LGR - Epic Pinball - DOS PC Game Review
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- Опубліковано 29 сер 2024
- PC pinball can be such a hit or miss situation... so when it turns out as solid and enjoyable as Epic Pinball, you have to take notice! The makers of Gears of War and Unreal got it right.
Epic Pinball for MS-DOS computers
Download the shareware v1.1 and v2.1 here:
www.classicdosg...
Since I've got very heavily into actual pinball this year I've been trying to work out which real pins the Epic Pins most closely resemble. Oddly enough, Magic is almost identical layout-wise to Gottlieb's Spin-A-Card. Also, Crash & Burn seems to be a weird hybrid of High Speed (Williams) and Victory (Gottlieb), the latter of which it slightly uses sound effects from.
I had this on my pc years back, brings back memories
Epic Pinball was good. But Pinball Fantasies was epic! :-)
I love pinball, both irl and in video games. I highly recommend Zen Pinball, when I first played the demo on 3DS it blew my mind. The physics are unbelievably realistic
I remember playing the shareware version of this. So much fun.
Yeah "Pinball Dreams" which I had on boot disks for the Amiga. Such great games. It ruined the shift keys of my Amiga though.Managed to repair them myself. Still love the Space Cadet for Windows.Which still plays on Windows 7 and 8.
Nice review.
I grew up with Pinball dreams and Pinball fantasies, but the only pinball game I keep coming back to is Pro Pinball Timeshock... I never grow tired of that one.
This guy really deserves more subscribers than he gets. Very excellent reviews.
Now up to 1.7m subs!
Oh dear god, i remember the shareware of this! Nostalgia ftw
I remember playing pinball on PC in the early 2000s. Don't remember the name of the game, but I also spent a lot of time trying to learn all the tricks.
I loved it.
My favorite pinball game.
Since i played real pinball growing up. I had this on diskettes
i remember having the shareware version of this too. i played android for hours upon hours and i used to look at the other tables available in the registered version (enigma in particular) and would just use my imagination. I eventually got to play the registered version and was not disappointed. This collection is probably the cause for my love for pinball as well. Between this game and tiger electronics handheld pinball i was hooked! Love your channel, it takes me back to my youth and often binge watch tech tales oddware and dos game videos! thanks for the great work and unique content!
I remember playing a pinball game for Genesis when I was younger that I loved. I can't remember what it was called but you could make your own pinball tables with a bunch of different skins and themes. It was one of my earlier introductions to pinball and I played it a ton. It was always cool to rent it and see what kind of tables other people had made.
Awesome review. You completely nailed my thoughts on Epic Pinball. I, too, obtained a copy of the full set of tables in 1994. It was right after our family got our first computer when I was 14 years old, and Epic Pinball was the one game that just about everyone played...Me, my friends, my cousins, my sister, and even my dad, who at the time hadn't played anything after Space Invaders. We all took turns competing at high scores. Someone would hold on to the top score at Crash & Burn for a few months...only to be taken down by Dad...and then a week later my cousin would randomly swing by for one night and get lucky, obliterating that high score with a run of dumb luck. It was amazing, fun stuff. The various soundtracks really bring back a rush of memories. Along with DOOM and TIE Fighter, this was my top game from that time period.
Thanks for the insightful review, the tidbits and trivia. I'm now a subscriber.
I played "Pot of Gold" back in the day. That was pretty much it. I enjoyed it a lot.
Awesome review. I used to play Epic Pinball when I was a kid, and I loved it so much. I played the Android table the most.
This was my first game on my first computer. I don’t remember how old I was. >8. I only had the Race car table and loved it.
for those who are interested, you can play this on the internet archive. You just search for it and when the page loads just click the graphic and it will load up dosbox on your browser and off you go. :)
Godam, I miss the golden age of PC gaming :(
So many great titles from this era..
The golden age of PC gaming is now. PC's can do anything better than a console. Add in Emulation of basically anything and plug and play control pads, Joysticks, etc, and a PC is a perfect machine. Back in those days PC's were really bad at 2D type games... like arcade games and those games popular on consoles like platformers. PC did have goo d games, but they were usually the games exclusive to PC.... and the games only won on PC because the PC/Mouse set up was the advantage consoles couldn't replicate.
@@petrusamp7792 I remeber that for some time back then even emulated 2D games, e.g. Sega Genesis, were much more fun to play - and looked more impressive - on PC than native PC ones.
Great video. I learned so much about the game from it. Super Android was the first PC game I've ever played in 1993 and still to this day it's my favorite of the collection.
Wow, I totally forgot about this game until now. Once I saw the Indy Car level, I immediately remembered. Thanks for bringing back old memories!
To me, the ultimate pinball game is, and always will be, Balls of Steel.
