Pinball Panic Hands-On Impressions

Pinball Panic is less of a pinball game and more of an unofficial version of Milton Bradley's Crossfire that uses GPRS multiplayer. The version of the game we saw was currently being subjected to extensive testing by the game's developer, which maintained a constant vigil at its handsets, providing any CTIA conference attendees with ready-and-willing opponents. While the game was exceedingly simple in design, it seemed to use networked multiplayer well, and it didn't visibly suffer from slowdown or other pitfalls of the medium.

In Pinball Panic, the object is to use two paddles to send balls flying toward your opponent via three portals on the table. Meanwhile, he or she will be trying to do the same. One of these pinballs is constantly ablaze. Having this particular icon on your side of the table continually drains your score. Should you manage to transfer all balls in play to your opponent's side of the table, you'll receive a "super bonus," lasting as long as it takes your opponent to return at least one ball to you. When either player achieves a score of 9,999 points, the game ends.

Pinball Panic uses an elegant system to match players. You can choose to engage in a quick match, challenging the player who hit the same option nearest you-- chronologically--or you can play against someone from your friends list, which resembles that used by Microsoft's Xbox Live online console gaming service. Should you encounter players who either continually quit games before they're finished or engage in similarly distasteful behavior, you can block them so that you will never be bothered by them again.

Pinball Panic's bare-bones presentation means it's virtually identical between series 40 and 60. This doesn't make for a graphical showstopper, but it is a highly compatible game that runs well over the airwaves.

Pinball Panic seems particularly uncomplicated. It remains to be seen whether this property will be a weakness or an asset, though, admittedly, with US network speeds what they are, not much more is yet possible for real-time multiplayer over GPRS.