KISS, KISS, KISS! What could be said about the band KISS that hasn’t been said? They were insanely popular, had a recognizable image, Gene Simmons is a hack and I will probably hear from his lawyers for slander because he is that desperate to be acknowledged. But the point is, KISS was crazy popular and had merch all over the place. Toys, lighters, and crossovers galore. I was familiar with the music, mostly the songs from Tony Hawk’s Underground. Fucking Scooby-Doo had a crossover with them for some reason. So, naturally, a video game was expected to be in the works at some point. So, may as well bring together the two greatest things. KISS and Pinball… Yep, Pinball, of all things. Wonder if FarSight made this. No, actually, it was made by Tarantula Studios, who would later be fused into Rockstar Studios. Yes, the studio that makes Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2. The game was published by Take-Two Interactive. So, yeah, this is the game that was released before those games. This was Tarantula’s last game before being fused into Rockstar Lincoln. So, let’s see what they went out with.
KISS Pinball has one of the worst title screens I’ve ever seen. Probably the worst. 80% of the screen is just licensing and copyright stuff you usually see at the bottom of title screens, except they take up most of the screen here. It’s like the game had so little and just had to fill up the screen with what they could… I feel like this is foreshadowing for the rest of the game. The game starts you off with two pinball tables, and that’s it. You get only two pinball tables. No more than that. Nothing else to unlock. I hope you really like pinball and Kiss because this is all you’re getting. You have a set number of modes. Novice, Regular and Arcade. What they are, I don’t know. I didn’t think you needed a difficulty setting for fucking pinball. So let’s get right into it.
Well, it’s pinball… but shittier. Aside from the garish looking pinball table that you get set with with blinding colors, you have some really fucked cameras. I ain’t exactly a Pinball Wizard, but I doubt the pinball can just fall straight down the hole every single time. I had that ball fall into the hole more times than I actually got to hit it. And good luck hitting it, because the camera is such a mess. It follows the ball everywhere it goes. So imagine the camera following a fast moving ball and try to predict where it will land, when it will land, and to hit the bumpers at that time to keep the ball from falling into the hole. It doesn’t make me want to play pinball, it makes me sick to my stomach as the ball keeps bouncing around, and when I’m about to have a vomit induced feeling from pinball, that’s when we’ve really got a problem.
I’d want to talk about the game more, but there isn’t anything left to talk about. I had more fun looking at the art in the manual, which is more like a pamphlet with the lack of content you have in it. The game is the most basic form of a game I’ve ever played. It barely counts as a game. You’d have better luck just going out and buying a real KISS Pinball machine rather than playing this watered down PS1 port. I will say this, it is at least on the same quality as Gene Simmons’ career, so at least it got that right.
KISS Pinball has one of the worst title screens I’ve ever seen. Probably the worst. 80% of the screen is just licensing and copyright stuff you usually see at the bottom of title screens, except they take up most of the screen here. It’s like the game had so little and just had to fill up the screen with what they could… I feel like this is foreshadowing for the rest of the game. The game starts you off with two pinball tables, and that’s it. You get only two pinball tables. No more than that. Nothing else to unlock. I hope you really like pinball and Kiss because this is all you’re getting. You have a set number of modes. Novice, Regular and Arcade. What they are, I don’t know. I didn’t think you needed a difficulty setting for fucking pinball. So let’s get right into it.
Well, it’s pinball… but shittier. Aside from the garish looking pinball table that you get set with with blinding colors, you have some really fucked cameras. I ain’t exactly a Pinball Wizard, but I doubt the pinball can just fall straight down the hole every single time. I had that ball fall into the hole more times than I actually got to hit it. And good luck hitting it, because the camera is such a mess. It follows the ball everywhere it goes. So imagine the camera following a fast moving ball and try to predict where it will land, when it will land, and to hit the bumpers at that time to keep the ball from falling into the hole. It doesn’t make me want to play pinball, it makes me sick to my stomach as the ball keeps bouncing around, and when I’m about to have a vomit induced feeling from pinball, that’s when we’ve really got a problem.
I’d want to talk about the game more, but there isn’t anything left to talk about. I had more fun looking at the art in the manual, which is more like a pamphlet with the lack of content you have in it. The game is the most basic form of a game I’ve ever played. It barely counts as a game. You’d have better luck just going out and buying a real KISS Pinball machine rather than playing this watered down PS1 port. I will say this, it is at least on the same quality as Gene Simmons’ career, so at least it got that right.