''3-D Ultra Pinball'' is a series of

pinball Pinball games are a family of games in which a ball is propelled into a specially designed table where it bounces off various obstacles, scoring points either en route or when it comes to rest. Historically the board was studded with nails call ...

computer games developed by

Sierra Entertainment Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher founded in 1979 by Ken Williams (game developer), Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is ...

Dynamix Dynamix, Inc. was an American developer of video games from 1984 to 2001, best known for the flight simulator Red Baron (1990 video game), ''Red Baron'', the puzzle video game, puzzle game ''The Incredible Machine (video game), The Incredible Mach ...

. The games try to escape from the traditional,

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...

pinball and feature animation, more than one table at once, and "temporary targets" (such as spaceships, goblins and dinosaurs appearing throughout the table).

3-D Ultra Pinball

The original 3-D Ultra Pinball game was released in 1995. This game is based on the space simulation game, '' Outpost''. There are three tables named Colony, Command Post, and Mine. Each table holds a set of five challenges. Smaller "mini-tables" are featured with their own set of flippers. The goal is to build and launch a

Starship A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for interstellar travel, traveling between planetary systems. The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1 ...

completing the game's entire course.

3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night

The second game, Creep Night (1996) had a horror film set, and 3 different tables (and after finishing all challenges in a table, the player could travel to the other ones): *

Castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

, fragmented in town, castle area and graveyard. Its challenges are

Zombie A zombie (Haitian French: ; ; Kikongo: ''zumbi'') is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. In modern popular culture, zombies appear in horror genre works. The term comes from Haitian folkl ...

Goblin A goblin is a small, grotesque, monster, monstrous humanoid creature that appears in the folklore of multiple European cultures. First attested in stories from the Middle Ages, they are ascribed conflicting abilities, temperaments, and appearan ...

s, Runaway (a goblin riding an ATV runs through the table),

Vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

(multi-ball, in which the player must shoot in the vortex) and Wraith (a female magnetic ghost tries to capture the ball). *

Tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

, a mad scientist lab. The challenges are: Rat, Energy Gate (similar to Vortex, but "single-balled"), Beast, Goblin, and

Dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores ...

. After finishing all 5 challenges, the "

Frankenstein monster Frankenstein's monster, commonly referred to as Frankenstein, is a fictional character that first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' as its main antagonist. Shelley's title compares the monster's ...

" revives and is needed to hit him 5 times. *

Dungeon A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably derives more from the Renaissance period. An oubliette (fr ...

. The Challenges are: Gobbler (a ghost chases the ball to eat it), Spiders, Dimension Door (if hit, activates a " Simon"-like game), Trapdoor (similar to "Vortex") and

Skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of most animals. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is a rigid outer shell that holds up an organism's shape; the endoskeleton, a rigid internal fra ...

Escape (six skeletons come out of the cells for you to hit). Like in Tower, after beating them a

Catapult A catapult is a ballistics, ballistic device used to launch a projectile at a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden rel ...

appears, and the player must have to hit it some times. After finishing all the 3 tables, comes a changed Castle table, with 5 new challenges. This was also released with several demos of other software titles also by Sierra Online. ''3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night'' received a score of 3 out of 5 from ''

MacUser ''MacUser'' was a monthly (formerly biweekly) computer magazine published by Dennis Publishing Ltd. and licensed by Felden in the UK. It ceased publication in 2015. In 1985 Felix Dennis’ Dennis Publishing, the creators of MacUser in the UK, l ...

''.

3-D Ultra Pinball: The Lost Continent

Lost Continent (1997) had a ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

''-like set. It followed a storyline, in which a plane falls on an island where an evil genius, Heckla, has created

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s of other animals and the cavemen who live there. Professor Spector, his assistant Mary, and adventurer Rex Hunter try to escape back to the modern world, rescue tribal woman Neeka and stop Heckla and his army of robots. It has no challenges but features 16 tables, divided in 3 "sectors": Jungle, Temple and Chambers (Heckla's Lab).

3-D Ultra NASCAR Pinball

As the title reads, it is a

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

-themed pinball, released in 1998. The game only has 3 fields: garage, track and pitstop. It features several famous NASCAR drivers like

Dale Earnhart Ralph Dale Earnhardt (; April 29, 1951February 18, 2001) was an American professional Stock car racing, stock car driver and racing team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Serie ...

and

Bobby Labonte Robert Allen Labonte (born May 8, 1964) is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver and current analyst for ''NASCAR on Fox''. He also currently competes part-time in the SMART Modified Tour, driving the No. 18L for Hermie Sa ...

as playable characters, but the choice affects only audio commentaries and field decorations.

3-D Ultra Pinball Power

Power (1999) was a compilation released in 1999, featuring the first game, ''Creep Night'' and ''Lost Continent'', and as a bonus, '' The Incredible Machine'' and a demo of ''3-D Ultra Golf''.

3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride

The final title of the series, Thrillride, also received a

Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...

version, which was developed by

Left Field Productions Left Field Productions, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Ventura, California. Founded in 1994 by industry veterans John Brandwood, Jeff Godfrey and Mike Lamb, Left Field is best known for developing the critically acclaimed Ni ...

and released by Sierra in December 2000. It is set in

Hersheypark Hersheypark (known as Hershey Park until 1970) is a family theme park in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about east of Harrisburg, and west of Philadelphia. The park was founded in 1906, by Milton S. Hershey as a leisure park for the employees of the ...

with rides and theme park elements as puzzles and table features. The PC version was included in Sierra's ''Game Room'' for the PC in 2004.

Sales

The series sold more than half a million copies by 1998.

References

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

Article about the series on Hardcore Gaming 101
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