Add up another high quality game to that list, folks. Zen Pinball 3D offers an addictive, high quality pinball experience on the go, and it is surprisingly well made with top of the line production values, online leaderboards, and a great use of the system’s stereoscopic 3D effect. It’s not exactly the most full featured game- only four courses are offered to begin with- but at the price that it is offered, it’s really hard to complain.

Zen Pinball 3D offers the player four themed courses to play pinball in. Four tables are offered to begin with, with some of the more crazy ones, like Excalibur and Shaman, really challenging the player. It is easy to just start up Zen Pinball as a novelty, only to look up half an hour later and realize you’ve been playing the game furiously for all this time, trying to get to the next score milestone. This crazy race to the top is fueled not only by the scores that the game keeps flashing on your bottom screen as your next ‘milestones,’ but also by the fact that full featured leaderboards are included in the game, which you can filter by table, region, and down to just your friends.

The controls are well thought out, and are pretty much what you’d expect, although the game’s usage of the analog slider to rock the table often threw me off entirely.  However, you really won’t be minding the controls at all, nor will you mind the game’s elaborate graphics, and its expertsound design. As far as the core design is concerned, Zen Pinball is pretty much by the numbers, and if you’ve played this game on your PS3 or iOS device already, you’ll know what to expect.

Some things that might annoy you, however, would eb the dirge of content. Again, only four courses are offered, and when you realize that this is because more tables will be offered as paid DLC later- the developers have said as much themselves- then this does seem like one of the worse cases of DLC exploitation. However, you then realize just how well made the courses really are, and you can probably bring yourself to live with it.

Another problem with Zen Pinball 3D is the loading times. It is incomprehensible and inexcusable that the game has loading screens for as long as it does, especially when you consider that this is a game made for a handheld system, where the idea is often to boot up a game, play a couple of minutes, and then just put the system back on standby, at very short notice. If thefirst twenty, thirty seconds of that time are spent on the loading screen, then you’ve just lost a very substantial amount of that time period.

I know I’ve mostly listed the negative things in this review, but that’s because what Zen Pinball 3D does well, it does well. There’s really no point or use listing that stuff out- it’s a high quality, albeit by the numbers, pinball game with some flaws that hold it back. If you fancy giving your 3DS some more downloadable action, just get this game. At its asking price, its a great deal. The loading times might annoy you, but they’re really the only design decision that really affects how you play.

The eShop’s good game streak, then, continues.

Zen Studios today announced that Zen Pinball 3D is coming to the Nintendo eShop. Zen Pinball 3D will feature four pinball tables including Earth Defense, Shaman, Excalibur and Eldorado.

“Releasing Zen Pinball on a Nintendo platform marks an amazing milestone for Zen Studios. We are really excited for Nintendo fans to experience one of our greatest passions – the timeless game of pinball!” said Mel Kirk, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations. “Playing pinball in 3D is killer, it’s like the game has been totally reinvented, and a whole new world opens up right before your eyes.”

Zen Pinball 3D on Nintendo 3DS will feature local hot seat multiplayer, online leader boards and table rankings, multiple view points and rewards for playing and accomplishing table specific missions. Players can also compete to achieve the greatest Pro Score ranking, which is the sum of a player’s high score across all tables, and a Team Score which is the sum of a player’s score and friends score.

Here’s some more info:

• Earth Defense pits the player against hordes of hostile aliens as they try to take the planet by storm! As the captain of the Earth Defense Special Forces, it is your mission to rally the defenses and protect planet Earth.
• Players will experience life as a novice sorcerer who must master the trade of summoning spectacular natural phenomena in Shamen.
• Travel back to the middle ages to the Kingdomof Camelotand become a Knight of the Round Table in Excalibur.
• Experience the unexplored jungles of Eldorado as you hunt for hidden treasures and uncover the mysteries of ancient civilization.