Sonic Spinball

You can't read a review about Sonic Mega Collection (GC) or Sega Smash Pack (GBA) (both containing Sonic Spinball) without reading about how supposedly "crap" sonic spinball is. Even good reviews from these games. Here are a few I found on the internet:

it's now time to describe Sonic Spinball. Folks, this game is widely considered to be the worst Sonic game out there, and with good reason. The game revolves around Sonic being used as a pinball, seriously now, that would make for a fun mini-game, but it's not exactly a concept that lends itself well to an entire game, as the failure of this game proves.

Sonic Spinball is pretty much a disaster. Featuring Sonic as the ball in a pinball game (no, really), this has you controlling the flippers as well as Sonic (as he destroys enemies in mid-flight). This makes things needlessly complicated in the controls area, and the game is consequently almost no fun. The graphics are functional at best, and it sounds like a keyring. It's a really neat idea, but what good is that when the execution is like this? Rubbish, quite frankly. Individual game rating - 2/10.

If Sonic Team could make a mistake, this is their first one. Sonic must navigate through a couple of hard pinball mazes. Sonic Spinball was a really stupid idea.

not a real sonic game. Why did they include this?

This review, on GameFAQs, was actually titled "I could've done without Sonic Spinball":

Graphics(7): The pinball machine looks okay, but Sonic is very small. Graphically, pinball machines are noticed for their uniqueness, and the pinball machine is a little bland looking.
Control(10): It's just like pinball, easy and simple. But that's the only reason this game gets that bonus.
Sound(6): It doesn't really sound like pinball game. There is music, but it's not very good. Hedgehogs are not good substitutes for pinballs.
Gameplay(4): From the start of the game, doesn't really look like pinball. It looks like an action platformer. You start out in this small area, and then you enter the pinball machine. Pinball is not very car trip like;it's more arcade like. It's very boring and perhaps the creators should have tried Sonic racing(like Crash Bandicoot and Mario did). This game should be left in the past, not in the future.

Sonic works *incredably* well as a pinball game - it fits with the series perfectly (I mean, COME ON! a lot of the sonic platform levels are designed like pinball machenes - moving onto a pinball game was the perfect progression). And whilst most pinball games give you about 4 tables, this keeps going on and on and on and on - I don't know how big this game is because I haven't got through it all! Spinball is one of the greatest examples of Sonic.

SO... anyone agree with me - it would be interesting...

Yeah, sonic works well as pinball, If sonic team had taken on the project true to sonic 3,

IF it wasn't so damn hard and if you didn't have to start over again,

If the controls weren't so slidey,

if the framerate wasn't so poor and the gravity wasn't so unforgiving,

It would work well if it was a pinball game with elements of sonic thrown in, instead of what appeared to be a poor sonic game which was pretending to have pinball in it.

then again, the pinball elements in heroes were also very poorly done, if we're going to have a pinball game, make it primarily a pinball game, and secondly a sonic game

I think I'd like the game more if I was better at pinball. XD

I didn't like it.

It was just really...... beaheldha, if you know what i mean.

Well I really love it! And I wish I had got the chance to play this game earlier because I would've loved it even more as a child.

Hear what Games TM had to say about it:
"Sonic Spinball was an attempt to cash in even more on the blue speedy one. Once again, deviating from what gamers expected (pinball, anyone?) proved its undoing and the fact that this was a deeply average game didn't help matters. At no point did SEGA consider the fact that the udders might have well and truly dried up as this ineffectual and ill-conceived game showed." Oooh, harsh!

I also really like the GameGear version - infact, in some ways its better than the MegaDrive version.

Spinball was not done by ST, it was done by SOA, hence the archie comic support (Archie comic characters made an appearance).

Not a bad sonic, different, difficult, but not bad.

I`ve never play Sonic Spinball before, any good?

Seth wrote:
I`ve never play Sonic Spinball before, any good?

i never got very far in it, but the first boss was cool the spider robotnik, it was smart as sonic is normally in a ball, and its a great game collecting the emeralds

I've never played it, but those casino levels in Sonic Heroes ( ) got on my nerves big time.

I never felt in control at all, didn't have a clue where I was supposed to go, and I could even let go of the control pad and it would bounce around for a good few minutes on it's own.

Tha level sounds awfully familar to Sonic Spinball, so no thanks.

Well, thats kind of what its based on, the whole "theme" of that kind of thing - BUT it has a completely different game-engine to the sonic platformers. I know what you mean about the casino-type levels, you feel out-of-control, but this isn't like that at all, the game-dynamics are designed for pinball, rather than platforming and you feel perfectly in-control.

its easy to control, and its surprising for a computer that doesn't have the best graphics ever its as easy to control as all the other sonic games on the mega drive

i would say that it insults any other sonic game

wilkos right

oh god i remeber thisa game it was complete shit it just didnt feel like a sonic game utter crap

[ Edited by Blade2t3 on 2004/6/10 19:39 ]

Theres only 1 thing better than the Mega Drive Sonic Spinball, and thats the Game Gear version. Fantastic.

I played it on SMC and i had to use the D-Pad. The gravity is so messed up it's hard to do anything.

The Windows pinball game is better than it

The_cackling_idiot wrote:
I played it on SMC and i had to use the D-Pad. The gravity is so messed up it's hard to do anything.

I use to love Sonic Spinball when I was younger! I was real good.
I recently played it again in the Sonic Mega Collection. Still good, shame I no longer was

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