Zen Studios

Zen Studios has announced that more Star Wars Pinball tables will be coming to Pinball FX2. Heroes Within will contain for new tables, all focusing on our favorite heroes from the saga. First up we have the Han Solo table, where the action takes place on the Millennium Falcon. The titular smuggler and his buddy Chewbacca are heading to the Death Star, but not everything is going as planned.

R2-D2 and C-3PO get their own time to shine on the Droids table. They’re on their way to deliver the Death Star plans, and it’s up to you to guide them to safety. Episode IV: A New Hope gets its own table, focusing on the memorable moments from the first film leading up to the destruction of the Death Star. Masters of the Force is a table dedicated to the most powerful beings to wield lightsabers, both good and evil. Star Wars Pinball: Heroes Within will be available this spring. Check out the Han Solo trailer above, and screens from the tables after the jump.

Read More

Zen Studios, most well known to XBLA gamers for Pinball FX2, is migrating a number of its titles to the Xbox One, including the well-known pinball franchise. In addition …
Read More

Pinball FX 2 is set to receive a new Super League Football-themed table, Zen Studios has announced. The upcoming table will let players choose sides and pick which football …
Read More

Star Wars is in many ways the ideal environment for pinball. The space battles of the movies invite gameplay focused on delivering armaments (torpedoes, pinballs) to a target (a …
Read More

A new hero will soon be added to the Marvel Pinball lineup, coming to save Earth from the greatest powers from the darkest dimensions. Doctor Strange must stop rival sorcerer Baron Mordo, who plans to …
Read More

The ongoing saga of a galaxy far, far away continues to expand in Zen Studios’ Star Wars Pinball, as The Balance of the Force table pack arrives on Xbox Live Arcade next Wednesday, October 16. The content pack includes three new tables: Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi, Starfighter Assault and Darth Vader, each themed around their own iconic battles and scenes from the films.

Episode VI: The Return of the Jedi places you back on the forest moon of Endor, as Luke, Leia, Han and the rest of the gang attempt to breach the infamous shield generator. Chase the speeder bike scouts, repel the AT-ST and relive the clash between Luke and Lord Vader.

Read More

Coming this fall, owners of Pinball FX2 will be getting new DLC. But not just any new DLC, this time around Zen Studios has cooked up Star …
Read More

Zen Studios has rallied the troops and is set to administer another dose of fanciful siege warfare to its Xbox Live Arcade offering, CastleStorm. Dubbed From Outcast to …
Read More

CastleStorm was developed by Zen Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released May 29, 2013 for 800 MSP. A copy was provided for review purposes.

In CastleStorm you’ll sometimes shoot sheep. Out of a ballista. Into a castle. It’s made possible by a unique propulsion technique: rainbow excrement. Zen Studios’ CastleStorm is obviously not a game that takes itself seriously. It has a story, but it’s intentionally dumb. There are blue guys. There are red guys. The red guys steal a shiny object of immense power from the blue guys, and the blue guys, somewhat reluctantly, go to war in an attempt to retrieve it. Cutscenes filled with overtly cheesy and occasionally humorous jokes frequently interrupt the tower-defense-meets-Angry-Birds gameplay, but the joy of launching projectiles, which are only occasionally weaponized beasts, out of your ballista and towards enemy castles and opposing forces marching on your own castle will keep you coming back for more.

Here’s what we liked:

Plenty of options — At first, CastleStorm will seem simple to a fault. You have a castle. The enemy has a castle. You have a ballista. The enemy has a ballista. You have soldiers. The enemy has soldiers. It’s a feeling that quickly evaporates as you progress through the campaign and unlock an impressive variety of unit types, ballista projectiles, magic spells, castles — including those you build yourself — and upgrades. Though you will encounter the occasional mission objective that changes things up a bit, most levels involve you defending your castle and flag while electing to either capture the enemy’s flag or tear their castle down to its foundation. Thanks to the numerous tools of destruction at your disposal and those employed by the enemy, this formula never gets old. It’s challenging and satisfying to implant arrows in troops’ heads, crash down gates with flying quadrupeds and blow castle rooms to smithereens with bombs. Good thing, too, because success in later levels is achieved only by nimbly managing your war assets. Fail to do so, and you’ll be overwhelmed as the no man’s land between the safety of the opposing castle gates quickly becomes the enemy’s land.

Read More

CastleStorm, the medieval 2D physics-based destruction game from Zen Studios, will be launching on XLBA tomorrow. Built on the fond childhood memory of building and destroying Lego castles, CastleStorm …
Read More