Zen Pinball 2 App Reviews

Zen Studios give the best pinball experience on console (Zen Pinball 1, Zen Pinball 2, Marvel Pinball) and now, its available on Mac! Buy the different tables for only 2-3$ each; its a very good price. I was a pinball «pro» player during the 80s… Zen Pinball 2 is the best simulator! --- Zen Studios offre la meilleure expérience de pinball sur console (Zen Pinball 1, Zen Pinball 2, Marvel Pinball) et maintenant, cest disponible sur Mac! Achetez les différentes tables pour seulement 2-3$ chacune; cest un très bon prix. Jétais un joueur «pro» de pinball dans les années 80… Zen Pinball 2 est le meilleur simulateur!

… but in-app purchasing is not working, unfortunately. Lots of comments to that effect on the developers forum.

Great game, probably cannot be matched by any other casual game in terms of being a polished product. The only fault I can find is in the table selection. Hopefully some of the tables available on other platforms, such as Plants vs. Zombies, will become available for mac. I feel like theres very little table choice if youre not a comic book nerd... err enthusiast.

Game graphics and physics are excellent, but it crashes when you try to buy new tables.

Soon after the new "Balance of the Force" tables came out, I attempted to purchase them. Ill get to how awesome these tables are a bit later, but first about the purchasing. On Lion, it appeared I simply could NOT connect to the Apple App store. All I got was "please wait". This issue was periodic before, but since the 131 update I had no way to tell, as I had bought all the tables already. Until these ones. This update simply could NOT connect on 10.7.5 OSX Lion. Lion is my favorite Apple gaming (well, Pinball, only) platform and Im not giving it up. Couldnt download these tables though , after 3 days of trying. And I tried EVERYTHING. Rebooting . Relogging in. Reconnecting and disconecting. Reinstalling. Refreshing my purchases . Absolutely nothing works. Ultimately, I never did manage to connect via Lion. Luckily, I also had a partition with Mavericks on it (I dont like it, incidentally, I find it very invasive and restrictive.. everything has "VERBOTEN!" written all over it).. But be that as it may, I tried connecting with Mavericks, after being informed by Zen support that these tables would be available to me regardless of the OS I was using. Mavericks connected just fine, and I managed to download all three tables. I wish they would fix the connectivity issue that was introduced in update 131 though... The new tables are, in a word.. astonishing. The gameplay is very enjoyable, and physics are great and smooth, but it is the incredible rendering of these new tables that just impressed me so much. I dont know what theyve done, but its really made even more of an improvement in the game (if possible). Im giving it 5 stars even after the downloading issue because that has nothing to do with the game per-se... Hope they fix that issue though.. Update.. I am not sure what is up with the pricing .. only a week ago I bought all 3 ster wars tables and the Doctor Strange table. EACH one I was charged 2.99 for, and I have the reciept to prove it.. Now I see that only the Doctor Strabnge is 2.99 and the rest are 0.99 cents. I am going to find out what is going on, but I SERIOUSLY urge you to be careful as to what you are being charged. Something smells rotten here...

This game was great until I updated it and downloaded a the Guardians of the Galaxy table. Upon installation, I got a pop up saying that the app was “damaged” and that I had to to delete it. Once was annoying but several times is just plain stupid.

Fantastic game. Scorceror’s Lair is absolutely incredible, and no other tables really get as good as it, however most other tables are great in their own ways. The few criticims I have are coming from playing it on the PS3. Allowing demos of each different pinball machine is a must as there really is no way of figuring out if you like a table or not. Also, bringing back classic tables like excalibur and epic quest is a must as few nostalgic tables are available. Other than this, the game is perfect (pinball wise). The people at zen really know how to make great pinball machines!

Zen Pinball is a great game! It had a few minor glitches (earlier in 2014) that seem to have been addressed in recent updates to really make this a must buy game for the Mac! The gameplay is smooth (currenttly running on 3 different Macs ranging in models - 2009 to 2012) and the table options offer plenty of variety with some great story, themes and audio tied into all the games. Recent games seem to get even better as they have even better animation and sfx, but older tables still offer plenty of value and fun. Only complaint on tables is that it would be nice to see a mixture of new themes (ie. currently offering Marvel tables - can we get some DC themed tables or how about some Disney and/or Pixar themed tables (same company as Marvel, so why not?). I find that some tables are a bit more enjoyable to play due to their layout which can add to a bit more frustration for some users as they are a bit more difficult or just don’t seem to flow as nicely - how about a try before you buy option? Tables I have played include: all of the Star Wars tables (Favs include: Boba Fett, Fighter Assault, Return of The Jedi, Vader & Droids) and majority of the Marvel tables (Favs include: Deadpool, Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, Guardians of the Galaxy & Moon Knight), South Park: Super Sweet Pinball (New Fav table), The WalkingDead, Plants vs Zombies. All of these tables are great - but as I said some can be more enjoyable due to configuration and a better layout (ie. Star Wars-Masters of the Force, PvZ & TWD suffer from awkward layouts that could have been a bit better to improve flow of gameplay). Have played Zen Pinball on iPhone/iPad and found tables not offered in Mac store - why? Would like to see new exclusive Mac tables or some of these tables on other platforms moved to Mac too. One great thing is that you can play the tables you buy on multiple MACS if you are signed into the same account - nice option to provide more value. NOTE: high scores seem to be local, so even while on same account the best score you achieve on one Mac will not show on another Mac. Zen Pinball is a really good game that offers plenty of fun that doesn’t get old since you can always add more tables (but it will cost you $$ - how about offering a multi table purchase discount??) and would be my choice for best quick fix game as it can be played by most people due to a low learning curve. Great ball action & solid selection of tables add up to replayablility and that is all you can ask for in a pinball game.