I find the atmosphere, physics, minigames, rulesets, difficulty levels, sound and graphics to be absolutely perfect! I know it's probably nostalgia talking, but that is in my eyes a perfect game, and it's now also available at GOG.com! :D Couldn't be happier!
I got an Acer computer in 1995 that came with a bunch of software from Epic pre-loaded, and remember the tables being Pangaea, Space Journey, and Toy Factory. Wound up getting the full edition, but still had a HUGE soft spot for Space Journey and Toy Factory's music
I remember this game. I only had Enigma, Crash and Burn, and Android primarily distributed by B&N. Personally, I am surprised that with what we can do with computers now, no one thought to redo the tables as virtual pinball tables; flipper buttons, backboard displays, and with the Unreal engine.
Absolutely in love with the later v2.1 Super Android music. It's epitome of demoscene music. Closest thing I can find to that nowadays is Declination (Instrumental) by Com Truise (or maybe Tribes by Dreams West, but that's more vaporwave)
Totally, Com Truise's newer track Chemical Legs perfectly resembles Super Android music.
This on 3.1 was the highlife of my preschool years
I love this channel so much
I choose... Devil Crush.
Okay, only one table, but I never get tired of that game.
@Phreakindee , watching this video yet again, much memory comes back from the days we had this on our first computer. It wasn't the full all out version of the game, but it along with Descent were on it. I think ours had that space level and the toy factory on it, and other levels needed to be purchased.
Such a long time ago. Such nostalgia! Such fun! Such awesomeness!
I must obtain this game (full version of course.).
I remember seeing a shareware version of the Android table that had the v2.1 music. Needless to say, it's still a good song.
I too had the shareware version of Android which my dad bought me at Radio Shack. I remember that day like it was yesterday.
Wow, I saw a comment on a random video of yours, and now that I think on this, it really does look like it was made in the 80s, with the cheesy music, the sarcasm and the 480p, it seems to be something good.
Wow, I'm so happy to finally have found a very decent DOS game reviewer! I've played Epic Pinball to death in the 90's. As I was quite young I always hoped to make the android 'come alive', too bad it's not possible as far as I know.
I didn't own any console back in the days, for me it was all about DOS gaming, hopefully some more people will discover these gems now. Looking forward to your other videos, keep up the good work!
I remember getting Cybergirl as a shareware table. Then Blockbuster Video was doing some kind of a promotion where you could get additional Epic Pinball tables with a 3 day rental or something like that. I ended up with Enigma, Deep Sea, and Crash and Burn. I later managed to score the full Epic Collection and Silverball somehow. I remember my dad bringing home a Zenith Z Player (PCMCIA) cd-rom for his Toshiba Satellite notebook and a pouch of various game CDs.
It only took you 4 years to make the review of silverpinball. lol. Joke aside, I saw, when watching this video, that your old videos really doesn't feel like the ones that you make today, but still great.
Haha, yeah I must admit I completely forgot about Silverball... hope that the older ones still hold up though, I'm not tremendously proud of them personally!
Lazy Game Reviews I actually really like the older ones, especially the ones with that Duke intro. You should bring that one back.
+Lazy Game Reviews Your videos are awesome old and new. The content on this channel is my childhood, This is the only place i know were we talk about classic PC games and tech with quality. other folks just half ass it. Keep going dude!
For the record I kind of like the older videos. They're a bit rougher around the edges but it adds to the charm for me.
Played this and Extreme Pinball constantly as a kid. Cyborgirl and the Rock n Roll Table were my favorites.
honestly, when I want to play pinball, I pick this up, even in 2016.
As a fellow North Carolinian, and pinball fan, I wonder if you've been to the Asheville pinball museum, or Flipper's arcade at the outer banks? Those places rule. You should go to there. Great video as always. Peace.
This was also my first pinball experience, but my shareware copy had the Enigma table. The soundtrack on those games is sooooo good!
My brother and I used to play this game non stop (The unregistered version). I had never heard the registered version's song, though I think I still like the shareware one better. Nostalgia is a heck of a thing. Also Lands of Lore and Day of the Tentacle we played a LOT.
shareware soundtrack is better, like synthwave 80's cyber action film
Even the music it's fun to hear it!
I absolutely loved this game back then, I miss the robot level!
I remember finding an old floppy version of Epic Pinball in my basement when I was like 5 years old. Unfortunately it's now buried in a box somewhere along with all the other dos games that were bundled with my family's old AST Advantage 486. I've been looking for those games ever since. -sigh-
I remember this! My 3.5" floppy version only came with Pot of Gold. And the sound didn't work on the game with my PC either! Still loads of fun.
I never got the full packs of the Epic Pinball series. Epic also released the tables individually as budget titles. if you installed them individually, they became part of the collection.
I ended up with about 6 of the 8 Epic tables until I got the abandonware version years later.
