails shooter such as Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon. All in all Kingdom Hearts II feels much more polished than the original, eliminating any little niggles that were present and transforming it into the classic that the original should have been in the first place.

Innovation and Cleverness: 7 out of 10
On the outside, to people who hate Disney or Square-Enix or both (they do exist), Kingdom Hearts II may seem like one big repulsive cash-in, and I was skeptical myself initially, but Square-Enix have skillfully woven a cohesive story around multiple Disney and Square franchises and delivered a game that could appeal to fans and non fans alike. Personally, while I have played the majority of the Final Fantasy series, I haven't watched a Disney animated film in years (with the exception of those produced by Pixar).

Disney stalwarts Donald and Goofy return to help you out once again

Value & Replayability: 8 out of 10
Action RPG's are usually a good deal shorter than their turn based counterparts by their very nature, but Square-Enix have crammed a lot of content into Kingdom Hearts II. The main storyline will take you in the region of 40 hours to complete. Then you have optional battles in the underworld and a whole log book of optional challenges and content to find and beat. If you beat the game in Hard mode then you will automatically get the chance to watch the hidden teaser for Birth by Sleep, otherwise completing all the side quests is the only way to view it (or you could just go and watch it on YouTube if you can't be bothered). Considering that the game can be picked up for a tenner or less anyway, you will more than get your money's worth.

Some of the worlds featured in KHII are repeats of those that were in the original, so the game lose a mark or two for that, although they have been changed significantly.

Overall: 8 out 10
Leave your cynical gamer persona behind and just be prepared to have fun in this fast paced and slickly produced Disney/Square love in. You don't really need to have played through the first game - I had only played part of it and I still managed to piece together what was happening with the storyline. The series shows no sign of dieing anytime soon with two spin off games for the PSP and DS on the way, and the inevitable Kingdom Hearts III. I would like to see the world's from the various Pixar films explored in a future game, I think they would fit perfectly.

Top 10 Highlights of E3 2009

Here are what I consider to be the 10 most exciting announcements that were made during E3 2009 in reverse order. Bear in mind that I am totally bored with the FPS genre and not too keen on most modern action games either, so don't expect to see the likes of Halo, God of War etc represented in this list. Click on the title to view a trailer/video about each one.

10. Metroid: Other M (Wii)
I absolutely loved the Metroid Prime series so anything within the franchise is going to pique my curiosity, however I hate the Ninja Gaiden titles and there's a danger that this game is going to be a similar hardcore action title. Hopefully the combination of Team Ninja and Nintendo will deliver a quality game.

9. Golden Sun (DS)
The two Golden Sun games on the GBA were classic old school RPG's with excellent puzzles and thoroughly charming graphics. A third game is very welcome indeed and somewhat unexpected given the amount of time that has passed since The Lost Age was released.

8. Scribblenauts (DS)
The concept of this game is just brilliant, and if it works as well as it appears to from the footage I've seen it could be a contender for my Game of the Year. Basically, you have to reach a star on each level, and in order to do so you enter words on the touch screen, which are then turned into physical objects or creatures. There are apparently over 50,000 words contained in the in game dictionary, and they include the likes of Cthulu, so if you wish to summon an inter dimensional god, go right ahead!

7. Forza Motorsport 3 (360)
Sony may have been showing off Gran Turismo in PS3 and PSP format once again, but for me that series was eclipsed by Forza Motorsport 2 and I won't be going back. Forza 3 looks to be even better than the last game with noticeably better graphics and even more customisation options, including the ability to record, edit and share videos.

6. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
The original Galaxy is one of the finest examples of game design I've ever had to pleasure to experience - continually inventive, always entertaining. So I do of course welcome the idea of a sequel. I do have some concerns though, chiefly that this game apparently started off as a remix of the original, which kind of shows in some of the footage with bosses simply being reused. Then there's the name - couldn't Nintendo have been a bit more imaginative than simply sticking a 2 on the end? Even Super Mario Universe would have been and improvement. They've still got time to change it I guess.

5. New Super Mario Bros (Wii)
Yeah, another Mario game, and this time it's a 2D one. The four player mode looks cool (although I doubt I'll ever play it) and the new power ups look like their going to be implemented better than those in the last game. I have rated this higher than Galaxy 2 simply because it's closer to being released.

4. ModNation Racers (PS3)
Sony are applying their "Build, Play, Share" ethic that has worked so well with Little Big Planet to a new genre - that of the kart racer. The demonstration from the press conference made it look extremely easy to put a track together, the idea of having an infinite amount of new tracks is exciting. Let's just hope the game play ultimately backs up the premise.

