Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: We are on episode 147.
Speaker: We're doing something a little different today.
Speaker: We're actually recording a couple days early, and then we're going to release.
Speaker: So if anything happens, I guess we're behind the time on the news, huh, Scott?
Speaker: We could be forecasting.
Speaker: We could be, as Don on the Pinball Podcast used to say, we try to wake the news.
Speaker: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker: New machines out X-Men, uncanny X-Men.
Speaker: We've got all the information you want to know about.
Speaker: We're talking about today, but if you want to buy that game, Scott, where are you buying it from?
Speaker: Zach and Nicole, many of flipping out pinball.
Speaker: And actually I did place an order.
Speaker: I placed an order for premium.
Speaker: Yeah, I did.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well, I guess, let's not break the news just yet.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So I did place an order.
Speaker: So I'll get it.
Speaker: The nice thing is, I always want Zach to take care of his customers that we refer him to first.
Speaker: So we actually go to the end of the line.
Speaker: So if you want it, you could actually jump up and get it.
Speaker: This is interesting because they're doing the LEs first.
Speaker: And so that's going to be a little different than what they've done in the past.
Speaker: I really think it's a great game.
Speaker: And my...
Speaker: my friend, I have two friends that ordered avatar collector's editions through Zach and Nicole Mini.
Speaker: So these are, these are things that are great because they can take care of you.
Speaker: exactly and their their customer service is just above and beyond they're great yeah they're great so let's you know what we're kind of talking about this let's scott you got hands on you got to be one of the first people over to play x-men yep you tell me about this because okay let's let's do some uh let's let's bring it up to par okay so it released like a week and a half ago yeah they showed some video of it uh
Speaker: Everyone was hyped.
Speaker: Don had bought four and Ellie and like three premiums.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Crazy.
Speaker: People are saying, you know, Ellen better look out because Jack dangerous the next go, which I don't know how to slow the roll.
Speaker: Slow the roll.
Speaker: Slow the roll.
Speaker: Now, and then it was, I'm not saying it's not going to happen.
Speaker: I'm, I will say Ellen has six games under his belt and Jack has two and a half.
Speaker: So it's fine.
Speaker: But the good news is not a competition, not a competition.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Well, and what was funny to me is like, well, I posted that meme, right?
Speaker: Wolverine sat in there stroking the picture of Uncanny X-Men.
Speaker: I had related that to the pinball community with X-Men.
Speaker: And a week later, they did a surprise.
Speaker: Well, it wasn't a surprise.
Speaker: They gave like a 24-hour notice.
Speaker: We're doing a stream.
Speaker: Uh, and it, they did the stream and I don't know what happened.
Speaker: I don't know if it's because they were wearing outfits or Jack.
Speaker: It was distracting.
Speaker: I, I guess it ended up, uh, people didn't get the best vibe of the game.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: And like the ball times were like 30 seconds long.
Speaker: And this is like Zach Sharp.
Speaker: Granted, he had a Wolverine mask on, so it was probably hard to see, but he's like a top 100 player, right?
Speaker: And he's a great player.
Speaker: Jack's great player.
Speaker: Uh, and so, okay.
Speaker: I'll tell you my experience though.
Speaker: My experience is, and I am a professionally average player.
Speaker: I am not a, I'm not a pop a level player, but my job is to, Hey, is this going to be good for my situation?
Speaker: I'm, you know, I have a home arcade, play most of my games in the home arcade.
Speaker: I, I do try to understand the rules and get into that, but is, is that great for my situation?
Speaker: Now, the good news is,
Speaker: we also have friends who are really involved in like scoring and score balancing and making sure that you're not just locked into one path.
Speaker: That was always the criticism of some of the old games is that there's, you know, okay, this is Josh Sharp.
Speaker: We had him on and he is like, which game do you love?
Speaker: Which game do you hate?
Speaker: You remember when we did that?
Speaker: Both of them were Twilight Zone.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Because he said, I love it that it's a complete game.
Speaker: However, I hate that in tournament settings, you just do the same thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ramp, ramp, start a mode.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so that's the magic that Stern has been able to inject into games is that the high level competitive players they have...
Speaker: are really influencing what they're doing and how they're balancing the code to make sure that you can be competitive regardless of which path you're going to take.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it keeps games fresh.
Speaker: It keeps, keeps games interesting and that you can try something else.
Speaker: So that being said, I played it in my ball time.
Speaker: I'm sure I was playing on exactly the same game they were playing on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's an L E.
Speaker: It has all the LE features.
Speaker: And really, we had some pretty good ball times.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: If anything, I was wondering...
Speaker: they may have to mean it up a little bit for these high level players.
Speaker: So when you have like a pop level tournament, they don't have the ball times aren't too, too hard.
Speaker: Which is funny.
Speaker: Cause you watch the stream and it's like, finally like Jack, Zach and a waste and all step away.
Speaker: And it was just like, Nick, I think his name was, yeah, he was doing so good on it.
Speaker: They were just like, you just play it.
Speaker: And so it was like, right.
Speaker: One person ball times is just, and so that's why I was like, when you told me this, when you were texting me, like, Hey, this is,
Speaker: He's like, me and you and was it Don and who else was there?
Speaker: Yeah, Don was there.
Speaker: You guys were just, you're like, we're average trailers and this was going so, it was going great, you know?
Speaker: It was me and I was playing with Don.
Speaker: Wason was there.
Speaker: Wason came down.
Speaker: So we were able to talk to him and it was great to get the coder's perspective.
Speaker: And also, you know, Zach was there.
Speaker: So Zach got in on a few games too.
Speaker: We were able to do things on the game and it felt very, very fun.
Speaker: It, it,
Speaker: As I explained before, this feels like a natural progression as to game Stern has been putting out.
Speaker: And I can't remember exactly how I described it, but if I can remember, I said it's almost like there is a...
Speaker: there's an upgraded Katana shot where you take it and you shoot it and you shoot from the right flipper, you shoot it to the left and it flips all the way around and then goes to the lower play field.
Speaker: So it is a Katana type shot.
Speaker: May not be as hard as the Katana shot, but it's still very...
