Pinball League: Hardhat Zone review – a universal pinball game for Windows Phone and Windows 8

Although the much-loved Pinball FX2 sadly never showed upwardly on Windows Phone, Microsoft's mobile phone platform has a long-running pinball series of its ain: Pinball League from Tainicom. It started with The Juggler manner back in 2022, followed past Dr. Pickaxe the next year. Both games also made it to Windows 8 and RT.

After a two year absence, Tainicom is back with their latest pinball game – Pinball League: Hardhat Zone. This and Tainicom'due south previous pinball games are universal purchases, so you can buy information technology once and enjoy on Windows Phone and Windows 8 and RT. Excitingly, Hardhat Zone introduces some new features like portrait and mural back up, Facebook leaderboards, and multiplayer via NFC (Nearly-Field Advice). Come across the NFC multiplayer mode in action in our video review!

Men at work

Although the table blueprint skews towards realism, the blithe structure zone that surrounds the table makes for an interesting and attractive presentation. The "Hardhat Zone" consists of a skeletal edifice frame, trucks, bulldozers, backhoes, and other construction equipment. Several animated workers (who resemble LEGO minifigures due to their low-polygon models) toil away, forever waiting for the time clock whistle to tell them the twenty-four hour period's work is washed.

It's a skillful thing the stuff surrounding the tabular array is so visually rich, because the design of the table itself is adequately mundane. The tiptop of the main table expanse consists of several ramps, a trio of bumpers, and approximately five scoring lanes. The bottom side of the table is more often than not empty, other than some drop targets on the sides.

For my tastes, at that place should exist some kind of three-dimensional object matching the theme on the table itself, as you'd run across with nigh existent tables. Here, information technology's all in the periphery.

Don't remember I'm calling Hardhat Zone a boring game. The developers exhale some life into the game itself with a couple of minigame-like bonus tables that can be accessed by knocking the brawl onto specific ramps. Instead of warping to a completely unlike area like in Pinball League: Dr. Pickaxe, these two bonus tables physically connect to the main tabular array on its left and correct sides. The result is a more continued and grounded feel while nonetheless maintaining the fun of beingness able to access new areas.

Hardhat Zone has a combo arrangement, so putting the brawl through ramps repeatedly will internet big score bonuses. Completing certain deportment will cause the game to display messages similar "According to plans" and "Weld your combo," the latter complete with a welding blitheness from one of the construction workers. I'grand not sure exactly what these letters mean – they probably point bonus modes or something.

Two orientations

For the first time in the Pinball League serial, Hardhat Zone supports portrait orientation. Players can switch orientations on the fly, or only lock the orientation in the Settings menu.

Welcome as the portrait orientation is, landscape nevertheless offers a more enjoyable experience. Presentation is one gene – most of the visual flourishes tin can scarcely be seen in the vertical orientation attributable to those touches not appearing on the table itself. Landscape style is angled and zoomed in more than equally well, which looks nicer.

I as well find the controls hard when playing with my phone in portrait mode. You have to tap the left side to move the left flipper and the right to move the other one, just as you'd exercise in mural. But I find that my thumbs cover more than of the critical area you'd need to run into while playing pinball (the bottom of the screen). My solution would be the option to move both flippers with a single tap. This would even permit usa to hold the telephone in one hand and play with the other, increasing comfort.

Facebook Leaderboards

At concluding! In score-based games like pinball, online leaderboards are so important. A large part of the entreatment is trying to outdo other players' scores and climb the leaderboards.

Hardhat Zone makes some progress in the leaderboard department, simply more work still needs to be done. The leaderboard here but displays your Facebook friends' scores. Windows Phone is a minority platform and not every Windows Telephone user is going to by whatever item game. My leaderboard currently shows my score and no others, so I'm not actually getting any value from information technology just yet.

A better implementation would be to offering both a global leaderboard *and* a friends leaderboard. Let u.s. see how we stack up against all Hardhat Zone players, not just people we know! Also, some stat tracking (whether online or offline) such as number of games played would be interesting.

Versus mode

Too new to the series is the two-actor versus fashion. To apply it, both devices must have NFC enabled. Choose "2p Versus" and tap the two devices together when prompted. The game will display Facebook names and profile pictures if continued to Facebook, otherwise you'll simply show upwards as a nameless and faceless histrion.

The versus fashion lasts for two minutes. During this time, each player tries to earn as many points as possible. Lives are unlimited, so don't worry about failing before time runs out. Later the match ends, you'll automatically play some other unless a player chooses to back out. Versus results are not saved locally or tracked online, unfortunately.

Unlike leaderboards, nobody expects multiplayer from a pinball game. Hardhat Zone's versus manner is purely a bonus. Still, the choice to use NFC instead of WI-Fi for multiplayer is a shame. Many users keep NFC turned off in order to conserve battery life, and so having to turn information technology on is a modest hassle. Only the real downside is that many Windows 8 devices such as desktops, laptops, and even the Surface RT/two and Surface Pro/Pro 2 don't support NFC. Those computers and tablets won't be compatible with this game'due south multiplayer.

Windows 8 version

The Windows 8 version of Hardhat Zone supports portrait and landscape manner, just like the phone game. It also allows players to adjust antialiasing in order to optimize functioning.

In addition to touch controls, the tablet and PC version supports both keyboard and mouse controls. The mouse launches the ball past dragging, and its buttons command the flippers. On keyboard, space bar tilts, the Ctrl keys control the flippers, and the correct arrow key as well activates the right flipper. That's smart since some tablet keyboards similar the Surface Type Cover don't have a right-side Ctrl central.

My only complaint control-wise is that the Controls menu in Settings doesn't display the fundamental bindings. Fifty-fifty if we tin can't change the bindings, it actually should tell players the keyboard controls instead of requiring us to experiment.

Overall Impression

Pinball League: Hardhat Zone'southward many improvements over Dr. Pickaxe make it easily the best pinball game available on Windows Phone. The music is better (though yet non good), portrait support is a good option, and the Facebook leaderboards and 2-player mode are imperfect but welcome. Mayhap those latter ii features will be refined over fourth dimension.

Although the construction zone theme and bodily tabular array blueprint are not particularly exciting, Tainicom has still made a very good looking and playing pinball game. Let's hope the expect for their adjacent table is less than two years this time!

• Download Pinball League: Hardhat Zone for Windows Phone ($i.99)
• Download Pinball League: Hardhat Zone for Windows 8 and RT ($1.99)

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/pinball-league-hardhat-zone

Posted by: michaelaskins.blogspot.com

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