I've been playing pinball, off and on, for over 50 years, and I've no doubt played hundreds of different tables in total. I've played every table by both major companies (TPA and ZP) on Steam to the tune of many thousands of games, but all that is pretty much in the past.....because I have discovered Pro Pinball Ultra's "Timeshock!" table. Most days it’s the only pinball I care to play.

In the 35 days since Timeshock! was released (1/27/16), I've recorded over 1,200 games. And I've yet to even BEGIN to be bored with playing the same table, mostly because Timeshock! has such incredible amount of depth and challenge. It's pretty hard! I would go so far to say that even with its "novice" mode, it's not necessarily a table for beginners, but it IS the table to strive toward playing, no matter one's skill level or the amount of time one has to commit.

With Timeshock!'s many challenging modes (including a 4-level video mode that really adds tremendously), there is no clue when a game starts if it will end with a score of three million, or 300 million....or way more! I tend to have a short attention span and often become fairly easily frustrated. But at least for me, Timeshock! is pretty much rage-proof because it's just SO MUCH fun to play! (And I’m really only an average pinball player.) The challenge of some shots is the very source of the tremendous feeling of success I sometimes get, and I can honestly say that with time comes far greater proficiency, and tremendous personal satisfaction.

Timeshock! offers a complex story about time travel, and the acquisition of artifacts from the varying periods visited. The game guide I've use, by Jens Goering - http://www.jeeens.de/t/t.html , is 32 pages of valuable information and graphics, well written and structured. Clearly this is no simple table to be mastered overnight, but rather a commitment that might require years of pure joy in order to truely overcome (HA! As if...)

Not only is the Timeshock! table itself interesting and challenging, there are numerous methods of play to choose from, each adding its own dimension of fun. Each game mode has its own leaderboard to track progress against players the world over. It even has a helpful “glass removed” feature that allows players to investigate the table actions in great detail (but does not count on leaderboards.) If a player has done well on the first three balls during any regular game, Timeshock! offers the opportunity to extend the game (and socre) by up to three additional balls for what offers the possibility of REALLY high scores for the best players. And Timeshock! has what may be my ALL-TIME favorite scoring feature in pinball; Lucky - a five million point shot resulting from a-l-m-o-s-t losing a ball down the left outlane. (Admittedly, I haven’t personally accessed many of the high-score features, so please forgive and notify if errors have been made in this review.)

At first glance it might seem that Timeshock! is more expensive than most single computer pinball tables, and I mostly bought it because I had heard so much about it for so long. (It is a truly legendary pinball table, perhaps the MOST renowned single computer pinball table available.) But while I paid about $15US, after a little over a month it comes to just over a penny a game, a pittance I’m grateful didn’t prevent me from THE computer pinball experience of this player's lifetime.

Perhaps one of the finest features of Timeshock! came on Day One when I was unable to complete installation on one of my laptops. The DEVs requested pertinent info from my PC, and within 2 -3 days had graciously corrected the problem. As I often say, perhaps the best feature of any game is an attentive DEV. (Thank you, one and all.)

If you love pinball and want both a great challenge AND great fun, Timeshock! will very likely be THE pinball experience you will never regret considering.

Thank you!

(As with most Steam games, offline Timeshock! play is not tracked.)

if you have never played the original Timeshock! game, I can definitely recommend this remastered version.
However, if you are on a budget, you might be better off just finding a cheap copy of the original somewhere.
The game itself is still extremely good if you are looking for a realistic pinball simulation – and not a more arcade game. The remastered graphics are neat, with the lighting being especially well done.

However:
As an original kickstarter backer, I can't help but be disappointed. After extremely long silence on Barnstorm Games's part, the finished product is still lacking features that were promised during the campaign (Steam features like achievements, leaderboards, cards, etc.). The launcher and the way resolutions are handled are awkward, with the game downloading a huge chunk of data internally after you start the game.
The biggest disappointment still remains Barnstorm's utter lack of communication. Even now, the game seems abandoned, the forums are deserted and e-mails are ignored.

If you rate the game by its own merits, I'd still recommend it. It still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to do so.

I supported this at the kickstarter. I pledged I think $500 USD. At the time, that was like $600 Canadian dollars. They promised a free copy, a hoody, a t-shirt and some other stuff for the level of pledge I did. All I got was a terribly bugged copy of the game that wasn't linked to Steam. To play the game on Steam, I had to buy it. The developers quickly abandoned this game and all support for it. They promised several more tables and a bunch of other promises. Not one promise was kept from what they mentioned at the kickstarter. The table is pretty good, but for all the money they took from us all, this game leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I'd avoid, and not support this game as the Dev's do not support their customers, and milked us all out of enough money already. 4/10 Due to total lack of honesty and not giving what they promised everyone.

9/18/2024 UPDATE: While I still enjoy this series in full, I can recommend this less than before.

The initial download comes with base assets, but you'll need to download a set of files from a separate server, depending on what resolution and what view you want. While better then downloading 60 GB of redundant files, this is fairly dangerous if the files no longer exist.

