Ep 106: All the Releases at TPF 2023 with George Fisher and Amanda Hamilton

Transcript

Speaker: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, episode 106.

Speaker: I am your host, Amanda Hamilton, here with my co-host, George Fisher.

Speaker: Hey everybody.

Speaker: And tonight we have two very special guests.

Speaker: We have Scott Larson and Josh Roop, both from Utah area, here to discuss pinball.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: Hi guys.

Speaker: Hey, how you doing?

Speaker: So I know you guys are new to this hobby and we wanted to invite you on to kind of see how you've been doing with it and how you've been enjoying your first games.

Speaker: What, what I really want to know is I heard there was like a festival this weekend, but Josh and I couldn't attend.

Speaker: Like, is it a big deal?

Speaker: Kind of a big deal.

Speaker: Kind of a big deal.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: But first Josh, let's talk about our sponsors.

Speaker: Who's sponsoring Loser Kid Pinball Podcast?

Speaker: That was the hardest.

Speaker: Try to keep a straight face that we've ever done.

Speaker: So the sponsor of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast is Flippin' Out Pinball.

Speaker: You might not be able to get a hold of Zach this week.

Speaker: He's on a family vacation, but...

Speaker: When he gets back on Monday, bombard him with all the messages because you want Godfather, Foo Fighters, Final Resistance, Ninja Eclipse, Pulp Fiction, Scooby-Doo, Galactic Tank Force, and Queen, which he can get all of except for, I think, Final Resistance.

Speaker: I actually messaged him today.

Speaker: I messaged him today and put it in an order for the Rush Pinball Topper and the Shooter Rod.

Speaker: That topper's pretty.

Speaker: That topper's really pretty.

Speaker: That topper is really pretty.

Speaker: Pretty expensive.

Speaker: But yes, it is very pretty.

Speaker: I have a Mando topper, so I'm not going to share any sympathy with you.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: So for all your pinball needs, hit up Zach and Nicole Many.

Speaker: That's flipping out pinball.

Speaker: I always recommend going to their Facebook page because they post the latest games that they have in stock and you can, they get it out next day.

Speaker: It's like blazing flash, fast shipping.

Speaker: I don't know how they do it.

Speaker: You have it less than 48 hours.

Speaker: I will say that I have a friend who bought, he ended up with two cactus canyons, uh, Ellie's and he gave me the one from Zach and Nicole.

Speaker: And I have my game and he still does not.

Speaker: So that just tells you how on top of Zach and Nicole are.

Speaker: You know it.

Speaker: So, well, we were jokingly saying that people should send us all the information they could for Texas Pinball Festival, right?

Speaker: That we could live vicariously through them.

Speaker: And people took us very dead serious.

Speaker: Holy crap.

Speaker: How many messages did we end up getting, Scott?

Speaker: Okay, I was actually trying to, like,

Speaker: take care of kids and stuff.

Speaker: And I got probably about 150 messages, which was pretty cool.

Speaker: And I would say the surprising, the most surprising one was a pinball machine driving around with a turret machine with the turret was sweet.

Speaker: Yeah, it looked pretty cool.

Speaker: But we wanted to talk to people that were, you know, we're at the festival and we thought of our two great friends, George and Amanda, and they looked like they partied all weekend long.

Speaker: They had some pretty cool stuff.

Speaker: If you haven't checked out there,

Speaker: Facebook pages.

Speaker: That's where all the shenanigans seem to be posted.

Speaker: But George, Amanda, how was it?

Speaker: It's a pretty dang good time.

Speaker: Amanda, what do you think?

Speaker: Probably one of the best shows I've been to.

Speaker: Yeah, it was up there.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Well, that's our show.

Speaker: Thank you guys for tuning in and having us.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Easy peasy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It was awesome.

Speaker: I mean, what a heck of a time to go to a show when you have how many games that have just been announced.

Speaker: You have updated code on so many of them.

Speaker: Every manufacturer, it seemed, had a new game and they had them in mass, except for GTF.

Speaker: They, you know, that one was around.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: And surprisingly, I'm going to point out this little nugget of information.

Speaker: The game that won game of the year, they did not bring the game.

Speaker: No, they did not.

Speaker: There was no rush.

Speaker: There was no rush at the Texas pinball festival.

Speaker: I mean, part of me is like, okay, I totally understand because you're selling them so fast, but really?

Speaker: You couldn't hold two or three?

Speaker: Just bring them?

Speaker: Keep in mind though, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of those games were on loan from Marco Amusements as well, so they had a lot of Foo Fighters, all three levels, the Pro, the Premium, and the LE.

Speaker: They had

Speaker: a lot of the George Gomez version of James Bond.

Speaker: They had a couple of Godzilla's and Elvira and Elvira, which was kind of weird.

Speaker: Like why bring an Elvira if you're not going to bring a turtle or just Elvira again.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I thought they were doing it right now.

Speaker: Weren't they?

Speaker: They are, but you think about it too.

Speaker: Normally they'll bring the games for the designers that are there and you had John Borg there.

Speaker: So why not bring Rush?

Speaker: You know, it's up for a Twippy.

Speaker: Why not bring it?

Speaker: But yeah,

Speaker: It was still a heck of a good time.

Speaker: My theory is they can't keep them in stock.

Speaker: They're selling so well, they just can't keep them in stock.

Speaker: It's a good game.

Speaker: It's a really good game.

Speaker: I've got to know, because this is an amazing list.

Speaker: I spouted off on the flipping out thing.

Speaker: Foo Fighters Out of the Gate was the first one announced.

Speaker: I want to know, we're just going to go through these one by one.