Speaker: very reminiscent of that yes you have long ball paths and so it just felt a lot you know you could see a lot of keith elwin's influence in there you could see a lot of george gomez influence in there you could see a little bit of borg with uh with the sentinel head bash toy yeah but it really felt like a friendly accessible game that you could make it easier hard depending on your audience gotcha
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So let's get into it, how it looks.
Speaker: So the one thing, the reason I asked George, oh, George came down to George Gomas was there and Gary Stern came in and we talked for a bit.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So eight 11, this is, these are things that I found out about the Marvel timeline.
Speaker: So apparently there's two different timelines.
Speaker: There's the eight 11 timeline and,
Speaker: There's another one at 600 something.
Speaker: 616, I think.
Speaker: And so that's the reason why they actually have like 811.
Speaker: I also think it was a strategic contraction of the games because we know that Venom didn't sell as well as they wanted.
Speaker: Wick didn't sell as well as they wanted.
Speaker: And so it made sense for them to shrink down the LEs.
Speaker: one thing that the game theme is centered around, it's the, the days of future past.
Speaker: So I ordered this on Amazon and they actually had some new comic books that were printed of, of this specific one, which was kind of fun.
Speaker: So, so we got those new printing.
Speaker: This one actually has it's,
Speaker: In the 90s, they would do all these crossovers basically to sell more.
Speaker: If you were an acting person or a Fantastic Four, you're like, oh, well, now I have to buy a few issues of other ones.
Speaker: It made sense.
Speaker: Secret Wars was the same way.
Speaker: Civil War was big on this.
Speaker: I mean, Spider-Man had a whole new line that ran off of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So things like that.
Speaker: Now, this one that I bought on Amazon for like $16, this has all of them together.
Speaker: Well, if I remember correctly, the original storyline only lasts like two issues.
Speaker: So was there more?
Speaker: In X-Men.
Speaker: But if you look at this, I'm just casually looking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Speaker: So at least eight.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: And it's a thick book.
Speaker: It's not a standard comic book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The gist of it is you start in the, in the, in the story anyway, you're in the future and then you realize that it's dystopian.
Speaker: The sentinels have taken over.
Speaker: They've, they've tiered the people into like normals or just normal people.
Speaker: And then there's those that have the mutant gene that,
Speaker: and they are not allowed to reproduce.
Speaker: And then you have mutants.
Speaker: And basically that's the three tiers of people.
Speaker: And mutants are, they have these suppressors on and they can't use their mutant powers.
Speaker: And so, you know, this is a really dystopian future, especially for, you know, for mutants that, Hey, just because you exist, you're actually outlawed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're trying to balance these two, you know, these two timelines, right?
Speaker: And you're going back and forth between the future and the past.
Speaker: It was, it was really cool in that they, uh, on the LE anyway, and I'm trying to, I'm just trying to look at pictures of how they did it for, um, for the pro and the premium.
Speaker: So it's a little hard because they don't have exactly the same, um, set up.
Speaker: It looks okay.
Speaker: So it looks like on the pro and premium.
Speaker: I can't see exactly how they themed the side art.
Speaker: It looks...
Speaker: One of them looks like it's ripped right off the... Yeah, one of them's mirrored.
Speaker: The Pro, I just looked, it's mirrored.
Speaker: The Premium... So the Premium is also mirrored.
Speaker: It's one on one side, which I think people overstate a little bit the importance of side art because as you see behind me, all the side arts are abutted against the other machines.
Speaker: On the LE, they did a really cool touch though.
Speaker: They used the foil wrap again.
Speaker: And on the right side is the future.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And it looks dark.
Speaker: And even the art is battled.
Speaker: The, sorry, the, the side armor it's battle damaged.
Speaker: Oh really?
Speaker: So it has like some, you know, like some damage, you know, some cuts, some laser cuts into the art, which I thought was a really cool touch.
Speaker: The other side was going back to like the 1980s.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so it was, it was clean.
Speaker: It was crisp.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, it's, I, I do find it interesting that the storyline, the future, the dystopian future was 2013.
Speaker: That is funny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of like back to the future when, uh, you know, I, we are well past the, the time date they set for flying cars.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um, so, so you're going back and forth now.
Speaker: The, the code is pretty early, right?
Speaker: Now they have, they have stated it.
Speaker: So this is not like a rumor thing.
Speaker: They stated that the, we, we know how releases go is that they have multiple simultaneous games in development and,
Speaker: And depending on certain situations, they'll actually move a game up or back.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So we know that this game was moved up a little bit.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So the code is therefore earlier code.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So right now there were four, four modes coded into it.
Speaker: Two were in the future, two were in the past.
Speaker: And the mood, which was really cool.
Speaker: Cause when you did the, when you went into the past, you're,
Speaker: it has this kind of upbeat music.
Speaker: It's this, the music that you would, I would say it's era appropriate.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, kind of poppy, just think of a little bit of synth electronic type stuff.
Speaker: You go to the future and it's a little darker, but it's similar.
Speaker: It's not super jarring, but you are noticing that, hey, this is a different style of music.
Speaker: So they did a really good job.
Speaker: And also the illumination dims down on the play field.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: So you know whether or not you're in the past, you're in the future.
Speaker: The game play.
Speaker: So I don't know how the pro plays.
Speaker: The pro looks quite similar, I guess.
Speaker: So there's a wire form ramp on the right side that has a sentinel hand.
Speaker: Now that does not break.
Speaker: So think of Godzilla.
Speaker: That does not break down on the right side.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, there's also a Sentinel head that on the premium and alley, it raises from the play field.
Speaker: Um, it, you can't really go over it.
Speaker: And so it's still there anyway, but in the, in the premium, uh, in the pro it's just up there all the time.
Speaker: So I guess my question to you is because if, if it goes up and goes down, do you feel like, I mean, this game looks pretty packed and I think even Gomez said on one of the interviews, if he would have known,
Speaker: how much Jack had put in this and they might have actually dialed some of it back.
Speaker: But the question is, does the head going up and down add enough?
Speaker: Because it's really cosmetic, right?
Speaker: It's not necessarily.
Speaker: It's totally visual.
Speaker: The, the one effect that can on the prone premium is,
Speaker: You hit the mouth and it opens up.
Speaker: And from what I understand, there's kind of like a little bit of a kickback if you hit right into the open mouth.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you're defeating the Sentinel.
