Zen Pinball HD

Wow, what an impressive group of tables! They all play smoothly on my Kindle. While the licensed Marvel and Star Wars tables got my early attention, l' m finding the original tables a bit more satisfying. On some of the Marvel tables the characters and some of their toys become too distracting. I hope more original tables are on their way to the Kindle Fire soon.

I love pinball, and have fond memories playing with my dad in arcades. That said, I'm pretty young (mid 20's) and am more familiar with modern video games than old timey arcade games. While I love real machines, pinball apps that stay true to the original (ie Pinball Arcade) don't really hold my interest. The fun of actual machines is being able to look at the artwork close up and lean forward to look at a cool feature, and at least for me, it was lost when looking at a tablet screen. Part of the fun of Pinball Arcade has to do with remembering the original machines, which as a youngster, I do not.

That said, Zen Pinball is what I wish real machines would be like, but I know they will never be. Epic battles rage, Vortexes loom, lighting effects change, and even ball colors change. Not only that, but each table is uniquely its own. For an example, on The Avengers table, the player can select which hero they want to be (and thus select a uniquely colored ball that looks like said hero), while on Epic Quest, you can level up a character over multiple games and improve his armor and abilities. How cool is that!? A pinball RPG! I have purchased every single one of these buggers and haven't regretted it for a moment. It has a permanent place on my Kindle, and I will buy every new one that comes out. It may not be for purests, but it is for those who love pinball, but don't mind it being updated and improved upon with shiny animations and cool mini games that are not always associated with pinball (ie the astroids type mission in star wars starfighter table). If you don't believe me, just download this free one. It comes with Sorcerer's Lair, which many believe is the best one of all Zen tables. If you like it, buy more. If you don't, then you are lying haha :) Just an FYI, my favorite tables are the Starfighter Assault Table, Fantastic Four, Avengers, and Epic Quest.

So first, before anything else, I'd like to note that I'm a huge fan of Zen Pinball on PS3, and its subsequent release on PS VITA in the form of Zen Pinball 2. As such, I'm mildly disappointed by the fact that the older legacy tables aren't available for purchase, as the tables available to buy piece meal are all from either latter day DLC or are from the Marvel comics licensing partnership. I mean, if you're a fan of anything Marvel or Star Wars pinball related, this is definitely the game for you, but if you happen to be a fan of, say, that awesome Ninja Gaiden Sigma or the Street Fighter II table, you're out of luck.

All that said, I'm pretty disappointed with the performance issues I've seen while playing the one free table that comes with the download. At times it runs great, while at others it chugs and gets hiccups of choppiness. I would like to note that I was downloading another game (and noticed it installed too) and an HD movie in the background, so who knows if that affected it or not.

Even though I adore being able to play pinball on a beautiful vertical screen, I think I'm going to have to keep my Zen Pinball purchases strictly to PS3 and VITA. That framerate inconsistency is not assuring. mean, I'm under no delusions of the Kindle Fire HD's performance speeds in general, but for a game like Zen Pinball, it's kind of a killer.

I'm rating it 4/5 only because I know these are quality tables and a fun game, but honestly if I were to rate it on my brief impression of the port, I'd give it something less. Try the free table in the download yourself and see whether or not my issues appear for you.

I am astonished at this app. The graphics are incredible and the animations are smooth and realistic. I am playing on a Kindle Fire HD and have experienced no lag or response issues. It looks, sounds, and reacts like a real Pinball machine. Amazing.

I got this app. Cause I love pinball and was looking for another fun game. WINNER .... Found a great game. The tables you can buy are awesome. Lots of Star Wars and Marvel comic tables to buy. I started with the Ghost Rider table and will get Thor next. HAPPY.... : ) awesome

The game play is a lot of fun. There are even little hidden secret levels. The only down fall is that you have to purchase any other pinball designs they offer.

I really like the game. I got the Zen pinball game and I thought that the separate Star Wars and Marvel packs unlocked all the tables for Star Wars and Marvel inside the Zen Pinball HD game. I was wrong. They do not unlock the games in Zen Pinball HD when you purchase both packs separately. When I did open one of the packs only one table was unlocked. And even though I purchased the Star Wars and Marvel pack with one table unlocked in each pack it did not unlock it in the main Zen Pinball HD program. If I knew this I would have made the in app purchases through Zen Pinball HD where ALL the tables are so that I wouldn't have to use three programs to play the same games. Having one program that has all the tables and having two other programs with just the Star Wars and Marvel tables is very confusing especially when you buy both separately and they are not unlocked in the main program with the rest of the tables you purchased.