Speaker: What did you guys think of Foo Fighters?

Speaker: Get the pro.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Get the pro.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Oh my gosh.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Get the pro.

Speaker: And for those who are not familiar with me, I am an elitist.

Speaker: Get the pro.

Speaker: It shoots so good.

Speaker: It's if George Gomez and Keith Owen made perfect pinball machines like Deadpool and Godzilla and those two games had a baby, it would be Foo Fighters.

Speaker: The shots are great.

Speaker: The artwork is amazing.

Speaker: It's zombie Yeti at his best.

Speaker: The music for what we could hear.

Speaker: I mean, it's Foo Fighters.

Speaker: Just absolute phenomenal game.

Speaker: And the code on it.

Speaker: Let's not even get me started on the code because that's an up and coming code.

Speaker: You know, we know that Ray Day is involved in it as well.

Speaker: So it's just going to get better because he is phenomenal on his own.

Speaker: He's a pretty good player, too.

Speaker: I don't know if you know.

Speaker: I've heard he's OK.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I mean, I saw him walking around a lot.

Speaker: I didn't see him playing at all.

Speaker: So that's to be determined.

Speaker: I heard Travis Mary's better.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So what did you think, George?

Speaker: Loved it.

Speaker: I, that was, I mean, between that and probably Galactic Tank Force were the two games I played and Foo Fighters because I was, I was really enjoying myself.

Speaker: I spent most of my time on the premium, went back and played the pro game.

Speaker: I don't have, I feel like, good reasons why, but I'm happy I went premium as opposed to pro.

Speaker: On Foo Fighters.

Speaker: On Foo Fighters, sorry.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah, and the Foo Fighters, the pro flows just as well, but the magnets underneath the 3D sculpture,

Speaker: as it throws the ball around in response to actually hitting it is kind of cool.

Speaker: The extra lighting down there, the actual 3D alien is awesome.

Speaker: And in the same way that like Jurassic Park, the just that weird little spinning,

Speaker: The spinning helicopter is like, is a, is a, is a form of kinetic satisfaction, which is so enjoyable.

Speaker: Um, the dead bounce, not dead bounce, the dead save.

Speaker: I can't remember what it's called anymore, but the little thing under the left flipper is fantastic.

Speaker: Like you kind of got to dial it in.

Speaker: Sometimes it doesn't make it up the, all the way to the other side, but wow, is it awesome?

Speaker: And man, did I, I messed up so many times.

Speaker: Amanda, Amanda.

Speaker: Be nice, family friendly.

Speaker: I'm behaving.

Speaker: And this is why Scott wants videos so bad.

Speaker: I wasn't even paying attention to what I said, obviously.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty sure she turned red with her glowing mic there.

Speaker: It's funny because I've not heard so much division amongst a pro and a premium model.

Speaker: I've talked to people that it's premium all day, and I've talked to other people that just swear by the pro.

Speaker: So it seems you're getting a good game regardless of what game you're going with.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm still in on a premium because I am a premium guy.

Speaker: Now, it's burned me before because Turtles is better pro.

Speaker: You're allowed to be wrong on that one.

Speaker: Okay, well, my glider broke within the first two weeks.

Speaker: And so I don't even think I played a functional game.

Speaker: I was going to add that caveat.

Speaker: If the glider is functional, the premium, I think, is a more enjoyable play.

Speaker: You just need really small hands.

Speaker: Because getting that glider put back together is going to test your patience.

Speaker: If you gave up swearing for Lent, don't attempt to do that until after Easter.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Wait, I thought Lent was before Easter.

Speaker: Lent goes until Easter.

Speaker: It goes from good Friday.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So yeah, you just, you don't want to start the swearing on that one and it will make you say bad things.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Owie fingers.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So what, what did you like most about the premium then George?

Speaker: The dead save was awesome.

Speaker: Okay, you're like that, that's really cool.

Speaker: The dead save is really cool.

Speaker: Outside of that, I'm trying to think of what were the other big features.

Speaker: Because there's the upper left play field that reminds you a little bit of like Simpsons Pinball Party.

Speaker: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker: Very similar to Simpson's pinball party.

Speaker: It's fun.

Speaker: There's a couple different shots there.

Speaker: There's a lot of flow.

Speaker: I guess I just liked it.

Speaker: Like I kept going back and forth and then I'm like, I'm going to go have fun now and I'll jump on the premium.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So you're telling me regardless of what I go with, I'm in on a pro right now, but I'm still on the fence if I should go premium.

Speaker: You're in on a good game.

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: What I'm hearing is everyone loved Foo Fighters.

Speaker: I didn't hear a bad thing about Foo Fighters all weekend long.

Speaker: I never saw it not have at least a group of two.

Speaker: You group up if you're playing multiple players on a game.

Speaker: And I think that there was at least two groups in front of me every time I got in line minimum.

Speaker: Most of the time you were four to five groups deep.

Speaker: And you two went last year as well.

Speaker: How packed was it this year versus last year?

Speaker: Because last year it felt pretty snug.

Speaker: George, what was your thought on that?

Speaker: Because I felt like it was more packed this year.

Speaker: But when I brought that up to somebody else, I said, no, it was just the way it was laid out.

Speaker: It felt more packed to me.

Speaker: Like I, it felt like there was more people, like I was waiting in more lines, but there was, but there was reason for lines to exist, I guess this year, as opposed to last year.

Speaker: I just wasn't, I feel like I wasn't as excited about some of the releases last year.

Speaker: Well, there weren't many.

Speaker: Yeah, the two or three releases over the whole year.

Speaker: What was it?

Speaker: Weird Al, Halloween.