The Epic Pinball shareware was so great. I actually bought the Epic Pinball Pack 2 directly from Epic's Compuserve channel (or whatever they were called) back in the day. Unfortunately because I bought it online, I didn't get any manual or anything besides the game. It still holds true as one of my favorite DOS games though by far.
I remember Epic Pinball. Great game.
I remember playing this on my old Win 98 pc from the expert 250 arcade games cd, it was awesome
And 11 years to the day after this video was released, I got the WizardWorks release of this title in the mail from eBay. What a coincidence...
Oh god! This game reminds me of visiting my local computer fair when i was a kid, which is where i got this game along with a few other odd titles. That place was awesome, even if i had no idea what was going on. All i cared about was the tables with pc games scattered about, most of which i assume were bootlegged (i remember buying a collection of tetris clones, which included a tetris game filled with simpsons charactors.)
...
Now i feel nostalgiac and sad that they stopped doing pc fairs in my town... I'll go into my corner now and cry T_T
This and Kens labrynth were my into to pc gaming. I remember choosing them from a flyer and my mom mailing the check out. Oh the joy of having to type all those frigging commands to run games.
I grew up with this.
Awesome video! I'm definitely going to seek this game out. As for me, my first PC pinball experience was Microsoft Pinball Arcade then eventually Visual Pinball stuff. Now, I mostly play the Steam version of Pinball Arcade made by Farsight Studios. I don't know what it is with me, but I always preferred playing emulations of real machines as opposed to "video game only" tables although I've played Pinball Master quite a bit back in the day on our old Windows 98-wielding HP computer.
I have played this much, but extreme pinball was my favourite, actually only one table. The rockband table it is awesome and with superb music
always felt like a poor mans Pinball Dreams / Pinball Fantasies
very nice review.
one of my favorite dos games of all, I also love the soundtrack, can't get the main and android theme out of my head ^^
This game brings back so many memories of my cousin and I playing this, well the demo of it, but holy crap did it hold our attention for a long time. And to this day we still try to beat scores on the demo to see who improved...I got rusty of time.
Oh, and thanks for the reply! Love your reviews.
I can tell you right now, extreme pinball is awesome! I loved the soundtrack and the gameplay was soooo addicting. The boards were awesome; my favorite one is either the medevil one and the rock fantasy one. I have it for the computer but I lost it. I look forward to seeing a review of that game.
Love Epic Pinball - still play it now through DOS Box! Particularly love the Cyborgirl table as that's the one I had a shareware version of it.
This makes me want to play Silverball. That was my jam.
Pinball Fantasies Stones n Bones is the best! You should review it! :D
Such a great game, and the soundtrack kicks!
I remember getting a few of these games from Blockbuster Video
Epic Pinball has always been the benchmark for me. No other pinball game compares, but I'm probably just biased because of nostalgia.
I have a boxed copy of Cyborgirl. Never been able to play it but it's nice to own
I used to start Crash and burn, just for the music while playing with my LEGO's or something xD
If anyone wants to find a good pinball game for ios devices (ipads, iphones, ect) I can't recommend Gameprom's pinball games enough. The Pinball HD Collection includes an excellent free to play table that alone is worth the download (Wild West, a table with a classic look and feel), and features many flawless tables with their own look and feel. After replaying the demo a few hundred times I bought the Arcade Table (a crazy mishmash of pinball and simple arcade games) and Halloween (a classic table with a few animated effects you wouldn't see on a real table. There are also plenty of options that allow you to play the way you want. Eg, you can choose if the camera should follow the ball or show you the whole table at once, change the tilt, or turn off the voices.
Still love the Windows "Space Cadet" pinball.
I remember playing this, but the shareware version I had actually came with three of the third pack tables: Space Journey, Toy Factory, and Pangaea. Personally, I really enjoy them, and there are a couple of the tables I don't like so much but I enjoy the complete package. Space Journey never felt broken to me, I've gotten far in it just from a little practice... but Toy Factory was definitely pretty difficult! Space Journey was undoubtedly my favorite of the shareware pack I got, but Crash and Burn is easily my favorite of the other tables, along with Enigma because of the sheer unknown factor. (I managed to acquire the game some years ago but I don't know where it is now...)
Coll review, as always!
The first pinball game i Played (and loved as a 5 or 6 year old :D) was something with a 98 in the name i guess, but i don't know, i should search for it. I also like RL Pinball, we always are in France during the holidays, and they had 2 pinball machines back in the day.
These don't exist anymore though...
But i think i'm gonna give Epic Pinball a go! ;D
Loved Epic Pinball!!!!
Loved this game, it was one of my favourites along with Pinball Dreams and Fantasies on the Amiga. There was another DOS Pinball game called Psycho Pinball which had a sort of central hub table, the other tables were sub tables off the main one, I especially liked the one called Trick or Treat :)
I loved seeing parts of the robot on the diagnostics screen light up. Fun game but only had the shareware version
Personally I'm a big fan of the Pro Pinball series, especially Big Race USA, but that's a different era of games.
