As the business end of the FIFA World Cup 2010 draws nearer we've been getting in the mood with Soccer Pinball FREE from the Ovi Store. It's football, with added pinball. Does it hit the target? Find out in our Soccer Pinball FREE review…
Soccer Pinball Free is the free version of Ovi Store game Soccer pinball, made complimentary by in-game ads that appear in between menus. As you'll have already guess its pinball with a soccer twist.
As typical of pinball games the aim here is to ping a ball around a pinball machine in order to notch the highest score possible. You do so by using the virtual pinball machine's flipper arms by tapping two large orange boxes situated bottom left and right of the screen.
Starting the game for the first time we were worried that the touchscreen wouldn't react in time with the frantic pinball action. Thankfully our fears were allayed. Activating the flippers is quick and painless as long as you don't repeatedly tap them into submission. Because of this some may find it better to play it one-handed to resist the temptation to needlessly pound the flippers, despite it being slightly trickier.
Players can also push the machine to encourage the ball to move where you want it to go, though this will result in you losing points and a life (or ball, rather), which we did. It's a technique perhaps more suited to pinball aficionados, as we discovered.
Onto the soccer (we prefer to call it football) themed stuff getting the ball into the GOAL! pit nets players GOLDENGOAL bonus points. Getting the ball in the right lane activates multipliers, while collecting score multipliers activates your defenders - they prevent your ball dropping into your danger zone and losing a ball. The longer you last, the more points you earn, the more balls you get. By and large how well you do seems like an entirely random sequence of events dictated by how well you time the flippers. It's decent fun - we found ourselves keen to regularly better our top score.
What didn't we like about Soccer Pinball FREE? The presentation could be a lot slicker, particularly the main menu. It's dull and the options aren't spaced out well enough even for slim-fingered folk. In-game the pinball machine is clear and bright but the sound effects are a little clunky, though the crowd cheers when you score a goal are a nice touch. We'd also rather not have the adverts in between games and menus, but we won't dwell on them too much - they're easy to skip and make the game free after all.
Overall Soccer Pinball FREE is a handy effort at mobile pinball delivering what it set out to do - offer fun fast action pinball. It's fairly limited, and many will tire of it soon, but pinball fans looking for a quick, free fix won't have too much to complain about.
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