A lot of people ask me what I do at Marvel as Manager of Licensed Games. The answer is, probably a lot more than you think – but the most important thing by far is checking out each and every element of a game I’m assigned to, ensuring it’s as faithful to Marvel as possible.

Over the last year or so, I’ve had the privilege of working with Zen Studios on Marvel Pinball for PSN. With the Captain America DLC table coming this week, I figure there’s no better time to give you an inside look at what it’s like to approve things here by presenting my…

Top 6 Favorite Approvals for the Captain America Marvel Pinball Table

Why six? Because five just wasn’t enough. Also, know that you’re getting the real deal here – the heading for each entry below is copied and pasted verbatim from Zen’s actual approved submission. Anyway…

6. Captain America Table GDD

Approved: 11/30/10

Game developers love acronyms, and if you’re not down with the lingo, “GDD” is short for “game design document,” which basically describes the whole game on paper. You can tell the folks at Zen have this whole video pinball thing down pat, as their GDDs are always concise yet incredibly descriptive, even throwing in some nice concept art to further illustrate their ideas (yep – just like the one above).

What really impressed us about Zen’s plan for the Cap table was its very specific, comics-inspired vision for the table: “The table’s main missions resemble the stories of Cap and the Howling Commandos and are mostly inspired by Ed Brubaker’s 65th Anniversary Special comic,” the GDD says. “The table also contains many elements of other Cap stories, including conflicts with the Red Skull, who uses the Cosmic Cube against him. Zemo’s Adhesive X and his handheld Death Ray gun are also introduced, along with the Sleeper from the 65th Anniversary Special” (which you can read for yourself via Marvel Digital Comics. From this summary, we knew that we were dealing with a table set during World War II (just like the movie and the Sega game coming out in a few weeks – awesome!), and that it was also going to touch on some classic Cap stuff based in that era.

Just check out the screenshot above to see the comics’ influence in full force, as compared to Zemo’s origin depicted in the classic AVENGERS #4. Notice how the shield arcs away from having just destroyed a canister of Baron Zemo’s Adhesive X. They even nailed Cap’s follow-through!

5. Captain America Table: Character Animations

Approved: 4/12/11

I suppose you can throw in the previous Adhesive X example into this as well, but one of my favorite parts of approving these tables is checking out all the animations in the game, and seeing how they relate to their source material. Straight out of the 65th Anniversary Special, here we see Cap deflecting a powerful green optic laser from the Red Skull’s mega-robot, the Sleeper.

There are a lot of animations like this to review, and I’m thankful that Zen provides me with movie files of each and every one. After all, if you’ve played any of the past Marvel Pinball tables, you know that seeing all of the animations just by playing the game takes a level of mastery only possessed by the most powerful of pinball wizards. Of which I am not.

4. Captain America Table: Red Skull Jet Pack 3D Model

Approved: 12/17/10

Pretty self-explanatory here: It’s Red Skull…in a jetpack. We loved the look and were left wondering how sweet it would look in gameplay. And, whata’ya know…

Awesomeness confirmed.

3. CAPTAIN AMERICA TRAILER

Approved: 5/2/11

I mean, have you seen this thing? Video pinball has never looked more epic. The music playing just as the Captain America logo comes up is downright inspirational. You know…as game trailers go.

2. Captain America Table: Baron Zemo Death Ray Gun 2D Concept

Approved: 1/7/11

Sure, this trademark Baron Zemo weapon looks cool, with maybe even too much attention to detail (I’m not sure it’s even possible to see that “Z” in gameplay), but that’s not why it ranks so highly here. The real reason this submission excites me so much is the fact that I can now say this with a straight face: “I’ve approved a death ray.”

The day I approved this, I had to tweet this sentiment: “I just approved a death-ray gun for a future Marvel game. I wonder how many people’s jobs involve death-ray guns…” I’m guessing not many. I love my job.

1. Captain America Table: Release Candidate

Approved: 4/26/11

In other words: THE COMPLETED GAME ITSELF. Play it yourself when it hits Marvel Pinball on PSN this Tuesday.

