ZenStudios announced today that their next board, MARS, will be available April 20th, for all of you flipper jockies out there.  And I’m going to use that announcement to address an issue that’s a long time in coming.

I was wrong about Pinball FX2, when I blasted it at PAX last year.

In case you missed it, I shot down Pinball FX2 when I demoed it at PAX last year, and almost immediately suffered backlash for it--it was the reason I went back and addended our PAX Preview items to explain that they are not complete reviews; to drive home the point that these were limited access demos I was working with.

Again, I was wrong.

Pinball FX2 is actually extremely well put together.  The biggest difference for me between getting it home and demoing it at PAX was actually being able to hear the game.  The sound design is apparently a huge difference maker, and adds the visceral feel to the game that was missing on PAX’s noisy demo floor.  Also, having access to the bevy of boards that make up the Pinball FX2 universe adds a huge bonus (except Rocky & Bullwinkle--screw you, Rock & Bullwinkle), especially access to all the Pinball FX boards and new content like the Marvel Comics boards (still waiting on that Captain America one, though).  And the ability to fine tune every aspect of the board like you could a real machine is simply mind-blowing.

The occasional tournaments are a nifty way to keep the audience coming back in a means other than simply offering DLC or new achievements (which they also do, for those of you who dig that sort of thing).  And speaking of Achievements, hey!  Achievements that require skill instead of just being awarded for passing checkpoints!  You know, like Achievements were touted to be before the 360’s launch! How about that!

I don’t want to go into a full review here, because honestly I’m embarrassed about A) being proven so very wrong, and B) not correcting my error for so long.  But they still deserve a grade from HAWTwires, so I’m giving ZenStudios and Pinball FX2 a

GRADE: A-