Speaker: Rush.

Speaker: And Bond, but that was after.

Speaker: Rush had been out at least two months by then.

Speaker: Yeah, Rush had been out.

Speaker: Godzilla had come out with that September before, so that was still going to be the sweetheart of the show.

Speaker: Alien, they had the Alien LVs there last year.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: That is true, yes.

Speaker: And they had Funhouse 2.0.

Speaker: I think that was at Expo.

Speaker: That was at Expo, yeah.

Speaker: No, they had one there across from the aliens there.

Speaker: Oh, they did.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: They had the Funhouse and they had a big Lebowski sitting across from it.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I didn't even see the big Lebowski.

Speaker: I know I have a picture of George playing, I think, Funhouse from last year.

Speaker: See, I thought that was Expo, but if that was TPF, okay.

Speaker: Sure, why not?

Speaker: Yeah, sure.

Speaker: You know, let's just go with it.

Speaker: You know where your kids are?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: No, it was there.

Speaker: But yeah, no, what I thought was really cool was this show out of all of them that I've been to, which granted this is number four for me.

Speaker: So it's not like I'm an expert by any means.

Speaker: This one I felt had more diversity in who was attending.

Speaker: There were a lot of women there.

Speaker: There were a lot of kids, a ton of kids.

Speaker: I love seeing the kids walk around with their little stepstools.

Speaker: It's my favorite.

Speaker: There were so many kids there and they were walking up a plane.

Speaker: They weren't sitting there with like a phone in their hand.

Speaker: Just so many diverse groups of people compared to previous shows.

Speaker: So I thought that was very, very cool and a huge win for pinball as a community as well.

Speaker: That's huge.

Speaker: Okay, so Foo Fighters, you're giving a thumbs up.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Okay, thumbs up.

Speaker: Scale of 1 to 10.

Speaker: 7.

Speaker: Okay, that's still solid.

Speaker: George, you going to give it a solid B plus?

Speaker: Now, it's... It is early, but just based on layout.

Speaker: And...

Speaker: I know a lot of people really like Godzilla and I get, I was so, so on the, on the fence and I ended up getting rid of Godzilla.

Speaker: I liked just play field wise playing this more than Godzilla, but they really nailed the upper flipper and all of the shots.

Speaker: So the loop shot, the ramp shot, being able to hit the captive ball.

Speaker: Like I really, really love the warp ramp on Star Trek and even turtles behind me when you can actually nail those shots.

Speaker: And this was very satisfying.

Speaker: So I really appreciated that.

Speaker: So I would, I'd hesitate in saying a nine, but a solid eight at this point.

Speaker: Okay, okay.

Speaker: That's still really respectable.

Speaker: That's pretty good out of the gate.

Speaker: Okay, so we're going to jump around a little bit because I don't want to go with all the major releases.

Speaker: Okay, so next up, Scooby-Doo.

Speaker: How is this on a major release?

Speaker: Well, okay, I'm actually saying there's Stern and there's JJP who were the big ones.

Speaker: And then I would say Pulp Fiction is in there too.

Speaker: And then I would say...

Speaker: Some less mainstream release.

Speaker: The boutiques.

Speaker: The boutiques.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: They put the boo in boutique over at Spooky.

Speaker: The fancies.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm going to let George take this one.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Actually, I really can't.

Speaker: I sat in line three times to play Scooby-Doo and never got the opportunity to play it.

Speaker: Because you gave up because the line, because they never got off.

Speaker: The line didn't move.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: This is my biggest pet peeve in shows.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Don't go for a GC when you're playing a game that's set up super easy.

Speaker: Like, okay, we're all impressed and you're, you're taking two hours to play Elvira or Scooby-Doo or whatever, but you know, it just set like a mental timer, five minutes.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I'm moving on.

Speaker: I got my experience next up.

Speaker: So I agree with you on that one, Scott, but this is my catch on because I did play Scooby-Doo.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I did not go for a GC.

Speaker: I tried to dream.

Speaker: Because realistically, I got bored playing it.

Speaker: The artwork is beautiful.

Speaker: It's very interesting what they did with it.

Speaker: I was not impressed by the shots.

Speaker: There's a lot of horseshoes.

Speaker: When you look at the play field and you see all the horseshoes, it doesn't really put into perspective how many horseshoes there are on it.

Speaker: Because they love Swords of Fury.

Speaker: Lion Man.

Speaker: Lion Man.

Speaker: Is it similar to that many horseshoes or are there more?

Speaker: I think there's more.

Speaker: It felt like more.

Speaker: It felt like more.

Speaker: So a lot of safe shots.

Speaker: So, and that's the problem.

Speaker: Like pinball, you have to have at least a couple of shots that you have to hit, but they are high risk shots.

Speaker: I mean, that's the reason why like Attack from Mars is still a beloved game because the biggest risk is going straight up the middle at the saucer, but you can go down straight down the middle too.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: It, um,

Speaker: The bookcase diverter was an interesting feature on it, but I found that more often than not, I didn't know where the ball was going unless it was going through.

Speaker: There's no diverters for those horseshoes.

Speaker: They're coming out the same spot every time.

Speaker: I guess I'm so used to other manufacturers that I wasn't expecting that.

Speaker: I got through ball one, and at that point in time, my hands are cramping from playing so long.

Speaker: And then ball two, I took like three shots and drained it.

Speaker: Ball three, I just flat out drained it because I was bored of the game.

Speaker: And this sounds so mean.

Speaker: I'm so sorry, Spooky.

Speaker: I'm not trying to like crap on you.

Speaker: It just didn't do it for me.

Speaker: I've talked to other people who are like, Scooby's the best game ever.

