Ruiner Pinball is one of two pinball games for the Jaguar. It contains two tables, Ruiner and Tower.
Ruiner's playfield is basically just two playfields side by side, connected by a ramp. The goal here is to get from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1. You advance to the next DEFCON level by shooting certain shots in order.
Tower's playfield is just one really long playfield with 3 sets of flippers. Ramps move you up from lower playfields. Trick here is to cast three spells and defeat the tower.
Overall graphics are very good. Scrolls quickly and ball moves fast! The background is very noisy, and should have been toned down a bit. Quite a bit, actaully.
Good sound effects and music. Left and right inlanes actually make the sound effect on the appropriate speaker (as well as other shots in the game)! The music is decent, too. Seems wierd that they would use "ding" sounds for a few targets. Those "ding"s could have been something better.
Controls are easy to use. Flippers are joypad left, and B button. Tilt is just one button in (joypad right, and C button). My biggest gripe would be that the flippers movement seems a bit jerky. Not very smooth, and certain shots are hard to shoot for with the flippers. Also it's difficult to trap a ball with the flippers.
Definately a fun game. No doubt in my mind, I'm hooked. :) It gets a bit tedious tho, shooting the same sequence of shots over and over again to get to different DEFCON levels or to cast different spells, and the playfields could have more targets on them.
Definately a good buy at $11.99 at KB Toys. Also, definately not worth the $29.95 that Electronics Botique and others want for it tho. It's a decent game, slightly addictive. And it keeps track of high scores, so there's always a challange to knock your roomie out of the top slot!!! :)