At first glance, Pinball Prelude looks like your typical pinball game, offering three tables each with its own theme. You only need to spend a few minutes with each table, however, to realize how different they are from the norm.

The tables are based around the common theme of time/evolution: so they're called Past, Present, and Future. The most "typical" of these is the "Present" table, which sports the usual targets and combos, but with many nice details such as a camcorder. The most unique table is the "Past" table that looks like a prehistoric grassland, complete with a couple of dinosaurs, a cave area, and a hill. On this table, you can play the unique and strangely appealing "splat-a-rat" sub-game. This table can be "finished", however, meaning it has less replayability than the other two. The five-flippered 'Future' table is the most innovative table in the game. Here, you must power up a 'drone' (a fancy pinball ball) and send it to recharge the city's ventilation system. This drone consistently absorbs pollution, so it becomes heavier and heavier the more you play. Needless to say, this makes the drone very hard to control, until you send it to the 'cleaner' to get rid of pollution.

In contrast to most other "experimental" pinball games, Pinball Prelude is highly playable and quite addictive once you get used to its eccentricities and weird sub-games. Ball physics are reasonably realistic, and multiball modes a lot of fun. Each of the tables is also much bigger than an average pinball game, scrolling horizontally as well as vertically. If you are a pinball fan and are looking for something to break the routine, Pinball Prelude is a must-play. Highly recommended!