Speaker: And it looks great.

Speaker: And I'm like, that is so cool.

Speaker: I'm so happy for you.

Speaker: It's not for me.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, not every game's for everybody, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So the next, I would say, boutique release, let's talk about Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Can you even consider this a boutique release?

Speaker: It is a prototype.

Speaker: A project release?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So Amanda, give us the history on Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: So Ninja Eclipse by Turner Pinball is a prototype game that is part of the new

Speaker: I'm hesitant to say new lineup through Turner pinball.

Speaker: Turner pinball's owner basically bought the assets of deep root when they went under.

Speaker: And now that he owns the assets, the games are somewhat coming back.

Speaker: There's the running joke that, you know, Raza will be resurrected one way or another.

Speaker: When you do a promo video and you've got three Raza's in the background, I mean, it was interesting.

Speaker: What were made then, you know, that just,

Speaker: That game, we all, you know, for those who aren't familiar with the history of Deep Root, I encourage you to look it up and realize that that's not the standard in the pinball world.

Speaker: It was a very, very dark day for us as hobbyists because basically it was a very bad business decision by a lot of people.

Speaker: It was a con artist.

Speaker: I'm sorry.

Speaker: It was a con artist.

Speaker: It was.

Speaker: I was trying to be correct.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so you can't spin it any other way.

Speaker: He took advantage of a

Speaker: Not Turner.

Speaker: Robert Mueller took advantage of the goodwill in the industry and leveraged people who were desperate for more pinball and basically stole a lot of money.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So there's that in a nutshell.

Speaker: So Turner Pinball has the rights and assets to a majority, if not all of the Deep Root catalog and licensure and is trying to resurrect it.

Speaker: So this game...

Speaker: I played it once.

Speaker: It's definitely a prototype.

Speaker: It looked like, it felt like a home pen to me.

Speaker: It felt like a homebrew.

Speaker: It looks a little bit like a homebrew.

Speaker: It kind of gives me the Jetsons vibe.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: So yeah, George, did you get to play it?

Speaker: What'd you think?

Speaker: The flippers couldn't make it up the ramps.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: But now that can happen at a lot of game, a lot of shows because there's so much power draw.

Speaker: I'm sure that's an issue that they'll, that they'll fix the software, uh, is the animations are very pretty, but they're not really integrated into the game.

Speaker: So you're, you're playing, there's some motion on the screen, but it's not really doing anything.

Speaker: The layout, because the flippers were so underpowered was for me, at least at that time, really difficult to get a feel for how the game shot.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: Yeah, it felt like a homebrew that a couple people put together and brought it out way before it was ready to be shown.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So was this layout, did they ever mention, was this layout actually one of the previous layouts, or is this something that they've built from scratch?

Speaker: I believe this is a reused layout, but I couldn't promise that on a stack of items.

Speaker: I don't know what layout it was reused.

Speaker: it's either a reused one or a previously unreleased one.

Speaker: Correct.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It had a cool ramp feature.

Speaker: Like there's, there's one part on the upper left-hand side.

Speaker: I could never hit it because the, the, once again, I couldn't ever make it.

Speaker: That's the shot from the upper flipper.

Speaker: It looks like from the upper flipper.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It kind of gives me a, that, I don't know, that big sweeping shot.

Speaker: It looks a little bit like a,

Speaker: A Papadook shot, I guess.

Speaker: Kind of does.

Speaker: Just sweeping ramps.

Speaker: As of yet, Turnold Pinball has a long way to go if they want to compete in the market.

Speaker: Sounds like.

Speaker: I'm curious to see what they'll bring to the next show.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And what refinements they make.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: So if this was a homebrew, what percentage do you think it felt was done?

Speaker: 30, 35?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I mean, I don't know.

Speaker: George, George, what do you think?

Speaker: Man, software is, is one of those things that requires kind of a team.

Speaker: If you're going to try and pump something out quickly.

Speaker: I mean, if you look at, um, queen, let's say, and then we got to see it at expo and they, and that was after a year of just working on the software and knowing now that they're further, but the software is still not there.

Speaker: percentage wise, it seems very, very low.

Speaker: But that's just because it seems like the software is non-existent at this point.

Speaker: It's almost like a beta test.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, that's the other point I was going to bring up because we always complain, right?

Speaker: Like we're always like, why do we pretty much see Foo Fighters when it's ready to ship, right?

Speaker: There's a lot of complaints that we should know the theme beforehand and maybe even know kind of the layout so that way we can get an idea.

Speaker: But it kills some things.

Speaker: It totally devalues the buzz.

Speaker: That's not what I'm wondering about this.

Speaker: You think it was a smart idea for them to bring Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: It's probably not even called Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: That's probably just the

Speaker: The name they slapped on it.

Speaker: Maybe it is.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: It's probably back to the future, actually.

Speaker: Do you think it was a right decision to bring it in such an early stage and show it off?

Speaker: Do you remember when Haggis brought Celts and it was the Whitewood before there was really any software and you got an opportunity to flip it?

Speaker: It was very different because it was, I feel like, an Australian manufacturer and it was before there were so many manufacturers.

Speaker: uh i feel like it just it felt like one of those i'm kind of excited for this this person who went from nowhere uh to to come out to the to the to the us and present a whitewood i don't really care that it doesn't have a lot of software in it i was just i was just happy that there was someone else jumping in and i really hope things worked out well for them like i was it was much more positive about that and i i see this as being very similar they're just jumping into a flooded market and i feel like they have a lot of negativity surrounding them because

Speaker: because of their association with Deep Root.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So overall, on a scale of 1 to 10, I guess it's hard to even... TBD.