Speaker: And if you hit it in the mouth area, the scoring is you actually get a better score than a glancing shot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you're battling the Sentinel, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that is something that is on the premium LE.
Speaker: The Pro, I don't think it has the mouth part that goes down.
Speaker: Nope, nope, it does open up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: At least on the Pro pictures that they have, it does open up.
Speaker: So you at least have that similar thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The...
Speaker: the hands are a little different.
Speaker: So it is a cool effect when he's breaking the wire form because it does feel like it's like, Oh, that's really cool.
Speaker: He breaks it down.
Speaker: It's a little bit more of a, uh, a danger move than Godzilla.
Speaker: When, when the bridge breaks in Godzilla, it's like, Oh, that's kind of cool.
Speaker: But the ball's pretty high up there in the left upper play field.
Speaker: So it doesn't really like come shooting down to your flipper.
Speaker: This one comes down and it does feel a little dangerous, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a cheap drain.
Speaker: Which is funny because like on the stream, camera who was playing and the wire form broke and the ball went straight down the middle.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I was like, well, that's not great.
Speaker: I got to respond well to that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's it.
Speaker: And also, so in keeping, I know I'm jumping around a little bit, but in keeping with the foil on the outside, there is foil on the inside too.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And on the LE, the premium LE.
Speaker: The one thing we didn't talk much about, and we can more talk about this now, just because I'm looking at the pictures on Stern's website is, and I realized that when we talked about this before,
Speaker: We focused almost exclusively on the theme and the play field, right?
Speaker: We barely touched on zombie Yeti's art.
Speaker: And it is interesting to see that this art package is, it is consistent with a nineties era comic book.
Speaker: And it, it does look really cool.
Speaker: He's, he's done a great job.
Speaker: Have you taken a look at the art package?
Speaker: Josh?
Speaker: I have.
Speaker: And we kind of talked about this, not the last episode, but the episode before.
Speaker: And I do feel like,
Speaker: It's like they kind of just dropped comic books all over the play field.
Speaker: And like, I felt like it's, it's really good, but it's, it's probably the busiest art package.
Speaker: I feel like it's done.
Speaker: But did you look at the back glasses at all or the trans lights?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I can pull those right up again.
Speaker: Now that you were putting me on the spot, I'm like, sorry, I know I've seen them.
Speaker: I happen to have them up because I was looking at it.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So I've got them here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And these are, they're just as busy.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: They failed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There does seem to be a focus.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I'm just curious.
Speaker: Cause we haven't talked about this before.
Speaker: Which one do you like the best?
Speaker: Out of the three, probably the pro with Wolverine kind of being predominant.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The good news is I don't think there's a wrong answer.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: This is a hundred percent preference because each package is really good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, I think they're all really good and it's zombie Eddie, you know what you're getting with zombie Eddie.
Speaker: It's all good.
Speaker: So, right.
Speaker: And so, so that's awesome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I I'm rambling a little bit, Josh.
Speaker: What, what are some things that you are wondering since you have not played the game?
Speaker: So I'm wondering about, well, I asked about the gameplay.
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: Okay, so when you're drawing inspiration, it looks like Gold Wings and looks like Spy Hunter with Offset Flipper.
Speaker: These games respectively are ranked.
Speaker: So Gold Wing doesn't have enough ranking, but based off of the average it has right now, it would rank around 290.
Speaker: And Spy Hunter's at 297.
Speaker: So when you take that and then, you know, they haven't done this in 40 years and granted modes and software and all that stuff has definitely caught up and it can make it, we've always, we've said this multiple times, like good code can make up for like a bad layout.
Speaker: Not like a hundred percent, but it can definitely, it can put a big bandaid on it, right?
Speaker: And so my biggest concern was, is you're doing a, you're doing this old play field in a new style.
Speaker: And I felt like people were jumping like too quickly that this is this amazing game.
Speaker: So I guess my question is, I felt like after the stream, a lot of people have been turned off because of the, the gameplay that they saw.
Speaker: Where would you rank this on a modern stern?
Speaker: What is it in the higher end out of the sterns?
Speaker: Is it the lower end?
Speaker: We're starting, let's start at Munsters was the first Spike 2.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Batman 66.
Speaker: Okay, that's the one I keep forgetting because it was a Kevin Kelly.
Speaker: Batman 66.
Speaker: So from Batman 66 at 2016 to now, where would you place it in the collection of Spike 2s?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I will, I'll say top end.
Speaker: I'll say top third actually.
Speaker: So up there with Jurassic Park.
Speaker: with a stranger things with Godzilla.
Speaker: I think there, there's a lot of Deadpool vibe to this.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: There really is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: If you look at this, so one, I do have a question and I want to double check.
Speaker: So there are three flippers.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But one of them is a mini flipper down there, right?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So let's, let's dumb this down and say, okay,
Speaker: It's a two flipper game with a play field that's separated, maybe an upper play field.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So how many shots do you get out of a two flipper game?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Like seven or eight, I guess.
Speaker: Probably more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Probably about that.
Speaker: You're between seven and nine, depending on how tight you want the shots to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so if you look at this,
Speaker: It's exactly the same vibe as a lot of two flipper games on the right side.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It still has about the seven to nine shot paths.
Speaker: And if you look at the lower, like the little danger room area, it feels kind of like an upper play field.
Speaker: There's a pop bumper down there.
Speaker: There's a mini flipper.
Speaker: And there are a few paths that you can take with that.
Speaker: So therefore, it actually feels very similar to any other game.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: It's just, even though the flippers are a little offset on the right, don't even think about that.
Speaker: Because if you look at most games, most games, that area of the play field is rarely used anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Unless it's like some weird slingshot or some stand-up target or something that you don't want to hit anyway because it just sends the ball ricocheting back and forth.
Speaker: And it's a wedge when you're looking straight up.
Speaker: And so he basically just utilized some area that typically wasn't used.
Speaker: And by moving the playfield or the flippers over to the right, he just expanded the top of the playfield a little bit on the left side.
Speaker: And so he had longer ball paths.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So my other question too, looking at this play field on the left side where there, there's usually two slings, right?
Speaker: Like that's just, yep.
Speaker: There's no sling on the, it'd technically be the middle of the play field, but it's the left flipper that isn't in the danger room.
Speaker: Does that feel weird?
Speaker: Does it feel weird that like you don't really technically have?