3. The Last Guardian (PS3)
This is the third in the Ico & Shadow of the Colossus "series", and it shares the same aesthetics as those two games, except of course it's now in glorious 3D. Instead of having to climb and take down gigantic creatures, it appears that this time you have befriended one and must use them to navigate the game environment. Check out the awesome trailer, which features background music from Miller's Crossing (it works surprisingly well).

2. Project Natal (360)
If this works as well as it appears to in all of the demo videos, that it will truly be amazing. Thanks to a new camera attachment, full motion capture in now possible in your living room, allowing you to use your entire body as a controller. More exciting than that though was the the voice recognition and the way that the cameras can apparently scan items you hold up to it in seconds, like the drawing in the Milo demo. Really exciting stuff!

1. Tales of Monkey Island (Wii, PC)
The original Secret of Monkey Island is one of my favourite games of all time, I have replayed it so many times over the years that I've lost count. So the prospect of all new Monkey Island makes me very happy indeed. Five new monthly episodes from Telltale Games, the people behind the episodic Sam & Max, Strong Bad and Wallace & Gromit games. There's also a Special Edition coming to Xbox Live which is the original game remastered in HD and with rerecorded music and dialogue. It looks like 2009 is going to be the year of the monkey!

I am also really looking forward to Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins, but as I already knew about them I didn't include them in my top 10.

Movie Watch: Summer Round Up Part 1

The summer movie season is in full flow and there are some real blockbusters being released on a weekly basis. In this article I will briefly review the big films so far, along with some of the Blu Rays that I have watched recently.

Cinema releases

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This was reasonably entertaining whilst I was in the cinema watching it, although shortly afterwards not much sticks in the mind. It is just a so-so comic adaptation, which lacks the impact of the old X-Men trilogy largely because it is a prequel centred around an already well established character. Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool was pretty cool, but Gambit didn't really add anything and on the whole it is a pretty forgettable film.
2 out of 5.

Star Trek
JJ Abrams has done a pretty good job at rebooting the franchise for the mainstream, but for me personally it lacked the spark of the original series and some of the actions of the new crew didn't really seem in character with their old incarnations. Maybe that's the point - I can't help but get the feeling that this film isn't really meant for Star Trek fans, but rather it's engineered to attract a whole new audience.
3 out of 5.

Coraline (in 3D)
The new 3D technology really does work well and it wasn't overdone which is a danger in this sort of film. The glasses did get a little bit uncomfortable after a while of wearing them though. As for the film itself it's a gorgeously designed dark fairy tale, and is quite slow paced at times. Don't got expecting a musical extravaganza in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride, or something as funny as a Pixar release - it's just not that sort of film (as the few people who walked out of the showing I attended half way through must have discovered).
3.5 out of 5.

Night at the Museum 2
My new issue of Total Film arrived a day before I was due to see this, with a 2 out of 5 score, so I didn't really expect much from it. I have to say though this was a really entertaining family film, with plenty to keep both kids and adults happy. Amy Adams is as gorgeous as ever (her bum really does look quite splendid in her Amelia Earhart outfit. The film does remind of the original Bill & Ted film with its famous characters from history running around and general silliness, and that's never a bad thing.
3.5 out of 5

Blu Ray releases

Taken
I had heard that this was a good action thriller from various sources, and I had some Blockbuster rental vouchers to use up while I was on holiday, so I used one of this. To be honest though, I really wasn't "Taken" with it. It starts off great, the build up to Liam Neeson's daughter getting kidnapped is extremely tense - but once that's out of the way the action gets increasingly ludicrous and I started to lose interest towards the end.
1.5 out of 5

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Now this was absolutely fantastic - definitely the best film I've watched over the last few months. I didn't really expect it to be all that great either because I watched the first Hellboy earlier in the year and thought it was pretty average all round. The sequel though has absolutely amazing special effects, brilliantly designed creatures, a decent story and a very funny script. It is one of the best showcases for HD available - I loved it!
4.0 out of 5

City of Ember
Walden Media follow up the brilliant Bridge to Terabithia with another adaptation of a children's book. It's not quite at the same level as Terabithia because the story lacks the emotional impact of that film, but it is well worth a watch in its own right. Bill Murray puts in another solid performance, and there are cameos from Liz Smith (nana from The Royle Family) and Mackenzie Crook (Gareth from The Office).
3.5 out of 5