Great Review!
My parents got me one of the separate pinball tables as a retail that came with the Crash and Burn table.
ProPinball Big race USA and Fantastic Journey. The greatest pc pinball engine and games.
There's a consignment store in my town that has the Cyborgirl table for sale. I may pick it up now. Hopefully it'll run on my laptop.
I loved this game and burned hours on it. I seem to remember owning two different versions... One that allowed only Android & Enigma. And the other that release you showed on CD with Android featured on the front. I could be remembering wrong... All I know is that I burned HOURS on Android (or maybe Super Android...) hoping to bring that blue robot to life. I never did, but I also spent some time on Enigma. Don't remember playing the others much. THANKS FOR THE NOSTALGIA!
I love you for this.
You've mentioned the Digital Illusions pinball games in a few videos and I believe you've even shown the box to Pinball Dreams, but have you reviewed those games? If not, do you plan to review them? I've got them on my Mac, they're the DOS versions from GOG, I know people say they're inferior to the Commodore Amega games they're based on. I'm hoping you will review them at some point.
ive played a lot of pinball games. my favs are sonic spinball on genesis and metroid prime pinball on nintendo ds. maybe its because they both offer more than just pinball - sonic for example you controll the character through the table and in prime pinball creatures run along the table trying to destroy the ball and theres also bosses and shit its a great game i highly recommend it.
The best 2D pinball game is Slamtilt on Amiga and PC. It was perfect. Only 4 tables, but they are top notch. Epic Pinball is very decent game, but only like 5 tables are nice to play, the rest of them are quite boring. I like Crash, Android, Space, Cyborgirl and Deep Sea. I like when tables are busy with ramps, bumpers and switches just like in Slamtilt and Pinball Ilussions. I also like the score display animations and rich sound effects.
A good game and a good review, a game easily recognisable as coming from Epic Megagames. Full Tilt 2 will always be my favorite though.
As a kid I used to play this pinball game which had different stages and one of them included a set of piano-keys in the stage. It had this golden/yellow color scheme on it. I have tried to find this game on UA-cam but so far no dice. It was on MS-DOS and the year was something like 93-96. I'm craving for some nostalgia here. Anyone got the faintest idea which pinball game is it?
Try Pinball Dreams 1 and 2, Absolute Pinball, Pinball Mania, Total Pinball 3D.
My personal favorite pinball game is Pokemon Pinball RS
I grew up with a pretty cool series of pinball games under the name "FULL TILT! Pinball," including a superhero, horror, and alien themed table. Do you happen to have any of these in your collection?
Where's the mutant alien thing table and the one with the catchy music? Toy factory?
I really love this game, it's so fun!
I have this for the ipad :) Such a great game. The ipad version has updated graphics of course. Addicting!
BTW, have you tried modern Pinball FX2? It's surprisingly fun. The only thing I don't like about it is music. It's ok, I guess, but certainly not as good as cool tracker music of old pinball games, like Pinball Dreams, Epic Pinball, Pinball Mania, Pinball Fantasies, Silverball, Pinball Illusions etc. It also has like bajillion of tables, but they are all sold separately or in packs and good thing you can try them for free before buying.
The one and only Pinball game for MS-DOS I got completely obsessed with was Psycho. Have you played it?
Hey LGR, have you ever reviewed the Balls Of Steel pinball tables? Also, have you ever heard of Ultimate Pinball Gold and Devil's Island pinball?
I was wondering where African Safari came from, I never played that one. But I played the hell out of the other tables, especially Enigma and Cyborgirl. I forever miss the original music for the Android table. Super Android was good but I liked the original better.
I had an Amiga rather than a DOS system, and I loved both Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies on it. I didn't play Epic Pinball until much later. Maybe I have a bias against DOS games, but Epic Pinball just doesn't have the same appeal for me. It just doesn't feel as slick as the Digital Illusions games.
Oh... my... god... I think I started playing this when I was around 3-4? And I must of had the shareware version as well because I only had Android, Cybergirl and Enigma. Then when I tried to play another one it said that I could get it if blah blah blah... hard to remember that far back. But I too played it for hours at a time too
This was such a part of my childhood.
I never got the pleasure of playing Epic Pinball but did have the shareware Android version. I actually do think the original music was better than the registered version or maybe it's nostalgia 😉 Now, Silverball I did have on that machine and I played the crap out of it. Maybe it was my mind set of liking the Blood table and playing Doom and Wolf 3D on that 386 hand-me-down then a 486/33 😁
If you love pinball, I highly recommend what Zen Studios has been coming out with on the PS3 and 360. Really, fantastic work all around.
Also, how hard is this to find legit these days?