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> Results: Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire
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Simple FunPok￩monﾅthe name has a lot of different meanings to different folks. For many parents, it conjures images of sickly sweet critters and some hard to watch movies that their kids drug them to one summer evening. For many kids, itﾒs still one of the hottest toy and game sensations to hit gaming for years. For those hardcore gamers that have taken the time to see what itﾒs really about, theyﾒve found it to be the role-playing game boiled down to its most basic and a heck of a lot of fun. With Pok￩mon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire, Nintendoﾒs Pok￩mon Company has made catching them all into a great looking and playing pinball game that will have you cheering its slick tables while wrinkling your nose at its easy difficulty.  Unlike the standard Pok￩mon games, this oneﾒs all about pinball. You play using a Pok￩ball that you can level up to score double, triple or even quadruple the normal amount of points. With good flipper shots, youﾒll start timers that allow you to do everything from catching Pok￩mon to evolving them and even traveling to different areas to catch different types of Pok￩mon only found in certain places. Catching Pok￩mon puts them in your Pok￩dex where you can learn about all their skills and tendencies. If you play the Ruby or Sapphire Pok￩mon games and havenﾒt caught them all in RPG form, the pinball game is a good way to find out what youﾒre after and especially what the base Pok￩mon evolve into. Players can even connect to another Game Boy Advance with a Pok￩mon Pinball cart and give that player a better chance to catch the Pok￩mon theyﾒve already caught that their friend might have. You can also send your best scores to your buddyﾒs cart giving him something to shoot for or making you feel inferior to his elite pinball skills. The table physics are about as good as video game pinball gets. The ball moves realistically but often just a bit too slow even with two speed settings: Slow and Normal. Flipper action is consistently good and making tough saves is possible with both nudges and quick flips. The various targets are set up nicely with many of the shots requiring a decent amount of skill to pull off consistently. There are two tables in the game, Ruby and Sapphire, giving the title its name. The Ruby board is a bit harder than the Sapphire one due to its more difficult ramp layout but each of them is easily mastered for high scores. You can play bonus rounds that break up the normal play by offering small one screen battles against stronger Pok￩mon for big points. These bonus rounds are enjoyable a few times through but once youﾒve caught the Pok￩mon on them, you can thankfully cancel out of them if you donﾒt want to play them again. The game was designed with the Game Boy Player in mind so it looks great. Thereﾒs plenty of smooth animation for the ball, various targets and the Pok￩mon themselves. Whether you play on the TV or on the GBA, youﾒll find this one of the most visually pleasing and even aurally pleasing games for the system. Thereﾒs great music thatﾒs themed to each table and the different timer rounds and bonus rounds have their own nifty musical scores too. All of it is either lifted from the regular series of games or similar but itﾒs good to listen to while your trying to snag pocket monsters. If Pok￩mon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire was just a bit harder, this would be a superb game. As it stands, itﾒs still a great way to pass the time and catching them all gives you great incentive to play again and again. Kid Factor: This is quality family entertainment for kids of all ages. Pinball is a universal game but consider that the real small youngsters canﾒt play those big machines if youﾒre lucky enough to find a good one in an arcade. With this game, they can pound the flippers until bedtime. Even better, if youﾒve got the Game Boy Player, this is a perfect game to play on the television. But it really doesnﾒt matter where you play it, Pok￩mon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire is fast, easy, simple fun and thatﾒs just a few of the reasons kids will eat it up. Thereﾒs nothing here you have to worry about your kids seeing and that makes it the perfect way to waste a few minutes in the car or after school. The game could be a little harder for adults, and there are definitely a lot of adults playing this one, but that wonﾒt bother the kids.  Ages: 3+ ESRB Rating: E Publisher: Nintendo Developer: Game Freak 
This is quality family entertainment for kids of all ages. Pinball is a universal game but consider that the real small youngsters canﾒt play those big machines if youﾒre lucky enough to find a good one in an arcade. With this game, they can pound the flippers until bedtime. Even better, if youﾒve got the Game Boy Player, this is a perfect game to play on the television. But it really doesnﾒt matter where you play it, Pok￩mon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire is fast, easy, simple fun and thatﾒs just a few of the reasons kids will eat it up. Thereﾒs nothing here you have to worry about your kids seeing and that makes it the perfect way to waste a few minutes in the car or after school. The game could be a little harder for adults, and there are definitely a lot of adults playing this one, but that wonﾒt bother the kids.
Kid Factor by Dave Long
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