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Ep 147: Hands On Uncanny Xmen
13 Plays6 months ago
Scott got to play Stern Pinball's newest release, Uncanny Xmen! We're going through every aspect to help you decide if this is the game for you.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Recording Plan
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
00:00:10
Speaker
We are on episode 147.
00:00:12
Speaker
We're doing something a little different today.
00:00:14
Speaker
We're actually recording a couple days early, and then we're going to release.
00:00:17
Speaker
So if anything happens, I guess we're behind the time on the news, huh, Scott?
00:00:21
Speaker
We could be forecasting.
00:00:22
Speaker
We could be, as Don on the Pinball Podcast used to say, we try to wake the news.
00:00:28
Speaker
Exactly, exactly.
X-Men Pinball Machine Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
New machines out X-Men, uncanny X-Men.
00:00:34
Speaker
We've got all the information you want to know about.
00:00:36
Speaker
We're talking about today, but if you want to buy that game, Scott, where are you buying it from?
00:00:40
Speaker
Zach and Nicole, many of flipping out pinball.
00:00:42
Speaker
And actually I did place an order.
00:00:45
Speaker
I placed an order for premium.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, I did.
00:00:47
Speaker
Nice.
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, I guess, let's not break the news just yet.
00:00:53
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:54
Speaker
All right.
00:00:55
Speaker
So I did place an order.
00:00:57
Speaker
So I'll get it.
00:00:58
Speaker
The nice thing is, I always want Zach to take care of his customers that we refer him to first.
00:01:05
Speaker
So we actually go to the end of the line.
00:01:07
Speaker
So if you want it, you could actually jump up and get it.
00:01:10
Speaker
This is interesting because they're doing the LEs first.
00:01:13
Speaker
And so that's going to be a little different than what they've done in the past.
00:01:17
Speaker
I really think it's a great game.
00:01:18
Speaker
And my...
00:01:20
Speaker
my friend, I have two friends that ordered avatar collector's editions through Zach and Nicole Mini.
00:01:25
Speaker
So these are, these are things that are great because they can take care of
First Impressions of X-Men Pinball
00:01:29
Speaker
you.
00:01:29
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
00:01:54
Speaker
Everyone was hyped.
00:01:55
Speaker
Don had bought four and Ellie and like three premiums.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
Crazy.
00:02:00
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.
00:02:09
Speaker
Slow the roll.
00:02:09
Speaker
Slow the roll.
Pinball Designer Comparisons
00:02:10
Speaker
Now, and then it was, I'm not saying it's not going to happen.
00:02:13
Speaker
I'm, I will say Ellen has six games under his belt and Jack has two and a half.
00:02:20
Speaker
So it's fine.
00:02:21
Speaker
But the good news is not a competition, not a competition.
00:02:24
Speaker
Exactly.
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, and what was funny to me is like, well, I posted that meme, right?
00:02:29
Speaker
Wolverine sat in there stroking the picture of Uncanny X-Men.
00:02:33
Speaker
I had related that to the pinball community with X-Men.
00:02:36
Speaker
And a week later, they did a surprise.
00:02:38
Speaker
Well, it wasn't a surprise.
00:02:39
Speaker
They gave like a 24-hour notice.
00:02:40
Speaker
We're doing a stream.
00:02:42
Speaker
Uh, and it, they did the stream and I don't know what happened.
00:02:47
Speaker
I don't know if it's because they were wearing outfits or Jack.
00:02:51
Speaker
It was distracting.
00:02:52
Speaker
I, I guess it ended up, uh, people didn't get the best vibe of the game.
00:02:58
Speaker
Um, yeah.
00:02:59
Speaker
And like the ball times were like 30 seconds long.
00:03:01
Speaker
And this is like Zach Sharp.
00:03:03
Speaker
Granted, he had a Wolverine mask on, so it was probably hard to see, but he's like a top 100 player, right?
00:03:08
Speaker
And he's a great player.
00:03:09
Speaker
Jack's great player.
00:03:10
Speaker
Uh, and so, okay.
Competitive Feedback on X-Men Gameplay
00:03:13
Speaker
I'll tell you my experience though.
00:03:15
Speaker
My experience is, and I am a professionally average player.
00:03:19
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?
00:03:28
Speaker
I'm, you know, I have a home arcade, play most of my games in the home arcade.
00:03:34
Speaker
I, I do try to understand the rules and get into that, but is, is that great for my situation?
00:03:40
Speaker
Now, the good news is,
00:03:41
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.
00:03:51
Speaker
That was always the criticism of some of the old games is that there's, you know, okay, this is Josh Sharp.
00:03:57
Speaker
We had him on and he is like, which game do you love?
00:04:00
Speaker
Which game do you hate?
00:04:01
Speaker
You remember when we did that?
00:04:03
Speaker
Both of them were Twilight Zone.
00:04:05
Speaker
Yep.
00:04:06
Speaker
Because he said, I love it that it's a complete game.
00:04:09
Speaker
However, I hate that in tournament settings, you just do the same thing.
00:04:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:14
Speaker
Ramp, ramp, start a mode.
00:04:15
Speaker
Right.
00:04:16
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...
00:04:26
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.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:37
Speaker
And it keeps games fresh.
00:04:38
Speaker
It keeps, keeps games interesting and that you can try something else.
Personal Experience with X-Men Pinball
00:04:44
Speaker
So that being said, I played it in my ball time.
00:04:48
Speaker
I'm sure I was playing on exactly the same game they were playing on.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:51
Speaker
And it's an L E.
00:04:53
Speaker
It has all the LE features.
00:04:55
Speaker
And really, we had some pretty good ball times.
00:04:58
Speaker
Really?
00:04:59
Speaker
If anything, I was wondering...
00:05:02
Speaker
they may have to mean it up a little bit for these high level players.
00:05:06
Speaker
So when you have like a pop level tournament, they don't have the ball times aren't too, too hard.
00:05:12
Speaker
Which is funny.
00:05:12
Speaker
Cause you watch the stream and it's like, finally like Jack, Zach and a waste and all step away.
00:05:17
Speaker
And it was just like, Nick, I think his name was, yeah, he was doing so good on it.
00:05:20
Speaker
They were just like, you just play it.
00:05:22
Speaker
And so it was like, right.
00:05:23
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,
00:05:29
Speaker
He's like, me and you and was it Don and who else was there?
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah, Don was there.
00:05:33
Speaker
You guys were just, you're like, we're average trailers and this was going so, it was going great, you know?
00:05:39
Speaker
It was me and I was playing with Don.
00:05:42
Speaker
Wason was there.
00:05:43
Speaker
Wason came down.
00:05:44
Speaker
So we were able to talk to him and it was great to get the coder's perspective.
00:05:48
Speaker
And also, you know, Zach was there.
00:05:50
Speaker
So Zach got in on a few games too.
00:05:53
Speaker
We were able to do things on the game and it felt very, very fun.