The developer also failed to deliver on certain Kickstarter rewards and incentives, including no physical rewards, no Xbox release, and no new physics engine. There has also been no forum activity, and the physical TImeshock project is at a standstill.

Here's my recommendation: Don't go in expecting a completely brand-new game here. Timeshock here still runs using the old physics model from 1997. While the graphics are dazzling and up to modern standards, the gameplay, while still great, all remains the same and hasn't changed since original release. If things change, I'll be more than willing to give this an update.

Tread cautiously with the $15 tag, considering the lack of updates since September 2016 and radio silence ever since.

Most probably one of the best pinball table ever conceived, but the game is clearly abandoned by its developer, and the gameplay is a little more sluggish than the '90s original game. And mostly... the game has to download graphics files from a very slow server every time you install it or change graphics options. It was a good idea to try to update this great game, but the lack of involvement and respect from the developer make it a bad and uncertain investment.

In terms of user experience when you're getting started, this is really very much "Early Access".

But the actual pinball table itself? Wow, it is an absolute work of art. The lighting, the effects, the physics - it's all spot on. It feels right. This feels like a real pinball table in a way most other video pinball just doesn't. Suddenly, as I began to play, I wished with all my heart that all of the tables on Farsight's "The Pinball Arcade" could be recreated by Barnstorm Games instead, to do those old beloved tables justice in a far more accurate preservation. Barnstorm Games' love for pinball is present in every minute detail. It's there in the travel of the ball. It's there in the gentle reflections of light. It's there in the click of the flipper. The ka-chunk of the targets.

Even the physics in the in-table video mode DMD game are better than I would expect from a pinball table!

If you love pinball, actual real pinball tables, try this game. Treat yourself! You will love it and it will love you back.

However, let me get back to details on what's so "my goodness this is so Early Access". When I first downloaded the game through Steam, I thought to myself "Oh, only ~700MB? That's pretty small!" - then I started it up and rather than letting me into the game and giving me an option to log in as a minor feature, the first thing I saw when I started up the game were some big ugly grey boxes, asking me to log in, or play as guest. I thought to myself "I kickstarted this, so I probably have a login somewhere...." - so I spent a good long while activating a forum account, retrieving a password, then activating that password. Then I logged in. Thankfully you only seem to need to do that once!

Then the next thing I see is a dialogue box telling me that it's downloading another ~500MB of data. Then it unpacks it. Then I'm in! So I go "hey, I wonder if logging in did anything special!" and click on Account. It looks like it did nothing special. So I click on the arrow to go "back", and it black screens so I need to exit the app entirely.

Then I decided to try playing the table. And it crashes out again. So I restart the game, and it works this time.

Now, there aren't any instructions for keys when you're looking at the table, nor on the pause menu, so I went through pressing all the keys on my keyboard to see if I could start a game. I didn't find it (fyi - you press the "S" key!) so I exited, then saw the instructions (and story!) under a little icon on the (mostly empty) main menu.

The actual table makes up for everything. But still - there's a lot of things they still need to do to make the overall experience of starting the application and getting into the game much better.

In the historical development of designing pinball machines and video games, TimeShock! continues to stand the "test of time". When it was originally developed using actual CAD and pinball engineering software, it was WAY ahead of even real pinball machines. It used too many feature lamps on the matrix, actual accurate switch location design was not really considered, and the physical mechanics were not directly feasible (Time Crystal, ramp alignment, etc) based on what was included in the virtual game among other factors. It is an absolute classic that although has taken FOREVER to get to this stage, is still worth the time and money.

If you want to complain about this only being one table, go play Pinball Arcade by Farsight Studios. The ball physics of this table, however, are much more accurate and the detail of the table is refined.

My credentials for assessment review of this pinball simulation are direct and simple.
I restore pinball machines as a collector, technician, and operator and have done so for well over a quarter century. I still maintain a large "stable" private collection of machines.
I am not a millenlial gamer.
I was involved the Bally/Williams pinball department in the 1990s.
I am intrinically aware of the challenges and design of pinball machines at both an electronic and physical level.

Currently, this simulation is being developed as a sample prototype machine by Silver Castle Pinball. Scheduled for demonstration at Pinball Expo in Chicago in 2016.
It is coming...

It's a slick single table, well-designed and deep, but the developer has seemingly vanished, along with our hopes of updating other Pro Pinball titles. I was a Kickstarter supporter, and I got my pledge reward, but many didn't get all they were promised, and the developer has stopped answering emails or providing support. Don't invest a cent in this venture - it's sadly dead.

This is a pinball simulation with one not easy table, great graphics and great physics. However, development seem to have been stopped.

Probaby could be a great game (I remember playing Pro Pinball: The Web back in the days).
However the game files are not included in the download you get from steam, so the 3GB table data file has to be downloaded from downloads.pro-pinball.com, which is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ slow, serving up to 10KB per second!
Yes, that's about 3.5 days.

I don't get why the game isn't just on here, to be downloaded in one, with the speed of steam's servers.
Also, as soon as that server goes down this game is not possible to use.

I'd really love to like this game, but so far my playtime in this game is only due to the slow download and not actually playing it...