Xenotilt: Hostile Pinball Action review

pcgamer.com:

What is it? Eyeball-searing cyberpunk pinball bliss.

Expect to pay £12.79/$14.99

Developer Wiznwar, Flarb LLC

Publisher Flarb LLC

Reviewed on Intel i9-13900HX, RTX 4090 (laptop), 32GB RAM

Steam Deck Verified

Multiplayer? No

Link Official site

I thought I could handle this. The developer's previous «occult pinball action» hit, Demon's Tilt, has been my go-to Steam Deck game for as long as I've owned Valve's portable. I knew I was in for another round of traditional pinball skill mixed with shmup-like sprays of bullets—been there, done that, got the pentagram-decorated t-shirt.

But no, I was initially as overwhelmed by Xenotilt's riot of colour, fireworks, and pixelled retro cyberpunk style as anyone. There are energy scythes, cyber-scorpion women, and dragon-adjudicated billiards here. I can pick up ammo drops and fire bright pink snaking lasers at swarms of points-awarding monsters. It's basically the pinball game I imagine NPCs from Cyberpunk 2077 playing.

Xenotilt has just one table, but it's so big it's essentially three different pinball machines stacked on top of each other, each zone feeling like a section of a derelict spaceship with multiple states, moving features, and animated flourishes. I never thought I'd want auto-firing turrets in my pinball games, but now I've been given a taste of heaven I'm not sure I could ever go back.

So I spent most of my very short first few attempts admiring all the lights, sometimes with my monitor tilted on its side so I could bask in the game's vertical glory, acquainting myself with the Game Over screen, and feeling… pretty good about it all, in spite of my poor performance. Even the smallest score multiplier awarded or most basic multiball mode activated sets off a wave of screen-sized celebrations. Xenotilt is always happy to throw a party or 10 in my honour, no matter where I end up on the high score table at the end of it all.

Time, practise, and determination eventually cut through the awe I had for the game's