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Great fun for people all ages

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a great game for everyone in the house. The adults seem to like it even more because we used to have to stuff quarters in the machine to play. I was happy to see that the graphics were realistic and so were the sounds. The only thing missing are those pesky mechanical failures like the flipper that isn't working right or the missing ball (obviously I am happy that those are missing). You can play multiple player games and tournaments with up to 8 machines. It really is a blast and worth the cost.

Best Virtual Pinball Game Ever Made....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I used to love pinball "back in the day", and I've tried a lot of virtual pinball games, but never really found one I've thought was "great". A few have been pretty good, but overall there hasn't been a standout. Pinball in VG's has been mostly disposable in the VG market to me at best.

I saw this realeased for the Wii (and PS2/P) and started looking for it upon release. I finally picked this up from Amazon a few weeks back (couldn't find it anywhere locally) and had to post something about it.

The Good :

$29.99
Best virtual pinball game I've ever played period. If you like Pinball, this is a must own (Wii version only)
The Wii controls "feel" like pinball. The B Button on the Wiimote and Z button on the nunchuck are the flippers.
You can shake the machine a bit, tilt is very close to the actually amount of shake it would take to tilt a real machine.
Visually looks exactly like all the original machines.
Way beyond the first entry in the series, the Gottlieb collection (looked good but was really boring).
Actually has a game mode where you go through all the machines and get certain scores or achievements to get points and unlockables.
One of the Top 15 rated games for the Wii on Metacritic.
Has 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon's customer reviews.
Includes Funhouse, Taxi, Gorgar, Black Knight, Pinbot, Whirlwind, Space Shuttle, and several others.


The Bad :

Made by Crave, master of Shovelware. But this is far from shovelware.
Hard to find, I found from a GameStop employee that it might be exclusive to Best Buy, Target & Amazon.
They COULD have used the Wiimote as the ball plunger, but used the stick on the nunchuck instead.
No national or international online leaderboard. Not the end of the world, but would have been a nice touch.
No other con's I can think of.

Pick this up if you like pinball, you won't regret it. (If you don't like pinball get Okami!)

From Metacritic:

Wii : Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (2008) 81
PSP : Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (2008) 76
PS2 : Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection (2008) 72

Thew Wii controls really make the game. Pinball games don't usually get 81's from game critics. This title did, to read the reviews visit meta critic

Just like the real thing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 05, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Growing up in the 70's and 80's, a good deal of my youth was spent in arcades. And while I always like video games, my favorite was always pinball. The behavior of the ball wasn't controlled by some algorithm that you could figure out, and you couldn't beat the game with a pattern you got from a game guide, it was just gravity, friction and luck vs. you and your two (or three or four) flippers. I was never a pinball wizard, but I always considered them a better investment of my quarter than their video cousins.

Naturally, I've always dreamed of owning my own pinball machine, but could never justify the cost, not to mention the maintenance headaches. Sure, there were video game versions of pinball, but they pretty universally...what's the word I'm looking for...oh, yeah, sucked. Well, that era is now at an end. PHF: Williams Collection is like owning ten real pinball machines. That's it, I could end my review right there. The lights, sounds and feel of real pinball for the cost of a Wii + $20. At some point, I've actually played each of the tables in this collection in real life, and playing this game took me right back to Celebrity Sports Center (shout out to everyone from Denver who remembers that place) with the sounds of bowling in the background and the smell of chlorine drifting from the pool.

I really like the instructional tutorials that take you step by step through all the scoring options on each table, in a way those little confusing cards never could. The Wiimote, numchuk combo controls feel perfect, especially how the Wiimote vibrates with the action. I do wish you could manually zoom in to see some of the fine details of the playing field. For example, there's no way to see what the S-H-U-T-T-L-E reward is in Space Shuttle - I only know what they are from memory of the original game (the two red rewards on the right are "Extra Ball" and "Extra Game" BTW). One thing I don't miss is broken flippers and bumpers that don't work.

My big hope is that these guys are in talks with Bally/Midway to bring some of their classics to the Wii. Addams Family alone would be worth whatever they wanted to charge, but Twilight Zone, Attack from Mars, Doctor Who - I would love to play those again. Not to mention there are still scores of Williams machines (Elvira and the Party Monsters anyone?) available for a sequel.