00:05:58
Speaker
It, it,
00:06:00
Speaker
As I explained before, this feels like a natural progression as to game Stern has been putting out.
00:06:09
Speaker
And I can't remember exactly how I described it, but if I can remember, I said it's almost like there
Design Influences and Art Style Discussion
00:06:19
Speaker
is a...
00:06:21
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.
00:06:34
Speaker
So it is a Katana type shot.
00:06:36
Speaker
May not be as hard as the Katana shot, but it's still very...
00:06:39
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
00:07:06
Speaker
So, okay.
00:07:07
Speaker
So let's get into it, how it looks.
00:07:11
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.
00:07:19
Speaker
Nice.
00:07:22
Speaker
So eight 11, this is, these are things that I found out about the Marvel timeline.
00:07:30
Speaker
So apparently there's two different timelines.
00:07:32
Speaker
There's the eight 11 timeline and,
00:07:37
Speaker
There's another one at 600 something.
00:07:39
Speaker
616, I think.
Comic Elements in Game Design
00:07:42
Speaker
And so that's the reason why they actually have like 811.
00:07:49
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.
00:07:57
Speaker
Wick didn't sell as well as they wanted.
00:08:00
Speaker
And so it made sense for them to shrink down the LEs.
00:08:05
Speaker
one thing that the game theme is centered around, it's the, the days of future past.
00:08:12
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.
00:08:24
Speaker
So, so we got those new printing.
00:08:28
Speaker
This one actually has it's,
00:08:31
Speaker
In the 90s, they would do all these crossovers basically to sell more.
00:08:36
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.
00:08:41
Speaker
It made sense.
00:08:42
Speaker
Secret Wars was the same way.
00:08:44
Speaker
Civil War was big on this.
00:08:46
Speaker
I mean, Spider-Man had a whole new line that ran off of it.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:51
Speaker
So things like that.
00:08:53
Speaker
Now, this one that I bought on Amazon for like $16, this has all of them together.
00:08:59
Speaker
Well, if I remember correctly, the original storyline only lasts like two issues.
00:09:03
Speaker
So was there more?
00:09:05
Speaker
In X-Men.
00:09:06
Speaker
But if you look at this, I'm just casually looking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
00:09:14
Speaker
So at least eight.
00:09:17
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:09:18
Speaker
And it's a thick book.
00:09:20
Speaker
It's not a standard comic book.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:24
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.
00:09:34
Speaker
The sentinels have taken over.
00:09:35
Speaker
They've, they've tiered the people into like normals or just normal people.
00:09:43
Speaker
And then there's those that have the mutant gene that,
00:09:47
Speaker
and they are not allowed to reproduce.
00:09:50
Speaker
And then you have mutants.
00:09:51
Speaker
And basically that's the three tiers of people.
00:09:55
Speaker
And mutants are, they have these suppressors on and they can't use their mutant powers.
00:09:59
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.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
So they're trying to balance these two, you know, these two timelines, right?
00:10:15
Speaker
And you're going back and forth between the future and the past.
Playfield Analysis and Gameplay Impact
00:10:20
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.
00:10:36
Speaker
So it's a little hard because they don't have exactly the same, um, set up.
00:10:42
Speaker
It looks okay.
00:10:43
Speaker
So it looks like on the pro and premium.
00:10:45
Speaker
I can't see exactly how they themed the side art.
00:10:49
Speaker
It looks...
00:10:51
Speaker
One of them looks like it's ripped right off the... Yeah, one of them's mirrored.
00:10:56
Speaker
The Pro, I just looked, it's mirrored.
00:10:59
Speaker
The Premium... So the Premium is also mirrored.
00:11:02
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.
00:11:15
Speaker
On the LE, they did a really cool touch though.
00:11:17
Speaker
They used the foil wrap again.
00:11:20
Speaker
And on the right side is the future.
00:11:23
Speaker
Yep.
00:11:25
Speaker
And it looks dark.
00:11:26
Speaker
And even the art is battled.
00:11:29
Speaker
The, sorry, the, the side armor it's battle damaged.
00:11:34
Speaker
Oh really?
00:11:34
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.
00:11:43
Speaker
The other side was going back to like the 1980s.
00:11:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:46
Speaker
And so it was, it was clean.
00:11:47
Speaker
It was crisp.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:49
Speaker
Um, it's, I, I do find it interesting that the storyline, the future, the dystopian future was 2013.
00:11:55
Speaker
That is funny.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:59
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.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:12:07
Speaker
Um, so, so you're going back and forth now.
00:12:13
Speaker
The, the code is pretty early, right?
00:12:16
Speaker
Now they have, they have stated it.
00:12:18
Speaker
So this is not like a rumor thing.
Music and Voice Acting Critique
00:12:20
Speaker
They stated that the, we, we know how releases go is that they have multiple simultaneous games in development and,
00:12:32
Speaker
And depending on certain situations, they'll actually move a game up or back.
00:12:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:37
Speaker
So we know that this game was moved up a little bit.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yep.
00:12:40
Speaker
So the code is therefore earlier code.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:45
Speaker
So right now there were four, four modes coded into it.
00:12:51
Speaker
Two were in the future, two were in the past.
00:12:54
Speaker
And the mood, which was really cool.
00:12:58
Speaker
Cause when you did the, when you went into the past, you're,
00:13:02
Speaker
it has this kind of upbeat music.
00:13:06
Speaker
It's this, the music that you would, I would say it's era appropriate.
00:13:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:13
Speaker
You know, kind of poppy, just think of a little bit of synth electronic type stuff.
00:13:19
Speaker
You go to the future and it's a little darker, but it's similar.
00:13:24
Speaker
It's not super jarring, but you are noticing that, hey, this is a different style of music.
00:13:33
Speaker
So they did a really good job.
00:13:34
Speaker
And also the illumination dims down on the play field.
00:13:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:39
Speaker
That's cool.
00:13:40
Speaker
So you know whether or not you're in the past, you're in the future.
00:13:43
Speaker
The game play.
00:13:45
Speaker
So I don't know how the pro plays.
00:13:47
Speaker
The pro looks quite similar, I guess.
00:13:50
Speaker
So there's a wire form ramp on the right side that has a sentinel hand.
00:13:55
Speaker
Now that does not break.
00:13:56
Speaker
So think of Godzilla.
00:13:59
Speaker
That does not break down on the right side.
00:14:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:14:02
Speaker
Um, there's also a Sentinel head that on the premium and alley, it raises
Gameplay Mechanics and Unique Features
00:14:08
Speaker
from the play field.
00:14:10
Speaker
Um, it, you can't really go over it.
00:14:12
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.
00:14:19
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,
00:14:30
Speaker
how much Jack had put in this and they might have actually dialed some of it back.
00:14:34
Speaker
But the question is, does the head going up and down add enough?
00:14:39
Speaker
Because it's really cosmetic, right?
00:14:41
Speaker
It's not necessarily.
00:14:42
Speaker
It's totally visual.
