Digital Pinball Necronomicon

A brief note on the history of the Necronomicon first. The Necronomicon is a fictitious book dreamt up by none other than the master himself, Howard Philips Lovecraft. He had invented the idea while corresponding with friends and to perpetuate the hoax further, and to great success, he wrote The History of the Necronomicon. Through the years, the idea of an actual Necronomicon existing have grown into myth and legend, but the sad truth is that no such book has ever existed, save for in the mind of the genius who created it.

And somehow someone at KAZe came up with the brilliant idea of perpetuating the hoax (and making a few bucks in the process!) yet even further by creating Necronomicon Pinball. It's beyond this reviewer how the two meet, but it works, however loosely.

The game opens with a video of some black dude in a Monk's robe who was apparently very cheap to hire, and is some kind of guardian of a book that doesn't really exist. It's all dark and supposed to be scary, but comes off being rather corny and contrived. And then you go play some pinball...

The actual gameplay itself is quite good for a pinball videogame even though there are only 3 tables. The action is perfect with the game physics being dead on throughout each table. The flippers are responsive and the ball movement very accurate. It's no BlackKnight, Twilight Zone or Star Wars, but it's pretty accurate to real pinball.

The whole goth / scary theme littered throughout the game is pretty ridiculous, and the guy talking the entire time you are playing is nothing short of annoying. Despite these failings, the gameplay in Necronomicon Pinball is solid and will keep serious pinball fanatics coming back for higher scores.

This title is a must on a good home theater using at least s-video output since it uses the Saturn's highest resolution, and the soundtrack is done by none other than John Petrucci of Dream Theater.