Xenotilt review (WIZNWAR, 2024, PC)

I’m not very good at the pinball game Xenotilt, but I am finding its onslaught of sight and sound engrossing to the point where I crossed the thirteen hour mark in four days. I play Xenotilt in the living room, I play it at my desk and, when I’m not playing Xenotilt, I’m thinking about playing Xenotilt.

It takes pinball into the realm of fantasy (or, I suppose, Alien-tier science fiction) that only a video game can, so the ball can teleport about the place and sometimes you lose track of where it actually is. This is disorienting, but never annoying. I always find it extremely exciting to play, and rarely feel as though a loss is the fault of the game. Pinball remains a test of skill. I like that the more video game-y mechanics mesh well with the traditional tilting mechanic.

I’m not typically a pinball person; in part because I’m not a competitive person. But I increasingly enjoy fast-paced video games that alight the senses and are reliable for short bursts. I’ve managed a quarter of a billion points (which I think is supposed to be underwhelming) and haven’t spelled my first word yet, but I feel completely magnetised to this thing. The mission-based structure means there’s kind of a storyline to the table, but I’m not good enough to have revealed much of it. This is fine, because I like that the score and combo counts go up at an astonishing rate, and the parts of the (singular) table where you ricochet off of bumpers incessantly and there are lots of bloops and bleeps. I like the turret fire system, allowing you to keep your combo multiplier going so easily. This is all I need to be completely obsessed with Xenotilt.

I enjoy the liberal sprinkling of achievements, making me feel skilled even when I’m not, which in turn gives me the drive to keep going for new high scores (my local leader-board is now entirely me). I like the grainy sound design, and the grungy synth soundtrack with an old console feel, and particularly the one that sounds like the intro to Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for a Hero.

It’s an endless fever dream. There is just one table (like Demon’s Tilt before it), but there are so many missions and sections of the table that it just seems to go on and on. I might have seen everywhere that the ball can go on the table in Xenotilt, but I also don’t feel like I’ve mastered it yet. At the same time, I feel driven to get to that point.

I’m impulsive and drawn to sensory experiences, clearly, which is probably what’s given me this insatiable desire to play this thing that indulges in every sense and every motivation-based signifier going. Xenotilt is extremely fun to play and I want to play it now and quite honestly I’m just really thrilled to be able to talk about how a relatively new game has inspired and enthused me this much.

Anyone who wants a pick-up and play video game that overwhelms in only a good way should be playing Xenotilt, the apex of presently legally available video pinball, even if pinball does not generally appeal to you. I’m going to play it more now. I'm going to play it whenever I think I'm done with games as a medium to remind myself that they can still be brilliant. This was in Early Access and I didn’t even notice, oh my God. Play Xenotilt. Please do it.