00:14:45
Speaker
The, the one effect that can on the prone premium is,
00:14:50
Speaker
You hit the mouth and it opens up.
00:14:53
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.
00:14:59
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:00
Speaker
So you're defeating the Sentinel.
00:15:02
Speaker
And if you hit it in the mouth area, the scoring is you actually get a better score than a glancing shot.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:11
Speaker
So you're battling the Sentinel, right?
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
So that is something that is on the premium LE.
00:15:19
Speaker
The Pro, I don't think it has the mouth part that goes down.
00:15:24
Speaker
Nope, nope, it does open up.
00:15:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:27
Speaker
At least on the Pro pictures that they have, it does open up.
00:15:31
Speaker
So you at least have that similar thing.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
The...
00:15:37
Speaker
the hands are a little different.
00:15:39
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.
00:15:45
Speaker
He breaks it down.
00:15:47
Speaker
It's a little bit more of a, uh, a danger move than Godzilla.
00:15:52
Speaker
When, when the bridge breaks in Godzilla, it's like, Oh, that's kind of cool.
00:15:56
Speaker
But the ball's pretty high up there in the left upper play field.
00:16:00
Speaker
So it doesn't really like come shooting down to your flipper.
00:16:04
Speaker
This one comes down and it does feel a little dangerous, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a cheap drain.
00:16:12
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.
00:16:18
Speaker
Right.
00:16:19
Speaker
I was like, well, that's not great.
00:16:21
Speaker
I got to respond well to that.
00:16:23
Speaker
Right.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:25
Speaker
So that's it.
00:16:26
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.
00:16:36
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:16:37
Speaker
And on the LE, the premium LE.
00:16:41
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,
00:16:54
Speaker
We focused almost exclusively on the theme and the play
Art Style Evaluation
00:16:57
Speaker
field, right?
00:16:57
Speaker
We barely touched on zombie Yeti's art.
00:17:01
Speaker
And it is interesting to see that this art package is, it is consistent with a nineties era comic book.
00:17:10
Speaker
And it, it does look really cool.
00:17:12
Speaker
He's, he's done a great job.
00:17:14
Speaker
Have you taken a look at the art package?
00:17:16
Speaker
Josh?
00:17:17
Speaker
I have.
00:17:17
Speaker
And we kind of talked about this, not the last episode, but the episode before.
00:17:21
Speaker
And I do feel like,
00:17:22
Speaker
It's like they kind of just dropped comic books all over the play field.
00:17:26
Speaker
And like, I felt like it's, it's really good, but it's, it's probably the busiest art package.
00:17:31
Speaker
I feel like it's done.
00:17:33
Speaker
But did you look at the back glasses at all or the trans lights?
00:17:36
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:38
Speaker
I can pull those right up again.
00:17:39
Speaker
Now that you were putting me on the spot, I'm like, sorry, I know I've seen them.
00:17:42
Speaker
I happen to have them up because I was looking at it.
00:17:44
Speaker
So yeah.
00:17:45
Speaker
So I've got them here.
00:17:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:47
Speaker
And these are, they're just as busy.
00:17:50
Speaker
They are.
00:17:50
Speaker
They failed.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:52
Speaker
There does seem to be a focus.
00:17:56
Speaker
Interesting.
00:17:57
Speaker
I'm just curious.
00:17:57
Speaker
Cause we haven't talked about this before.
00:18:00
Speaker
Which one do you like the best?
00:18:03
Speaker
Out of the three, probably the pro with Wolverine kind of being predominant.
00:18:10
Speaker
Right.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:13
Speaker
The good news is I don't think there's a wrong answer.
00:18:17
Speaker
No.
00:18:18
Speaker
This is a hundred percent preference because each package is really good.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:24
Speaker
I think, I think they're all really good and it's zombie Eddie, you know what you're getting with zombie Eddie.
00:18:27
Speaker
It's all good.
00:18:28
Speaker
So, right.
00:18:29
Speaker
And so, so that's awesome.
00:18:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:18:31
Speaker
I I'm rambling a little bit, Josh.
00:18:33
Speaker
What, what are some things that you are wondering since you have not played the game?
00:18:39
Speaker
So I'm wondering about, well, I asked about the gameplay.
Novelty and Comparison to Older Styles
00:18:43
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:18:44
Speaker
Okay, so when you're drawing inspiration, it looks like Gold Wings and looks like Spy Hunter with Offset Flipper.
00:18:50
Speaker
These games respectively are ranked.
00:18:52
Speaker
So Gold Wing doesn't have enough ranking, but based off of the average it has right now, it would rank around 290.
00:18:59
Speaker
And Spy Hunter's at 297.
00:19:02
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.
00:19:20
Speaker
Not like a hundred percent, but it can definitely, it can put a big bandaid on it, right?
00:19:26
Speaker
And so my biggest concern was, is you're doing a, you're doing this old play field in a new style.
00:19:32
Speaker
And I felt like people were jumping like too quickly that this is this amazing game.
00:19:38
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.
00:19:45
Speaker
Where would you rank this on a modern stern?
00:19:48
Speaker
What is it in the higher end out of the sterns?
00:19:50
Speaker
Is it the lower end?
00:19:52
Speaker
We're starting, let's start at Munsters was the first Spike 2.
00:19:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:57
Speaker
Batman 66.
00:19:58
Speaker
Okay, that's the one I keep forgetting because it was a Kevin Kelly.
00:20:02
Speaker
Batman 66.
00:20:03
Speaker
So from Batman 66 at 2016 to now, where would you place it in the collection of Spike 2s?
00:20:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:11
Speaker
I will, I'll say top end.
00:20:14
Speaker
I'll say top third actually.
00:20:16
Speaker
So up there with Jurassic Park.
00:20:19
Speaker
with a stranger things with Godzilla.
X-Men vs. Modern Pinball Games
00:20:24
Speaker
I think there, there's a lot of Deadpool vibe to this.
00:20:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:28
Speaker
There really is.
00:20:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:31
Speaker
If you look at this, so one, I do have a question and I want to double check.
00:20:36
Speaker
So there are three flippers.
00:20:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:40
Speaker
But one of them is a mini flipper down there, right?
00:20:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:44
Speaker
So let's, let's dumb this down and say, okay,
00:20:49
Speaker
It's a two flipper game with a play field that's separated, maybe an upper play field.
00:20:55
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:58
Speaker
So how many shots do you get out of a two flipper game?
00:21:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:21:02
Speaker
Like seven or eight, I guess.
00:21:04
Speaker
Probably more.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
Probably about that.
00:21:06
Speaker
You're between seven and nine, depending on how tight you want the shots to do.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:10
Speaker
And so if you look at this,
00:21:13
Speaker
It's exactly the same vibe as a lot of two flipper games on the right side.
00:21:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:23
Speaker
It still has about the seven to nine shot paths.
00:21:27
Speaker
And if you look at the lower, like the little danger room area, it feels kind of like an upper play field.
