I’ve tried to add a good sprinkling of decent free pinball games. I highly recommend downloading future pinball if you have some spare time. It’s a pinball development package that enables you to design your own table. I’ve added a download link to a site that hosts well over 300 free pinball tables made using this program. There’s also a tutorial available to walk you through the stages. Plus there’s several links to other pinball tables that I’ve added. I’d have listed even more, but thought it would be a good idea to post the rest some other time as there’s plenty to be going on with. :)
F1 Pinball: (14.7Mb)
The Game is designed around Formula 1's Michael Schumacher and David Coulthard's battle for the championship. The table is a true 2 player table where the players battle each other for the championship, accompanied with lots of Murray Walker remarks about each driver and challenging game play.
The game can be adjusted via operator menus to suit the level of skill the player requires.
F1 For Visual Pinball is in no way authorized by any official F1 or FIA party
This game was designed for free by F1 Fans for other Pinball/F1 Fans
Download Link:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f144.html
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Future Pinball: (19.2Mb)
Apart from the link I’ve added to the end of this section there’s also several more board available from the download page of Future Pinball.
Quote
Future Pinball is a real time Pinball Development System. It allows you to design and play your very own pinball simulation in True real time 3D. It uses Advanced Physics to provide the best possible Simulation of a true to life pinball machine.
Tables are built up out of Standard components (Plastics, Pegs, Bumpers, Lights etc..) which are placed onto the playfield via the Editor. Objects like Surfaces, Lights and Rubbers are shapeable within the editor and generated real-time when the table is played. Other objects (Bumpers, Flippers, Gates, Triggers, Targets etc..) use pre-made 3d Models (of which there is a nice selection of each type).
The Table logic is scripted in Visual Basic Scripting (via the Microsoft Scripting Technology's built into Microsoft Windows). Scripting is designed to be simple but flexible enough to allow a wide vararity of Original Games to be created. Only a limited subset of the Visual Basic Scripting Language is used as a lot of extra functionality is provided by the game engine.
Full Sound / Music Support is also provided with multiple Music Channels to allow cross fading.
As Future Pinball is a Game Construction Program it contains some advanced concepts which may require a little bit of time (and patience) to learn and fully understand (such as computer graphics and scripting concepts).
Referemce: http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f3014.html accessed 10th Oct 08
System Requirements:
Intel Pentium/AMD Athlon processor running 1.8GHz or greater
256MB RAM
A GeForce/Radeon GFX Card running Vertex/Pixel shaders
Download Link:
http://www.futurepinball.com/download.html
PDF document for Future Pinball:
http://www.futurepinball.com/downloads/PCWorld_-_Build_Your_Own_Game_-_Future_Pinball.pdf
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=akUurP0G8Kk
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-ii89DlrlTk&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BhPCl1JUrlo&feature=related
Link to fan made tables using Future Pinball: 334 free tables
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Trap Pinball: (<1Mb):
Modes:
* One ball (one player)
* Time-limited
* 2P Battle ( 2 players simultaneously)
Keys: A and D
Download Link
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f151.html
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Visual Pinball: (3.66Mb)
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f71.html
Features:
Complete freedom over table layout. If you like, you can start with nothing but a blank table and build up your creation. Or, start with a preset table or edit an existing table.
Curved surfaces. Walls and ramps can have both straight sections and smooth flowing arcs, as simpy as dragging a few points around.
True 3D rendering. Tables come alive with realistic shading and shadows. Choose to view the table at any angle, at any resolution - a small window to play while multi-tasking or full-screen max-resolution for the complete pinball effect.
Shaped Lights. Flashing arrows, arcs, semi-circles; lights can be made into any shape you deisre, or choose a simple circle to quickly whip a concept up.
Complete freedom over rules. The amazing VBScript based engine allows you to have any event create any effect! Combine events to create complex tasks, and give your game a real plot.
All the pinball parts are here. Plungers, flippers, kickers, bumpers, ramps, lights, text displays, gates, spinners, timers, triggers, decals, and drop targets are all at your disposal. And any wall section can become a slingshot with the click of a checkbox!
Shape your objects any way you want. A tall, thin bumper with a wide overhang? A short, stubby flipper that spins all the way around? Not a problem, just do it.
Add images to your board. Add your own pictures to walls, floors, spinners, bumpers, and targets to give your game a distinctive personality.
Choose any color you want for other parts like flippers, lights and text displays.
Reference: same page as download link accessed 10th Oct 08
Download Link:
http://www.caiman.us/scripts/fw/f71.html
Videos not sure whether these are related to the free program (simply because they are too good IMH)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5UvIgrTMshw
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3a4MVu5wlng&feature=related
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Psycho Pinball: (6.4Mb)
This is yet another great pinball game all the lovers of the genre need to try.
It’s loud and colorful, smoothly animated with almost real physics on the ball and the ability to slam the machine from either side in order to prevent the ball from sliding where you don’t want it to go. You slam the machine with both shifts and deflect the ball with both control buttons.
Needles to say the game supports multiplayer and there’s even less need to say that the multiplayer option consists of a hot seat where you and up to three more friends have to take turns (can’t really imagine two people playing pinball simultaneously on the same table).
There’s naturally some variety of the tables, where you get different settings, different targets and different scoring system, but every one of them is fun it its own right. The sounds vary from table to table to create the appropriate feeling, so you’ll hear either lots of bubbles (maybe even bursting when the ball is sunk) or witches laughing with high pitched voices (probably at your bad performances, of which I’m sure you’ll have only few).
There are four tables altogether:
Trick or Treat: As the name itself suggests it’s a Halloween themed table with witches and carved pumping all around.
The Wild West: You’re a horse ridding, lasso swinging, six-shooter carrying … err … pinball ball?! Yup, yer aimin’ to shoot that there high score, you are partner!
The Abyss: It has nothing to do with the sci-fi movie of an alien ship being deep under the ocean’s surface… well, except for taking place deep under the ocean’s surface. So I guess the term sleeping with the fishes isn’t just another mob phrase (at least not in this case).
Psycho: Now here’s a real treat for you! Unlike the rest of the tables (you’ll see that when you select other tables you’ll get a message playing on the single table) this is a multi table game. Now this is the true unique feature of Psycho Pinball and it’s possible only here, on the Psycho table. That’s right, this is the table where you can leave the circus and land on any other of the previously mentioned three tables (which can really boost your high score).
All in all a very good pinball game that will certainly waste a lot of your time.
NOTE:
The game works in WinXP, but is so slow there’s no point in playing it. I suggest you play it in DOSBox, but you’ll need to speed things up to around 12000 cycles. Another thing is, that this game doesn’t seem to allow you to use any programs for managing DOSBox (so you’ll have to run DOSBox the hard way).
Step by step guide to run the game:
Seeing how some people have problems running this game I was asked to add this to the review (although everybody who is comfortable with DOSBox will know that you can change the mentioned things):
1. Download and install DOSBox (prefrebly the latest version).
2. Download and unzip the game Psycho Pinball. (there should be a folder named PP with all the files in it).
3. Put the PP folder directly on drive C: (so you'll have a folder called C:PP).
4. Run DOSBox (no frontends - just DOSBox).
5. Enter the following commands (press enter after each line of command):
mount c c:\
c:
cd pp
psycho
You can download DOSBox from the following address:
http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
Psycho Pinball Download Link
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/1038/Psycho+Pinball.html
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There’s more but I’ll post those at a later date…… :) Though as always, if you back track on any of the links you will find more.
Regards
Stephen
