Psycho Pinball

Game review

Psycho Pinball is another pinball game in the style first introduced in Pinball Dreams and later popularized in Pinball Fantasies. Standard features of these types of pinball simulations include an animated backglass display, multiple bonuses including a multi-ball, extra ball, etc., and background music that changes based on active specials. There are three main tables: The Abyss (Aquatic theme), Trick or Treat (Horror theme), Wild West (Western theme), An additional gimmick is a fourth Psycho Pinball table (circus theme) that has bonuses that can launch you to the other three tables, leading to massively high scores (and very long gameplay times).

As mentioned before, there are four differently themed tables: Wild West (American Old West), Trick or Treat (Halloween), The Abyss (Caribbean underwater), and Psycho (an amusement park). While the first three are regular tables, Psycho broke new ground; it is connected to the others by activating certain jumpers, then launching the ball into one of the tents. The ball continues on the other table, returning to drop from the tent in Psycho when it drains. It is also the only one with a spring ball launcher and no multiball (presumably because of the potential for one of the balls to transition between tables).

Wild West is an open table with few obstacles; this makes it very difficult to make high scores, unlike Trick or Treat, which is a much more enclosed table and more ramp multipliers. The Abyss is the only one with two levels of play, and the multiball is usually reduced to two balls. To activate the multiball, the player has to trap a ball in one of the vent holes, and then knock it out of its trajectory when it is being thrown from one vent to another. It is possible, although difficult, to trap additional balls in the vents for use in a multiball.