At GDC last week, I had a chance to meet up with the team from Zen Studios and check out Pinball FX VR on the Meta Quest 3 hardware. I'm pretty familiar with Pinball FX on the console and PC, but this was my first time giving the game a go in VR. It's the pinball experience on a whole new level.

My demo was in a hotel suite off the show floor. It was your basic living room-style setup until I popped on the VR headset. I was still in the same hotel suite, but there was suddenly an Indiana Jones pinball machine in front of me, with a life-size Indy standee to the right of it. At first, I thought something was wrong and I asked the Zen rep why I was seeing an Indy machine but hearing the Knight Rider theme.

Before he could answer, I turned to my left and saw the second machine. There was a Knight Rider pinball machine standing to my left. Rotating further around, I saw a virtual poster on the wall of the room and a robotic Cylon from the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot TV show. The props are all in-game items that can be used to decorate your room.

Seeing it all right there was impressive, but the star of the show was the Indiana Jones machine. At first glance, it looked like a real pinball machine. I was able to walk around it and look at the side of it. I leaned in over the glass and read the instruction card. Getting in super close did mar the illusion a bit, but that's to be expected.

For a traditional arcade game, having the cabinet rendered in VR is a neat trick, but it doesn't change the game versus playing it on a computer monitor or TV at home. With pinball, playing in VR is a noticeable step up from playing Pinball FX on a console or computer because every physical item on the table is rendered, and your view changes based on how you move around. This is something that even virtual pinball machines can't really capture. Yes, they have buttons, and you can look up at the backglass and the virtual DMD, but the playfield on a virtual pinball machine is still just a screen.

I've gotten used to playing Pinball FX on console with a locked viewpoint, and I've spent an untold number of hours playing Sorcerer's Lair on my phone, but with the VR headset on, playing Indiana Jones didn't feel like I was playing a virtual pinball game. It felt like I was playing a real machine.

It wasn't any major feature that sold the illusion. It was the little things, like being able to glance up at the DMD, shift my view to focus on the rear of the board as the ball pinged around, and refocusing on the center playfield without thinking about it. The illusion was solid enough that I started to lean forward onto the edge of the table before I remembered there wasn't anything there in the physical space.

Control-wise, the flippers map to buttons on the Meta Quest controllers and the tilt maps to the left joystick. You can't physically smack the virtual table, but that's one of the few limitations. What's important is that I didn't notice any lag while playing. Pinball FX VR runs at a locked 60fps on the Meta Quest 3, and it delivers a feeling of play that is very natural. It's possible that some issues might crop up in an extended play session, but initial impressions were very good.

After finishing up the game, I switched from the AR mode into the virtual arcade. Here I found myself inside a multi-room arcade that was styled like it was right out of the '90s. The main room had the Zen Originals, along with a store, area to check campaign progress, and a virtual darts machine. Zen put quite a bit of detail into the arcade, including a few Easter eggs, like the art book behind the counter.

Both the Williams games and the Universal games had their own rooms. You can move around, but due to limited space in the hotel room, I used the in-game pointer to move from spot to spot. It felt like navigating one of those virtual house tours on Zillow, just in a cooler house.

Having played Indiana Jones in AR, I stepped up to the Star Trek: The Next Generation machine in the arcade and gave it a go. The transition from navigation to playing was slightly awkward, but once I started the game, it was like being in front of a real machine once again — well, aside from the enhanced Zen effects.

One of the modes in Star Trek: TNG is a Romulan attack. On the physical machine, this plays out on the DMD. In Pinball FX VR, a Romulan warbird flies over the machine and fires on the Enterprise-D. The console and PC versions of Pinball FX have some visual enhancements but not to the same level as what Zen has done in Pinball FX VR. If you prefer the authentic approach, you can disable the visual enhancements.

The biggest downside to Pinball FX VR is that there is no multiplayer mode. How cool would it be to meet up with a buddy in the virtual arcade and play a new table together or compete in a round of darts? Maybe in a future version.

Pinball FX VR includes three Zen Originals when you purchase the base game:

• Curse of the Mummy
• Pinball Noir
• Sky Pirates: Treasures of the Clouds

Eight DLC tables will be available for an additional cost at launch. Five licensed Williams tables and the Universal Pinball: TV Classics bundle:

• The Addams Family™
• Battlestar Galactica (Universal TV Classics)
• Indiana Jones™: The Pinball Adventure
• Knight Rider (Universal TV Classics)
• Star Trek™: The Next Generation
• Twilight Zone
• World Cup Soccer
• Xena: Warrior Princess (Universal TV Classics)

Zen plans on bringing more tables to Pinball FX VR, and backward compatibility is on the roadmap. This means that owners of Pinball VR Classic on the Meta Quest should get access to those tables at no cost once they make their way over to Pinball FX VR.

I only got to spend about 30 minutes with Pinball FX VR, but the AR mode is the killer aspect. The virtual arcade was cool, but having your favorite machine in your living room is brilliant. Assuming all the tables play as well as the two I sampled and additional tables get added on a regular basis, Pinball FX VR may end up being a must-have title for Meta Quest 3 owners.