What do you get if you want to combind a big video gaming name and an excuss to make a game? An excuss of a game. About 90% of the time, the sports or arcade adaptations are not as great as the classics. It's rare times when they add the charm and game play that makes an enjoyable game rather than just adding the face that makes ir seem like a sell-out. Mario Football Strike and Mario Pinball are examples of this. Weather they are good or not I don't know, as I've never played them/played long enough due to saving problems to get enough information. So what does Sega try to do? Make an excuss of a Sonic game by applying it to pinball. I wondered if it included some things that will make it seem like a Sonic game (such as super fast balls or making the pinball do some sort of spin attack), alas, it did not....on the bright side, though, it provided something far better. Let's have a look.

Well, you have several different different modes to choose from at the start. There's an arcade mode, a story mode, some mini-games (some of which are to be unclocked) that will either add to or take away from your ring total, and a Chao Garden. Perfect! This game is looking good already. You have a total of three different tables, two of which needs to be unlocked. you have the Sonic table, a NiGHTS table and a Samba de Amigo table.....wait, this isn't just Sonic we're talking about. This is a Sega game with crossover references.....with pinballs! It'll be very interesting to see the other tables.

Story mode takes you into a pinball competition hosted by Dr Eggman, who have trapped Flickies in robots (yet again), and you can save them by winning the tournament. Of course, this is a way for Eggman to try and defeat Sonic, but none-the-less it's cliche to host a tournament for this manner. To advance to the next level, you must meet a goal. These goals can range from getting a certain amount of points in a certain time-limit, to getting to a certain stage on the pinball table. I remember when I was stuck on Tails for-ever, and had great satisfaction from beating that level.

The mini-games are sort of like your very own casion in the game, but every game is related to pinball. They are all based on luck, but some skill and patient timing will help in your favour. Everytime you let a ring fall through the hole, you lose a ring. Not a lot, right? Well, this can add up over time if you are reckless, so be careful. The tables themselves are very interesting. You have the Sonic one, which the aim is to get to the last stage (and points, can't forget about the points). You do this by hitting the E, G, G, M, A and N letters to make eggman appear. Just smash up his little ship and you make it to the next stage, which changes the art of the table, but not the structure. You can enter bonus rounds that will either let you have three balls at once, have rings galore on the table, in which you should collect for the mini-games/chao garden, and other things that I don't quite understand (like the Chao Egg). The game is more challenging that it seems, and getting the ball where you want is quite difficult without some practice.

The NiGHTS table is mysterious, much like the NiGHTS game itself. It holds that charm of being in a dream, and I don't quite understand it much. I do some things, some things light up, and I don't get it. It might be because I really have never played a NiGHTS game before (in which I am planning to do at some stage), but it looks aluring and mysical, but I digress. It seems some what smaller in depth than the Sonic one, but still quite enjoyable all round. Then there is the Samba de Amigo table, which is smaller both in size and in terms of depth to the other two tables, but I find much more challenging to rack up a huge score. Never heard of Samba de Amigo before, and I have no idea what it's all about, but this table suggests that maybe it's quite possible that in all honesty it might just be......Mexican.

The music is very suiting. It starts off as relaxing and casual, and when you enter a bonus round of soem sorts, this awesome tune comes on and gets you in the mood to do your best. The music for when your selecting a game mode makes you feel so welcome and at home. It tells you that you have all day to choose, and there's no rush. I love this piece so much, and I don't know why. The graphics are bright a colourful when appropriate, and dark and grim when also appropriate (mostly I find when on a NiGHTS table). The controls are very simple. You can flip the flippers with two buttons (one on the left and one on the right), and if the ball gets stuck or you want to "nudge" it in the right direction, you can press a button for that as well (you can customize them at the options screen, of course). That's really it for controls during the main game. They are very responsive, I suppose.

The chao garden is precisly the same as the one in Sonic Advance, so if you are familiar with that game and its Chao Garden, then you might already know what this is, but to those who have no idea and have never played that game, then I'll tell you about it. This garden allows you to raise an adorable little chaot. You collect rings from the pinball machine via special bonus rounds to buy food to help it grow, and if you save up enough, you can buy a Rubber Duckie, a musical intrument, and even a T.V. If your ever ger bored of the main game, you can collect rings via two mini-games, which might include you to throw red and green balls at the celling to clear them up or playing a game of rock-paper-scissors in a fast paced timing game, both of which are super-addictive to play and are rather fun, although they sometimes change what they are, and I think there is a thid game out there, I just can't remember it (or is that only the downloaded chao garden?) I hear you can get a rainbow egg if you meet certain criterias in the game.

Overall, I give this game a 9.2/10       The tables here are very well made, as if the very essence of Sega were in these tables. I'm impressed that this mere pinball game, this "excuss of a game" as I would put it, it quite possibly one of my favourite past gaming memories. Not enough to make into my top 10 list, but it's a very fun game to play. Don't let the words "Sonic" and "pinball" make you think this is a sell-out, as they put a lot of effort into this game to make it a bright, fun game that has great replay value.