Thank you Zen Studios for sending us a review code!

I have been playing and reviewing Zen Studio’s recreations of classic Williams pinball tables since volume one. This collection hasn’t fared so well on the Steam reviews, but it’s still worth checking out. This volume includes three tables for $9.99. Here’s a breakdown of each table:

Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray – This wacky table had 4,000 units made in 1990. This table has one ramp, two flippers, and only two balls in the multiball mode. I totally get Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure vibes when playing this table. Your goal is to become a super dude by using the excellent ray at the kinetic clinic. But first you have to gather the necessary ingredients: ultimate hipness, heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll, magnetic personality, and the gift of gab. Until you become super cool you'll be taunted by a bully. This is my favorite table in the collection.

Fun House – This machine was released in 1990 with 10,750 tables produced. It features two ramps, three flippers and has up to three balls in play in the multiball mode. This is a pretty busy pinball machine with a clock front and center and a ventriloquist doll’s head in the upper right hand corner. The puppet’s name is Rudy and he’s taken over the funhouse. Rudy will also hurl insults at you until you reclaim it. You have to regain control of it by advancing the clock to midnight and waiting for him to fall asleep. I found that it’s easy to lose the ball in this table and there’s no grace period for getting a free ball once you pull the lever.

Space Station – This is a pretty rare table with only 3804 units made in 1987. At first glance, it’s pretty empty, but there are fifteen pop-up targets. There are two flippers, two slingshots, and three pop bumpers. The multiball mode has three balls. The visual enhancements add an astronaut that floats across the table.

Visually, these tables look great and some of them have more eye candy than others. The animated characters like Dr. Dude add more personality to the table with the enhancements enabled. The ability to disable the enhancements and play the classic tables is nice as well.

Some Steam reviews mention the poor audio in this collection. I did notice that the background music sometimes over-powered the sound effects or voices of the characters.

Overall, this is a decent collection of Williams tables. If you enjoyed the previous Williams collections, you’ll definitely want to add this one to your library. It’s one of the more family-friendly volumes available. I miss the ball grace periods of the other tables in the previous collections. This collection is more challenging as a result.