Zodiac
This film is incredibly long and slow paced but the fascinating subject matter nearly mitigates that. It takes place over several decades as Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) attempt to reveal the true identity of the Zodiac serial killer. As time and other events take their toll on these two men however, it falls to cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) to try and put the pieces together and solve the crime. If you like your films to have some closure you may end up disappointed by this one. There's a great range of special features on the disc including almost two hours of interviews with the survivors and investigators of the case, and a profile of the main suspect.
3 out of 5

Burn After Reading
I am a big fan of the Coen brothers and whilst the plot of their latest film ultimately doesn't really go anywhere, that's the whole point! Frances McDormand is Linda Litzke, a gym worker who is desperate to have cosmetic surgery done in a desperate attempt to hold on to her youth. When the cleaner stumbles across a CD with what appears to be sensitive government secrets on it, she and Chad (Brad Pitt) attempt to bribe ex CIA agent Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich). Events spiral out of control from there and the CIA superior (played by J.K. Simmons, aka Jonah Jameson in the Spiderman movies) looks on nonplussed "Report back to me when it... when it makes sense" he says to the agent keeping track of the case. A much lighter and more playful film than No Country for Old Men, but still laced with the Coen's trademark darkness throughout. Great fun!
3.5 out of 5

Be Kind Rewind
I loved Eternal Sunsine of the Spotless Mind - it's one of my favourite films of the last decade, so I couldn't wait to see how Michel Gondry would follow it up. However, even I found the concept of Be Kind Rewind a little hard to grasp. Mike (Mos Def) agrees to look after Elroy Flectcher's (Danny Glover) video store while his is out of town attending a meeting about his hero, Fats Waller. His friend Jerry (Jack Black), accidentally gets himself magnetised and ends up erasing all of the tapes in the store, and to cut a long story short they end up shooting their own version of the most iconic films ever made (including Ghostbusters). The scenes where they show the "sweded" movies are the best thing about this film. I'm not really a big fan of Jack Black, I find his personality overbearing, and while I feel the same way about Jim Carrey he managed to rein it in for Eternal Sunshine. Black however is his usually annoying self in this film and as a result I couldn't really get it into it now matter how much I tried.
2.0 out of 5.

Coming Soon... Part 2 - Angels & Demons, Terminator: Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Inglorious Basterds and more Blu Ray releases.

Wibblefish's Backloggery

Hi All, my holiday is now over (boo) and I'm about to start updating the blog again regularly (yay!). Over the next week or two I will be rebranding the "Top 100 Games of the Last Generation" feature as The Vault, as it is not really working for me in it's current format. Having to come up with 100 games puts me under quite a lot of pressure, and at the rate we've been going it would take an eternity to get there. This way I can add something to The Vault as and when I think of them or discover them.

I would like to highlight a very cool site that I stumbled on during my time off, The Backloggery. It is designed to let you enter you gaming collection, keep track of what you have beaten or completed 100%, tell others what you're playing at the moment, and can suggest a game from your collection to play with the Fortune Cookie feature. I have entered all of my games, which took just over week, and I have only beaten 24% of them! It has actually motivated me to try and finish the games I have partially played through and dig out older titles that have remained untouched. During my time off I have managed to complete Kingdom Hearts 2 (review soon) and have taken a character all the way to the level cap in Guild Wars: Factions. You can check out my backlog here, and I recommend setting one up yourself if you have a lot of games!

Pinball Passions

I promised last week that there would be a new pinball article written by my brother, and here it is, slightly later than expected. From here on in until the end of the article, everything you read was written by Kevyn rather than myself apart from a few editorial comments.

Whitewater is a very good looking table and consistently ranks as one of the best, but we just couldn't get on with it.

I never was very good at the arcade games in the 80's but I always enjoyed pinball. Didn't read the rules about amassing scores, I just enjoyed the game as a whole. We used to go to a Pontins in Brean Sands (situated in the west of England - Ed) annually - they always had a selection of tables there and I used to enjoy shovelling pounds into them for the weekend. The tables which stand out my memory are Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG), Hook, Whitewater and Dr Who. Then times moved on, the holiday stopped and the opportunity to play pinball didn't come up.

Then two years ago my brother heard a podcast about restoring and owning pinballs (Suburubrat's Hardware Flashback segment on Retro Gaming Radio) as he has always been passionate about gaming they are a natural spin off from arcades. At this point life for me had moved on, the kids were out of nappies and disposable income was increasing. Another interest of mine, classic American cars had run its course and so the big yank tank in the garage was sold. At that point Dave suggested, possibly in jest, that a pin would be good. "What a good idea" I thought and within a week a table local to me had been sourced and was installed in the garage where the car had stood.