00:21:36
Speaker
There's a pop bumper down there.
00:21:38
Speaker
There's a mini flipper.
00:21:40
Speaker
And there are a few paths that you can take with that.
00:21:44
Speaker
So therefore, it actually feels very similar to any other game.
00:21:49
Speaker
Awesome.
00:21:51
Speaker
It's just, even though the flippers are a little offset on the right, don't even think about that.
00:21:56
Speaker
Because if you look at most games, most games, that area of the play field is rarely used anyway.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:04
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.
00:22:14
Speaker
And it's a wedge when you're looking straight up.
00:22:18
Speaker
And so he basically just utilized some area that typically wasn't used.
00:22:24
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.
00:22:33
Speaker
And so he had longer ball paths.
00:22:36
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:37
Speaker
So my other question too, looking at this play field on the left side where there, there's usually two slings, right?
Playfield Features and Performance
00:22:43
Speaker
Like that's just, yep.
00:22:44
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.
00:22:51
Speaker
Does that feel weird?
00:22:52
Speaker
Does it feel weird that like you don't really technically have?
00:22:55
Speaker
Cause that's the thing is you get into the slings, they bounce back and forth.
00:22:58
Speaker
You're in trouble.
00:22:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:59
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.
00:23:07
Speaker
There's a little hole to the danger room.
00:23:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:11
Speaker
So you can actually go over that.
00:23:13
Speaker
It didn't,
00:23:14
Speaker
It didn't feel bad because if you look at it, you can pop over that and get into the danger room.
00:23:19
Speaker
And on that mini flipper, you can flip it up and it has a wire form that returns right to the left flipper.
00:23:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:27
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.
00:23:34
Speaker
And if you don't do it right, you like you're dead.
00:23:38
Speaker
My question is, when you get into this danger room, is there enough time to react?
00:23:42
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?
00:23:49
Speaker
No, it actually, it's a long playing lower play field.
00:23:53
Speaker
That did surprise me.
00:23:54
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:55
Speaker
You can spend a lot of time there.
00:23:56
Speaker
What you don't see is that...
00:23:59
Speaker
That mini flipper.
00:24:00
Speaker
So look at the angle of the mini flipper.
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost, I don't want to say flat, but it's compared to the other two flippers.
00:24:06
Speaker
It's tilted up.
00:24:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's tilted up.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
And so when you look at that, that's actually a much smaller area than you think
Danger Room Feature Discussion
00:24:14
Speaker
it is.
00:24:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:16
Speaker
And so it does feel a lot safer than you would anticipate it to be.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I would guarantee, and I'm looking into Jack's mind right here, I guarantee that was by design.
00:24:29
Speaker
If the flipper were tilted down, it would be a much more dangerous danger room.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
Can you adjust?
00:24:36
Speaker
It looks like there might be a wire behind it.
00:24:38
Speaker
You didn't ask if you could adjust that down at all, did you?
00:24:41
Speaker
I did not.
00:24:41
Speaker
I didn't even think about it just because I was looking right at it.
00:24:44
Speaker
And when we were playing, I had Waste in there.
00:24:46
Speaker
So I was talking to him about code.
00:24:49
Speaker
With how busy the artwork is, is it hard to keep an eye on the ball?
00:24:52
Speaker
Or is it one of those things that's like you're... You don't really pay attention to art, really.
00:24:57
Speaker
When you're playing a game...
00:24:59
Speaker
You focus on the ball.
00:25:00
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:02
Speaker
The other question I have too is because there's this, there's this, oh, it's not a vertical out kicker.
00:25:09
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:25:09
Speaker
It's a very target.
00:25:10
Speaker
Okay.
00:25:11
Speaker
The weird part is, is the very targets actually elevated above the play field.
00:25:14
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.
00:25:21
Speaker
With this one, you're hitting a target and then like a ball hits another ball above the play field.
00:25:27
Speaker
Did it feel weird?
00:25:28
Speaker
Was it weird because you're kind of hitting a very target?
00:25:32
Speaker
Or did it feel like, yeah, I'm hitting a very target and whatnot?
Ball Path Design Analysis
00:25:35
Speaker
You know what it felt like?
00:25:36
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?
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:48
Speaker
That's kind of how it felt.
00:25:49
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:25:50
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:25:51
Speaker
All right.
00:25:53
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.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:00
Speaker
Um, I'm just looking over this.
00:26:02
Speaker
So the ball paths are pretty interesting.
00:26:05
Speaker
Uh, I'm assuming that they're the way, the reason they are is because this game's right.
00:26:10
Speaker
It can be kind of brutal.
00:26:11
Speaker
And so the ball paths are there to kind of slow the ball down.
00:26:14
Speaker
It gives it like an interesting path, but it also slow it down long ball paths.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:20
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.
00:26:26
Speaker
Is that how it felt on X-Men?
00:26:28
Speaker
It felt a little faster.
00:26:30
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.
00:26:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:42
Speaker
You know, you can see that.
00:26:43
Speaker
And there are a few diverters that help change the paths.
00:26:47
Speaker
So it didn't feel like you were losing the ball much, but it did feel like there was a lot of ball movement.
00:26:53
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:26:54
Speaker
Well, I think we've covered the gameplay on this pretty good.
00:26:57
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?
Sound and Voice Acting Concerns
00:27:05
Speaker
I could hear it fine, but I was also playing alone in a room.
00:27:09
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
00:27:36
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
00:27:52
Speaker
And I felt like this was kind of almost opposite of that.
00:27:54
Speaker
Like they were trying too hard and they picked the wrong place to pick a dialect from, from Louisiana.
00:27:59
Speaker
And then I didn't like storm at all.
00:28:01
Speaker
I felt like storm was a mad Karen.
00:28:04
Speaker
I don't know how else to put it, but it just sounded like she wanted me.
00:28:06
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.
00:28:11
Speaker
It just, okay.
00:28:13
Speaker
Neither one of them felt good to me.
00:28:14
Speaker
How were they when you were there?
00:28:17
Speaker
Um, that's a good question.
00:28:19
Speaker
I, I don't think that I was focused too much on hearing which, um, voice actor they were using.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
I will point out though, that the previous X-Men, I, you know, the, the John Borg version, right?
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:37
Speaker
The, the voice actors on that were terrible.
00:28:41
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:28:42
Speaker
It was, it was to the point where,
00:28:44
Speaker
there were some people who sold the game because it was that bad.
00:28:47
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
This didn't feel that level this.
00:28:50
Speaker
And I did ask specifically about who voiced them.
00:28:54
Speaker
And he said, they were all Marvel approved voice actors for the characters.
00:28:59
Speaker
See, that's what's been in the past though.
00:29:01
Speaker
But I don't know who's pick.
00:29:02
Speaker
I don't know.
00:29:03
Speaker
Marvel at Marvel.
00:29:04
Speaker
Who's like, yeah, that sounds good enough.
00:29:06
Speaker
Cause it doesn't.
