I’m not even sure how to review Smoots Pinball. It’s a game so shockingly bad I feel slightly violated having played it, especially after basking in the 4K glow of Pinball FX. Not that these two games were ever meant to compete, but the fact that they can even coexist on the same console is astounding. Being sold as a PS4/PS5 dual purchase with a separate download for each, I struggled to see any differences between testing the game on both consoles. I even tried the PS4 version on the PS5. No matter what version on which system, they all looked and played identically.
Let’s cover the basics. Smoots Pinball is a pack of five tables with distinct themes and visuals. You have Baseball, Summer Games, Tennis, Golf, and Zombie. You can have 1-4 players using a shared controller that can launch a ball, flip some paddles, and tilt the table. While that all sure sounds like pinball to me you might be surprised how lifeless these tables end up being. All tables are locked into a static view – no zooming, no scrolling, so your entire pinball experience is only a third of your screen with the sides being filled in with thematic art and animation.
It’s all made significantly worse with the low-resolution source graphics that might be 720p at best, but when blown up to 4K are so distractingly bad it’s hard to even play the game, not that there is a game to be played. None of the tables appear to have rules or sequences of events to follow to earn rewards. Each table has a few perimeter lanes and usually some sort of rail system and maybe a few catch and release traps, but most of the tables are barren of things to do. There are no skill shots and flippers don’t even change lane lights, not that there is anything to spell. There are no ball physics or realistic spin or rotation; you are basically hitting what looks like a 2D sprite around a 2D table being shown from a 3D view.
Another annoying glitch are the flippers that will ghost or de-sync from the animation of the ball, so they pass through each other. That might be cool for the Flash, but it sucks for a pinball game. Also, for some reason the ball is so floaty that when it simply rolls over the gap between the rail and the flipper it pops up, so you can never get a fluid flipper shot. I’ve also had numerous issues with simply launching the ball into play – took 12 tries once, which might explain the lack of skill shots.
The music is suitably generic and the sound effects minimal, which I suppose combines perfectly with the PS2-era graphics and gameplay. The themes of the tables had absolutely no bearing on how you played the game, so none felt distinct other than the Zombie table for obvious reasons. That table looked out of place even in the menu, but its dark design and spooky audio was ironically the only bright spot in this dismal package.
As you might have guessed by now, I cannot recommend Smoots Pinball, even as an ironic purchase. Putting aside the abysmal graphics and lack of physics there is barely anything here to even resemble a pinball game worthy of being played on the PS5 (or PS4). Smoots Pinball is not worth your time or the storage space, so save your $6 and stick with Pinball FX.
