Time cruise is a pinball game for the Turbografx 16, and it's one of the more unique ones, even outside of the system it belongs to. Imagine the open-ended nature of sonic spinball, except with better handling, amazing music, more varied gameplay, and more freedom. The only real drawback is that there's no real purpose, but that's par for the course with pinball, so it's all good.
The first thing that jumped out at me with Time Cruise was its strange and unique aesthetic for its table, wooden floors, brick walls, and holes in the wood floor that reveals wiring and flashing lights. You know, future stuff. You might think that this game's aesthetic would get old quick, and normally you'd be right, but the game also has its main gimmick. TIME TRAVEL. Which is actually just loading up various minigames which may or may not involve any amount of pinball playing, but the variety is nice. The time travel ranges anywhere from prehistoric times to the distant future, and on top of that you can have a "missed warp" which will send you to a surrealist world outside of time. The game doesn't explain that, I just think that makes the most sense, but you're here for pinball, not a story.
The gameplay is kind of a mixed bag, because the pinball physics itself isn't very intuitive. You'll find yourself at the start setting the ball up to smash it in the general direction of where you're aiming, only to end up nowhere even close. Getting past that, though, the board you're on is really wide, like 3 pinball tables wide and 2 tables tall (the center one being 3 tall, with an extra bottom section) The center table is the only one you can lose your ball in, the other 2 tables only sending the ball back to the center. Despite all this leeway, you'll actually find yourself losing balls at a normal pace compared to other difficult pinball games of that era. Getting to grips with this game's handling will mitigate that significantly though.
The time travel mechanic is a great way to add variety and keep the game from going stale. You'll get either mini tables or a minigame to complete for a chance to gain an extra ball and/or bonus points, Their aesthetics and music change significantly too, and ones with countdowns will even speed up the music and background animations as time starts to run out. Speaking of music changes though, if you're going to play this game for a single thing, make it the music. Specifically the main table music, it's just so good, I cannot stress to you how amazing and catchy it is. It really gives you that exciting retro sci-fi adventure vibe that games of that era so loved to emulate, and it adds so much to making you want to keep playing the game.
I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend this game if you're in the mood for some gimmicky pinball fun. Time cruise is a pinball game for the Turbografx 16, and it's one of the more unique ones, even outside of the system it belongs to. Imagine the open-ended nature of sonic spinball, except with better handling, amazing music, more varied gameplay, and more freedom. The only real drawback is that there's no real purpose, but that's par for the course with pinball, so it's all good.
The first thing that jumped out at me with Time Cruise was its strange and unique aesthetic for its table, wooden floors, brick walls, and holes in the wood floor that reveals wiring and flashing lights. You know, future stuff. You might think that this game's aesthetic would get old quick, and normally you'd be right, but the game also has its main gimmick. TIME TRAVEL. Which is actually just loading up various minigames which may or may not involve any amount of pinball playing, but the variety is nice. The time travel ranges anywhere from prehistoric times to the distant future, and on top of that you can have a "missed warp" which will send you to a surrealist world outside of time. The game doesn't explain that, I just think that makes the most sense, but you're here for pinball, not a story.
The gameplay is kind of a mixed bag, because the pinball physics itself isn't very intuitive. You'll find yourself at the start setting the ball up to smash it in the general direction of where you're aiming, only to end up nowhere even close. Getting past that, though, the board you're on is really wide, like 3 pinball tables wide and 2 tables tall (the center one being 3 tall, with an extra bottom section) The center table is the only one you can lose your ball in, the other 2 tables only sending the ball back to the center. Despite all this leeway, you'll actually find yourself losing balls at a normal pace compared to other difficult pinball games of that era. Getting to grips with this game's handling will mitigate that significantly though.
The time travel mechanic is a great way to add variety and keep the game from going stale. You'll get either mini tables or a minigame to complete for a chance to gain an extra ball and/or bonus points, Their aesthetics and music change significantly too, and ones with countdowns will even speed up the music and background animations as time starts to run out. Speaking of music changes though, if you're going to play this game for a single thing, make it the music. Specifically the main table music, it's just so good, I cannot stress to you how amazing and catchy it is. It really gives you that exciting retro sci-fi adventure vibe that games of that era so loved to emulate, and it adds so much to making you want to keep playing the game.
I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend this game if you're in the mood for some gimmicky pinball fun. |
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