Concept and Design
Most 'Marvel Pinball' Tables
Zen Studios' Marvel Pinball stood out as one of my favorite projects to work on, yielding EIGHTEEN incredibly well-reviewed video pinball tables over the course of nearly five years. I'd like to think at least a small part of this is due to the fact that no other developer directly implemented my design ideas to the extent that they did. Some of my personal favorite contributions to these great tables follow:
THE INFINITY GAUNTLET
|
I can't say for certain whether or not the concept of "The Infinity Gauntlet" was proposed by me to Zen or if they came to us with the idea, which we were already thinking of -- but this was an obvious choice from the very start, with the six Infinity Gems easily transferring to unique pinballs in play, each with their own magical effects. It was too perfect.
|
Working with Zen to determine the powers of each Infinity Gem in play was an amazing creative experience. Some of my ideas hit and some of them did not -- but one of the biggest I contributed was what happens when the Reality Gem goes into play (1:12 in the trailer), and the entire table flips upside down. People loved it; people hated it -- there was no in between. But we were taking advantage of pinball as a videogame when the approach is usually the other way around -- and that's exciting.
|
MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS
|
If you're curious about my work on this table based on one of the biggest movies of all time, see the PlayStation Blog entry I wrote -- all except No. 5 had a lot to do with my involvement. More on a specific one to the right...
|
The game begins with an idea of mine that came to define the table: "Choose your Avenger," Nick Fury requests of you, as you pick from the six unique balls above. Not only do they represent each Avenger, they also boast an added buff depending on the respective character's powers. It opens the door for strategy in a pinball game not seen in any other table I know of, video or machine based.
|
CIVIL WAR
|
As I mentioned in the PlayStation Blog entry about this table (they like me over there), "The idea to do a Civil War table came from us, and with it a
mandate: If you choose to do Civil War, you have to let the player decide if
he’s with Iron Man and Pro-Registration or with Captain America in opposition
to the Superhuman Registration Act. 'Whose Side Are You On?' was the slogan for
the event, and it’s the event’s central theme – choosing sides simply had to be
there."
|
In addition to the idea of choosing sides, I believe the following ideas were mine (apologies to Zen if I'm taking too much credit for any of these):
|
I could go on and on with the Marvel Pinball individual table anecdotes -- my touch can be found to some extent in every single one. The following Game Informer article speaks to this, too...
Voice Direction
Listen to the voiceovers in the first four Marvel Pinball tables, as opposed to all of them since, and you'll notice a remarkable step up in quality. We helped hook up Zen Studios with New Generation Pictures' voice director Jonathan Klein, who not only stepped in to help us cast better actors, but also involved us (especially me) in the process more than any other partner I ever worked with. I'd like to think Jonathan's involving us helped step things up even further.