FarSight Studios recently released The Pinball Arcade on Xbox Live Arcade. It is also available on iOS and Android. Here are my thoughts on the game so far.

Having played Black Hole, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, Tales of The Arabian Nights and Theatre of Magic in real life, these four tables are accurately represented in video game form. FarSight Studios is dedicated to bringing real pinball tables to the digital world, and they didn't slack here.

The ball physics are near perfect and it feels like there's weight on the ball, unlike in Zen Studios' Pinball FX 2. But besides that, you really can't compare the two pinball titles, since Zen is focused more on flashy, fantasy tables and FarSight goes for the realistic.

I'm not a big fan of the menu design; it feels slapped together as an afterthought. But that's just a minor issue.

Check back soon at theoaklandpress.com for my full review of the game.

Get even tinier random thoughts at www.twitter.com/JeffHoard921