Speaker: Cause that's the thing is you get into the slings, they bounce back and forth.
Speaker: You're in trouble.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This one looks like it kind of hits the right sling and there's no way for it to, like it might hit the pop and send it back, but look over the pop.
Speaker: There's a little hole to the danger room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you can actually go over that.
Speaker: It didn't,
Speaker: It didn't feel bad because if you look at it, you can pop over that and get into the danger room.
Speaker: And on that mini flipper, you can flip it up and it has a wire form that returns right to the left flipper.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then, so with like a lot of play fields, I'm thinking like jaws, upper play field, you're only up there for a couple of seconds.
Speaker: And if you don't do it right, you like you're dead.
Speaker: My question is, when you get into this danger room, is there enough time to react?
Speaker: Or is it one of those learning curves where you're getting in there once or twice and you're going to drain regardless until you get it down?
Speaker: No, it actually, it's a long playing lower play field.
Speaker: That did surprise me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You can spend a lot of time there.
Speaker: What you don't see is that...
Speaker: That mini flipper.
Speaker: So look at the angle of the mini flipper.
Speaker: Yeah, it's almost, I don't want to say flat, but it's compared to the other two flippers.
Speaker: It's tilted up.
Speaker: Yeah, it's tilted up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so when you look at that, that's actually a much smaller area than you think it is.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And so it does feel a lot safer than you would anticipate it to be.
Speaker: And I would guarantee, and I'm looking into Jack's mind right here, I guarantee that was by design.
Speaker: If the flipper were tilted down, it would be a much more dangerous danger room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you adjust?
Speaker: It looks like there might be a wire behind it.
Speaker: You didn't ask if you could adjust that down at all, did you?
Speaker: I did not.
Speaker: I didn't even think about it just because I was looking right at it.
Speaker: And when we were playing, I had Waste in there.
Speaker: So I was talking to him about code.
Speaker: With how busy the artwork is, is it hard to keep an eye on the ball?
Speaker: Or is it one of those things that's like you're... You don't really pay attention to art, really.
Speaker: When you're playing a game...
Speaker: You focus on the ball.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The other question I have too is because there's this, there's this, oh, it's not a vertical out kicker.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: It's a very target.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The weird part is, is the very targets actually elevated above the play field.
Speaker: So you're not actually, so in a lot of very targets, you're either pushing a target back or you're hitting a, you're hitting another ball that goes back so far.
Speaker: With this one, you're hitting a target and then like a ball hits another ball above the play field.
Speaker: Did it feel weird?
Speaker: Was it weird because you're kind of hitting a very target?
Speaker: Or did it feel like, yeah, I'm hitting a very target and whatnot?
Speaker: You know what it felt like?
Speaker: You know that carnival game where you go and you get that giant hammer and you try to slam it down and hit the center of the dot and it goes up to ring the bell?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's kind of how it felt.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So it didn't, it, it didn't feel, it didn't feel like a very target, but it felt like a variation of a very target.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I'm just looking over this.
Speaker: So the ball paths are pretty interesting.
Speaker: Uh, I'm assuming that they're the way, the reason they are is because this game's right.
Speaker: It can be kind of brutal.
Speaker: And so the ball paths are there to kind of slow the ball down.
Speaker: It gives it like an interesting path, but it also slow it down long ball paths.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So did it feel because like in Godzilla, you know, when you hit that right ramp, it just it takes it sweet time to get back to you.
Speaker: Is that how it felt on X-Men?
Speaker: It felt a little faster.
Speaker: But if you shot from the right flipper up to the left side, yes, you're going to have longer ball paths, which you can see with that semi pretzel shot up there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You know, you can see that.
Speaker: And there are a few diverters that help change the paths.
Speaker: So it didn't feel like you were losing the ball much, but it did feel like there w as a lot of ball movement.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, I think we've covered the gameplay on this pretty good.
Speaker: The one thing I want to bring up that I noticed from the stream, but since you were there in person, could you hear the game really well?
Speaker: I could hear it fine, but I was also playing alone in a room.
Speaker: with and so it it didn't uh i i didn't feel it was different than any other game what were you concerned about what were you wondering so a couple concerns i felt like the music didn't match the mood in some areas okay uh my other concern was um i felt like the voice actors they got on some of the characters were terrible um i was not a fan of whoever they picked for gambit sounds like
Speaker: hillbillies you find in the swamp out in in louisiana which i know he's a louisiana accent and i know that he's trying to do that that cajun and whatnot like we got a really good representation of that from um from chatting tatum in the new wolverine x-men movie
Speaker: And I felt like this was kind of almost opposite of that.
Speaker: Like they were trying too hard and they picked the wrong place to pick a dialect from, from Louisiana.
Speaker: And then I didn't like storm at all.
Speaker: I felt like storm was a mad Karen.
Speaker: I don't know how else to put it, but it just sounded like she wanted me.
Speaker: It's like if, if a storm was going to kick your butt, she's going to get hold of the manager first kind of thing.
Speaker: It just, okay.
Speaker: Neither one of them felt good to me.
Speaker: How were they when you were there?
Speaker: Um, that's a good question.
Speaker: I, I don't think that I was focused too much on hearing which, um, voice actor they were using.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I will point out though, that the previous X-Men, I, you know, the, the John Borg version, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, the voice actors on that were terrible.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: It was, it was to the point where,
Speaker: there were some people who sold the game because it was that bad.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This didn't feel that level this.
Speaker: And I did ask specifically about who voiced them.
Speaker: And he said, they were all Marvel approved voice actors for the characters.
Speaker: See, that's what's been in the past though.
Speaker: But I don't know who's pick.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Marvel at Marvel.
Speaker: Who's like, yeah, that sounds good enough.
Speaker: Cause it doesn't.
Speaker: In some of these cases, like it, let's, let's talk about Owen's Avengers.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: I know like Ryan C from the head to head, you know, he's like, I'm playing this and I hear I am at our Iron Man.
Speaker: You're like, no, no, you're not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just, I, and that's the problem too.
Speaker: I think you've got multiple properties and I get that Ryan Reynolds is iconically Deadpool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, um, the guy that they got for Deadpool is really good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He was really good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, he's the voice of Deadpool, like in all the animated stuff.
