Anybody who has been following Fandomania for a while should know by now that I’m a huge fan of ZEN Studios’ Pinball FX2. It is, without a doubt, the best pinball video game ever produced, and its structure as a platform that allows the easy download and import of new pinball tables makes it an even more awesome game with longevity. ZEN has been great about keeping the new table releases coming, and the latest one arrives this week with a pinball table based on Twisted Pixel’s Ms. Splosion Man.
The folks at ZEN Studios and Twisted Pixel are fans of each other’s work, and by all accounts the dealmaking involved in getting Ms. Splosion Man into Pinball FX2 was a breeze. The two companies’ mutual respect and willingness to share assets pays off with what turns out to be one of the most outright fun pinball tables yet. The new table brings us into the laboratories of Big Science, the folks who created the Splosion family in the first place. Ms. Splosion Man shows up at the bottom right of the table, and she must splode her way through countless obstacles and missions, her ultimate goal being the defeat of the giant robotic Mighty Eternal and the rescue of Splosion Man himself.
With sounds and visuals pulled straight out of Ms. Splosion Man, the Pinball FX2 table does a great job of capturing the zany and frantic feel of the original game. Ms. Splosion Man dances, swoons, and splodes through her idle animations while you’re playing pinball, and her reactions and comments are half the fun of the experience. Whether she’s launching into the Macarena, spouting off Gwen Stefani lyrics, or reacting to your losing with a heartfelt “OMIGOD,” there’s nothing not to love about the weird little pink gal. Scientists from Big Science occasionally make appearances as well, always trying to thwart your progress with glass walls, exploding barrels, and more. Perhaps the most surprising and coolest cameo comes from the Destructoid robot head that pops up in the back left of the table.
The Ms. Splosion Man table provides a wide array of game modes and interactive objects, most of which eventually lead to big splosions and even bigger scores. One of the big draws for pinball is the quest for higher and higher scores. Many tables enjoy smacking your pinball down the chute and denying you those glorious points, but not Ms. Splosion Man. Nearly every game mode and interactive element is extremely accessible, but it’s not so easy as to make playing the table trivial. Rather, being able to actually activate all this stuff and make more progress on this table than on a lot of the other, more challenging tables, gives Ms. Splosion Man some real added appeal. Points shoot up super fast, and the challenge is not to get a high score but to get a stupidly ridiculously high score. On my second round with the table I broke 146 million points, having never crossed the 100 million mark in all my previous Pinball FX2 playing.
Everything about the Ms. Splosion Man table is fun, from the hilarious voice work to the amusing animations to the gameplay itself. Having achievable goals makes playing the table feel very rewarding, and seeing the score counter climb and climb and climb makes this table stand out from the growing crowd. Additionally, you can unlock another 50 gamerscore worth of achievements for your Xbox gamertag, further increasing the ceiling of possible points for Pinball FX2. The Ms. Splosion Man table releases on Wednesday, August 31, for 240 Microsoft Points, and it is a must buy for fans of either franchise.