Speaker: Yeah, TBD.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't think it's fair to judge this one when it was in such an infantile state.

Speaker: So cautiously optimistic.

Speaker: How about that?

Speaker: I mean, you guys know me.

Speaker: I'll play anything twice.

Speaker: Yeah, except for Scooby, apparently.

Speaker: I'll play it again on location somewhere.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So the next one, I'm trying to build up to the bigger releases.

Speaker: So Final Resistance.

Speaker: So this is Scott Denise's foray into the P3 system.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: Absolutely phenomenal.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: I was hearing nothing but good.

Speaker: I heard it's brutal, but it's like fair.

Speaker: It's still fun, but it's not like Houdini, right?

Speaker: Where they were saying the shots are tight, but findable.

Speaker: Oh my God, the shots were fantastic.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: That game, it lends itself well to the P3 platform because of the functionality of having the screen and the laser grid on it.

Speaker: But realistically...

Speaker: I think that game would have been fine as a traditional pinball machine as well.

Speaker: I do think that's unique too, that they decided to go with a static image of a pinball play field on the screen.

Speaker: There's elements that aren't necessarily static.

Speaker: There were some more dynamic elements on it.

Speaker: Not a lot, but there were some.

Speaker: But you could definitely tell it was an EBC game.

Speaker: The sound on it is, it's Scott.

Speaker: I don't know what else to say.

Speaker: It's Scott.

Speaker: It was just, it was really good.

Speaker: George has a big smile on his face.

Speaker: Like, yeah, I think George liked it.

Speaker: I loved it.

Speaker: I thought it was great.

Speaker: It is like going from TNA to then, then Rick and Morty.

Speaker: If, if he was going to make TNA the sequel, this is, it has the same brutal kind of feel things being shot right back at you.

Speaker: But with more shots.

Speaker: So it's a, it's a very efficient use of the layout.

Speaker: Once the, the machine that they have at the top, right, actually shooting out those balls.

Speaker: It, it,

Speaker: It's so fast.

Speaker: It is just like, bam, bam, bam.

Speaker: Like you get hit hard with multi-ball.

Speaker: The static layout on it is exactly what I think the P3 needed.

Speaker: It's so easy to get distracted when everything on the play field is animated and you're trying to pay attention not only to the ball, but also...

Speaker: the animations that are happening and hitting things, but the LCD might be displaying stuff like it just took all of that away and gave you animations, but it was it was more it was additive as opposed to a requirement.

Speaker: So

Speaker: a static play field, you can just play the game, but it's really cool because bombs might go off and there's a little explosion or something reacts.

Speaker: So the whole background changes green in preparation for just like an awesome introduction to the to the multiball.

Speaker: So think like Blackwater multiball on Game of Thrones, where it goes green and it starts flashing and suddenly because that light show is crazy.

Speaker: Blinded by Dwight.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Blinded by the Dwight.

Speaker: It's that, but way more coordinated and it's gorgeous.

Speaker: So it's brutal.

Speaker: The sound was fantastic.

Speaker: It is, I think, for me, everything I would have expected from a Scott Denise take, especially sitting in the same kind of cyberpunk universe.

Speaker: Um, it was, it was gorgeous.

Speaker: So you're, you're, it sounds like you're saying this could be a game that would encourage people to buy a P3.

Speaker: And if you have a P3, you are definitely buying this game.

Speaker: I'm upset that we no longer have a P3 to purchase this module.

Speaker: Hmm.

Speaker: And why, why don't you have a P3 anymore, Amanda?

Speaker: Is this public knowledge?

Speaker: I don't know that it's public knowledge.

Speaker: I mean, I'm not hiding it.

Speaker: Am I outing you?

Speaker: Am I outing you right now?

Speaker: No, you're not outing us.

Speaker: We had the opportunity.

Speaker: We were on location at Pinball Palace, who, by the way, congratulations, place number two in best locations in the world on the Twippies.

Speaker: So we were up there talking to them and they've been waiting on their P3 for a while.

Speaker: You know, we all know that there's delays in shipping on everything right now.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And they happened to have, we were playing James Bond, and they happened to have a new inbox, Ellie, sitting in the back that they were looking to sell.

Speaker: You got a 60th for a Weird Al?

Speaker: No, no, no, no.

Speaker: No, that'd be sweet, though.

Speaker: No, that one I definitely would have done, too.

Speaker: But no, we ended up with a Thunderball as an even exchange for a Weird Al, which was kind of cool because we still can go up there and play it anytime we want to.

Speaker: So now it's the best of both worlds.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: I'm going to pivot a little bit because I am going to ask a little bit of a theoretical question.

Speaker: I just want to, sorry, I want to just one little tip.

Speaker: Okay, go ahead.

Speaker: When George was saying it spits out the balls fast at you, the spaceship, Scott Denisi said they got three balls in under a second.

Speaker: That's how fast it's coming out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We can vouch for that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Just to let you know, how many of them on fire?

Speaker: It's actually, it's not, they're not shooting straight down the middle.

Speaker: Like if you're aware of it, you can save them.

Speaker: It's not like the Gene Simmons, uh, like reject.

Speaker: Yeah, no, but I mean, you have, that game does not allow you to get distracted.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And it's TNA was the same way.

Speaker: And I think too, you know, George, you and I both have a mutual love and respect for TNA as a game.

Speaker: That's,

Speaker: I know one of my favorites, I think that's one of yours as well.

Speaker: So this was very, very wonderful to walk up to and play.

Speaker: Sorry, when you said the Gene Simmons ball reject, I think you're talking about, is that Kiss?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Because I was thinking of the workout person, but I think maybe I have their name.