Speaker: So it's like they got the guy, uh,
Speaker: But people complained it didn't because it wasn't Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker: And I get there's just going to be some ways.
Speaker: Or sometimes you're not.
Speaker: Nolan North, that's who did the voice of Deadpool on the game.
Speaker: And he's done the voice of a ton of... He's like the prime cut out of all the... If you want the best, he is it for Deadpool.
Speaker: He is Deadpool.
Speaker: But people will complain it doesn't sound like Ryan Reynolds.
Speaker: So it's not Deadpool.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's hard in some of these situations.
Speaker: I get Gambit's had multiple iterations over decades.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And same with Storm.
Speaker: But I just, it didn't feel close to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I will put it this way.
Speaker: When you have a voice, when you have voice actors, people don't realize there are tiers of voice actors.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I'll, I'll put it this way because my kids watch the big hero six, uh, um, animated series on Disney plus.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you watch big hero six, the movie, and there is a high level that is achieved by all those voice actors.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like they are, they are top tier talent.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I would say it is noticeably different when you get to a cartoon, an animated series versus a motion picture.
Speaker: So when you have these voice actors that are doing it, I would say they're probably on par with an animated series, which means they're good for what they are slated to do.
Speaker: I would argue also some are much better at doing call outs than others.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The guy who does, who did all of the, the stuff for iron maiden and Godzilla.
Speaker: I mean, he is a very good, I would say he is top tier talent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and it's hard.
Speaker: Like I said, it's hard when you have iconic voices that do these characters.
Speaker: And then you're, I don't want to call it the teaming version because it's obviously like done by Marvel, but it's, it feels like you lose some of the magic because you already have a voice in your mind that it should be.
Speaker: And it's not that one.
Speaker: So here's a question for you though.
Speaker: Do you think that it would be better if you chose one voice actor, like a top tier voice actor who does all the call outs, or do you like that they attempted to go with an ensemble cast?
Speaker: So I think...
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Do you see what I'm getting at?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like you only have so much money to pay for these voice actors.
Speaker: Each voice actor is going to command a certain level.
Speaker: And this is me that I am a fan who's only looking at how would you possibly do this?
Speaker: I would argue you can probably get higher quality talent.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you have,
Speaker: one person doing the main call-outs and you use your budget on that person, then you chop up the budget into five different people and have five people doing voice call-outs.
Speaker: I'll give you this.
Speaker: Here's the thing.
Speaker: I think it depends on the situation.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: In this case where it's Days of Futures Past.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The original one was done in the 70s and it was, the main character was Kitty Pryde.
Speaker: But when they made a movie adaptation of it, it wasn't Kitty that went back in time.
Speaker: It was actually Wolverine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I think, let's say,
Speaker: If it were me, I think I would have done it from the perspective of Wolverine, even though it's not comic book accurate.
Speaker: I still would have went with Wolverine and went with a top tier, either whoever did the animated voice for the X-Men animated series or Hugh Jackman.
Speaker: And Hugh Jackman probably is way too out of cost.
Speaker: Yeah, Hugh Jackman would be cost prohibitive.
Speaker: But I think if you do it that way, because that's like Deadpool, right?
Speaker: Like Deadpool, you're playing as Deadpool or you're playing like you and Deadpool are interacting.
Speaker: I get this is all the X-Men.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I think if you had one soul character like Wolverine and then you had an ensemble behind him, that wasn't as like, you know, the Sentinels don't need to sound perfect, you know, if you're beating the crap out of them.
Speaker: I just, I feel like, and even like with Deadpool, like I'm thinking of Wolverine and Colossus and, and stargazer.
Speaker: I can, I mean, it's not stargazer.
Speaker: Disco queen.
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: Dazzler.
Speaker: Dazzler.
Speaker: I think you don't notice them as much because they're not as in your face as everything else.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But the problem is when you're doing a song cast like this, you're trying to give even time to everyone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: when one sounds, so if Wolverine sounds really close to Wolverine, but Storm doesn't, you're just like, it's like, you're like, yes, that sounds great.
Speaker: And then you kind of like, no, well, crap, now I have to hear Storm.
Speaker: And she's not as close as what I think she should be.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's a catch 22.
Speaker: But here's the weird part though.
Speaker: Like we're doing a comic book version.
Speaker: I feel like,
Speaker: maybe there should be more freedom.
Speaker: And this is something Jack danger could attest to.
Speaker: I know that.
Speaker: And we can, we, yeah.
Speaker: If we have wasting on, if we had Jack on, then we can talk more about the, the, you know, what, what constraints they had to work with.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the thing is like, I feel like if you're doing the comic book theme, there should be a lot of freedom there.
Speaker: Like, yeah, you got to stick to the storyline, but,
Speaker: But to a point, because even to this point, you're only doing two comic books, right?
Speaker: And the first one's pretty much in the future, and the last one's pretty much in the past.
Speaker: And so it's just weird.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: I think people passed off Infinity Gauntlet because there was just a movie made, Endgame.
Speaker: And so people had felt like... And Adam Warlock wasn't even in the movies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I feel like...
Speaker: people kind of gave it a pass because like, yeah, it's a comic book, but it's still, it feels kind of movieish because we just saw that and you're fighting Thanos and yada, yada.
Speaker: This is uncanny X-Men.
Speaker: It just, it feels kind of out of left field because X-Men hasn't really been relevant for a minute.
Speaker: And because Fox has done kind of a poor job with a lot, like with, with the movies within the last decade and Deadpool and Wolverine was more of a Deadpool movie.
Speaker: like a buddy comedy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I just, I feel like, I don't know if X-Men was a theme people are asking for.
Speaker: And especially like this.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Here's the thing though.
Speaker: I think people, I think this is the reason we're going comic book.
Speaker: We're starting to see this more and more.
Speaker: And I, people seem to respond better to this because,
Speaker: then this is where I'm going to make the comparison to Steve Ritchie, Star Trek.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Every mode was based off of a scene in the Star Trek movies.
Speaker: The first two Trek movies, the lines were from the Star Trek movies.
Speaker: The DMD was a recreation of those scenes.
Speaker: You're literally playing the movies, right?
Speaker: Problem is, is you got a lot of assets that way.
Speaker: You've got a lot, you're kind of constrained to what you can do and it's all like kind of narrowed and this is DMD.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: there's a little bit of leeway because you're recreating those scenes.
