Having grown up in arcades throughout the 80s, I’m a big fan of all things retro in terms of video games, but that experience has also left me with a significant soft spot for pinballs. While obviously not all tables are great ones, those that captured my attention tended to blend together great flow with exciting features or modes that helped burn their essence into my mind. 

Digital pinball, unfortunately, needed a few decades to catch up. While Pinball FX and a few others now are putting out great conversions of classics as well as original tables, the road to get to this point went through many disappointing iterations and eras. Typically the issue for a long time was that the tables lacked real personality, whether in their visual presentation or audio pizazz to help them build excitement. That said, overly basic layouts, controls that were a little too slow, and physics that left something to be desired did nothing to help either and would have undermined the experience even if the presentation had improved.

For me Roxy Raccoon's Pinball Panic feels like something out of one of those earlier disappointing times, pretty well no matter what angle you come at it from. Despite the quite primitive look of its tables and elements, its controls feel a bit on the laggy side, there’s a lack of polish and flow to the feel of the physics that can make it frustrating, and no matter how many tables it may feature that can’t compensate for them simply not being much fun. 

The thing is, there are examples out there of alternative takes on traditional pinball that have worked out quite well, whether you’re talking about Yoku’s Island Express or Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes… so it isn’t like the odds are stacked against finding success. The challenge is to capture the essence of what makes pinball fun, almost regardless of the format of the experience. Sadly, Roxy Raccoon's Pinball Panic just does a pretty poor job of it, making it more disappointing than exciting.