Review: Crystal Caliburn
by Christopher Breen

Type: Pinball Simulation   
Publisher:  StarPlay Productions, Inc. (303/330-7553)
Retail Price: $59.95
Street Price: $33.95
Requires: System 6.07 or higher, 13” or larger monitor, 256 colors, 4MB RAM.
Protection: None

Dropping The Quarter. When I was a kid, my parents used to take the family to a beer and burger joint called the Oasis. Even though the place served food, there was a large sign at the door proclaiming that patrons under the age of 21 would not be admitted. The sign was apparently intended for the intimidation of the nearby Stanford students; parents with young children were jake as far as the “O” was concerned. The O was a pretty freewheeling place in those days, and customers were encouraged to toss peanut shells on the floor, carve their initials into the tables and walls, and drink as much beer as they could hold. As minors, we were banned from taking part in the last activity and, unlike our more aged counterparts, saddled with one further prohibition: no pinball.

Somehow these clanging contraptions lined up against the south wall of the O represented all that was forbidden in this world. Naturally, I was fascinated. Although I wasn’t allowed to actually touch one of the machines, there was nothing to prevent me from gazing at the garish flashing lights, the representations of improbable women, and the haunted men locked in combat with the single silver ball. 

As the years passed and Asteroids, Pacman, and Defender became the rage, the pinball machines began to be shunted farther down the wall until finally, a single Eight Ball Deluxe stood unplayed next to the Men’s Room. The O started serving salads and sweeping the floor. My youth was over and so, it seemed, were the pinball days.

Pulling The Plunger. In order to compete with video-arcade machines, pinball needed to be reinvented. The raw challenge of knocking down a handful of targets and finessing the ball through a particular gate simply couldn’t compete with the digital thrill of ripping the still-beating heart out of a muscle-bound palooka. New, faster, and flashier pinball machines appeared that featured ramps, multi-ball play, and a wealth of sounds. Crystal Caliburn, from Little Wing, is a Macintosh simulation of just such a pinball machine.

Crystal Caliburn is Little Wing’s third pinball simulation. If you are familiar with its first offerings, Tristan and Eight Ball Deluxe, you have a small inkling of what you’ll find in Crystal Caliburn. Like Tristan, Crystal Caliburn is a completely original pinball machine that exists only as software.

Letting Go. If you’re at all familiar with pinball machines, you understand that each machine is set up around a central concept. Eight Ball Deluxe, for example, represents spot targets as striped and solid pool balls and lanes as the means to accessing the eight ball and re-racking the balls (resetting the targets). Crystal Caliburn is based on Arthurian legend. Your job is to accolade knights of the Round Table by knocking over banks of spot targets, completing the Top Lane (meaning that you run your ball through each of the three lanes at the top of the machine), and shooting the ramps and return lanes. Once you’ve accoladed the requisite 12 knights, you need to shoot the Glass Island Ramp to gain the Holy Grail (worth 500,000 points). If you attain the Grail, you have exactly five seconds to shoot the Camelot Castle Ramp to deliver the Grail to the castle (worth untold riches and, at the very least, a high score). 

I know this sounds confusing, and — believe me — at first, it is. There are numerous other ways to score points, but frankly, without the manual and accompanying diagrams in front of you, their recital would tax both my powers of communication and your ability to absorb complex and, ultimately, trivial routines. So let’s skip further discussion of the complexities of scoring and move directly into descriptions of a couple of features not found in old-style pinball machines.

Be The Ball, Danny. The most amazing, when first encountered, is Multi Battle. Suffice to say that if you perform a series of operations, three balls will start pinging their way around the playing field. With a Multi Battle under way, forget about lifting your flippers and carefully planning your next shot. The best you’ll be able to do is keep your eyes glued to the bottom of the machine and frantically flap your fingers on the keyboard in an attempt to keep all the balls in the air. If you do have an instant to take your eyes off the flippers, you will notice how nicely the balls carom off each other when they collide.

Another nice feature is the Shields that are placed in the right and left Out Lanes (those lanes at the bottom of the machine that channel your ball into the Out Hole). Shields are active at the beginning of the game, and their sole purpose is to thrust your ball back up through the lane and into play. Once a shield has been used you can reactivate it only by shooting either of the two ramps and then running the ball through one of the two Return Lanes (these are the lanes next to the Out Lanes that, rather than sending your ball into the drink, run it by one of the flippers).

And, for those of us who sometimes let go of the plunger a little too soon, there’s Auto Battle. If your ball goes down the Out Hole without being in play for more than a few seconds, a new ball is automatically fired. Auto Battle can also be activated during the course of a game and provide you with an extra ball long after the initial grace period has elapsed.

Bumpers. But let’s get to the important issue: How does it feel? The short answer is: okay. If you’ve played Eight Ball Deluxe and were hoping that the ball would zip along in the same way in this game, you could be disappointed. Crystal Caliburn feels just a touch slower than Eight Ball. This impression is emphasized by the graphic representation of the ball. As in Eight Ball, the light source in the ball’s reflection never changes — a strong light always seems to be coming from just above and to the left of the ball — and during those times when the action is less than fast and furious, the ball seems to float rather than roll. Don’t get me wrong, things certainly move along at an acceptable pace and, given the number of targets and ramps to shoot for, the slowish table may actually be a blessing. Although I hate to invoke the dreaded name of DOS, some pinball sims on that platform allow players to determine the slope and speed of their tables. I would highly recommend that Little Wing implement such a feature in their next game.

Setting aside the speed issue, the ball seems to angle about the table realistically. After awhile, you should be able to smack targets and shoot ramps on a fairly consistent basis without feeling that the action is overly predictable. You will find that nudging is very tolerant and that the surface of the flippers is forgiving. I was able to easily trap a ball in an upturned flipper that, on a real pinball machine, would have bounced the ball off of the glass and into the Out Hole. 

Rewards. Little Wing has taken the time to trademark a feature called the HighScore™  Contest. You may participate in three ways. If you have one of the three top scores submitted to Crystal Caliburn’s publisher, StarPlay, each month (you can record high scores in a special TeachText file), you win a Crystal Caliburn T-shirt. Less-than-top-scorers are welcome to purchase the same shirt for $17.95.  Players who score 50,000,000 points or more are welcome to purchase a special 50,000,000 HighScore T-shirt for $7.50, and if you really put your score through the ceiling and ring up 100,000,000 or more, you get, absolutely free, the 100,000,000 HighScore T-shirt. StarPlay is also sponsoring a worldwide HighScore contest. Check the manual for details.

In addition to the HighScore feature, Little Wing offers some interface improvements over their last release. You can now select the keys that will operate the plunger, flippers, and nudge. This is terrific for those of us who prefer to play the game one-handed. You can also choose to separately turn off the background music and sounds. Lastly, Command-I now inserts a coin, rather than Eight Ball’s contrary-to-Apple-Law combo: command-c.

High Score. Crystal Caliburn truly offers a lot of enjoyment. It looks good, sounds good, plays okay, and even offers rewards if you excel. Heck, next to having a real pinball machine, it’s the best thing currently on the market. Perhaps if StarPlay had included a bucket of smoke-scented paint, a few hundred peanut shells, a double-cheese on french, and a pitcher of Steam, I’d feel right at home. 

Pros
• Attractive table
• Great sounds
• Smooth action
• Challenging scoring options
• User-selectable flipper keys
• HighScore™ Contest

Cons
• A trifle slow
• Forgiving flippers
• No beer and peanuts