Speaker: Take it with, if they did an X-Men, we did on Kenny X-Men, we did Days of Futures Past.
Speaker: Let's say we did the movie instead.
Speaker: With the comic book, you get more freedom on the storytelling, right?
Speaker: Like it's not set in stone.
Speaker: You can kind of take that world and mold it to what you need.
Speaker: If they did Days of Futures Past, the X-Men movie, there's a lot of constraints because you got like Hugh Jackman, you've got Jennifer Lawrence, you've got
Speaker: Patrick Stewart wasn't in it, but the younger guy, you've got a lot of, you've got a lot of actors there.
Speaker: Now we're using movie clips.
Speaker: That could cost extra.
Speaker: So it just, I guess my question to you is, do you like,
Speaker: the direction because pinball is going this direction.
Speaker: If you look at Godzilla, if you look at N. Kenny X-Men, if you look at, I mean, Wick wasn't.
Speaker: Wick was more of a, I guess that was kind of a storytelling mix with the movies.
Speaker: But still, we're kind of creating these worlds where we're creating our own story with pinball.
Speaker: Do you like that more?
Speaker: Or do you like more of the Star Trek approach where you're literally playing the movie inside of a game?
Speaker: Depends on the movie.
Speaker: I would say some movies, it's more of a
Speaker: That's the, the thing you can't do.
Speaker: And we'll talk about this in the future.
Speaker: You can't do princess bride and just be in the princess bride world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You have to tell the story of the princess bride because that's what they want.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: With Jurassic Park, it's reasonable to say, hey, you're in the world, there are dinosaurs coming, and there are other people other than the five people that were featured in this situation.
Speaker: And so, therefore, it still feels consistent.
Speaker: With the X-Men, and you bring up some good points, I think the movies...
Speaker: The problem is, would you rather do the movies and have more licensing constraints?
Speaker: Or would you rather have the freedom to do like an animated version and be able to do to play more with the storyline?
Speaker: I think, I think they would sell more.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Do you think they would sell more X-Men if they did the movie version of days of future past?
Speaker: It's a catch 22 and I'll give you my reason why I think the problem is, is people just want the best game that they can get for what's put out.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I think the best comparison to this is Gomez's Avengers versus Ellen's Avengers.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Gomez's Avengers were based off the Avengers movie.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um, it's not a good game by the way.
Speaker: It's not fantastic.
Speaker: It's not terrible, but it's not like, it's not the best.
Speaker: I felt like they could have done with what they had.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But with Elwyn's Avengers, there were constraints there.
Speaker: And he talked about this when we did the interview.
Speaker: You only had the eye on Polk.
Speaker: It was weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I felt like he was able to make the best game with the assets and the constraints that he had.
Speaker: So I really think it comes down to people will forgive if it's not...
Speaker: not the movies or the best, like the best iteration of that franchise.
Speaker: So long as you take that franchise and you make the best product out of it, bringing that, now that we've made this big loop, bringing that back to uncanny X-Men, do you feel like Jack made the best product out of the license he had?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Easy enough, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, it would have been harder to do a movie version.
Speaker: And I will also say with the voice, with the voice and the music and maybe that feeling like it's not as immersive, that's going to evolve with the code.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I guarantee this is very early code.
Speaker: We are going to see a better version of it in the future.
Speaker: There, there are people who are already stating this is still very similar to,
Speaker: to the animations that they used with, uh, with infinity quest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where you're still getting that static comic book, uh, figurine with a moving background.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I did notice that.
Speaker: And I was not a fan and it's, it's rougher than it was in Avengers.
Speaker: It's like you said, it's early code.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I guess it is what it is.
Speaker: If you rank all the things.
Speaker: And by the way, I'm sorry, I'm sniffling.
Speaker: I really am finding a cold and I'm trying to mute as much as I can.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's, it's one of those things where I'm like, the things that I care about in a game play LCD is, is important, obviously, because we have talked about that with JJP games.
Speaker: That's the one that that's one of the things that they do.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Is the LCD and theme immersion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But aside from layout theme art that you see in front of you lights and music, you
Speaker: then it actually comes to LCD.
Speaker: So does it really matter that much that the LCD is more basic than what you see with competitors games?
Speaker: At first, yes.
Speaker: But honestly, once you start getting used to the game and everything now, you don't, I barely, you don't really pay much attention to it.
Speaker: The only time, the only time I watch animations or watch the screen is
Speaker: And granted, I see the exact same scene like 30 different times.
Speaker: Like Jaws, this is a wonderful example.
Speaker: You're going to, it pauses because it wants you to focus on the screen to let you know the barrel's
Speaker: you got to shoot the shark with a barrel and you've got to shoot the fin quick.
Speaker: Just like in Jurassic park, it stops the ball to let you know that the, the missile you've got 30 seconds or three seconds to make the shot or whatever it is.
Speaker: So I think that's honestly the only time I really noticed the back, the animations or anything.
Speaker: I mean, you're quick glancing and see your score, what sort of stuff is overall.
Speaker: I don't, I don't, but that's the problem though.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Honestly, on the bottom of my list is animations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anything to do with that LCD really is kind of on the bottom of my list.
Speaker: And we've talked about this before.
Speaker: Honestly, I wouldn't mind them going back to DMD.
Speaker: No, actually you would, you would trust me.
Speaker: DMD games look immediately dated.
Speaker: They really get that.
Speaker: But, but I think, but look at Pulp Fiction.
Speaker: I felt like Pulp Fiction.
Speaker: I didn't even notice different.
Speaker: It's like, it's this weird, um,
Speaker: vmds will be cool in 20 years like it's not retro enough right now like cassettes cool now cds still getting there but not quite as cool as a cassette or vinyl i i think we've covered this as as much as i mean so so overall you're getting a premium yeah is this a game do you think of as the code expands do you feel like
Speaker: it can only make it better or do you feel like is there any way it can make it worse uh okay the code is always a moving target uh yeah the it's still very fun to shoot okay and and that's that's the biggest thing um really the walking dead this is an unintentional pun but the code resurrected the walking dead
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Because when it first came out and I had the hillbilly like calling out things, it didn't, it didn't sell very well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is a solid shooter.
Speaker: The layout's great.
Speaker: The storyline will come along right now.