00:29:07
Speaker
In some of these cases, like it, let's, let's talk about Owen's Avengers.
00:29:11
Speaker
Like,
00:29:12
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.
00:29:17
Speaker
You're like, no, no, you're not.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:21
Speaker
I just, I, and that's the problem too.
00:29:23
Speaker
I think you've got multiple properties and I get that Ryan Reynolds is iconically Deadpool.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:29
Speaker
But, um, the guy that they got for Deadpool is really good.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:33
Speaker
He was really good.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:34
Speaker
Well, he's the voice of Deadpool, like in all the animated stuff.
00:29:37
Speaker
So it's like they got the guy, uh,
00:29:39
Speaker
But people complained it didn't because it wasn't Ryan Reynolds.
00:29:43
Speaker
And I get there's just going to be some ways.
00:29:46
Speaker
Or sometimes you're not.
00:29:47
Speaker
Nolan North, that's who did the voice of Deadpool on the game.
00:29:51
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.
00:30:00
Speaker
He is Deadpool.
00:30:01
Speaker
But people will complain it doesn't sound like Ryan Reynolds.
00:30:03
Speaker
So it's not Deadpool.
00:30:04
Speaker
Right.
00:30:06
Speaker
It's hard in some of these situations.
00:30:07
Speaker
I get Gambit's had multiple iterations over decades.
00:30:11
Speaker
Right.
00:30:12
Speaker
And same with Storm.
00:30:12
Speaker
But I just, it didn't feel close to me.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:18
Speaker
So I will put it this way.
00:30:22
Speaker
When you have a voice, when you have voice actors, people don't realize there are tiers of voice actors.
00:30:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:31
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.
00:30:40
Speaker
Right.
00:30:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:42
Speaker
So you watch big hero six, the movie, and there is a high level that is achieved by all those voice actors.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:30:53
Speaker
Like they are, they are top tier talent.
00:30:57
Speaker
Okay.
00:30:59
Speaker
And I would say it is noticeably different when you get to a cartoon, an animated series versus a motion picture.
00:31:13
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.
00:31:27
Speaker
I would argue also some are much better at doing call outs than others.
00:31:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
The guy who does, who did all of the, the stuff for iron maiden and Godzilla.
00:31:43
Speaker
I mean, he is a very good, I would say he is top tier talent.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:47
Speaker
Well, and it's hard.
00:31:47
Speaker
Like I said, it's hard when you have iconic voices that do these characters.
00:31:53
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
Comic vs. Movie Narratives in Game Design
00:32:06
Speaker
it should be.
00:32:06
Speaker
And it's not that one.
00:32:08
Speaker
So here's a question for you though.
00:32:11
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?
00:32:28
Speaker
So I think...
00:32:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:31
Speaker
Do you see what I'm getting at?
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:33
Speaker
So like you only have so much money to pay for these voice actors.
00:32:37
Speaker
Each voice actor is going to command a certain level.
00:32:42
Speaker
And this is me that I am a fan who's only looking at how would you possibly do this?
00:32:50
Speaker
I would argue you can probably get higher quality talent.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
If you have,
00:32:57
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.
00:33:09
Speaker
I'll give you this.
00:33:10
Speaker
Here's the thing.
00:33:11
Speaker
I think it depends on the situation.
00:33:13
Speaker
I think...
00:33:15
Speaker
In this case where it's Days of Futures Past.
00:33:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:17
Speaker
The original one was done in the 70s and it was, the main character was Kitty Pryde.
00:33:21
Speaker
But when they made a movie adaptation of it, it wasn't Kitty that went back in time.
00:33:26
Speaker
It was actually Wolverine.
00:33:28
Speaker
Right.
00:33:28
Speaker
So I think, let's say,
00:33:32
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.
00:33:39
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.
00:33:47
Speaker
And Hugh Jackman probably is way too out of cost.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, Hugh Jackman would be cost prohibitive.
00:33:52
Speaker
But I think if you do it that way, because that's like Deadpool, right?
00:33:54
Speaker
Like Deadpool, you're playing as Deadpool or you're playing like you and Deadpool are interacting.
00:33:58
Speaker
I get this is all the X-Men.
00:33:59
Speaker
Right.
00:34:00
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.
00:34:14
Speaker
I just, I feel like, and even like with Deadpool, like I'm thinking of Wolverine and Colossus and, and stargazer.
00:34:21
Speaker
I can, I mean, it's not stargazer.
00:34:22
Speaker
Disco queen.
00:34:23
Speaker
I can't remember.
00:34:24
Speaker
Dazzler.
00:34:25
Speaker
Dazzler.
00:34:26
Speaker
I think you don't notice them as much because they're not as in your face as everything else.
00:34:30
Speaker
Sure.
00:34:31
Speaker
But the problem is when you're doing a song cast like this, you're trying to give even time to everyone.
00:34:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:35
Speaker
And so,
00:34:38
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.
00:34:45
Speaker
And then you kind of like, no, well, crap, now I have to hear Storm.
00:34:48
Speaker
And she's not as close as what I think she should be.
00:34:50
Speaker
I don't know.
00:34:50
Speaker
It's a catch 22.
00:34:52
Speaker
But here's the weird part though.
00:34:53
Speaker
Like we're doing a comic book version.
00:34:55
Speaker
I feel like,
00:34:56
Speaker
maybe there should be more freedom.
00:34:57
Speaker
And this is something Jack danger could attest to.
00:35:00
Speaker
I know that.
00:35:00
Speaker
And we can, we, yeah.
00:35:02
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.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:09
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.
00:35:15
Speaker
Like, yeah, you got to stick to the storyline, but,
00:35:17
Speaker
But to a point, because even to this point, you're only doing two comic books, right?
00:35:24
Speaker
And the first one's pretty much in the future, and the last one's pretty much in the past.
00:35:28
Speaker
And so it's just weird.
00:35:32
Speaker
And that's the thing.
00:35:33
Speaker
I think people passed off Infinity Gauntlet because there was just a movie made, Endgame.
00:35:39
Speaker
And so people had felt like... And Adam Warlock wasn't even in the movies.
00:35:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:44
Speaker
And so I feel like...
00:35:45
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.
00:35:55
Speaker
This is uncanny X-Men.
00:35:57
Speaker
It just, it feels kind of out of left field because X-Men hasn't really been relevant for a minute.
00:36:02
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.
00:36:13
Speaker
like a buddy comedy.
00:36:14
Speaker
Right.
00:36:15
Speaker
Right.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so I just, I feel like, I don't know if X-Men was a theme people are asking for.
00:36:23
Speaker
And especially like this.
00:36:27
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:27
Speaker
Here's the thing though.
00:36:28
Speaker
I think people, I think this is the reason we're going comic book.
00:36:30
Speaker
We're starting to see this more and more.
00:36:31
Speaker
And I, people seem to respond better to this because,
00:36:35
Speaker
then this is where I'm going to make the comparison to Steve Ritchie, Star Trek.
