This is going to be a short one.
[edited for accuracy cuz some dodo in comments says my review from 2013 "is wrong" because I put the wrong "real" release date]

I was in a mood to play some pinball and I got this recently, so I said to myself "Why not?!". Well, I found out pretty soon why "not" indeed.

First, download was small and fast, so no waiting and stuff. Then I ran the game and... well.. it's pure, dissapointing bucket of ♥♥♥♥.
First thing, it asked me to register my game. And if I choose somehow not to register it, I won't have the full game, it will work only as a demo. But ok, many games activate on third party services and similar these days, right? Wrong! This piece of crap not only asks for a CDKEY, which is normal, it wants me to register it with my full name, address, phone, email and system specs. And those are required fields!

So, naturally I thought - "Well, this might be an older game. I don't follow my pinball 3D games lately so I'm not that informed when and what pinball game is released. It must be some relic from older days of retail CD cases and stuff."

Wrong! Again! This ♥♥♥♥ is from 2012! At least that's what Steam says. More on that later.

Ok. Let's just fill it with some nonsense that resembles names, addresses, with correct city, state and email. Just work already. No. Wrong, yet again! It refuses to register on account that I have not filled all the required fields (I did, numerous times).
UPDATE:
this did not work at the time of writing in 2013 - fake info or not and even if it worked, the point is the same in 2013 and in 2024 and it will be in 3024 - it shouldn't exist or at least be optional and not lock paid game behind it.
END UPDATE
My next move was to just decide "Eh, ♥♥♥♥ it. I'll play in demo mode... just run already.".

Naturally again, first thing when you run a game for the first time - set/check resolution. Ok, where is that 16:9, 1920x1080.. hm. Oh, wait, there is none. Highest resolution setting is 1600x1200...aaand, if there is some way to change that natively and easily, I did not found it. Oh-♥♥♥♥♥♥♥-kay.... let's just play in any resolution, whatever. So, first game, new game. Graphics is crap, everything has some ♥♥♥♥♥♥ glow and camera is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane. Music is even more crap than the graphics, if you can believe it. In short - gameplay is crap.

Next thing that bugged me is to re-check release date of this ♥♥♥♥. Who would have guessed - I was wrong again, well - Steam was, partly. Game was added to Steam in 2012 but... this came out in 2008 and for Nintendo Wii 2006 on Windows - Wikipedia lists it in it's infobox as 2008, but text in body lists 2006 which I can confirm via Wayback Machine. Now it all started to make sense. Well, at least that part about ingame crappiness. That registration/activation part is still unexplainable even if the game is 5 7 years old.

Luckily, my next move after I publish this will be "Right click on Dream Pinbal 3D, Delete Local Content". It had some potential I guess, this game that is. But all that is quickly lost in game's inability to just run like most normal games in last 5-10 years. And yes, we could all say that a bunch of AAA titles had game crashing bugs or errors when you ran them but those were bugs. These are not bugs and unexpected errors. These are deliberately, man made errors that ruined this game. Ok, resolution aside, discard that on whatever resolution was "hip" five years ago. But the activation part is the most important part of this, because without it, you don't have the whole game, and it doesn't work.

Dream Pinball 3D would probably be a pinnacle of gamemaking in 1998. but here and now, no. Instead it's just ♥♥♥♥ that you try not to step in.

Do I recommend this? You guessed it right - No, i don't. Fortunately, I got this in a trade so it's not a loss. But If you plan to shell out any... and I mean - ANY! - amount of cash for this - DON'T. Or at least try free demo first.

I love pinball. And when I got a 90% off coupon for Dream Pinball 3D, I read the reviews here and I knew what I was getting into. But I took it as a bit of a challenge, to see if I could actually get the game up and running and evaluate it on its own merits, or lack thereof. It wasn't very difficult to get going (who doesn't use a backup email and info for internet purposes these days anyway?, set compability mode for XP, and as an extra step I went ahead and added the .exe to DEP since I run Win 8.1). As long as you don't try to do anything fancy, like alt-tab or upload your scores or load the registration window, or exit, it's sort of stable. I didn't get any crashes during the game itself anyway.

The screen ratio is stretched in widescreen, and even though 16:9 is an option those resolutions can't be set. Nothing, it seems, can be done about that. I'd also recommend cranking down the effects since all the bloom, reflection, glass, lighting, etc. seems to do is make it really hard to see your ball whizzing around the distorted table. Also, there is no controller support, and the default key settings were oddly configured but could be changed.

