![]() One of the nicest features of Balls of Steel is that the five tables included are quite different. Many other pinball games now have decent physics, but on occasion the ball will do impossible things or experience pauses or slowdowns due to processor overload when there is a lot going on at once in Balls of Steel, even when you are playing multiball with lots of animations going on, there is no noticeable change in the fluidity of gameplay. The ball moves quite quickly and there is never any hesitation. The ball physics are the best I have seen in a computer pinball game, with both rebound angle and speed changes following the laws of motion perfectly. The gameplay in Balls of Steel is both realistic and fun in every respect. While the game's clever title hinted at great promise, I had no idea when I opened the box about the incredible experience that was to follow. Into this crowded arena Wildfire Studios, a small Australian software company, has dared to develop Balls of Steel (marketed by GT Interactive), and they have managed to blow the socks off the competition. Within both types of pinball games the standards have been set fairly high, discouraging new entrants to the field. Now the very best computerized pinball efforts have generally clustered themselves into two categories: those that have frenzied action with tons of animations going on the screen at once, lacking the realism in ball movement and gameplay of actual pinball tables (Sierra's 3D Ultra Pinball series is the best example of this type) and those that provide with extraordinary graphical detail an accurate pinball simulation, lacking any meaningful sense of fun and whimsy (Empire Interactive's Pro Pinball series is the best example of this second type). ![]() It used to be several years ago that tons of these games were released, usually with crude 320x200 pixel-scrolling graphics, with poor physics in ball movement, and with uninspired copycat graphics on the tables. Computer pinball games have evolved quite a bit over the last couple of years. ![]()
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