Synopsis
Super Pinball: Behind the Mask features three pinball tables -- Jolly Joker, Blackbeard, and Ironmen -- each of which will highly please the pinball purist. Ball physics are right on target, flipper action is smooth, and the graphics and sound effects evoke the real thing. Each board has two flippers, several drop targets, two kickbacks, three thumper bumpers, and one outhole down the middle. Skill shots, multi-ball play (hampered by slowdown, unfortunately), "shoot again when lit," and other staples of traditional pinball are fully in place. Ironically, what makes this title such a good pinball game -- realism -- is its only blemish. A lack of scrolling playfields, multi-leveled boards, or other such extravagances, hamper it from becoming an out-and-out great video game.
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Extra Credits
Pinball machines debuted as a cheap form of entertainment during the Great Depression of the 1930s. For a nickel, the poverty-stricken masses could have a few minutes of fun, using flippers to guide a ball over a target-ridden surface. Through the years, the pinball machine has flourished and evolved, but in the early eighties during the videogame boom, it took a back seat to such games as Space Invaders, Asteroids and Pac-Man.
Pinball games enjoyed a minor rebirth of sorts in the late '80s and early '90s with the massive popularity of home videogame systems. One such video pinball game is Super Pinball: Behind the Mask for the Super NES.