Speaker: There, there are four modes and I'm sure that they will move, move that.
Speaker: But imagine if you had another three months in development and getting more into it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the hard part too.
Speaker: Like Gomez has said multiple times, they're usually on a 15 to 18 month timeline.
Speaker: And this was shortened to 12 and it was shortened a little while back because Gomez had said on our podcast that danger was in the next in the pipeline.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that was in May.
Speaker: And so, you know, May, June, July, August, September five months, they already moved them up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They moved him up six months ago.
Speaker: So you feel the crunch a little bit.
Speaker: And really, we were talking about this earlier.
Speaker: Like pinball is starting to decline a little bit.
Speaker: And I don't think it has anything to do with pinball itself.
Speaker: I just think people are having a hard time.
Speaker: Plateauing a little bit.
Speaker: Plateauing, yes.
Speaker: It's plateauing in that I have games.
Speaker: I have no space.
Speaker: So if I'm buying something, I have to say, what am I going to replace it with?
Speaker: Well, I think economically –
Speaker: Pinball has went up in price from COVID.
Speaker: It has.
Speaker: And the main demographic is feeling like they're getting priced out of the hobby.
Speaker: And so they're really holding on to their dollar unless if they feel like it's worth their buck, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so you're going to have to start making new, unique machines.
Speaker: And sorry, I'm going back to why I was saying this is if we get to a point where there's more decline and they start having to let people go,
Speaker: My concern is you've already built a product in a way that you need these coders.
Speaker: You're already having a hard time keeping up with the product that you have.
Speaker: If you started firing people, there's no way you could get rid of the coders because you need these people to finish the code.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: Or make less games a year.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Just my thought process as we were going into all this.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: I think we're actually fine.
Speaker: I think we're on a steady pattern process.
Speaker: We may not be selling the gangbusters that COVID did, but that was really an anomaly.
Speaker: If you think about it, that was a snapshot of two years where people weren't traveling.
Speaker: So they had extra money to spend on entertainment that they needed in their house.
Speaker: This is probably consistent with what a growth pattern would be in 2019.
Speaker: If you shaved off the COVID years and just looked at the linear progression, you probably would still be about here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: My final question to you on this, and I want to move on to another subject really quick.
Speaker: My final question is, you've had hands on both Avatar and X-Men.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: If money was an object and space wasn't a problem, but you could only buy one, are you going to X-Men or are you going to Avatar?
Speaker: That's actually a tough one because when you talk about it, we get back to the question, who is this game for?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so if I'm buying for me, I could have fun with both games.
Speaker: I actually had fun with avatar.
Speaker: I thought avatar was a fantastic game.
Speaker: I could have fun with X-Men.
Speaker: X-Men is on the path of being more of a,
Speaker: competition, um, like well-rounded scoring based thing, something like a Deadpool.
Speaker: And we all know Deadpool is a, an unqualified success.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It had a rough start, but it really took off.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Avatar.
Speaker: I don't see my kids coming down and, and playing Deadpool, but I do see my kids coming down and playing avatar.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So if I were looking for a reason to draw my family into pinball, Avatar actually would probably be a better game for a... I'm looking to create a family environment game.
Speaker: Yeah, something that entices them to want to turn on a machine.
Speaker: We all know that JJPs tend not to be the best tournament player games.
Speaker: They tend to be heavy on theme integration and theme.
Speaker: Multiballs.
Speaker: Immersions and multiballs.
Speaker: So it really depends on what you're looking for in a game.
Speaker: If it's mainly, hey, I just want competitive balance and I want to be able to level up, then probably X-Men is your game.
Speaker: If you're looking for a way to bring people into your home environment that really just want an experience, then you may want to lean toward Avatar, but you'll actually like both of the games.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Okay, so my next thing I want to talk about really quick.
Speaker: Papa 21 happened.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: The last time a Papa Championship had happened was April of 2017.
Speaker: So it's been seven years.
Speaker: It's been a little bit.
Speaker: We want to give a congrats.
Speaker: If you haven't heard who won, you better skip right now or, you know,
Speaker: But we want to give our congrats to Raymond Davidson for becoming the world pinball champion.
Speaker: And that was a tough, tough competition too.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Amazing that they did this in memory of Lyman Sheets and doing it and raising money for suicide awareness.
Speaker: It just, it's hard.
Speaker: Lyman was one of the greats and
Speaker: I appreciate those that, um, put this together in memory of him, uh, Penny Epstein and the Sharp family, you know, Roger has said Lyman was like a son to him.
Speaker: And it's, it's hard when you lose someone that close to you.
Speaker: Uh, it just, I, I, I still feel like kind of shocked by it.
Speaker: I know it's been three years, but it's just, it's hard.
Speaker: It's hard to imagine a world without Lyman, but we've had to live it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: this is all done in interium in chicago it was amazing shout out to tom freaking graph i mean fox city's pinball did the streaming of this event went off without a hitch the numbers have you seen these numbers scott they're insane uh he streamed for 12 and a half hours is what the the stream was in that 12 and a half hours
Speaker: The average amount of viewers watching, this is the average, 2,200 people watching at one time.
Speaker: The max amount of viewers was almost 3,600.
Speaker: Unique viewers, this one's going to floor you.
Speaker: Ready for this?
Speaker: 341,972.
Speaker: So almost 342,000 people watching.
Speaker: where you that's that's fresh eyes that is people that have never watched fox cities pinball before holy crap they were able to get this on the front page of twitch and it just insane right yeah and the money that that was all raised went to suicide awareness
Speaker: awesome all around.
Speaker: You couldn't have hoped for, especially bringing something back.
Speaker: You're bringing back Papa that hasn't been around for seven years.
Speaker: How's it going to be received?
Speaker: It was received very well.
Speaker: Shout out to all the people that made it happen because
Speaker: Holy crap.
Speaker: If you haven't checked out some of these, you can go to Fox city pinballs, a Facebook page or to their Twitch even better.
Speaker: They have clips, they have all the goods.
Speaker: Go check it out.
Speaker: Cause it was just absolutely amazing.
Speaker: And also the other thing too, is like district 82 is no longer using Fox cities because they added more pinball machines, which is kind of weird.
Speaker: Cause I'm like, you know, it's okay.
Speaker: It's a choice.
