A new table from SuperPowerUpGames is ready for pinball fans on Nintendo Switch. Check out our Basketball Pinball review!
Are you ready for a new budget pinball table on Nintendo Switch? After giving us pinball tables with a nice variety of themes, including pirates, werewolves, dragons, soccer, titans, a safari one, and more, we’re now getting a sport-based table thanks to Basketball Pinball. For this table, you’ll get to play with a pinball that features five 3D figures representing each basketball player on the court. Since the playing field is a basketball court, there will be a hoop at the back for you to try and score.
The controls for this new pinball table remain the same as for other standalone releases. You’ll be taking control of the left flippers by pressing the L or ZL buttons, and the right flipper will be controlled by pressing the R and ZR buttons. The ball can be sent into play by using the right analog stick, flicking it back, and letting go depending on how hard you want to hit it. Sometimes you’ll want to give the table a little nudge to keep the ball in play, which can be done with the left analog stick, but you need to be careful that you don’t overdo it, or the machine will tilt, freezing all flippers, which will make you lose that ball.
There is one looping ramp on the center of the screen, as well as another ramp on the right side that will send the ball back to the lower area of the table, on the left side. If you manage to send the ball into the looping ramp from right to left and use the upper left flipper at the right time, you can get a huge one million points combo, sending the ball up the loop again for a chance to continue increasing said big payout combo.
Along with this, you could end up triggering a mini-game that makes players from the opposing team pop onto the table so that you can hit them with the ball to dribble past them and defeat them. There’s another one that will send the ball into the hands of one of your team’s members, and you must time your button presses to pass the ball to another teammate before you decide if you’re going to pass to the left-side player for a three-pointer, or to the right-side player with an alley-oop so that he can dunk the ball.
If you’re playing the game in Portable or Tabletop Mode, there’s also the option of playing Basketball Pinball in vertical mode so that you can have the pinball table fill up the entire screen for a more realistic pinball experience. Combine this with the always handy Flip Grip – which will hopefully get a restock soon over at Fangamer for those of you that still don’t have one – and you’re in for a very fun pinball experience.
Basketball Pinball is a fun pinball table, but it does feel a bit barebones when compared to other standalone tables like Dragon Pinball, but it’s definitely a unique type of pinball table, what with the ball itself being a basketball and the crowd cheering on you from the back of the table. Basketball Pinball is out on Nintendo Switch with a budget $3.99 price.
Disclaimer
This Basketball Pinball review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by SuperPowerUpGames.
