iPhone Review: B.I.T.S

Publisher/Developer: Blue Bear Systems
Genre: Sports
Price: $0.99
Verdict: Everything that you would expect from a modern pinball game is here and done well except the pinball itself. UPDATE: 1.1 has addressed some issues, see below.
Pros: Good graphics and animation, clever use of table elements and multiple pinballs.
Cons: The pinball just doesn’t feel right, it’s too fast and exhibits bizarre physics properties.

At first I thought B.I.T.S stood for: “Ball Implementation Truly Sucks”.  I damn sure know it doesn’t mean: “Ball Is Too Slow”.

The game is letting me know I have 2 balls.

I already took heat for my last pinball review, apparently there is a fervent underground radical pinball liberation front that stays hardcore in their belief that archaic pinball ports are worth getting up in arms about.   I am unfortunately going to have to get this fringe group all ‘Glenn Beck Tea Party Crazy’ again.  While the developers did an excellent job of artistic design and trying to create new game mechanics, the pinball physics model is WAY off.  The game plays like someone stood the pinball machine on its end, quarter slots down, and made you play.  Instead of a standard 6.5 degree slope, it feels like 90 degrees.  The game feels more like pachinko than pinball.  B.I.T.S is B.I.T.F. (Ball Is Too Fast).

All the games intricacies are explained. Got it?

That being said, there is a lot here conceptually to like.  The table is nicely animated with particle and lighting effects. The table has a ‘Borg’ feel to it with elements that seemed crudely slapped together by a Radio Shack hobbyist.  The gears turn fluidly and the sound effects complement the aged electronic design.  The game plays exactly like the other pinball games on the iPhone, touch the bottom left of the screen to activate the left flipper and vice versa.  Blue Bear has made sure there is enough variety with the table elements to make the fact there is only a single table a non issue.  The game includes a few different modes: “B.I.T.S Mode” where you destroy bits, of which there are 5 levels; “Power Ups Mode” where you can acquire said power-ups when you knock the ball through a hologram, and “Clone Mode” which is really the standout feature of the game.  Given the right circumstances, you can have up to 20 balls on the table at once.  I never saw more than 6, but even that was very hectic to keep up with, especially given the aforementioned ball physics and large space between the flippers.  The game has a short instruction booklet you can flip trough, but given the complexities of the game, an ‘in-game’ demonstration would have worked much better.

Some thought was put into the table mechanics.

The plunger interface leaves a little to be desired as it does not act in a 1 to 1 relationship with your touch.  It is by no means a deal breaker, but if you are familiar with games like Gameprom’s “The Deep” it will take a bit getting used to. Options consist of setting Music and Sound FX levels.  The game lets you play any song from your iPod library as long as it is playing when you launch the game.  The experience is very no frills, but I think this game has a solid foundation for the devs to build on, it just may have been released a tad early.

This is it.

Right now the gameplay is sufficiently borked enough to make the game anywhere from unplayable to not fun to play.  Word from the developers* is a version 1.1 patch is in the works to fix the way the ball acts, and I will have to revisit this review once it’s released.  You may want to hang back until they do so.

*From the devs: “Version 1.1 Coming soon: Our next version of B.I.T.S has some significant tweaks to address the “fastness” making B.I.T.S even more fun!”
November 15th, 2009

UPDATE:

I just tried the 1.1 version and can say that the developers have done a commendable job of trying to address the bizarre handling of the pinball in their game.  It is definitely more playable but still doesn’t quite have the realistic feel of some of the other pinball games.  If you have this game already and dig it, this update will not phase you.  If you have this game and hate it, you will probably like it now.  If you are still on the fence, just know the table still has some odd bumper behavior and with the larger than usual gap between the flippers, you will see a lot more lost pinballs regardless of your skill level.  While not the best pinball game to choose from, it is more playable now and worth a look if you are jonesing for a slightly different take on the genre.