Now for some Blade action! I personally think the Blade table has some of the most stunning visuals you will ever see on a pinball table. Night mode and UV balls are especially necessary as you play to defeat Deacon Frost, Dracula and hordes of vampires. The pesky Hannibal offers some backup support, but it’s really up to Blade to do the dirty work.

Keep your eyes out for tournament announcements as well as new tables – they are coming soon. If you have not already voted, there is still time to head over to www.marvelpinball.com to cast your vote for the next table. You guys are deciding who comes next, so make your voice heard (Ghost Rider is currently running away with the vote).

Even though we at ZEN Studios have been making video pinball games for many years, we never stop thinking of new features to make the game better. Marvel Pinball features two new scoring systems which are designed to improve social connectivity and overall competition. The challenge of beating our own personal scores and checking in on your leader board rankings is fun and all, but we thought it would be even better if you had an idea of your overall ranking in the community. To satisfy the craving, we built the Hero Score system which allows you to track your all-time play records and compare to the rest of the community. What about a score that measures how good you and your friends are together? Team Force requires you to band together with friends to rule the Marvel Pinball community. Could this be the beginning of pinball guilds? Disclaimer: Don’t blame us when you start receiving a bunch of random friend requests!

Pinball is a game that stands the test of time, still living beyond the glory days of the arcade and transcending console generations – we hope our love for the genre shines through in every table we release, and hopefully some of that rubs off on you!

X-Men Arcade holds up as one of the greatest beat-‘em-up games of its era, and if you were a fan of it when it came out, I think you’ll agree that the 18-year wait for a console version was definitely worth it… but not only for gameplay fun and nostalgia. A big part of the game’s charm playing it now is something we didn’t really think twice about back in 1992 – powers that went beyond characters’ capabilities, laughable in-game dialogue, and other oddities, for example. In other words, the kinds of things that the person with my job at Marvel would strike down in a game design document the moment we see them crop up in a current game. But for this one, we’re letting it all slide.

If you know your Marvel, you might remember a comics series called WHAT THE–?! from the ‘80s (you may have even seen a series of hilarious videos thanks to Marvel.com). So, with that in mind, here are what I would consider the top five “What the–?!” things about X-Men Arcade…

5. The Juggernaut’s self-esteem boost. It’s been well established in the comics that “nothing can stop the Juggernaut,” so the dude normally just pretty much rampages through anything in his way, and that’s that. But in X-Men Arcade, he must have been feeling a little less unstoppable – so he started packin’ a bazooka. I suppose there’s a more logical explanation, though. Maybe he just thinks bazookas are awesome, so decided now was the time to try one out. After all, he can easily carry one like a piece of paper given his strength, and at the end of the day he’s just a dude. And part of being a dude is inherently knowing that bazookas are awesome.

4. Who am I fighting? We all know the bosses in X-Men Arcade pretty well: In their own words, Pyro will burn you to toast, nothing moves the Blob, and the White Queen welcomes you to die, to name a few. But who are these shlubs I’m clobbering the rest of the time? Lizard dudes? Little mini-Krakoas? Some kinds of Sentinels I’ve never seen? None of these guys look quite like anything I’ve ever seen in the comics, nor the “Pryde of the X-Men” cartoon on which the game is actually based. But let’s just assume those last foes I mentioned are indeed Sentinels…

3. Why is Magneto working with Sentinels?! Even if the common enemies you’re taking on all the time are just some sort of Sentinel-type robot, Magneto’s still working with the nastiest Sentinel of them all, in Nimrod, plus the huge one above that shows up out of nowhere delivering “mini-Krakoas” and Reavers from his mouth. Ehh, who cares about the “why”? Let’s just say Magneto’s controlling them all with his magnetism powers and call it a day.

2. Can he really do that? Quick answer: No. Nightcrawler can’t zap you when he teleports (pictured above). Wolverine can’t shoot lasers from his claws your way. Nor can Colossus flex and go “RAWWWAAAARRRRR!!!” to send you to kingdom come. It’s all kinds of fun to do all those things in the game, though!

