Portal Pinball Announced, Releases In May

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Portal Pinball Announced, Releases In May

Collaboration between Zen Studios and Valve to launch soon.

Zen Studios, makers of fine digital pinball games, has lifted the veil on a new table based on Valve's Portal series, releasing a series of screenshots.

The table (or the "Aperture Science Heuristic Portal Pinball Device," if you prefer) appears to do a fine job of incorporating a lot of Portal material into a tiny space. Animated Chell and Wheatley characters activate buttons, aerial faith plates, and hard light bridges in response to successfully hitting ramp and loop targets, eventually advancing to confront GlaDOS. Discouragement redirection cubes are mounted on the bumpers, rotating with each strike of the ball to reflect lasers across the playfield. Cooperative robot pals ATLAS and P-Body make a fitting appearance, dancing to their theme music in a multiball event, and even the Rat Man's presence is felt in an embedded mini-table.

The table will be available for purchase through Zen's various pinball platforms, including Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita), Pinball FX 2 (Xbox 360 and Xbox One), Zen Pinball HD (PC), Zen Pinball 3D (3DS), and Zen Pinball (iOS) during the week of May 25th. In the comments of the blog post accompanying the announcement, it was noted that the table is not presently confirmed for the Wii U version of Zen Pinball 2, stating that more information may come in future.

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Zen Studios pinball releases over the last several years has mostly been occupied by products rooted in Marvel Comics and Star Wars franchises, but they have a fair bit of experience in designing pinball tables based on videogame licenses too. Prior releases include tables inspired by Street Fighter II, Plants vs. Zombies, and Telltale's The Walking Dead.

Source: Zen Studios [http://blog.zenstudios.com/?p=5217]

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[thewatergamer]

Feh, I can't say I really care about a pinball game, hey Valve here's an idea, how about you, I don't know, fix your store? Or make a new game?

 

[Aeshi]

Feh, I can't say I really care about a pinball game, hey Valve here's an idea, how about you, I don't know, fix your store? Or make a new game?

Eh, that sounds like work. Just throw in a few hats other people made and take credit for them, no one will know the difference.

 

[SmugFrog]

Are those real lasers shooting through there? This thing is about 25 years too late, but still awesome.

 

[Chaosian]

Couldn't care less about this project, and I think you'll find a lot of people feel the same way. This isn't what anyone was asking for, kinda like a lot of things Valve's been doing lately...

 

[Conrad Zimmerman]

Feh, I can't say I really care about a pinball game, hey Valve here's an idea, how about you, I don't know, fix your store? Or make a new game?

I think you're overestimating the involvement Valve likely had in the making of this. I'd be astounded if they did more than send over Portal assets and some design approval process.

But me? I love pinball, and there's a part of me that thinks Zen could really do some amazing stuff if they took on Team Fortress 2.

 

[RJ 17]

Here I thought it was an actual pinball table we were talking about here...but seeing as how it's just a new table for a pinball game, I'm less impressed.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Look at all the wonderful bullshit Valve is making instead of Half-Life 3.

 

[mruuh]

I think we'll sooner see Telltale's "Tales from City 17" than another Half-Life game...

 

[The_Darkness]

And Valve *still* can't count to 3. Portal, Portal 2, Portal Pinball.

Though that said, this does look fun. Just... not quite fun enough for me to pick it up, I'm afraid.

 

[Crash_7]

I was never able to get Pinball FX2 to run well on any PC of mine. Framerates are fine but too much controller lag.

 

[Sinister Minister]

It's hilarious how many people are thinking Valve are developing this. At least read the article, sheesh.

 

[Vigormortis]

It's hilarious how many people are thinking Valve are developing this. At least read the article, sheesh.

What?! And actually take the effort?

Psh. It's so much easier to just accuse Valve of being lazy. Or of not being able to count to 3.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

So, is this just playable for the week of May 25th, just available for download on the week of the 25th, or will first be available on the week of the 25th? The first two kinda sound insane. The wording is just bugging me on both this article and the blog post, and I'm not familiar with any of the Zen Pinball formats.

Here I thought it was an actual pinball table we were talking about here...but seeing as how it's just a new table for a pinball game, I'm less impressed.

It would be cool to see a physical table, but, thanks to digital tables being easier and less expensive to pull off and able to reach farther audiences, more and more existing IPs are just going on virtual tables.

If you haven't seen it already, I'd say you should check out Ben Heck's Bill Paxton Pinball and other homemade machines. I'm not a huge pinball fan but love reading the build logs for thing like that and watching a game in action.

 

[Godhead]

I was excited for a second until I realized this isn't going to be an actual table.