There are 6 tables, they're nothing special really, but they're not the worst I've played. The play isn't anything novel for pinball, but it's got all the combos, multiball, missions, extra balls, etc. you expect from a decent table. The physics aren't really comparable to Pinball Arcade and the theming and missions aren't even in the same league as Pinball FX2, two outstanding pinball games which can be downloaded on Steam free with a single free table each. I did find it a bit easier to keep my ball alive on the Dream Pinball 3D tables than I generally do in the other pinball games, which was nice for a change of pace as a relatively novice player.

In all, I feel like I personally got my 70 cents' worth just to satisfy my own curiousity, but I can't really recommend the game unless you're a die-hard pinball fanatic and you're stuck with a 10 year-old computer you can't run anything better on. I'm probably going to throw this on an old laptop that I use for ancient DOS games since I think it will run fine with all the useless bells and whistles turned off and the screen ratio won't be an issue.

how the ♥♥♥ you find the word ''dream'' on this game?

I'll be honest with ya. I only got this because I got a 90% off coupon from making a badge and thought $1 for pinball is a good deal. Sadly, it still felt like a ripoff.

First thing that happens when you launch this is you have to register the game and include stuff like your full name, email, phone#, etc. If you don't do this, you won't be getting the full game you paid for. After taking a few minutes to fill in info I was sure wasn't gonna be used for anything [Update: They wanted all that stuff to send me newsletters for their other stuff. Yeah, no thanks.], I was ready to play this...only to have the controller not respond to the game. At first I thought you had to change the input from keyboard to controller. Nope. Game doesn't support controllers. I wouldn't make a big deal about this if this was originally released in say, 2001. This game came out in 2008. Inexcusable.

Now for the gameplay. The game comes with 6 tables of different themes. Now 6 good tables would be worth the $10 price. These 6 didn't feel like they were worth the $1 I payed. Gameplay just felt so dull and slow that I didn't even bother to play the tables seriously. The bad music and camera angles didn't exactly help either. This was just a mess all around. After 1 playing of it, this was uninstalled and never played again.

If you want to spend $10 on pinball, get either Pinball Arcade or Pinball FX and spend it on the packs. Sure you might get less tables, but they'll actually be worth it.

Some of the tables are good, but there is a lot wrong with this game which makes an overall recommendation impossible.

Some technical issues first:
- What's with this Registration bullcrap? Yes one can uncheck and skip it. But things like this are awful. All I get for doing it is apparently a global leaderboard (I have serious doubts this actually would work) and most likely a ton of spam.

- CD-key shenaniganism. What do you even want? I don't get it. This is totally unnecessary on steam. Actually it's much worse than unnecessary as the the game is buggy and keeps crashing from time to time while playing with some message about the background cd-key checking having failed (why did I activate it when you keep rechecking it all few minutes?). Should be patched out entirely.

-Resolution: max res is 1600x1200. Looks terrible in the menus, is less severe when actually playing. I could live with that. I can not live with the fact though, that after you close the game steam and other windows may be resized and you have to fix it all manually. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Now a few words on the actual game:
-This game will most likely literally make you sick as the standard camera is fixed on the ball and the screen will constantly move around. This is more of a rollercoaster simulation than a pinball game^^ You can actually change the camera (press C several times) to be fixed on you/the table, that however doesn't even work with these tables as all 5 of them are designed with several flippers in the upper part of the tables and you'll spent most of the time playing on the top of the tables with these flippers rather than the 2 standard flippers at the bottom/the sinks. Handling a table in fixed camera view is very hard.

-The tables all work very similar with ball upgrades (don't even know what it does, color changes but physics stay the same, maybe more points?), no kickbacks at all (there don't seem to be major unfair drains though except on the Knights table - but as I just said it: The ball will spent most of the time on the upper parts of the table) and it's very easy to achieve multiballs and extraballs. Top lits always increase the bonus multiplier, bottom lits (which usually would activate kickbacks) here only give points or activate the ballsaver (in case of Aquantic).

The tables:
Knight Tournament - meh... ball keeps draining very unfairly on this table.

Monsters - Decent table, but only really playable with the standard view imho (prepare your stomache).

Dino Wars - Good table, might work better than the other tables with the table fixed camera.

Spinning Rotors - Actually this could be a good table if the noises wouldn't kill you. There are constant sirens and horns - unbearable.

Aquatic - Again unbearable due to sounds. Everything you hit or the ball moves over causes some sea animal squeaking (well if that's your thing... I can not stand it). Interestingly the table is extremely easy as the ballsaver is on nearly permanently and for some reason I don't even know I kept getting extra balls (on normal difficulty).

