Game Boy :: Genesis :: NES :: Sega CD :: SNES :: TurboGrafx-16 :: Complete System Listings

Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators (Saturn)

Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators review

Game: Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators
Platform: Saturn
Genre: Unknown
Developer: Unknown

Reader review by pickhut

February 28, 2007

Man, I love playing with balls. Especially silver balls I get to smack around with flippers. And when I play with one long enough, a whole bunch of silver balls come out wanting to get smacked as well.

If you think I'm talking about pinball, then... yeah, let's go with that.

In Last Gladiators, you'll get plenty of opportunities to abuse balls across four different tables. Of course, each table has its individual theme, like knights and samurai, but the themes are mostly limited to background art and LED screen animations. The closest that a table comes to taking advantage of its theme on the field is the Gladiators table, where you can shoot a ball inside a coliseum. Now, when you start playing for the first time, you really get the impression that you're playing a real-life pinball machine. Each table is littered with bumpers, ramps, impressive LED animations, targets, and a whole bunch of... blinking lights, making it look pretty close to the real deal. Add in the rockin' soundtrack that plays a different tune every time something happens, and you have one slick pinball title here. Hell, despite being released over 10 years ago, LG hasn't aged at all, it still looks real good.

But none of that won't mean squat if you can't enjoy yourself in its environments. Thankfully, LG delivers as you go on your usual quest for the highest score ever. With almost every turn you make, every ramp you go on, or every hole you go down in, you'll activate a challenge. Ranging from hitting bumpers a specific number of times to getting all the letters of a word, there's plenty of obstacles that'll keep you occupied throughout. Though, out of all of those, we all know what you'll be anticipating the most: multiball. Now, the developers could have given you the usual two-ball challenge, but they give you more than that, letting you have the chance of getting up to six balls at once on a table. The multiball segments are no doubt the best moments in the game, especially since you not only have to keep all those balls on the table at once, but you have to try and rake up a whole bunch of points in the process. I tell ya, you haven't really experienced multiball if you haven't had the opportunity to smack around six balls at once. It's chaotic.

LG really is a fun pinball title, but there's this one little issue that may just turn off a few players. As you may or may not have known, nudging plays a big factor in trying to keep the ball on the table for as long as you can. But in LG, nudging has almost no effect at all. No matter how hard you try, nudging barely moves the ball to the sides as it goes down the middle. Actually, nudging in this game can be dangerous at times. As you see the ball supposedly fall to its doom, you start nudging away, only to see the ball slow down and actually move closer to the middle... In the end, it's better not to shake the table at all, since you'll have a better chance of surviving that way. However, even with that one nasty flaw, you'll get a lot out of the four tables in this title. In comparison to something like Hyper 3-D Pinball (another fun Saturn game), Last Gladiators may be a bit simple and have a low table count, but the amount of challenges and intense sessions of multiball will be enough to suck you into its little, ballsy world.

Rating: 8/10

More Reviews by pickhut
	Shadow Dancer: The Secret of Shinobi (Genesis) Coming off the heels of Revenge of Shinobi, a highly-praised game during the Genesis' launch year, was Shadow Dancer, a follow-up that Revenge fans weren...
	Darkest of Days (Xbox 360) Darkest of Days isn't going to win any awards for being one of the prettiest games on the Xbox 360, as it's a 2009 title that looks like an indie-made So...
	Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones (NES) "THE GREATEST MARTIAL ARTS ADVENTURE SERIES EVER!" - NES Box Cover

Feedback

If you enjoyed this Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators review, you're encouraged to leave feedback and talk about it with members of the site's community. You don't even need an HonestGamers account to get involved in the discussion. Please remember to keep your comments respectful and on-topic or they may be deleted by a moderator. Thank you for your understanding!

comments powered by Disqus

© 1998-2013 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.