- 3-D Ultra Pinball
- 3-D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night
- 3-D Ultra Pinball: The Lost Continent
- 3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrillride
- 3-D Ultra NASCAR Pinball
The previous two 3-D Ultra Pinball games were quite a success, even if not among the pinball-loving crowd. So of course Sierra, being a great fan of profit in the name of pleasing their fan base, created a third game: The Lost Continent. This game is essentially a combination of Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and pinball. What this essentially means: dinosaurs, dinosaurs, and more dinosaurs. The Lost Continent seems to be the only game in the series to attempt to have a story, as the game follows our three protagonists: Rex, an intrepid (and smartalecky) adventurer; his girlfriend, Mary; and an archaeologist, Professor Spector. You’ll rarely actually see them in the game outside of a brief glimpse in the introduction video, but their voices are what guides you through the game’s various modes.
While the metagame style of the previous two games is retained, the ability to choose your table is not, so every game starts off on Level 1 of the Valley Ruins table. It is astounding how many different tables there are in TLC – according to the help file, there are three “main” tables – Valley Ruins, Lost Temple, and Heckla’s Chambers – all of which have at least four “levels” to them. As you complete modes and follow the goals, you’ll advance to the next level of your table (which is as good as being a new table in itself). If you’re on another level and drain the ball, you’ll either be given an option to just lose the ball and stay on the table, or go back one level and keep the ball.
Some deviations from standard pinball have been added; on some tables, the plunger is replaced with a swiveling cannon that is constantly swinging back and forth, allowing players to aim their first shot. The ball can actually land on the various ramps and tracks if the player’s aim is good (or lucky) enough. Where most tables would give you a “replay” credit for reaching a certain score or completing certain modes, The Lost Continent actually puts these to use as continues. If you run out of balls, you can continue at Level 1 of whatever table chain you’re on. This does reset your score, though, and only your last score counts, so if you got a really high score before continuing, you might want to say “no” to the continue prompt if you have any intention of saving that score.
The Lost Continent uses the same pinball engine as Creep Night, so the game still runs at 640×480 and recommends 256 color graphics, with the screen scaled to fit at higher resolutions. The 256-color dithering doesn’t look quite as bad as in the original, and is helped along by a somewhat more limited selection of colors, though the dithering does add some texture to the sandy and rocky portions of the tables.
Of all the improvements, though, Sierra still mostly neglected one recurring problem: speech samples repeat themselves an awful lot. You can now skip the initial speech at the beginning of each table by launching the ball early, but speech in the middle of tables (i.e. to announce special events) tends to go on for a long time and gets repeated enough times that players may get irritated (especially in the case of nearly anything Mary says), though not to as much degree as the goblins in Creep Night.
The Lost Continent is quite an ambitious pinball title, and it would have been a fitting end to the trilogy – except that Sierra had two more titles in line.