Amber Moon - I actually enjoyed this one. Definitely the best table for me. Maybe though it's just that I've gotten a bit more used to the ball fixed cam by now as that was the last table I tried^^


Conclusion: Some good tables. But it's probably really not for you if you get dizzy easily. Also lots of technical nuisances.

Recommendation: Don't even think about buying when it is not on -90% sale/coupon/bundled.

Heres the thing, I really enjoy pinball games. I play Pinball FX2 loads on my Xbox360, I have Zen Pinball on my 3DS, I have several pinball titles for the Ps2. I have even played a good amount of real pinball despite being really bad at it.

That said I have no love for this title at all. Lets start with the really ugly bit first, forced registration. Sure you can opt not to, but that leaves you heavily limited ingame with no online leaderboards, demo tables and tables that are locked out from play. Its a stupidly pointless step that is just plain annoying.

But then we have the actual tables themselves, six tables, all different themes but all having one big thing thats covered across all of them, they are just dull! The tables offer so little in the way of features and modes compared to other pinball games on steam, theres little life, little energy and little 'fun' too. Essentially its my way of saying 'Basic and Boring' and 'I could be doing better things than this right now' which, happens not to be a good thing to think while playing a game.

In one quick last comment then: So Average, its boring.

ok

You know a game is bad when you regret winning it for free.

Seriously, this is horrendous. A lengthy 3rd-party DRM process is involved just to play the game, including entering your steam key for a second time, as well as filling out a legthy registration form that asks you a slew of personal information such as your age, address, and phone number. Why would a pinball game need that anyway? I have no idea.

The best part? After filling out this invasive registration, it doesn't work. I click "register" and I get an error message that says "All Marked Boxes Must Be Filled In". They are. I filled in every single box and cannot get this game to register for the life of me. I'm unsure if it's just broken, or if this 3rd party company is long gone, thus leaving the software with no server to cross-reference your information and email you the activation code.

So I said screw it, skipped activation, and the game went into demo mode. It only allows you to play one map in this mode, but that was enough for me to realize what a pile of garbage this game is anyway. Only a few set resolutions, horrible camera control, terrible graphics/music. The control map scheme is one of the most baffling I've ever enountered, and this is a simplistic pinball game. There's absolutely nothing enjoyable about this title. I've played Early Access Alpha games that functioned better.

0/10 not even worth trying for $0.

It is certainly not that bad, as reviews there suggests. It's not too good, on the other hand.

It runs on Win 7 & 10. The resolutions choice a bit weird, but, the game's dated... and absence of 2k (4k) isn't that troublesome. The main problem for many, online registration, which first tells you it is not collecting any Personal Data, and then asks about full name, full address and zipcode, date of birth and email. Well, I had no troubles with that, just add some random data, with the date of birth under year 2000, and use some backhand email, you'll receive some email with the additional code to enter to run the game... Not so troubling, as the most of reviewers there wanted to imply.

Now, speaking of the game itself... The controls are ok, you can even nudge the table in three ways... not too helpful, but a good feature to have. Especially if you ever played the real pinball and know how it's should be.

There are 6 tables, and 4 levels of difficulty, with different amount of balls per play, and some other features to make the game easier or tougher. Not all of those 6 tables are that good, I liked maybe half of them, others weren't that well calculated for the comfort and fun playtime... Or I just was unlucky with those other three.

Speaking of the bad things in the game, it is not too stable. I had several crushes within some short time, when I was returning from the HiScore screen to the main options menu. Considering it was not in the actual play time, with the ball still flying, but only in the options section... I'd say it's certainly not a "good bug", but not game-breaking.

So, as a bottomline: do I really recommend the game? Well, yes - if you want to play solid virtual pinball and don't want to pay for different tables as much as Pinball FX desires. On the other hand, "Dream Pinball 3D" will not offer you as much versatile gameplay, as FX series. It's dated and mediocre project. I'd say, 5.5/10 points. You can buy it in some cheap bundle, or with the big discount... Or just leave it be, it's not some "underrated gem" you will really miss anyhow.

Start game.
You need to register.
"alright"
Game starts.
Resolution is crap and shifted to the left.
Doesn't support my 1680x1050
"nice"
Pick "map"
Leaderboard pops up.
Won't go away.
Couldn't figure out how to launch the ball.
Spend about a minute smashing every button on my keyboard trying to figure how to launch the piece of ♥♥♥♥.
Apparently there's like 12 buttons to change the camera angle.
Every angle is the same.
Leaderboard disappears.
Ball launches by itself another minute later.
"finally"
Flippers have a mind of it's own.
Can't control flippers.
Lose ball.
Leaderboard pops up.
uninstall.exe

Space Cadet Pinball here I come.