One of the better memories of my misspent youth was playing the Alien pinball machine at the arcade during my lunch breaks. On one particularly notable day I was on fire and couldn't miss a shot. I rolled the table and faced the tough choice of being late back to work or leaving a half-dozen credits on the game. In the end, I made the right choice. I'll leave it to you to work out what that was.

In the years since, I've matured, parented, and assumed a mortgage. Sadly, I've let my pinball skills lapse. Fortunately, SouthPeak's Dream Pinball 3D for the PC gives me a shot at regaining those skills ... in the comfort and privacy of my own home.

The game is simple to describe. SouthPeak has built a convincingly real pinball simulator. The six tables in the game look realistic and each have their own individual characteristics. The lights, bumpers, rollovers, and tracks behave exactly as you'd expect. The ball rolls with appropriate heft and reacts as you'd expect to the playing field. Combinations and bonuses are available to enhance your score and to activate the interesting "ball change" feature.

Ball change substitutes the standard steel ball for one made of another material such as oak or ivory. To SouthPeak's credit, balls made of different materials move in different ways.

The ambient sound is good, recalling my adolescent days leaning over the glass-topped tables and wishing I could telepathically urge the ball through a particular gate just once more. From the thunk of the plunger to the drawn out rattle of a rolling ball, the game just sounds right.

The controls are simple. The enter key gets the game going and doubles as the plunger, the control keys activate the flippers, and the alt keys and space bar allow you to give the table a gentle nudge. The controls are responsive, but it should be noted that the flippers are binary and can be raised or lowered, with no possibility of finessing them into a mid-point resting position. This is only a minor quibble and won't be noticeable to any but the most obsessive pinball fans.

For players who want to take the time, the manual outlines all of the hidden bonuses and features. There's no need, though. The controls are simple, game play is straightforward and half of the fun lies in discovering the the bonuses through experimentation.

There is little in this which would be objectionable for players of any age. There are some mild references to violence in the horror and medieval themed tables and the graphics for the fantasy-themed table features a ... ummm ... healthy young sorceress. Dream Pinball 3D delivers a solid, entertaining game which nicely recaptures the real experience of playing pinball and provides a variety of tables.