A Total Blast

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a total blast; lots of fun. At first I hated it. I had the same problem as another reviewer with the slight time delay in when you press the flipper buttons to when they actually flipped on the screen. One of the comments talked about the video connections and I changed the connection from RCA cables through the VCR to direct through the TV with some new cables. WOW, what a difference. Thank you for the comments because now I really am having fun playing pinball.

Most of the tables are fun - a couple are `eh... but most will rarely like everything contained in a collection. Space Shuttle and Pinbot are my favs - I remember playing them in an arcade called SilverBall in NJ. Those were days!

Great Value, Great Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This is a great pinball game. Probably the best pinball video game ever. There are ten tables, these include according to the international pinball database: The number 6 (whirlwind),9 (fun house),15 (taxi),33 (space shuttle),36 (black knight),59 (firepower),66 (sorcerer),106 (pinbot), and 134 (gorgar) best tables of all time, all of these tables are at the very least very good and at the best great. Only Jive Time isn't fun but I think it is a nice addition and helps to show how far pinball has come. Without using licensed (like Star Trek or Indiana Jones) or very recent tables (Medieval Madness or Tales of the Arabian Nights) it is difficult to imagine them choosing much better tables than they did.

The graphics are good, the controls are good, the physics are great, the sound is perfect. Really for 20 dollars it is one of the great bargains if you are a pinball fan. Even if you aren't it might make a pinball fan out of you.

surprisingly, my favorite wii game so far

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 23, 2008
Author: Amazon User

When I saw this game about Williams pinball I had to pick it up and look, yet I almost didn't buy it because I didn't fall in love with pinball until High Speed and this didn't have any of my favorite tables in it. But due to a half-off your 2nd purchase offer, this was only ten bucks, and now I can say I would've gladly paid 50 bucks for it.

Little annoyances, like pulling the plunger with your left thumb when it's actually on the right, get forgotten after you've played a few times. Being so much like the real thing was surprising, the attention to detail astounding (you even hear the pinball clink when it hits metal). In trying to represent what was originally a real, physical, non-video game, the limitations of the Wii graphics stand out more than any other game, yet it still looks great. The actual game-play was, to me, almost indistinguishable from the real thing. The "camera" angle moves around the table effectively. And, these are still some good, fun tables.

If I had this much fun (and part of the fun is in the astonishment of how realistically this game mimics real pinball) playing games I didn't particularly like, I can't wait until they come out with my all-time favorites like Police Force, Addams Family, and the greatest one of all, Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you like pinball at all, buy this.

Not what I expected

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: June 20, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have been an avid pinball player and was excited to try this game. It was a letdown, there are a number of viewing angles, all of which are not very good. There should have been more instructions on how to play the game, it took me a while to figure out how to shoot the plunger so I could get started. All in all I was very dissapointed, it did not have the feel of a real pinball machine.

Great game, but I need more titles!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

A lot of fun to play. Definitely worth the money. I only gave it 4 stars because I really wanted it to have Black Knight 2000 (best audio of any pinball game) and Adams Family (top selling pinball game of all time). Maybe the sequel will have these games.

This games ROCKS!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: March 10, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you like pinball and have a Wii this game is a MUST HAVE. The physics engine is spot on and the 10 tables included have incredibly accurate sound and artwork. Like others who have reviewed it, I've played many video pinballs over the years and this one is the BEST yet. Only the Pro Pinball series can compare. It's my understanding that the developers completely updated the engine from the Gottlieb version and they've done a bang up job.

My 13 yo boy and 8 yo girl love it. We play 3 player matches or tournaments together and it's a great family activity we can enjoy without having to trek to an arcade (if you can even locate one nowadays.) I imagine this would be a blast as a party game. Great way to show off your Wii. At $3 per table the price is a real bargain. Table selection is excellent with a nice variety of primarily Solid State Williams pins from the 80's and 90's.

My final thought for those who enjoy this game is to please talk it up to others. It's the type of game that has received little if any publicity but has the quality to become a cult classic if enough people learn about it. I'd love to see this one sell well so the developers will be encouraged to release more tables in the future.

Best pinball collection (see review for others)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 04, 2008
Author: Amazon User

If you enjoy pinball, get this. If you do not enjoy pinball, don't! If you are curious, this is a good place to start (or check out vpforums.com). The Wii controls are much nicer for pinball than the other platforms, since your hands are apart, using the triggers on the WiiMote and the Nunchuck controllers independently. Other platforms make you use the triggers on a gamepad, which doesn't feel the same. The nudge recognition is too easy to set off, but it is not a big problem, only an occasional annoyance. (Tilting is turned off at first.)

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