I love this game. The gameplay is so fluid and realisitic on my rMBP. I figured out that to get the best graphics I needed to change the Display Preferences to the highest resolution before starting the app. Wow looks so good.

Fantastic graphics, smooth physics and really really fun to play. Thank you ZEN.

I have no compains about the game itself as you would be hard put to find a better simulation. The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 stars is that there seems to be a problem downloading the in app tables. I have 3 additional tables thus far but it has taken hours to download each one in what should only have taken minutes. BTW my favourite so far is The Waking Dead table. I plan to purchase many more.

For whatever reason, none of my table purchases will download and I constantly get an error when trying to ‘Restore Purchases’. It is also a shame that the Marvel tables from the Marvel Pinball version of this game don’t transfer over. The game itself is ok but this is a perfect example of how horrible the In-App Purchase games are overall.

Fantastic sound and graphic! Realistic feeling!!! Freee one table - good moove ;)

Game have good sound, nice graphics but is lagging with input rMBP 15”.

Best pinball app on appstore, must have for all pinball lovers.

PLEASE FIX THE PUCHASE OPTIONS (AND RECOVER PURCHASE!) IT JUST TELLS ME TO WAIT AND WAIT WAND WAIT AND WAIT……..REALLY???? THX FOR QUICK RESOLVING! PS: THE GAME IS REALLY GREAT!!

Hello. Right now I bought South Park table and didn’t get it. Game offers me to buy it again. I tried to restore my purchases but unsuccessful, game show me that I don’t have any purchases. Game support is awful forum. There are no any email addresses or phone numbers.

I downloaded the Han Solo Star Wars table and played it for a few months. Recently the table has started to “Max Headroom” on me, playing great for maybe ten seconds then just stuttering for about three seconds, then going back to normal play for ten and then doing the same again. I just downloaded the update to this game thinking the framerate issue would be fixed. It hasn’t been fixed! Pfix it!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just downloaded the Vader table, same problem! So the framrate problem went away for a while but now it’s back! What is causing this?

Zen Pinball 2 provides a polished fun, over-the-top pinball experience, and the prices for additional tables are reasonable. Really a fine game, and the free Sorceror’s Lair table is excellent. That said, I also have Zen Pinball on my iPad and AppleTV. Those two sync with each other in terms of scores and tables owned, but I cannot get Zen Pinball on Mac OSX to recognize iOS scores or table purchases. Perhaps that is by design, but it’s unfortunate. (Zen Studios: in the Game Center application on OSX, Zen Pinball 2 is shown as an *iOS* appication next to the real Zen Pinball for iOS. It does not show my high scores or achievements at all. There is something wrong there. It’s as though ZP2 on OSX isn’t really connecting with Game Center.)

The actual gameplay is good. However, this game came out on Mac before it came out on Steam or Windows 8 for the PC but it lack features that came out day 1 for those other platforms. It STILL does not have global leaderboards which is ridiculous in my opinion. Zen has this game on around 10 other platforms, including iOS, but this is the only version that still lacks leaderboards. That is just bad. It still lacks gamepad support, which all other versions have except the moblie ones. Using a keyboard would not be so bad, but unlike every PC version, you can’t remap the keys and it seems like the designers have never seen a Mac keyboard before because the option for left and right nudge are terrible. Every platform except maybe WiiU has a bigger library of tables than this version. This version is also very buggy and crashes constantly and requires you to delete the game and reinstall multiple times. The Steam version gets a steady flow of improvements and patches while this version rarely does. In summary, if you don’t have any other platform to play this game on, if you don’t mind playing on a keyboard instead of a gamepad, if you don’t care about using the awful keyboard defaults for nudging the table, if you don’t care about the lack of global leaderboards and the smaller library of tables, then this game is great.