Twisted Flipper review - Sega Megadrive

It's a tragic tale but true. That lovable dolphin, Flipper, star of the much admired sixties TV series, has gone barking mad. During filming in the Pacific, for a Christmas special edition of the show, he begins to suffer horrendous Vietnam flashbacks. These traumatic hallucinations drive him to a decision - he must go back! In Twisted Flipper, the player guides the dynamic dolphin on a return mission deep into enemy territory. Only by saving the PoW's still held in a Saigon prison, shall Flipper be cured of the disease twisting his mind...

...On the other hand, that could all be complete rubbish, fabricated to carry out a cheap pun on the game's title. Twisted Flipper is in fact a pinball game! The flippers in this game have nothing to do with sea faring mammals. Instead players fire up a silver ball and use a mixture of skill and intuition and amass as many points as possible.

Twisted Flipper manages to fit a vast pinball table into the cramped confines of the Megadrive. There are three sets of flippers to work with, but falling through the lowest set loses the ball. Mutant skulls and runaway brains do their best to make proceedings more hazardous, and diverting tasks present new ways to get at the points. All good pinball games have a two-player option, but Twisted Flipper actually takes it a step further and has a four-player option, something which is bound to lead to plenty of cursing, boasting and sulking. Just don't expect any dolphins, ok?!

What the Mean Machines staff thought

For those of you contemplating buying a pinball sim, the thing you probably want to know is whether or not this is better than Dragon's Fury. In the playability department things are pretty even. The inertia of the ball is very realistic, and there are no quirks in the game logic that cause the ball to rebound at strange angles. The sound too, matches the classic rock opera of Dragon's Fury with wild guitar solo's a-plenty. But I'm afraid it's at this point that Dragon's Fury leaves its rival behind. Basically Twisted Flipper lacks the variety necessary to make a pinball sim interesting - there just isn't enough going on. While a few sprites move about the screen, most of the graphics are static and short on detail. Bonus screens, which work wonders in Dragon's Fury are few and far between bonus level is an impressive idea it is generally the only extra level that turns up regularly. The four-player mode opens up the door for some multi-player fun, but the actual pinball action is just too dull to keep anyone interested for long. So in answer to the opening question, I'd say that although Twisted Flipper has some okay pinball action, it's beaten hands down by Dragon's Fury.

Being a keen pinball fan, I really wanted to enjoy this game. But try as I might, the more I played, the more I got bored. The problem is that the challenge level is too low - the collision detection on the flippers is too forgiving and it's all too easy to keep the ball in play. Consequently it doesn't take long to get a level where games go on for ages at a time, and it all becomes a matter of routine. This is compounded be the fact that there's not enough happening on the table to keep your interest going between bonus screens - the amount of drop targets and trick shots is actually very limited. The graphics and sound are very slick, and the ball movement is fairly realistic (although I found its movement a bit too "heavy", as if the table was tilted forward too far), but my vote goes for Dragon's Fury - it has more variety and is more challenging.