Night Mission Pinball

It is certainly one of finest stand-alone pinball games made for the Atari. One neat thing that I liked was the "tilt" feature -- an important feature for any pinball enthusiast! It came in handy if the ball got stuck (you did this by tapping the "T" key).

The very first time I played this I was very startled to hear the sound effects coming out of my Atari 800's internal speaker. I had no idea it was capable of making those kinds of sounds (and at that kind of volume, too!). I had expected to hear traditional musical pings and chimes from the POKEY chip. The only thing I had heard through the internal speaker until that time was simple popping and buzzing sounds (i.e., when you hit the system reset button). Still, I thought it was a very cool thing to hear. It's one of those games that loses some of the coolness factor when played on a XL/XE (and emulator!) because the sound comes out through the TV rather than the dedicated speaker of the 400/800 line.