4 Big Pinball Reveals / Announcements in October; Atari Berzerk Recharged; New FX Tables
- Jason
- Oct 5, 2023
- 2 min read
We're in the calm before the storm in the pinball world. Three companies have major announcements queued up to hit later this month in addition to Pinball Adventures bringing its next game Elements to Pinball Expo. Rest assured that as soon as the news officially breaks I will bring everyone all the details here.
In the meantime, I have a couple of interesting new announcements in the quasi-arcade / pinball world of video games. First up, a few minutes ago Atari announced that it is bring another classic arcade game to its cool new "Recharged" series. The 1980 classic by Stern Electronics and now owned by Atari is set to become a cool new Twin Stick Shooter for modern consoles and PC.
I personally own every single release in Atari's new Recharged series and I play the heck out of them on my Steam Deck. They're fantastic.
In this reimagining of the 1980 arcade classic, Berzerk: Recharged challenges you to fight your way through a deadly maze filled with waves of menacing, vocal robots. Deft twin-stick control and power-ups are the only way to survive, as you shoot your way through room after room in this never-ending dystopian maze. And don’t forget, Evil Otto may have a smile on his face, but he is deadly and invincible.
As with all Recharged games, you can chase a high score in arcade mode, or take on one of the many challenges the design team has hand-crafted to test your shooting and dodging skills. If things get too hard, you can always grab a friend to double your firepower in local- co-op.
Megan McDuffee’s original soundtrack of sci-fi synths captures the ambiance of a harrowing space station shootout – and a very cool 80s arcade.
In the world of virtual pinball, we have a bunch of new tables being released by the main commercial player Zen Studios. The new tables include A gory Duke Nukem-themed table for its Pinball M platform, the return of the company's missing South Park tables and new board game-themed tables for Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars and Exploding Kittens for the Pinball FX platform.
I've been told that Zen and AtGames are also bringing their newly announced Legends Pinball 4KP table to Pinball Expo, but I have not received official conformation that is indeed the case yet. Hopefully we all get to see it in action soon.
But behind the purely technical features, and the evolution of the escapement over the decades since Daniels created the first version, there was a stubborn link mind deeply and profoundly in love with the physical charms of machines, and the ability link of watches to transcend their machine-ness and become objects of romance and beauty. You begin by thinking of the co-axial as an link engineering problem but you end by realizing that it was, in fact, a labor of love.
So Pinball Adventures, Mystery Co…who else? Pinball Bros and Turner? Who am I missing?