Speaker: Oh, Richard Simmons.

Speaker: You're thinking of Richard Simmons.

Speaker: Richard Simmons.

Speaker: That's a different ball reject.

Speaker: The sweat into the oldies.

Speaker: Yeah, the booty shorts, the two tight shorts doing the little jazzercise.

Speaker: Imagine him kicking out his butt and knocking your ball into the outlet.

Speaker: That's literally what I do.

Speaker: We need a Richard Simmons pinball machine.

Speaker: That was part of hard body.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, definitely be a hard body.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We definitely need that.

Speaker: Well, and that's, I'm glad that it's so fast because one of the complaints about a P3 is everything's in the final third.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so it's, it's hard, except for that, those shields that come up like in when you're playing word out and the germ song comes on and you're playing in just, just the bottom two third.

Speaker: Um, other than that, those shots kind of feel safe cause they're so far back.

Speaker: And Scott has taken that and shrunk the play field because of these, the shots he's put in there.

Speaker: So, and he didn't use the upper flippers.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Scott, give us your theoretical.

Speaker: You're starting.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So I'm taking a little pause from all of the major releases because I will update you on what I did over the weekend.

Speaker: So my neighbor down the street just picked up a bond 60.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So he picked up a bond 60 and I went and played it now.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Do I think that it's a, it's a close to $20,000 in parts game yet?

Speaker: No.

Speaker: However, it's a really fun game and,

Speaker: It's kind of making me think of like, if you want to buy it, you may should buy it now because there's only going to be like 300 in the US.

Speaker: And I I'm theorizing that this is going to be a little bit like a Stranger Things LE because it's not like there's even another option.

Speaker: So do you buy it now with the anticipation of, okay, this is it.

Speaker: There's only, there's only, there's 500 total, but 300 are going to be in the U S. Uh, I don't know.

Speaker: It is, it seems kind of crazy because it is basically a, an eight to $9,000 game, maybe 10.

Speaker: If you want to do the, the, the, the scoring reels, is that enough to push you over to say, Hey, for an exclusive game, um,

Speaker: that not too many people have, do you pull the trigger on that?

Speaker: Okay, I'm throwing it to the forum, go.

Speaker: I wanna challenge the one statement you have about there's nothing else.

Speaker: This is it and Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: Half the price.

Speaker: I would just like to point out, reach out to Zach and Nicole at flipping out pinball.

Speaker: Oh no, trust me.

Speaker: I have right now that they are trying to dump.

Speaker: So not trying to dump, but they do have, I believe three 60th.

Speaker: They're trying to move some inventory to open up for a lot of other stuff.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: And there's a lot of other stuff to open up for.

Speaker: So yeah, Zach at flip the letter in out.

Speaker: No, trust me.

Speaker: I, before Zach went on vacation, I actually covertly messaged him and was like, so theoretically.

Speaker: So I, I don't know.

Speaker: I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really close to saying, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker: Because I don't think it's going to lose value.

Speaker: You know what you could do with that 20 K though?

Speaker: Go to TPF.

Speaker: I could, but my wife went to Taylor Swift and it's, yeah.

Speaker: And so, you know what?

Speaker: She went with her sisters and her mom.

Speaker: So, you know, okay.

Speaker: I'm George and I went and had fun.

Speaker: Yes, we did.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I, I had to take care of feral creatures over the weekend.

Speaker: I mean, it was like mistakes were made.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And we shared pictures just so you realize that you were wrong.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Thank you for not sending me pictures of Wild Pitch because I think my family would have significant amounts of questions.

Speaker: To agree with you, Scott, for a second, though, that game does look fantastic.

Speaker: It's fun.

Speaker: I was really hoping it would be a TPF.

Speaker: Then the layout, everything looks awesome.

Speaker: And I've had that same internal discussion and monologue.

Speaker: Like, if I get it now, when it's dropped down to that, like, 16 to 17 range, do I expect it maybe not to lose too much more money or perhaps over time go up to exactly like you said, Stranger Things?

Speaker: Maybe.

Speaker: It just...

Speaker: I just struggle with it.

Speaker: It's really not, I struggle with the fact that it's just not worth that much, even if it maintains the price.

Speaker: That is a lot of money for us.

Speaker: It's a lot of capital.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's a lot of capital invested into a single level game that has a great theme and it is actually well, like it is a fun game.

Speaker: It is definitely difficult, but you could also buy a Beatles for about, you know, 50% of the price.

Speaker: So I don't know.

Speaker: So this is the feedback section.

Speaker: I want people to tell me, to send in the information of why I should or should not buy Bond 60.

Speaker: And if you are at MGC, there will be one, I am told.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Before we move on, I want to take a quick couple minutes to talk to you about a product

Speaker: that was shipped to me by a company called Pinwoofer.

Speaker: Dan Dean is an amazing man and we've been talking over the last few months about this product that he has created for your pinball machine.

Speaker: It upgrades the sound system.

Speaker: I've been very hesitant on changing out my speakers, but being a sound guy, I've always wanted to have a better sound coming out of my pinball machines.

Speaker: I've liked what CGC has done with their stuff from Attack for Mars and Monster Bash, because I've owned those two games.

Speaker: And Sterns are still good, but they just feel a little light in the sound division.

Speaker: So I got talking with Dan.

Speaker: Dan sent me the Super Spike kit.

Speaker: So this came with two of the speakers for the back box, the main speaker down the bottom,

Speaker: a power amp so I can adjust all the bass and the treble all with the volume from the amp.

Speaker: You also use the volume from your game and then all the wiring harnesses and everything to hook this bad boy up and it was amazing.

