Honesty is difficult. Especially when dealing with machines that are overly praised and overrated.
Flippers and investors fear less than perfect reviews because it may affect their profits, and fans are prone to getting upset because you don’t agree with them.
Very few people have the understanding and can accept that not everyone likes the same thing.
So it becomes important to back up your argument with a decent explanation.
As can be seen from my overall score, I don’t hate Centaur. Far from it, but it’s not fantastic either.
It’s still better than eating peanuts while chewing gum.
Don’t ever try that by the way.
Let’s start with the main draw, the art.
Wow wow wow wow…..
Wow!
Yeah! This is an awesome looking pinball machine! Bally had mastered how to capture sci-fi/fantasy novel art styles with Xenon and kept on going upwards from there.
Until they stopped and somehow flushed themselves down the toilet. Wanna play Hardbody anyone?
Centaur was probably the pinnacle, and definitely is designed to atttract the 1980s black and white indie comic fans. Granted, it’s not exactly Frank Frazetta art, Heavy Metal magazine, or the Conan black and white magazine, but it’s dang close!
If I were to score it on the artwork alone, I’d give it a ten out of ten.
But that’s the problem that even comic books had. You can’t just have pretty artwork with no substance.
What you end up with is Todd McFarlane filling six issues of a new Spider-Man comic with the only dialouge being the word “Doom!” over and over.
The “Doom” here is those “centaur” drop targets.
Sorry, but I had a pun all lined up for that.
Is it me, or do they send the ball straight for the centaur drain with some mad flipping to prevent it?
Okay, I’m done with the puns.
The center drop targets are a minor issue, as is the sound of some guy telling me over and over to destroy centaur. I don’t mind repeating yourself but I got the message the first time.
Maybe he repeats it because I have, never once in nearly forty years, succeeded in destroying centaur… it he mocking me?
The biggest problem, for me personally, is that I have played multiple copies of Centaur over the years, and always find I’m pretty much done after two or three games. I lose interest.
Compare that to Xenon, where I can still sink hours in, and it has a lot less to do and even less going on. Then there’s the almighty quarter gobbler Pin•Bot, which hates me with a passion, and yet I keep trying.
It might be the imbalanced difficulty, it’s certainly not balanced in the centaur!
Ha!
Seriously, Centaur seems too easy and too willing to let you get somewhere on those things that should be hard and exciting when they happen, but impossible on those things that should be easy and seemingly unimportant. Multiball is easy, and happens frequently without trying, but aimed shots rarely result in what you hoped for. See the aforementioned drop targets.
It’s the long term enjoyment and value for money that matters most, and I just don’t see that with Centaur.
In an arcade, it’s perfect, but it’s not really a pinball machine you would say, “Oh yes! Instead of buying both a Xenon and a Pin•Bot, I’d rather spend the same amount on one Centaur!”
That makes no sense, and the prices for a decent working Centaur is ridiculous nowadays.
Yes, I know I reuse examples, and I could have just as easily said, “Would you pay Star Trek TNG or Stern Mandalorian, or Stern AC/DC money for a overrated Bally game from the 1980’s?”
In the end, it’s up to the buyer, and I understand both nostalgia and the desire to have the coolest toys plays a huge part in that.
I go into this a lot, but these pinball reviews aren’t here to be trashtalk against a game that pissed you off, nor are they hollow echo chambers of eternal and unwavering praise and worship for the almighty top 100.
It’s an opinion, designed to help others decide if they’d want to commit to the investment of owning one.
Not a popularity contest.
With that in mind, I’ll say this:
Unless you really love Centaur, find a place to play it several times before committing. It’s a hefty cash investment and it may let you down when you look at other games in the same price range and wonder if you made the right choice.
On the positive side, it’s a 1980s Bally. Non-game specific parts are cheap and plentiful, and the game specific ones are all heavily reproduced and available from multiple sources.
Furthermore, the MPU, along with all the other boards, are super easy to work on. (Or replace with modern fake emulator boards if you must) and there are few parts on the machine overall that are prone to failure or randomly breaking.
Thats a huge financial and maintenance advantage over modern pinball.
The bottom line is that the looks are incredible and enticing, but long-term gameplay may leave you cold.
It’s a very black and white game, but that somehow balances out somewhere in the Centaur.
Two puns for the price of one.