Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball
Pinball action with a twist. Our arcade enthusiast takes a closer look.
Preview by James Cunningham (Email)
May 26th 2005
Capcom had a surprise on the show floor with Flipnic, their $20 budget pinball title. With slick and clean visuals, and a strong sense of ball physics, Flipnic does a good job of capturing how pinball feels while completely trashing the standard pinball table layout. Instead of a having the standard giant box in which the ball gets batted about, Flipnic presents arenas interconnected by wild, twisting ramps, all laid out within a giant themed environment.
Areas on display in the E3 demo were nicely diverse, and batting the pinball through the jungle and up a waterfall was just as entertaining as nailing targets on a giant UFO. The pinball itself is even given abilities in certain situations, like firing a laser at UFOs while circling them on a spiral ramp. Pinball has always been one of the great arcade games, and though Flipnic can't imitate the physical feel of a ball running over the table and hitting the bumpers, it can thoroughly exploit the possibilities brought about by being translated to a video game.