Speaker: I'm not going to second guess them for their choice.
Speaker: I will just say that Tom and his ability to,
Speaker: to capture pinball and be able to let you see it and see what high level players are doing.
Speaker: It's exceptional.
Speaker: So the good news is it's not like Tom's going anywhere.
Speaker: So Tom's still around.
Speaker: Tom still knows how to capture things.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And that's good.
Speaker: And Tom has his own home arcade.
Speaker: Well, and he's like, he said, he said, like, he's not going to be spending every weekend at 82 now, but he's going to be more focused on these bigger tournaments.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Congrats to him.
Speaker: Like seriously, he just, he is definitely like perfected some streaming there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dude's amazing.
Speaker: So anything else you want to cover before we turn this off, Scott?
Speaker: Talk about our guitars.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Let's do that really quick.
Speaker: Not this guitar sitting behind me.
Speaker: I don't know if it'll end up on stream, but not.
Speaker: I got a Tom DeLogue star caster behind me, all decked out.
Speaker: So he stickers his guitars, and I did a replica of how he stickers his guitar on stage.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: It plays smooth.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: But speaking of guitars...
Speaker: Sitharaguitars, if you have not checked this guitar company out, just Sitharaguitars.com, they take old pinball play fields and they turn them into guitars, even putting LEDs in the inserts and programming them so they randomly flash like a play field does.
Speaker: And they do it in the body styles of like a Les Paul.
Speaker: So when you hear Les Paul, think of Slash from Guns N' Roses, that iconic guitar he plays, right?
Speaker: Um, and telecasters cause these are, so it's a Les Paul jr. So it's a little smaller, uh, and it's a flat top.
Speaker: So with, with a regular Les Paul, they've kind of got a curve to the, it's kind of domed on top or less Paul jr. Is just flat and it makes it easy to put a pinball filled on there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then telecaster.
Speaker: So if you're in a huge into country, um, a lot of country artists use a telecaster.
Speaker: It's just a flat.
Speaker: I don't know how to describe it besides just, just type in fenders, telecaster.
Speaker: There's other designs too.
Speaker: fantastic guitars.
Speaker: I'm excited for this because we're partnering with them.
Speaker: I'm getting a guitar.
Speaker: I've picked out earth shaker is my play field.
Speaker: What have you picked on yours, Scott?
Speaker: I picked silver ball mania because it is supremely seventies and it's really great.
Speaker: It has a silver ball and it has like a, a silver man coming out one side and a silver woman coming out the other side.
Speaker: It looks great.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I've been into electric guitars for a little bit.
Speaker: This is your first one, right?
Speaker: Scott is my first one.
Speaker: My kids all play guitar.
Speaker: And I played a little bit in college, like took a few classes, but I haven't kept up.
Speaker: So this will be fun to get back into it.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: And you've kind of been asking my opinion on some of this stuff because I'm like, here's the thing.
Speaker: From a guitar player's point of view, if you are a guitar player and you like specific stuff, I like to play punk rock.
Speaker: I like to play metal.
Speaker: I like to play rock.
Speaker: I like that sound.
Speaker: So I'm going with the Les Paul Jr. because it has what's called a humbucker.
Speaker: It's two coils put together.
Speaker: and with reverse polarities, it gives you a cleaner sound, it gives you that good grunge sound if you go through a distortion pedal.
Speaker: So like a Telecaster has what's called a single coil, and you get more of that country twang out of them and stuff like that.
Speaker: So I'm excited because Daniel says you can customize this any way you want.
Speaker: And so I'm like, all right, I'm putting you to the test.
Speaker: so everything i've already thrown at him he's like yeah i can do that no big deal are you sure yeah no big deal let's do it and i'm going with more of a simplistic design just because why not you know i'm probably gonna do one tone knob one volume knob a single humbucker right at the bridge because i like that bright bright sound but and you've been asking me yeah and i'll get whatever you're getting
Speaker: take one of his in this football mania yeah pretty much so i'm excited uh yeah it looks beautiful i'm really excited about the uh the example cut out that he sent me it looks really cool
Speaker: If you haven't checked these out, go check out his Instagram.
Speaker: If you want to see his latest designs, he just showed off a JJP guns and roses.
Speaker: Oh, and that's cool.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: It is insanely cool.
Speaker: So there's a bunch of them.
Speaker: He has like a Dolly Parton on there.
Speaker: He has, uh, Ed Robertson, a Baron Akelet.
Speaker: He's got one.
Speaker: He's got a quick silver one.
Speaker: I mean, it's just cool to see these guitars.
Speaker: And John Borg has been showing off at Robertson's on his profile a couple of times.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: But yeah, I'm excited for that.
Speaker: Yeah, it'll be really awesome.
Speaker: So if you want to get a hold of us, we are the Lose a Kid Pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, YouTube.
Speaker: If you're not following us on there, go ahead and hit subscribe.
Speaker: Expo is so close.
Speaker: Holy crap.
Speaker: We're weeks away.
Speaker: Less than a month right now.
Speaker: If you haven't checked it out yet,
Speaker: The media mixer.
Speaker: Kineticis is putting on a media mixer.
Speaker: It's not open just to the media this year.
Speaker: It's also open to the community.
Speaker: There's only a few tickets left.
Speaker: There's not many left.
Speaker: It's going to be at Interium.
Speaker: We're going to have a blast.
Speaker: Other than that, Scott, you got anything else for us?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Hopefully, I'm still waiting for that last day for Expo.
Speaker: Looking forward to it.
Speaker: Check out.
Speaker: Get your tickets.
Speaker: Go ahead and order one of the guitars because they are awesome.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, one thing about ordering the guitars.
Speaker: Don't be afraid of the pricing.
Speaker: They're all Canadian.
Speaker: I didn't realize that.
Speaker: I'm like, dude, like,
Speaker: well, how much are these?
Speaker: He said, don't worry, it's all Canadian.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, oh, so he prices in Canadian.
Speaker: It's like free money.
Speaker: Yeah, like I just saved $1,500 because... I mean, Canadian doesn't even use real money, so don't worry about it.
Speaker: Exactly, just send them beaver pelts and maple syrup and you'll be fine.
Speaker: That's what they pay with.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right, what's our last word, Scott?
Speaker: Multiball mania!
Speaker: you
