0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Austin Powers Pinball

Austin Powers Pinball is a pinball game themed around the first Austin Power movies Austin Powers International Man of Mystery and the second Austin Powers movie Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me.

The game was developed by the Brisbane Australia based Wildfire Studios who had already three pinball games to their name and would later go on to develop the Tumblebugs games for PC and Mobile. The games was published by short lived company Gotham Games and release on the Playstation in North America and Europe.

The game released concurrently in North America and Europe on the 25^th of September or October 2002, with the windows port of the game releasing on the following January on the 29^th of the month.

The game only has two pinball games to choose form the first based on the first Austin Powers movie International Man of Mystery, once selected the theme of the pinball game with be shown followed by the rules for example if they player is able to spell out GR-OO-VY during the game they will advance the multiplier, defrosting Austin will activate the mission time extender while Spelling out Y-E-A-H-B-A-B-Y will unlock a trivia video mode.

The flippers are activated using the L1 and R1 shoulder buttons while the d-pad is used to tilt, honestly though there is not much else to say mostly because watching any gameplay of this game gave be a splitting headache.

 I think with the colour combination and the constant moving of the camera because it can’t fit the whole pinball machine on the screen, see below for a gameplay video which will tell you everything you need to know about the game, now I’m going to drink a bottle of whiskey to try and erase all memories of this game.

Dr Evil has once again set his sights on defeating Austin Powers once and for all, to do this Dr Evil will use a devious and cunning plan to defeat his arch nemesis, Pinball, seriously he wonders why he has never defeated Austin yet.

What critic reviews are still available for this game in 2017 range from just below average to down right poor, the first review up is from PSX Nation which had to be recovered using Wayback Machine, their review score coming in at a 49.

Commenting on the gameplay the review summed up to late period of the original Playstation, saying So, this is what we have to look forward in the PSOne’s last few months? A steady trickle of licensed drivel and budget titles that can’t even last the length of what it takes to unwrap them from their shrink-wrapped packaging? Gotham Games’ “Austin Powers Pinball,” programmed by the folks over at Wildfire Studios, is a waste of a good license.

Graphically they were highly critical of the game with pinball games living or dying by how good they look, on offer with Austin Powers Pinball is a meagre two offerings and a camera that can not fit he full table into view, he also went on to call the The Spy Who Shagged Me’s table nauseating with its combination of pink and purple hues. He also criticised the resolution and presentation as being lacklustre even by PSone standards

The review was also critical of the games sound, while it is nice to have Mike Myers and Robert Wagner sound bites from the movies the review found them to become repetitive and quickly become boring. To conclude the review said the game will only appeal to hardcore fans of the Mike Myers cinematic universe.

They also went on to say. Me? I just keep wondering at what point in the development process did Wildfire Studios’ GameBoy Advance project go wrong, ending up as the black-coated PSOne CD-ROM that I’m reviewing today. Somebody at Gotham Games should make sure there are clearer channels of communication between itself and its subsidiaries.

Game Power Australia are up next with a their 40 rated review and Official Playstation Magazine with a 2/5 which equates to a 40 score. Neither the Game Power website or the Official Playstation Magazine in business anymore so I have no idea what they wrote in their reviews.

The final critic review is a 33 from The Video Game Critic, while this site is also defunct some information from the review has survived. The reviewed has the following to say, The user interface is needlessly confusing, with the reviewer having to take a while just to work out how to start a 2 player game. The review also criticised the games low production value and uninspiring design. The review concluded with Austin Power Pinball's main purpose seems to be to cash in on the films.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who will give you just 25 cents if you are wanting to trade in your copy of the game, if on the other hand you are looking to buy a copy of Austin Powers Pinball from them you will be looking at an outlay of $3.

Heading over the pond to Retrogames.co.uk where we find they don’t have any stock of this title, or even list the game, so we quickly move on to eStarland.com who currently have 3 copies of the game available. The first is a disc only copy of the game and is priced at $1.73.

The second copy available again an incomplete copy, this one is missing the manual and is priced up at $2.72, the final copy is a complete used copy and can be picked up for $3.96. eStarland also offer a trade in for the game and are willing to pay up to $1.50 for a copy, this price may vary depending on the completeness of the copy, a disc only copy will only get you up to 29 cents.

Finally we head to Amazon.com where we find a good supply of the game available with good and very good conditions copies readily available for between $5 and $6. This also means new copies can be picked up pretty cheaply with a good number on the market with a new copy easily available for between $6 and $10. Prices do continue to rise the game reaching a high of around $20 for a new copy but there are plenty much cheaper than this.

  

Written by

P J Gibbon