00:36:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:41
Speaker
Every mode was based off of a scene in the Star Trek movies.
00:36:44
Speaker
The first two Trek movies, the lines were from the Star Trek movies.
00:36:48
Speaker
The DMD was a recreation of those scenes.
00:36:51
Speaker
You're literally playing the movies, right?
00:36:54
Speaker
Problem is, is you got a lot of assets that way.
00:36:56
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.
00:37:03
Speaker
So,
00:37:04
Speaker
there's a little bit of leeway because you're recreating those scenes.
00:37:08
Speaker
Take it with, if they did an X-Men, we did on Kenny X-Men, we did Days of Futures Past.
00:37:12
Speaker
Let's say we did the movie instead.
00:37:15
Speaker
With the comic book, you get more freedom on the storytelling, right?
00:37:18
Speaker
Like it's not set in stone.
00:37:20
Speaker
You can kind of take that world and mold it to what you need.
00:37:23
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
00:37:34
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.
00:37:39
Speaker
Now we're using movie clips.
00:37:41
Speaker
That could cost extra.
00:37:43
Speaker
So it just, I guess my question to you is, do you like,
00:37:47
Speaker
the direction because pinball is going this direction.
00:37:50
Speaker
If you look at Godzilla, if you look at N. Kenny X-Men, if you look at, I mean, Wick wasn't.
00:37:55
Speaker
Wick was more of a, I guess that was kind of a storytelling mix with the movies.
00:37:59
Speaker
But still, we're kind of creating these worlds where we're creating our own story with pinball.
00:38:03
Speaker
Do you like that more?
00:38:04
Speaker
Or do you like more of the Star Trek approach where you're literally playing the movie inside of a game?
00:38:10
Speaker
Depends on the movie.
00:38:13
Speaker
I would say some movies, it's more of a
00:38:17
Speaker
That's the, the thing you can't do.
Storytelling Techniques in Pinball
00:38:21
Speaker
And we'll talk about this in the future.
00:38:23
Speaker
You can't do princess bride and just be in the princess bride world.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:28
Speaker
You have to tell the story of the princess bride because that's what they want.
00:38:33
Speaker
Um,
00:38:35
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.
00:38:45
Speaker
And so, therefore, it still feels consistent.
00:38:53
Speaker
With the X-Men, and you bring up some good points, I think the movies...
00:39:02
Speaker
The problem is, would you rather do the movies and have more licensing constraints?
00:39:08
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?
00:39:17
Speaker
I think, I think they would sell more.
00:39:20
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:20
Speaker
Do you think they would sell more X-Men if they did the movie version of days of future past?
00:39:27
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.
00:39:35
Speaker
Right.
00:39:36
Speaker
I think the best comparison to this is Gomez's Avengers versus Ellen's Avengers.
00:39:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:43
Speaker
Gomez's Avengers were based off the Avengers movie.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yep.
00:39:47
Speaker
Um, it's not a good game by the way.
00:39:49
Speaker
It's not fantastic.
00:39:51
Speaker
It's not terrible, but it's not like, it's not the best.
00:39:54
Speaker
I felt like they could have done with what they had.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right.
00:39:57
Speaker
But with Elwyn's Avengers, there were constraints there.
00:40:02
Speaker
And he talked about this when we did the interview.
00:40:05
Speaker
You only had the eye on Polk.
00:40:06
Speaker
It was weird.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:08
Speaker
But I felt like he was able to make the best game with the assets and the constraints that he had.
00:40:14
Speaker
So I really think it comes down to people will forgive if it's not...
00:40:20
Speaker
not the movies or the best, like the best iteration of that franchise.
00:40:28
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?
Future Updates and Design Potential
00:40:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:45
Speaker
Easy enough, right?
00:40:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
The, it would have been harder to do a movie version.
00:40:52
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.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:04
Speaker
So I guarantee this is very early code.
00:41:06
Speaker
We are going to see a better version of it in the future.
00:41:11
Speaker
There, there are people who are already stating this is still very similar to,
00:41:16
Speaker
to the animations that they used with, uh, with infinity quest.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:21
Speaker
Where you're still getting that static comic book, uh, figurine with a moving background.
00:41:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:30
Speaker
I did notice that.
00:41:31
Speaker
And I was not a fan and it's, it's rougher than it was in Avengers.
00:41:34
Speaker
It's like you said, it's early code.
00:41:36
Speaker
It is.
00:41:37
Speaker
I guess it is what it is.
00:41:38
Speaker
If you rank all the things.
00:41:39
Speaker
And by the way, I'm sorry, I'm sniffling.
00:41:41
Speaker
I really am finding a cold and I'm trying to mute as much as I can.
00:41:45
Speaker
Um,
00:41:47
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.
00:41:58
Speaker
That's the one that that's one of the things that they do.
00:42:02
Speaker
Great.
00:42:03
Speaker
Is the LCD and theme immersion.
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
But aside from layout theme art that you see in front of you lights and music, you
00:42:15
Speaker
then it actually comes to LCD.
00:42:18
Speaker
So does it really matter that much that the LCD is more basic than what you see with competitors games?
00:42:28
Speaker
At first, yes.
00:42:29
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.
00:42:34
Speaker
The only time, the only time I watch animations or watch the screen is
00:42:39
Speaker
And granted, I see the exact same scene like 30 different times.
Impact of Code Updates on Gameplay
00:42:42
Speaker
Like Jaws, this is a wonderful example.
00:42:44
Speaker
You're going to, it pauses because it wants you to focus on the screen to let you know the barrel's
00:42:50
Speaker
you got to shoot the shark with a barrel and you've got to shoot the fin quick.
00:42:54
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.
00:43:03
Speaker
So I think that's honestly the only time I really noticed the back, the animations or anything.
00:43:08
Speaker
I mean, you're quick glancing and see your score, what sort of stuff is overall.
00:43:14
Speaker
I don't, I don't, but that's the problem though.
00:43:16
Speaker
Like,
00:43:17
Speaker
I don't know.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:19
Speaker
Honestly, on the bottom of my list is animations.
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:22
Speaker
Anything to do with that LCD really is kind of on the bottom of my list.
00:43:25
Speaker
And we've talked about this before.
00:43:26
Speaker
Honestly, I wouldn't mind them going back to DMD.
00:43:29
Speaker
No, actually you would, you would trust me.
00:43:32
Speaker
DMD games look immediately dated.
00:43:35
Speaker
They really get that.
00:43:36
Speaker
But, but I think, but look at Pulp Fiction.
00:43:38
Speaker
I felt like Pulp Fiction.
00:43:39
Speaker
I didn't even notice different.
00:43:41
Speaker
It's like, it's this weird, um,
00:43:44
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
00:44:12
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
00:44:37
Speaker
It's true.
00:44:38
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.
00:44:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:48
Speaker
This is a solid shooter.
00:44:50
Speaker
The layout's great.
00:44:52
Speaker
The storyline will come along right now.
