Yes, as you can probably guess by now, Super League Football is a game of two halves. That is until you look at the bottom corner of the table where you see a timer counting down in an accelerated form from 45 minutes to zero. That’s all well and good but that still doesn’t sound like a full game of football though. You also have a short time to recover posession by flipping the ball at a number of targets in sequence and if you don’t manage this within the time limit then your opponent scores a goal. If the ball goes out of play to the left or right side lanes you can “tackle” the opponent by flipping the ball with smaller flippers and knocking the ball through a small trap door back into play. Score and you’re rewarded with a bonus of several million points, if the ball gets past your flippers the game returns to normal play but if you flip the ball off to the side of the goal, it goes out of play temporarily for a goal kick… and is summarily launched into the “air” and back into play on the table!īut that’s just a small aspect of it, even though you have full physical control of the ball throughout, depending on how well you play in the match itself you can lose posession of the ball and that’s when you have to play defensively. In front of him are rows of defenders (this number varies depending on how many you have managed to remove during earlier play) and to score you just have to flip the ball past the defenders and the keeper. You gain control of two flippers in the upper play area and in front of you is the opposing goal with a goalkeeper moving from side to side. Once you are able to do this, the two ramps that lead to the upper playfield light up and by flipping the ball to this area play changes slightly. To score goals you have to shoot the ball up various ramps and against targets on the table to build up attacks, move the ball forward up the pitch and to weaken the other team’s defense until you’re in a position to take a shot on goal. The basic idea as you can no doubt guess, is to win the match and position your team as highly as possible in the league table compared with the rival teams. Let go and he kicks the ball to kick off the “match”. Instead the player runs up to the ball alley and using the right stick you control his leg to set the shot strength. There’s no plunger here unlike previous pinball tables. Straight away you know that you’re in for a different gaming experience as the commentators begin to talk about the upcoming game – yes, this game has commentary throughout – so once you’re ready the match begins. On there you’ll see your chosen team up against another and this is the first match in the current league. ![]() ![]() Once you’re all set, you can move onto playing the game itself and this is where things start to really show why this table is something rather special…Īt the start of the game a league table is displayed showing a set of fixtures with other teams available in the game. From there a list of all of the currently available squads are displayed with your purchased tables being highlighted. Once into the game, Super League Football is displayed as a single choice from the table menu and from there you can choose to play the game as a single or multiplayer game as usual or choose your team. The idea behind the different tables were that football fans would be able to buy tables to show their affinity / support for their favourite teams and those without a preference could opt to purchase the Zen Studios F.C. The tables themselves are all identical apart from the table “graphics” (the board under the playing area), the animated mascot seen during the game, the strip worn by the solitary player on screen and some of the text seen on the dot matrix display. Seven of these are licensed from some of the biggest football clubs across Europe and the eighth is a fictional team comprising of staff from Zen Studios themselves. The initial release is spread over eight different available versions of the game. Rather than being a straightforward pinball table with an underlying football theme, Super League Football has taken a radical approach and blends the pinball mechanics that Zen Studios have been delivering so well for the last few years with a novel twist on football itself. So were Zen Studios biting off more than they could chew combining football with officially licensed teams from across the globe…? ![]() Equally, when looking for inspiration for new ideas for tables, there are some subjects that are harder than others to translate from the real world into the world of pins, metal balls and flippers and more often than not sports-themed tables can result in lacklustre affairs. ![]() It’s hard for developers to strike a balance between remaining true to the franchise that they are working with while still delivering a high quality pinball experience that can cross over and still be enjoyable by all pinball afficionados. Licensed pinball tables are a strange beast.
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