Speaker: So I was a little nervous because the box came and there was

Speaker: One big box and then four or five small boxes on the inside.

Speaker: I pulled everything out, got the instructions offline specific to the kit I got for Godzilla Premium because who doesn't want the sound to be like Godzilla stomping through your living room or your basement when you are destroying that building.

Speaker: So he sent me the sound kit and took me about 15, 20 minutes to install.

Speaker: Really was not bad at all.

Speaker: And even though it looked a little daunting at first, once I dug in, started playing with the stuff, realized this was really fairly easy, so long as I kept to the instructions and just did everything to a T. And voila, before I knew it, I had the new sound system in.

Speaker: Turning it on for the first time, I was a little nervous because I didn't know what to get.

Speaker: They had had some recommendations of how to preset your amp based off of the feedback they've received on that game.

Speaker: So I set it right to their adjustments and the game came to life.

Speaker: Holy crap, it was amazing.

Speaker: Night and day difference.

Speaker: And I just don't know what else to say about this product that I haven't already said.

Speaker: It is amazing.

Speaker: If you're looking for that game-changing sound, go with Penwoofer.

Speaker: They're a quality product.

Speaker: Everything was hold my hand step-by-step to get this in.

Speaker: And I don't like to cut wires.

Speaker: That's one thing that I appreciate about this.

Speaker: It all came with harnesses.

Speaker: It all came with plug-ins.

Speaker: There was no soldering.

Speaker: I just ran the wires through, plugged them in where they needed to plug in, and turned it on.

Speaker: Zip tied so I didn't have any wires hanging down the bottom of the cabinet and the back box.

Speaker: And it truly took my premium game and made it an ultra awesome game.

Speaker: If you want to check out more of this product, the one that I was specifically talking about, like I said, you can hit them up at pinwoofer.com.

Speaker: So that is P-I-N-W-O-O-F-E-R.com.

Speaker: And if you go there, you go to their speakers and amplified kits, they have it all there.

Speaker: You have to look specifically for your game.

Speaker: Like I said, I got the Godzilla one, which was the pinwoofer spike super kit.

Speaker: If you just want to upgrade your speakers, they have that option as well in here.

Speaker: You can buy just the speakers.

Speaker: And really, the price was not bad.

Speaker: $370 for a full-out upgrade to three speakers and a power amplifier.

Speaker: I mean, guys, the new...

Speaker: The new Rush Chopper just came out with 1700.

Speaker: This is not much of an upgrade.

Speaker: This is not much of an expensive upgrade to your machine, and you're going to feel it.

Speaker: It is going to be more of an immersive experience to you, to your family.

Speaker: When it turns on, people instantly eyes draw to it because they can tell there's a difference to the sound.

Speaker: I even have mine turned down to like a 5.

Speaker: on the volume and it's still, you can feel just that sound is palpable.

Speaker: It's just, it's amazing.

Speaker: I highly recommend it.

Speaker: Like I said, tell Dan Dean that I sent you Josh Roop with loser kid and see what he can do for you.

Speaker: Once again, pinwoofers.com is definitely where it's at.

Speaker: Go check it out.

Speaker: All right, let's move on to a Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: How does that sound?

Speaker: Hmm.

Speaker: Since we're talking single level play.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I'm going to let George go on this one.

Speaker: So you could have a game that achieves the same single level feel, in my opinion, has a much better theme and is also a fantastic design.

Speaker: And it's not just like a throwback where they put the reel, the spinning reel, which is cool.

Speaker: into a standard stern cabinet, like it looks like an LCD.

Speaker: We were all confused because we thought it was an LCD because they literally put the reels in the LCD box.

Speaker: And it's not that.

Speaker: This is a full on like solid state throwback in every single way, but with much deeper rules.

Speaker: and awesome art and a great theme all of it for 9,000 was it 9,000 9,300 with the amazing copper and everything I don't think it's that expensive I thought it was 89.99 but I could be wrong I don't remember Ryan told us it was they obviously undersold themselves because they that thing sold out quick well they did they did with Cactus Canyon remake too I mean you know Cactus Canyon remake was gone that day yeah yeah and

Speaker: No, Pulp Fiction was good.

Speaker: It was a fun game.

Speaker: It was a fun shooter.

Speaker: I'm not a huge fan of solid state games, so it wasn't really my cup of tea, but I was smiling while I played it.

Speaker: I was trying and I was having a good time.

Speaker: And that topper is really cool.

Speaker: It's very, very appropriate.

Speaker: I can't think of a better topper for that game, but it's not a family-friendly game.

Speaker: So for those of you who are Pulp Fiction fans and you have small children...

Speaker: You're going to be playing it with the sound off if you put it in your house unless you are not too concerned about what they go to school and repeat.

Speaker: Unless you're Josh Sharp.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, you know.

Speaker: And he was even using the edited code that a few of them slipped through.

Speaker: they have an adult mode.

Speaker: I didn't get to hear the difference just by the end of the, by the time I finally got to play it, I couldn't hear anything because it was so loud in there.

Speaker: And like, you'd have to really listen in and I could hear a quote or something like that.

Speaker: But Ryan kept talking about the fact that they were going to put it into adult mode later in the evening.

Speaker: They did.

Speaker: They did.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And I never got the opportunity to

Speaker: To get a feel for what the difference was there.

Speaker: It was a full Tarantino experience.

Speaker: So if you're familiar with Quentin Tarantino movies and you've never seen Pulp Fiction and you're familiar with Samuel L. Jackson and some of his not Marvel related movies, it's the full Tarantino experience.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It seemed like a very thematically appropriate incarnation of a pinball machine.

