Though I’ve performed lots of pinball in my time, I’ve no recollection of ever taking part in Scared Stiff. Initially launched by Bally in 1996, it was the second machine to characteristic Elvira, Mistress of the Darkish. The primary was Bally’s Elvira and the Occasion Monsters, additionally now out there in Zen’s Pinball FX (and likewise reviewed by Pure Nintendo).
So, I got here into Pinball FX – Williams Pinball: Scared Stiff with no preconceived notions, and I’m having fun with it sufficient to hunt out the precise machine.
The duty right here is to work your approach by means of the Six Tales of Terror. These have various levels of problem, in fact, and finishing all of them is an excessive problem. Doing so ranges up the Stiff-o-Meter, with the purpose of hitting degree 10 (Scared Stiff). It’s so much to tackle. Elvira herself gives some steering, however, as you’d count on, you’re primarily left counting on lights and your information of the sport to seek out the suitable goal.
As is customary with Pinball FX video games, although, you get loads of methods to observe. Essentially the most enjoyable possibility is to simply hop into Traditional Mode and play the machine as you’ll on the native pinball parlor (should you’re fortunate sufficient to have an area pinball parlor). Amongst the quite a few different choices out there, nevertheless…
…is a Apply mode in which you’ll play for an hour with out shedding your progress. Your scores right here aren’t recorded for the achievement board, in fact, but it surely affords you adequate time to work in direction of the last word purpose. And that’s one thing to think about with pinball; it’s extra enjoyable once you intention to finish the “missions.” The excessive scores will observe.
Scared Stiff’s audio is superb, particularly the quotes from Elvira herself. As you’d count on from the title, the sport is rife with innuendo, and you’ll inform the unique designers had been in sync with what Elvira was about. It provides levity that’s often lacking from pinball.
I believe the sport’s unique design, nevertheless, does muddy up the digital presentation. The taking part in area is extraordinarily busy. Which will work in an arcade, however—when mixed with the darker visuals of Pinball FX—it makes it very exhausting to observe the motion, particularly in multi-ball. It’s typically exhausting to trace the ball(s) till it’s too late. You’ll even have to find out when to permit your self to be distracted by the varied animated and backglass animations. They’re fairly intelligent, however you actually can’t afford to lose your focus.
Even when you’ll be able to observe the ball, Scared Stiff’s heart drain is wildly unfair. Somebody must inform me if this was the case with the bodily machine. If that’s the case, Zen did nothing about it, for higher or worse. Alternatively, the aspect drains are virtually nonexistent. I can rely on one hand (mabye two) the variety of instances I misplaced a ball to an outlane.
Oh, talking of which, when you have a Swap 2 Professional Controller, I extremely advocate mapping Zen’s nudge capabilities to the G buttons. A lot simpler to make use of…though it does make unintentional nudging a problem.
Anyway, the shortcoming to remain targeted on the motion means there’s fairly a bit left to probability. Fortunately, catching the ball with the flippers is a reasonably simple job right here. This lets you sluggish issues down and intention accordingly, so there are fewer blind photographs than I’ve seen in different Zen recreations. Once more, I’m unsure if this was easy on the precise machine, however I did discover it simpler than on different Pinball FX tables—fewer odd bounces and events the place the ball rolled up and over the flipper.
As I stated up high, Scared Stiff is an efficient machine. It’s the primary one I am going to now once I launch Pinball FX, however I do have an issue with the pricing. For $9.99, there’s no purpose Scared Stiff and Elvira and the Occasion Monsters shouldn’t have been launched as a bundle. Even at Zen’s commonplace $14.99 bundle worth, it will’ve made extra sense. You’ll get extra in your cash by going again to any of the Williams bundles you haven’t but moved from Pinball FX 3 to FX.
