Review: Pinball M – Camp Bloodbrook (Nintendo Switch)

Halloween may have passed, but does that mean the terror has ended? Not in this America. So, let’s take a quick visit to Camp Bloodbrook—an M-rated pinball table from Zen Studios—to see if it’s worth adding to your collection.

In order to get the version that’s not edited for television, you’re going to need to download a separate core game. Pinball M is the…adult, I guess?…equivalent of Pinball FX that allows for blood and gore, strong language, and violence. It comes with a free table—Elder Gods: Director’s Cut—and provides access to mostly horror-themed DLC such as Chucky’s Killer Pinball, The Thing Pinball, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre Pinball. There’s even a Duke Nukem table. Remember him?

Some of M’s games are also available in a more family-friendly format in Pinball FX. And if you decide the extra blood isn’t worth launching a separate app, buying Camp Bloodbrook in Pinball M gets you access to the Pinball FX version. That’s a good decision by Zen, but note that this review is based entirely on the Pinball M version.

Camp Bloodbrook is not affiliated with a specific horror franchise, but it’s very much inspired by all the cabin-in-the-woods slashers. There’s a masked fellow with a machete, there’s a park ranger in distress, there’s a cabin to lock your balls in, and there’s a F.O.G. multiplayer. It’s a fun setup that makes good use of Zen’s approach to peripheral effects. In a real pinball machine, you’re not going to get machete shoots that slice across the table or damsels in distress hiding in different spots around the machine. Here, though, the game uses these effects to tell an achievement-based story. This may be the first time a pinball machine pushed me forward with something other than high score chasing.

When Trevor and I reviewed the initial release of Zen’s revamped Pinball FX, we mentioned that the tables were all too dark if you don’t go in and manually adjust the gamma. Here, that darkness is a plus. Camp Bloodbrook makes fun use of shadowy areas that leave you wondering if your ball is safe there. And in some cases, it’s kind of not. It also makes it easy to locate your next targets. This is a fun table to uncover, and although the action on it is often too fast, it won’t leave you feeling like an amateur…even if you’re an amateur. Despite its murderous slasher theme, it’s surprisingly friendly to the player.

Not everything works as well as it could, however. The opening skill shot is exceedingly difficult to read, making it more of a luck shot. I also didn’t like that the ball almost always entered the playing field by hitting the left slingshot. I’ve never seen a pinball machine do that, physical or virtual. It continually threw me off my game before I could get started.

Also, the voice acting is kind of, well, wooden. That may have been a conscious choice considering the source material, but it still got annoying after a while.

Outside of the table action, Pinball M – Camp Bloodbrook gives you everything else you’d expect from a Pinball FX game: daily challenges, achievements and awards, multiple play options, and more. Whether you’re looking to just kill a few minutes or get an hour-long practice session in, Pinball M accommodates. And although I never cared too much about the lighting and decorations available for my virtual arcade in Pinball FX, they’re kind of cool in Pinball M. Being able to light up my “corner” with eerie effects was oddly enticing.

All the extras aside, Camp Bloodbrook is one of the better Zen Studios pinball games I’ve played since the FX relaunch. Maybe the best (with the admission that I’ve only played a handful). Performance and visual issues linger on the Switch version of Pinball FX/M, but Camp Bloodbrook could be the table to finally compel FX 3 fans to start rebuilding their pinball catalog.