I hadn't researched anything about pinball at this point and knew nothing of the IPDB, the UK Pinball Group forum or the various places which deal in pinballs. Subsequently the first table was not the best to be had, namely Hurricane, but wasn't in a poor condition and the served to start the interest. It wasn't long before a second table was sourced via eBay and so two were now in the garage. This one was Star Trek 25th Anniversary which was a much better game and by now I was studying the rule sheet to score multiple jackpots etc. Then I recalled the holidays and looked into some of the games I remembered. I subsequently found Hook nearby and that too came home. Now we had three tables which wasn't really the idea so Dave took ownership of Hurricane to keep the house harmonious.

By now it had become necessary to learn how to maintain these things as all the tables had developed niggly little faults, but in truth these are mainly failed switches, poor contacts or broken wires, all of which really only needed a basic meter and a soldering iron (board faults would come later). Then the annual Pinball Show for 2007 was upon us and so I travelled up to Kettering to spend an entire day playing pinball non-stop. What an absolute belter of a day too, thoroughly recommended, and never has 9 hours disappeared so quickly. It was here that I a very reasonably priced ST:TNG was found and that too made its way to the garage. Again three tables could not be kept and so Hook draw the short straw and was sold on. I wasn't tired of the game and wouldn't mind one again. The situation remained static then until just after Christmas when in January 2008 I felt the need for a new table and so sourced a Jurrasic Park (JP) through the UK Pinball Group. This was in fact a decision that would have much deeper repercussions that I realised at the time.

Through the art of gentle persuasion three tables were now accepted as the norm ad so all of them held residence in the garage, but it was cold and damp out there especially in February, so a seed of an idea was sown. The guy who had sold me JP had a superb log cabin to house all of his tables in. In our garden we had an unused greenhouse and a rotting shed, so I suggested we clear out the area and get a log cabin. Ideal, I enthused, for the kids to play in, as a workshop for my various projects and as a games room. And so in March 08 the cabin was erected and the tables took up residence there. Dave had also spoken about a MAME cabinet and had played various emulators on the PC, so I sourced one on eBay and set that up too. This has provided many hours of enjoyment with the kids playing some all time classics like Space Invaders, Galaxian, Bubble Bobble, Joust, Dig Dug, Robotron etc.

The log cabin in a fairly early iteration with the JP and ST:TNG tables along with the MAME cab.

I had grown tired of ST 25th by then so that was moved on and a Whitewater took its place. Now this might be rated as one of the best tables around by some but I couldn't get on with it at all and within 6 weeks it had been replaced by a Tales of the Arabian Nights (TOTAN). The ST:TNG had also quickly lost its appeal and that moved on in June 08 for a Stern Lord of the Rings (LOTR). Now that was a very good table to play, lots of missions, lots of shots, lots of samples, so much so that I re watched the movie trilogy.

Things stayed constant then until February 2009 when the LOTR went at a good price and enabled me to get two more table in its place - Creature from the Black Lagoon (CFTBL) which was in a really poor condition and needed completely stripping, cleaning and re rubbering to get to a good table, and High Speed 2: The Getaway (HS2) which is simply awesome due to its speed. The super charger is also a very cool toy. And so there were are at the moment, 4 tables: JP, TOTAN, CFTBL, and HS2 plus a MAME cab. Along the way lots of different repairs have had to be undertaken in order to keep playing and keep costs down but there is a good degree of self satisfaction in carrying out the repairs. I have also had great fun playing them and met a very good bunch in the group who offer advice and keep the spirit of pinball when and truly alive. For the future JP may well go this year as it has been here for nearly 18 months now which is quite and achievement, and possibly CFTBL depending on what can be found to replace it.

The log cabin in its current set up.

Many thanks to Kevyn for taking the time to put this article together. We will hopefully have some more pinball table reviews in the future, and we also plan to attend the Monster Meet organised by Pinballers Anonymous which is taking place again soon.

You should check out: Co-Op

I have a new pinball article coming very soon thanks to my brother Kevyn - it should be posted some time this week. In the meantime, I recommend that you watch Co-Op if you don't already - it's a great weekly video podcast which features a lot of past and current 1up.com staff discussing the latest and greatest video games - from the big releases to the smaller independent games. You can find the latest episode here.