Jess and Elliott have been in San Diego for a week visiting family and let me tell you... From the time this video was taken to today, I've put in hours and hours of play on this game. It's like crack in the form of a plastic toy for ages 7 and up. If the video ends somewhat abruptly, it's because I played for another hour and I cursed a lot. I didn't want you guys to have to hear that.
The rest of the review after the jump.
I love the combination of baseball and pinballs or "pinbaseball" as I call it. I'm sure you've seen pinbaseball before and if you're anything like me, you are addicted to these games. Bulls-Eye Baseball adds a miniature trampoline to the mix, thus combining pinbaseball with Quarters, which is something akin to genius.
The game comes with 4 modes and I've played the heck out of three of them. Half inning rally gives you a half inning to score as many runs as possible. There's also a home run derby where the only things that count on the board are home runs or outs. My favorite game though is 30 second AB, where you have 30 seconds to just let fly. The game also saves your high score from session to session and I found myself playing game after game, trying to beat my high scores.
After you get used to giving the balls the right "touch", 30 Second At-Bat becomes an exercise in dipping in and out of the zone. You'll be bouncing home runs at what seems like an impossible clip of 5 or 6 in a row in the space of 4 seconds and then all of a sudden all hell will break lose and you'll start Chuck Knoblauching every toss right off the kitchen table. The ticker noise changes pace every 10 seconds and you can feel the tension as you try to hit homers so you don't leave any ducks on the pond.
The construction of the game is very good. I wasn't sure if all of my tosses were getting registered so I did an experiment of just rolling a steady stream of marbles into each of the holes and the game counted them up perfectly. Then, I tried rolling two streams of marbles into two different holes and the numbers came up right. After hours and hours of play, I have noticed a little bit of wear on the paint on the edges of the bumpers, but it's nothing too crazy. The trampoline is the only part of the game that I wonder about as I haven't tried any especially overzealous tosses off of it. The balls also have a tendency to bounce clear off of the game, which potentially makes for some lost marbles, especially if you have hardwood floors.
All in all, I'd say that if you're in the market for a baseball related toy, this is one to get. It's not quiet enough to be an office toy, though if you had one on your desk, I'm sure nobody would mind if you snuck a game or two in during the lunch hour. If you're a collector of these kinds of toys, then this one is something of a no brainer. It brings to mind the nostalgic feeling of playing an old school pinbaseball game, but in a more modern package. If you're in a fraternity, or like to pair your beer with eye-hand coordination games, then this is also a no brainer. After you've tossed back a few, the lights and crazy electronic baseball noises make for good times.
All in all a very good, addicting game and one that provides for the perfect distraction between innings.