| The Party Zone | |
| Caption: | Captain B. Zarr is the centre figurehead of The Party Zone. |
| Manufacturer: | Midway |
| System: | Williams WPC (Dot Matrix) |
| Designer: | Dennis Nordman[1] |
| Programmer: | Jim Strompolis[2] |
| Artwork: | Greg Freres |
| Mechanics: | Zaofia Bil, Win Schilling |
| Music: | Dan Forden[3] |
| Sound: | Dan Forden |
| Release: | August 1991[4] [5] |
| Players: | 1-4 |
| Blank1 Title: | Theme |
| Blank1: | Happiness |
| Blank2 Title: | Marketing Slogan |
| Blank2: | "You are now entering: The Party Zone" "Big Bang, Big Bucks!" |
| Misc3: | Websites Bally TechFan Page |
The Party Zone is a crossover solid-state pinball machine released in 1991 by Midway (under Bally) designed by Dennis Nordman and programmed by Jim Strompolis. It is in a single playfield format and collaborates characters from previous pinball machines. It is the second pinball machine released after the Bally-Midway division was sold, yet still operated under the "Bally" name.[6]
The backglass as well as the playfield contain characters from previous games (who all meet up on this game at the Cosmic Cottage):[7]
The Party Zone has received a total user rating of 7.490 on a scale of 10 and currently ranks #97 in the "Pinside Ranking".[8] One reviewer noted:The knowledgeable staff and moderators of pinside have provided a rating of 8.317 out of 10, somewhat varying from the opinions of the public reviewers.
The Internet Pinball Database reviews of The Party Zone are divided into the categories: art, audio, playfield and gameplay. The average user rating given is 7.8/10. Individual ratings for the characters are 8.0/10 for art; 7.7/10 for audio; 7.9/10 for playfield and 7.8/10 for gameplay. 47% of users who reviewed the game gave it a rating of 9/10".[9] One user made this comment:
This game was released by FarSight Studios as a licensed table for The Pinball Arcade as the 32nd Table Pack, with the exclusion of the songs "Come Fly with Me" and "Purple Haze" due to license issues, notably, when a player scores the "Big Bang", the soundtrack plays "Pinball Wizard". After Farsight Studios lost the license for Williams pinball tables in the summer of 2018, the table was removed from the game and later reappeared in the second wave of Williams tables available as downloadable content for Zen Studios' Pinball FX 3 in December of the same year after it obtained the license.