Flipper Critters
Score: 78% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Ignition Entertainment USA Developer: Zen Studios Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Flipper Critters is the newest of the few pinball games available for the DS. The graphics are very bright and cartoonish. They don't really give it the feel of a traditional pinball game, but I guess pinball doesn't have to look like pinball. Still though, the overall look of the game makes me think of a children's cartoon show. I personally would have preferred something that looked a little less cartoony. The game runs across both the touch screen and the view screen. When you hit the ball at the bottom, it can fly all the way to the top. The transition from one screen to the other is well done, as your ball comes out right where you would expect it to - the graphics don't move. The music in Flipper Critters sounds more like the background music of an RPG than what I would think of for pinball. It does have traditional sounds for the flippers, and there are some dings and clicks like I would expect, but not nearly as many. It sounds more like they were concerned with the background music than giving the game a true pinball feel.
Gameplay: When you load up Flipper Critters, you have the options of Story Play, Fun Play, Load Game, High Scores, Options, and Credits. Story Play is the main "quest" mode in Flipper Critters. In Story Mode, you play the adventures of Gawain "Tiger" Chesterton and his best friend, Bubba "Monkey" McManus. In their adventures, Monkey is rolled up into the pinball and Tiger is in control of the flippers. Tiger has to shoot Monkey around or off of obstacles to get down the right paths to meet up with various amusing characters, like Miranda of Mirandel Castle and Gruff "Billy" Goat. Each area/town consists of several parts. You have to maneuver Monkey through each part to get to the next one. If Monkey gets past your flippers, he will fall down to the previous part. If you're at the first part, you get a ball out and lose a ball. You only have five balls to complete the game, so you have to be very careful! I would definitely recommend saving each time you get to a new town. That way, if you lose a ball or two, you can start that town over with however many you had when you saved. If you lose all five balls, it's game over and you have to start back at the very first area. Fun Play has three different choices available, one by default and two unlockable. Unlocked as soon as you've played Story Mode is Pinball. In Pinball, you can play any of the story areas that you have gotten to. You do not need to have completed the area to have it available. The second choice is Mini-Games. There are three mini-games available to unlock in Flipper Critters: Flying Battle, Gravity, and Magic Bride. After you've unlocked any of these, the third choice you have is to play them Multi-player.
Difficulty: Overall, I would say Flipper Critters is not an easy game to beat. It is easy to learn how to play - after all, who doesn't know how to play pinball. You simply hit the button to activate the flipper and bounce the ball around the screen. Flipper Critters gives you huge red and green arrows to show you where you're supposed to go. Unfortunately, they just don't help very much. Even though you know where you're supposed to go, quite a few times you can't figure out how to get there. The board runs across both screens, but at the angles you're looking at, you can't really see what paths get you where. At times, you can see the person you're supposed to talk to, but you have no clue how to activate what you need to get to them, and there isn't any additional help. The flipper controls are perfect at least. It is going to flip exactly when you hit it, so once you get the timing right, you should be able to get the ball right where you want it to go. The touch screen seemed a little less accurate to me. I had trouble holding the stylus and still using the shoulder buttons, which meant I had to use my finger to hit the touch screen. Some of the targets are too close to each other to be able to hit accurately without the stylus, making it difficult to use the touch screen.
Game Mechanics: Flipper Critters is played mostly by using the Shoulder buttons, which makes sense. Intuitively, you gravitate to using them since it feels like a real pinball machine with the flipper buttons on each side of the machine. In addition to the Shoulder buttons though, you have to use the touch screen to move targets, turn wheels, lift things, and for many other things. This doesn't work so well, unless you have three hands. Basically you'll have to let go of one flipper button to activate whatever control you need to hit, so if it doesn't work right and the ball bounces back, you end up not being able to hit it and losing that ball. Alternatively, you can use the D-pad for the left flipper and the (X) or (Y) or (A) or (B) button for the right flipper arm, so theoretically you would be able to use one hand for the flippers and one hand for the touch screen, but then it really doesn't feel like a pinball game! The Start button pauses the game and the Select button activates the guide to give you a flyover of the area and show you where the targets are located. Flipper Critters is an amusing game, but it does have a few problems. The use of the touch screen could have been done better. The fact that you have to start Story Mode over at the beginning when you run out of balls is very frustrating. Yes, you can revert to your last game save, but it's still difficult to get past each area without losing at least one ball, and at that rate, you die before the end. If you're a big fan of pinball, or you just like hitting the ball around, you'll probably enjoy it. If you actually like to get somewhere in a game and aren't a pinball master, you might want to avoid Flipper Critters.
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
Race Driver: Create & Race NBA Live 08