Game review: PinOut – looks can deceive, in a surprisingly good way
Classic gets a facelift with bundles of audio-visual depth and degrees of difficulty that are sure to challenge
PinOut
Mediocre Games
4/5 stars
Gaming is in a strange, exciting place – VR is changing the overall landscape, free-to-play mobile games are questioning the value of retail purchases, and upcoming newfangled releases such as Nintendo’s half-console, half-portable Switch system are blurring the lines between how one interacts.
It’s all exhilarating and only a little bit confusing, but enough to make us occasionally retreat to our phones and settle in for a game of old-fashioned pinball. That’s exactly the charm of PinOut, a deceptively simple-looking Android game that reveals surprising levels of audiovisual depth and difficulty.
The classic, if-it-ain’t-broke pinball structure is here, of course – two flippers, a little metal ball and brightly coloured surfaces to race through – but rather than aiming for a standard set of goals, you’re tasked with traversing a fast-paced series of maze-like maps. The aim is to keep moving forward from one to another, forever pushing that little ball into newly discovered ground, aiming for specific pathways and alleys on an ever-changing board.