Pinball Arcade Table Pack 3: Gorgar and Monster Bash

This two-table pack gives you a sharp contrast in pinball moods: Gorgar is a tense old-school monster fight built around a talking villain and a steadily quickening heartbeat, while Monster Bash turns monster collecting into a rowdy rock-band goal. Neither table wastes time pretending to be the other, which makes the pack easy to recommend if you enjoy learning very different layouts.

Monster Bash is the friendlier immediate hit, thanks to its clear goal of assembling six Universal monsters and their instruments. Gorgar takes more patience, but its Snake Pit and escalating pressure give repeated attempts a memorable edge. Together, they make a compact but well-chosen slice of Williams pinball history.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first few games make the split in this pack obvious. Gorgar puts you in an older, meaner frame of mind: you are trying to defeat the monster and escape his lair, with the table’s speech and heartbeat making every successful shot feel like it has provoked something. Monster Bash, by contrast, gives you a goal you can immediately understand—bring together Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Mummy, the Wolfman, Frankenstein, and the Bride, then collect their instruments for a show.

Gorgar earns its reputation through pressure rather than complexity for complexity’s sake. The magnetic Snake Pit can capture the ball, and the heartbeat accelerates as you get closer to defeating Gorgar. That rising tempo is a fantastic bit of table drama: a close run can go from controlled to rattling in seconds. Its seven-word talking monster is charmingly primitive now, but lines such as “Me got you” and “You hurt Gorgar” still give missed shots and advances some personality.

The frustration with Gorgar is that its tension asks you to stay composed when the table is doing its best to get under your skin. That is precisely why it holds up for another attempt. You are not only chasing score; you are trying to beat a machine that has started to sound increasingly impatient.

Monster Bash is the more immediately inviting table. Gathering the monsters and their instruments gives your shots a strong sense of direction, so the opening hour feels less like studying a layout and more like making progress toward a goofy, satisfying objective. The Phantom Flip reward, which can automatically flip a flipper to make shots, is an especially playful prize and suits the table’s anything-for-the-show attitude.

This is a strong pair because each table covers the other’s weak spot. When Gorgar starts feeling punishing, Monster Bash offers a more legible set of goals and a lighter tone. When Monster Bash feels a little too comfortable, Gorgar’s racing heartbeat is there to demand cleaner nerves. If you are already enjoying Pinball Arcade, this pack is worth having for that contrast alone.

Pinball Arcade Table Pack 3: Gorgar and Monster Bash — screenshot 1

Graphics

The tables give you two distinct monster looks to play against: Gorgar’s lair centers on its titular creature, while Monster Bash puts the familiar Universal monster lineup and their band-building theme front and center. The spoken callouts and heartbeat on Gorgar do a lot to make its older horror theme feel alive.

Story

Pinball rarely needs a heavy plot, and this pack wisely keeps both premises clean. In Gorgar, you enter the monster’s lair, hurt him, and work toward escape. It is barely more than a sentence, but the table’s speech makes the confrontation feel personal.

Monster Bash has the more cheerful hook. Your task is to recruit six classic monsters, gather their instruments, and get the band onstage. It is a perfect fit for a pinball ruleset because every collection step sounds like progress toward one concrete final image: monsters putting on a show.

The two themes also reflect their eras nicely. Gorgar, originally from 1979 and notable as the first pinball table to use speech, has a direct monster-versus-player setup. Monster Bash, from 1998, turns its horror icons into a novelty act. Neither asks for emotional investment, but both give your shots a reason to matter beyond the score display.

Overall Experience

Table Pack 3 is not just two more tables; it is a useful lesson in how broad Williams pinball could be. One table turns a small vocabulary and a heartbeat into genuine pressure. The other uses a famous monster roster, instruments, and a helping-hand reward to make progression feel like a party. You can switch between them without feeling as though you are repeating the same kind of game.

Start with Monster Bash if you want goals that click quickly and a more relaxed way into the pack. Move to Gorgar when you want the sharper challenge. Its speech may be limited to seven words, but that limitation is part of the charm rather than a drawback; the machine has just enough voice to taunt you while the heartbeat does the real psychological work.

The payoff is absolutely worth it for pinball fans who value personality as much as score chasing. Monster Bash is the easy crowd-pleaser, and Gorgar is the table that grows on you once its pressure starts making sense. It is a concise package, but a smartly balanced one, with two tables you will return to for very different reasons.