1. What did you just say, Magneto?… For being one of the most brilliant super villains in the history of comics, Magneto sure says some silly things. My favorites: “X-chickens!” he taunts during the final battle. “I am Magneto! Master of Magnet!” he proclaims with the audacity to make master of unlocking Jill Valentine jealous. And, finally, one of the greatest pieces of videogame dialogue of all time: “X-Men… Welcome to die!”, which we made sure could be heard at the end of the game’s trailer…

So, yeah… None of those things would be presented the same way if this were a new game going through today’s typical Marvel approval process for games. But it’s not, and all of this ridiculousness is still 100 percent completely in tact. I wouldn’t have it any other way….

Of course, a lot of people already say that about ZEN Pinball – so just imagine that game with tables based on Iron Man, Spider-Man, Blade and Wolverine, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect.

I don’t know about you, but all of my favorite actual pinball machines from the glory days of arcades were based around licenses (e.g., Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Addams Family, etc.); to that end, the Marvel flavor really takes these tables to the next level. And while ZEN Pinball demonstrates Zen Studios’ immeasurable passion for making awesome pinball tables, Marvel Pinball enhances things with an equal passion for Marvel and its characters. These guys really get it.

Let’s take a look at each table in the initial set, shall we? (Yes, I said “initial” – Marvel Pinball will regularly expand upon with new tables. More on that at the end.)

The Invincible Iron Man

With a couple of hit movies in the recent past, some might argue that Iron Man is the most popular hero at Marvel these days. (Who’da thunk that three years ago?…) As with all tables, Zen gives us a comics-based take on Tony Stark’s heroics, including showdowns with the Mandarin, Whiplash (who at times actually destroys your ball if it crosses his path) and – if you’re a real pinball wizard – Ultimo. And the table doesn’t just stick to the “Iron Man” part of Tony’s life – you’ll also hit ramps and other targets to throw huge galas and boost Stark Industries’ stock price. You even get 3D models of Tony and Iron Man, including the suit-up process whenever you start a mission.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Spider-Man table is all about the special touches. First of all, just check out the zoomed-out view: Though it seems a bit odd that Peter Parker would ever have a pinball machine in his apartment based around his everyday life, you have to love the setup there. And then, once you play, you get things like J. Jonah Jameson yelling at you, Mysterio reversing your controls, a “clone” multiball mode, a ramp that leads to Spidey’s hand shooting out a web and, my personal favorite…

…PLAYABLE PUMPKIN BOMBS! I mean, how cool is that?! You hit them with your flippers, and they explode after a certain amount of time and everything.

Blade

I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause it’s the same thing I thought at first: “Blade? In the first batch of tables? Really?” But then you play it and you know why. In fact, this might be my favorite table of the bunch, with all sorts of perfectly placed ramps and minigames. I especially like its day/night cycle, wherein you gather resources by day and fight vampires such as Dracula and Deacon Frost alongside Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds’ first onscreen comic book character) by night. Just like the 1998 movie, the fun everyone has with this table is really going to surprise some people.

Wolverine

And here’s the final table in this first batch, bub. At first we at Marvel wondered why Zen didn’t want to just do an X-Men table to start things out, but then they showed us just how packed with Wolverine’s history they could get – we were convinced. The table does an excellent job of showcasing Wolvie’s annual “birthday present” from Sabretooth – which, if you don’t know, is a yearly fight to the death. Plus, we get to take part in his rivalry with the Silver Samurai, scrappin’ with some Sentinels and Hand ninjas, tapping into his volatile memory, and even reliving the Weapon X experiment that infused him with adamantium. It’s also awesome when Logan’s hand bursts through the back to feed you a new ball, and I’m pretty proud of a personal contribution: to activate a ballsaver, spell out SNIKT.

And That’s Not All!

As I’ve mentioned, the four debut tables seen here are only the beginning. Marvel Pinball isn’t just a set of four tables – it’s a platform for many Marvel-related pinball tables to come. What’s next? Well, that’s something Zen wants you to help them decide between Captain America, Hulk, Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider. Go to MarvelPinball.com and cast your vote! Then, let us know which tables you want to see in the comments below…