00:44:53
Speaker
There, there are four modes and I'm sure that they will move, move that.
00:44:57
Speaker
But imagine if you had another three months in development and getting more into it.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:04
Speaker
And that's the hard part too.
00:45:05
Speaker
Like Gomez has said multiple times, they're usually on a 15 to 18 month timeline.
00:45:09
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.
00:45:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:45:18
Speaker
And that was in May.
00:45:19
Speaker
And so, you know, May, June, July, August, September five months, they already moved them up.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:26
Speaker
They moved him up six months ago.
00:45:27
Speaker
So you feel the crunch a little bit.
00:45:30
Speaker
And really, we were talking about this earlier.
00:45:32
Speaker
Like pinball is starting to decline a little bit.
00:45:35
Speaker
And I don't think it has anything to do with pinball itself.
00:45:37
Speaker
I just think people are having a hard time.
00:45:39
Speaker
Plateauing a little bit.
Pinball Market Trends
00:45:40
Speaker
Plateauing, yes.
00:45:40
Speaker
It's plateauing in that I have games.
00:45:43
Speaker
I have no space.
00:45:45
Speaker
So if I'm buying something, I have to say, what am I going to replace it with?
00:45:49
Speaker
Well, I think economically –
00:45:51
Speaker
Pinball has went up in price from COVID.
00:45:53
Speaker
It has.
00:45:54
Speaker
And the main demographic is feeling like they're getting priced out of the hobby.
00:45:58
Speaker
And so they're really holding on to their dollar unless if they feel like it's worth their buck, right?
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:06
Speaker
And so you're going to have to start making new, unique machines.
00:46:09
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,
00:46:20
Speaker
My concern is you've already built a product in a way that you need these coders.
00:46:24
Speaker
You're already having a hard time keeping up with the product that you have.
00:46:27
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.
00:46:32
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:46:34
Speaker
Or make less games a year.
00:46:35
Speaker
I don't know.
00:46:36
Speaker
Just my thought process as we were going into all this.
00:46:39
Speaker
Awesome.
00:46:40
Speaker
I think we're actually fine.
00:46:42
Speaker
I think we're on a steady pattern process.
00:46:47
Speaker
We may not be selling the gangbusters that COVID did, but that was really an anomaly.
00:46:52
Speaker
If you think about it, that was a snapshot of two years where people weren't traveling.
00:46:58
Speaker
So they had extra money to spend on entertainment that they needed in their house.
00:47:05
Speaker
This is probably consistent with what a growth pattern would be in 2019.
00:47:12
Speaker
If you shaved off the COVID years and just looked at the linear progression, you probably would still be about here.
00:47:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:47:23
Speaker
My final question to you on this, and I want to move on to another subject really quick.
00:47:28
Speaker
My final question is, you've had hands on both Avatar and
Choosing Between X-Men and Avatar
00:47:31
Speaker
X-Men.
00:47:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:32
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?
00:47:42
Speaker
That's actually a tough one because when you talk about it, we get back to the question, who is this game for?
00:47:53
Speaker
Right.
00:47:54
Speaker
And so if I'm buying for me, I could have fun with both games.
00:48:02
Speaker
I actually had fun with avatar.
00:48:03
Speaker
I thought avatar was a fantastic game.
00:48:05
Speaker
I could have fun with X-Men.
00:48:07
Speaker
X-Men is on the path of being more of a,
00:48:12
Speaker
competition, um, like well-rounded scoring based thing, something like a Deadpool.
00:48:20
Speaker
And we all know Deadpool is a, an unqualified success.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:25
Speaker
It had a rough start, but it really took off.
00:48:27
Speaker
Okay.
00:48:30
Speaker
Avatar.
00:48:31
Speaker
I don't see my kids coming down and, and playing Deadpool, but I do see my kids coming down and playing avatar.
00:48:37
Speaker
All right.
00:48:39
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.
00:48:56
Speaker
Yeah, something that entices them to want to turn on a machine.
00:49:00
Speaker
We all know that JJPs tend not to be the best tournament player games.
00:49:05
Speaker
They tend to be heavy on theme integration and theme.
00:49:09
Speaker
Multiballs.
00:49:10
Speaker
Immersions and multiballs.
00:49:13
Speaker
So it really depends on what you're looking for in a game.
00:49:19
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.
00:49:26
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.
00:49:39
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:49:41
Speaker
Okay, so my next thing I want to talk about really quick.
00:49:45
Speaker
Papa 21 happened.
00:49:47
Speaker
Yep.
00:49:49
Speaker
The last time a Papa Championship had happened was April of 2017.
00:49:51
Speaker
So it's been seven years.
00:49:55
Speaker
It's been a little bit.
00:49:57
Speaker
We want to give a congrats.
Papa Championship Victory Celebration
00:49:59
Speaker
If you haven't heard who won, you better skip right now or, you know,
00:50:03
Speaker
But we want to give our congrats to Raymond Davidson for becoming the world pinball champion.
00:50:08
Speaker
And that was a tough, tough competition too.
00:50:14
Speaker
Awesome.
00:50:15
Speaker
Amazing that they did this in memory of Lyman Sheets and doing it and raising money for suicide awareness.
00:50:24
Speaker
It just, it's hard.
00:50:28
Speaker
Lyman was one of the greats and
00:50:31
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.
00:50:43
Speaker
And it's, it's hard when you lose someone that close to you.
00:50:45
Speaker
Uh, it just, I, I, I still feel like kind of shocked by it.
00:50:52
Speaker
I know it's been three years, but it's just, it's hard.
00:50:55
Speaker
It's hard to imagine a world without Lyman, but we've had to live it.
00:50:58
Speaker
Um,
00:50:59
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
00:51:25
Speaker
The average amount of viewers watching, this is the average, 2,200 people watching at one time.
00:51:32
Speaker
The max amount of viewers was almost 3,600.
00:51:35
Speaker
Unique viewers, this one's going to floor you.
00:51:39
Speaker
Ready for this?
00:51:39
Speaker
341,972.
00:51:40
Speaker
So almost 342,000 people watching.
00:51:47
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
00:52:07
Speaker
awesome all around.
00:52:09
Speaker
You couldn't have hoped for, especially bringing something back.
00:52:12
Speaker
You're bringing back Papa that hasn't been around for seven years.
00:52:16
Speaker
How's it going to be received?
00:52:18
Speaker
It was received very well.
00:52:20
Speaker
Shout out to all the people that made it happen because
00:52:24
Speaker
Holy crap.
00:52:25
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.
00:52:32
Speaker
They have clips, they have all the goods.
00:52:35
Speaker
Go check it out.
00:52:35
Speaker
Cause it was just absolutely amazing.
00:52:37
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.
00:52:44
Speaker
Cause I'm like, you know, it's okay.
00:52:47
Speaker
It's a choice.
00:52:48
Speaker
I'm not going to second guess them for their choice.
00:52:50
Speaker
I will just say that Tom and his ability to,
00:52:54
Speaker
to capture pinball and be able to let you see it and see what high level players are doing.
