I love myself a good pinball table. Brawlers, SHMUPs, and fighters were my regular quarter munchers in an arcade room, but the pinball table is like putting a Rubix Cube on a living room coffee table; at some point, you're going to feel inclined to mess with it. Two of my favorite tables were Space Jam and Terminator 2. While it was hard to replicate the thrill of hitting flippers at home (unless you knew a relative or had the income and space to entertain a table), pinball video games weren't a bad option. The medium allowed for some great themes like Alien Crush, Sonic Spinball (it's aged weird, but I like it still). And some absolute trash like KISS Pinball for the PlayStation. Digital Pinball for the Saturn goes for a more traditional style, opting for a little more realism.

Developed by Japanese producer KAZe, a company known for pinball and pachinko machines, as well as website engineering and system consultation on top of video games (a very diverse portfolio), Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators was released in the US in 1995 as a Saturn exclusive. As mentioned, this games aims for a more simulation pinball experience. You can select one of four tables, including one hidden table, each with various themes related to supernatural dynasty or a brazen warrior's conquest. Accompanied by some great music and slick presentation, this does a great job at emulating the pinball experience. A lot of the digital LED boards are cool, as you're playing on a single monitor (and a CRT back in the day), they highlight across the screen as flashing pop-ups, with some sweet detail.

The graphics are pretty great, all things considered. The tables are colorful and have impressive visual themes. I made the mistake of playing this on an HDTV, so I got a little bit of screen tearing. Even with converter cables, it has a grainy, washed over look. Hooking it back up to my CRT with S-Video, it was much better. The Sega Saturn looks best on a box television. Last Gladiators has no slowdown and runs incredibly smooth. Visually, this is a cool looking game. There is the whacky full motion video before the game starts that has a lot of wacky theatrics of Trojans, gods and swordsmen. I look at stuff like this and realize that even though this was the mid 90's, it didn't stop looking like 1987 until 1999.

Along with the visuals, the soundtrack and composition is awesome and really enriches the aesthetic of sitting in a low lit arcade hall. Some of the electric guitar riffs are provided by guitarist and vocalist Doug Aldrich, who has played with bands like Dio and Whitesnake. The authentic table sounds like hitting the flippers, the ball bouncing off of bumpers, wolf howls, and jackpot/multiball alerts, Last Gladiators is very inviting and one of the game's best qualities.

Controls, not a whole lot revolutionary to speak about. It's pinball, so Last Gladiators is pretty self explanatory. The biggest knock I'd say I have against it is the trajectory of the ball. For whatever reason, it often veers to the right and I've lost many a ball in this fashion. The L and R bumpers can shake the table, but it feels like it has minimal effect on this. It's hard to explain, but if you play Golf on NES and try to read the ball straight and it always goes at an angle regardless of how perfect you line the meters, it's very similar here. As for the feel of the game, I would love to have played this with some haptic feedback or pressure sensitive buttons. The physics aren't terrible, but that odd ball trajectory really kills a bit of it for me. It would have helped that the table themselves were a little more varied. The themes are neat, but there's a similar feel to the four and it can be a little on the monotonous side with all the bumpers and chutes in most of the same places. 

Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators is a decent pinball game that excels in presentation, but falls a little bit short on the creativity. The gameplay is solid enough, but thrill of the copy-paste quality of the tables gives the game a fairly short-lived and fleeting feel. The music and drive to accrue a high score might give enough reason to give it some playthroughs, I can't imagine it being a little more worth than that. If you're a pinball wizard, you may appreciate the aim for authenticity.