There have been hundreds of pinball style games released for game systems across the board. Midnight Magic, being for the pioneer Atari, was one of the first video pinball games ever released. Let's just say that we're fortunate that developers can learn from past mistakes.

GRAPHICS-- 7

Most Atari games don't have the greatest graphics, and neither does Midnight Magic. Your ball looks more like a square and can be difficult to track as it moves about the playing field. Fortunately, the ball seems to be the only graphical error. The other elements of the game, including the flippers look somewhat more normal, though not impressive. The one neat graphic is the spinner in the middle of the screen. When you manage to make it spin really fast, it really does look like it's spinning instead of just a mess of graphics. Don't try to be impressed by anything else, though.

SOUND-- 7

Midnight Magic contains probably 5 sound effects that it uses throughout the whole game. There are two short jingles that play at the start and the end of the game. Most Atari games didn't have music at all, so at least that's a little welcoming. Other than that, the game provides just enough sound effects so that it doesn't become too repetitive.

ADDICTIVENESS-- 6

There are several reasons why you won't be willing to play this game more than twice in a row, despite being a pinball game. For one thing, the game mechanics are tremendously messed up.

For one thing, your behaves as if it was made of rubber and bounces much higher than it should. The game board also feels like it's tilted at a 45 degree angle. The ball falls rapidly down and can be difficult to time when it hits your bumper. The gap in between the bottom flippers is huge compared to your pixel of a ball and results in many losses of the ball. And if you managed to shoot the ball just right at the start, you can send it plunging into an inevitable death without having it touch your flippers at all and not scoring a single point. All in all, the frustrating mechanics of the game will not be fun to play around with multiple times.

STORY-- N/A

It's pinball. What story do you want?

DEPTH-- 6

The only kind of depth you'll be seeing in this game is how to glitch it up so that you can get the most points while fighting the poor mechanics. The board has a single gimmick. Spinning the spinner (redundancy ftw) in the center of the board will cause the arrow on the top of the board to point to one of five bumpers. Hitting the correct bumper will cause ball savers to appear in the death pockets on the bottom of the field. These are really a saving grace; since the ball bounces so high, it can actually hit these and bounce out of the death pockets. Other than that, it's just hit the bumpers, pray you don't die, repeat.

DIFFICULTY-- 9

If you've played a single game of real pinball before, you'll find this game to be horribly frustrating. For the reasons stated above, the physics of the game are terrible and will be difficult to compensate for unless you're willing to devote a lot of time to learning how the game works. Frankly, you won't be giving this game more than 10 minutes unless you're a die-hard pinball fan that just has to play every pinball game out there.

OVERALL-- 5.9

Midnight Magic has a good amount of potential, but was partially ruined by the fact that it was one of the first of its kind. I'll give it props for being built on the Atari, but that doesn't stop it from being a frustrating game from beginning to end. I suppose if this was the only game you had to play, it would be somewhat entertaining, but many of the games on the Atari easily top this pinball wannabe.

Well, look on the bright side. This horribly built game at least paved the way and told Nintendo what NOT to do when creating the famous Pinball for the NES.