00:53:02
Speaker
It's exceptional.
00:53:03
Speaker
So the good news is it's not like Tom's going anywhere.
00:53:07
Speaker
So Tom's still around.
00:53:08
Speaker
Tom still knows how to capture things.
00:53:11
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:53:11
Speaker
And that's good.
00:53:12
Speaker
And Tom has his own home arcade.
00:53:14
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.
00:53:20
Speaker
Right.
00:53:21
Speaker
Awesome.
00:53:21
Speaker
Congrats to him.
00:53:22
Speaker
Like seriously, he just, he is definitely like perfected some streaming there.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yep.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:30
Speaker
Dude's amazing.
00:53:31
Speaker
So anything else you want to cover before we turn this off, Scott?
00:53:34
Speaker
Talk about our guitars.
00:53:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker
Let's do that really quick.
00:53:39
Speaker
Not this guitar sitting behind me.
00:53:40
Speaker
I don't know if it'll end up on stream, but not.
00:53:42
Speaker
I got a Tom DeLogue star caster behind me, all decked out.
00:53:48
Speaker
So he stickers his guitars, and I did a replica of how he stickers his guitar on stage.
00:53:55
Speaker
Love it.
00:53:55
Speaker
It plays smooth.
00:53:56
Speaker
It's nice.
00:53:57
Speaker
But speaking of guitars...
Sithara Guitars Collaboration
00:53:59
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.
00:54:21
Speaker
And they do it in the body styles of like a Les Paul.
00:54:23
Speaker
So when you hear Les Paul, think of Slash from Guns N' Roses, that iconic guitar he plays, right?
00:54:30
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.
00:54:36
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.
00:54:45
Speaker
Right.
00:54:46
Speaker
And then telecaster.
00:54:47
Speaker
So if you're in a huge into country, um, a lot of country artists use a telecaster.
00:54:51
Speaker
It's just a flat.
00:54:53
Speaker
I don't know how to describe it besides just, just type in fenders, telecaster.
00:54:56
Speaker
There's other designs too.
00:54:58
Speaker
fantastic guitars.
00:54:59
Speaker
I'm excited for this because we're partnering with them.
00:55:02
Speaker
I'm getting a guitar.
00:55:03
Speaker
I've picked out earth shaker is my play field.
00:55:06
Speaker
What have you picked on yours, Scott?
00:55:08
Speaker
I picked silver ball mania because it is supremely seventies and it's really great.
00:55:14
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.
00:55:20
Speaker
It looks great.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:22
Speaker
And I've been into electric guitars for a little bit.
00:55:24
Speaker
This is your first one, right?
00:55:25
Speaker
Scott is my first one.
00:55:27
Speaker
My kids all play guitar.
00:55:29
Speaker
And I played a little bit in college, like took a few classes, but I haven't kept up.
00:55:33
Speaker
So this will be fun to get back into it.
00:55:35
Speaker
Definitely.
00:55:36
Speaker
And you've kind of been asking my opinion on some of this stuff because I'm like, here's the thing.
00:55:40
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.
00:55:45
Speaker
I like to play metal.
00:55:46
Speaker
I like to play rock.
00:55:48
Speaker
I like that sound.
00:55:50
Speaker
So I'm going with the Les Paul Jr. because it has what's called a humbucker.
00:55:55
Speaker
It's two coils put together.
00:55:57
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.
00:56:05
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.
00:56:11
Speaker
So I'm excited because Daniel says you can customize this any way you want.
00:56:15
Speaker
And so I'm like, all right, I'm putting you to the test.
00:56:19
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
00:56:41
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
00:56:55
Speaker
If you haven't checked these out, go check out his
Guitar Design and Customization
00:56:57
Speaker
Instagram.
00:56:57
Speaker
If you want to see his latest designs, he just showed off a JJP guns and roses.
00:57:04
Speaker
Oh, and that's cool.
00:57:05
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:57:06
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:57:07
Speaker
It is insanely cool.
00:57:09
Speaker
So there's a bunch of them.
00:57:11
Speaker
He has like a Dolly Parton on there.
00:57:12
Speaker
He has, uh, Ed Robertson, a Baron Akelet.
00:57:14
Speaker
He's got one.
00:57:15
Speaker
He's got a quick silver one.
00:57:16
Speaker
I mean, it's just cool to see these guitars.
00:57:18
Speaker
And John Borg has been showing off at Robertson's on his profile a couple of times.
00:57:22
Speaker
So,
00:57:24
Speaker
But yeah, I'm excited for that.
00:57:25
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be really awesome.
00:57:27
Speaker
So if you want to get a hold of us, we are the Lose a Kid Pinball podcast at gmail.com.
00:57:31
Speaker
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, X, Twitch, YouTube.
00:57:34
Speaker
If you're not following us on there, go ahead and hit subscribe.
00:57:38
Speaker
Expo is so close.
00:57:39
Speaker
Holy crap.
00:57:40
Speaker
We're weeks away.
00:57:43
Speaker
Less than a month right now.
00:57:45
Speaker
If you haven't checked it out yet,
00:57:47
Speaker
The media mixer.
00:57:48
Speaker
Kineticis is putting on a media mixer.
00:57:51
Speaker
It's not open just to the media this year.
00:57:54
Speaker
It's also open to the community.
00:57:55
Speaker
There's only a few tickets left.
00:57:57
Speaker
There's not many left.
00:57:58
Speaker
It's going to be at Interium.
00:57:59
Speaker
We're going to have a blast.
00:58:00
Speaker
Other than that, Scott, you got anything else for us?
00:58:03
Speaker
You know what?
00:58:04
Speaker
Hopefully, I'm still waiting for that last day for Expo.
00:58:07
Speaker
Looking forward to it.
00:58:09
Speaker
Check out.
00:58:09
Speaker
Get your tickets.
Closing Remarks and Humor
00:58:13
Speaker
Go ahead and order one of the guitars because they are awesome.
00:58:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:58:17
Speaker
Oh, one thing about ordering the guitars.
00:58:19
Speaker
Don't be afraid of the pricing.
00:58:20
Speaker
They're all Canadian.
00:58:21
Speaker
I didn't realize that.
00:58:22
Speaker
I'm like, dude, like,
00:58:24
Speaker
well, how much are these?
00:58:25
Speaker
He said, don't worry, it's all Canadian.
00:58:26
Speaker
I'm like, oh, oh, so he prices in Canadian.
00:58:29
Speaker
It's like free money.
00:58:30
Speaker
Yeah, like I just saved $1,500 because... I mean, Canadian doesn't even use real money, so don't worry about it.
00:58:37
Speaker
Exactly, just send them beaver pelts and maple syrup and you'll be fine.
00:58:43
Speaker
That's what they pay with.
00:58:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:45
Speaker
All right, what's our last word, Scott?
00:58:49
Speaker
Multiball mania!
00:58:52
Speaker
you