Speaker: If you were to put it in some sort of generator of like, give me a movie and spit out a machine, it seems like that's the exact machine that would be spit out if you asked for Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And another thing about Pulp Fiction, whereas Scooby-Doo had, they had like seven or eight, and the groups were maybe two to three groups, two groups, and you'd have to wait 30, maybe 40 minutes to get to play.

Speaker: It was 10 groups deep on four Pulp Fictions, and the lines were actually moving pretty quick, but it was still...

Speaker: It was still 30 to 40 minutes, but, but the games were the, the, the play field is much more brutal.

Speaker: So the games went a lot quicker.

Speaker: So you ended up getting, getting up to play more often, despite the fact that there was a lot more people trying to play those games.

Speaker: And those lines were 10 deep the entire show.

Speaker: the entire show.

Speaker: There was no point could I ever jump in and quickly play Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: It was a 30 to 40 minute commitment.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: At one point, I think I told Ryan I was just gonna start pushing people out of the way and saying that he told me I could.

Speaker: Yeah, it seems to me that like Pulp Fiction, this is how Cactus Canyon seems to me, is that that topper really it's like Whitewater.

Speaker: Whitewater without the topper is just there's something missing.

Speaker: And if you get this game without the topper, it seems like there's something missing.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: But it's even the style of dancing, like they're up there and they have their hands forward.

Speaker: And it was just a very unique way of dancing and Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: I'm sure Manu, who teaches dance, could tell you that it's this type of dance.

Speaker: But it's just even how they spin.

Speaker: It was it's perfect for for the movie.

Speaker: That's exactly how I feel like they could have animated things in a topper to give you that same feel of how they danced and walked away with the gold.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So scale of one to 10, I'm hearing at least seven from you guys.

Speaker: I would say seven just because, like I said, it's not my style of game, but I don't think that people who enjoy older style games or solid state games are going to be disappointed.

Speaker: This to me is an eight bordering on a nine again.

Speaker: In fact, I bought two games.

Speaker: I bought Foo Fighters and I bought Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: And these are the two games I'm so happy I'm walking away with.

Speaker: Did you get the LE?

Speaker: I did get the LE.

Speaker: Gotta get that topper.

Speaker: yeah you gotta you gotta get the topper 100 yeah so what i'm hearing is is we've got a private party happening in george's here yeah we're going to george's because i want to play it and then i can explain to you guys why mandalorian premium is is uh is uh not valued appropriately i feel like okay i actually so good hey i actually sold mando premium so i could buy cactus canyon okay hey that's a good switch cactus canyon's great

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And that was really a more of a, oh, so this is also something that was fun over the weekend.

Speaker: Going over to my friend's house, he had bar stools with the games.

Speaker: And my kids loved playing pinball on the bar stools.

Speaker: We have barstools on our games.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, I, I've never had a barstool at my house.

Speaker: And so my kids never played, but my kid, I have an adorable picture of him sitting there like with his knees up to his chest and, and flipping away.

Speaker: He played Jurassic park all night.

Speaker: And then he said, dad, do we have this game?

Speaker: Yeah, we've had it for five years.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Get some barstool, Scott.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: So I actually mentioned to him and he gave me a bar.

Speaker: He's like, here, take this barstool.

Speaker: So we actually ended up with a barstool.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: That is hilarious.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I will say that, but I, okay.

Speaker: I will say the one game that I thought I really want to see it in person was Pulp Fiction just because it was such a different, it was a throwback to 1978.

Speaker: It was.

Speaker: Yeah, it won't disappoint when you see it in person.

Speaker: It is much prettier in person than any pictures or videos can depict it.

Speaker: We agree.

Speaker: Yeah, and like we have said, not every theme is for every person.

Speaker: This theme is not for my family, but it doesn't need to be, right?

Speaker: You don't need to make every theme for everybody, but this certainly, if you are a fan of Tarantino, it seemed like it's a no-brainer.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: Definitely.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: All right, let's move on.

Speaker: We got two more games.

Speaker: Let's, which, which would you guys prefer?

Speaker: God.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Well, we'll go with GTF and then we'll end on Godfather.

Speaker: The GF queen.

Speaker: Cause that's how the notes say.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Let's just, let's just admit that queen is a dumpster fire and move on.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: So GTF.

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: With the exclamation point.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: How nerdy campy fun was it to watch them driving the pinball machine around the show?

Speaker: It was awesome.

Speaker: It was so cool.

Speaker: Ryan nailed it.

Speaker: How bad did you want to climb on top of that as they were driving it around and make tank noises?

Speaker: I would have absolutely done that if they had allowed it.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I want to hear Amanda's tank noise right now.

Speaker: Go.

Speaker: pew, pew, pew.

Speaker: I don't have anything good for this.

Speaker: We need, we need Dennis Creasel on here for tank noises.

Speaker: No, it was, it was such a great way.

Speaker: Oh, that game was so much fun.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So there were a lot of people who were taken aback because the reveal seemed different.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I guess I'll put it that way.

Speaker: There was a teaser.

Speaker: It took them a while.

Speaker: And finally, like,

Speaker: they didn't even show the full game until basically at a Texas pinball festival.

Speaker: So there's a, what, uh, like, but however, I will say the game will not live and die on a reveal.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: If that's true, then guns and roses would have sold 15,000 machines.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Agreed.

Speaker: So, so take that aside.

Speaker: How did it play?

Speaker: I thought it played really well.

Speaker: Um, it reminded me a lot of attack from Mars.

Speaker: It had the tank in the middle that you were shooting very dangerous shot, but satisfying.

Speaker: You're beating the snot out of it.

Speaker: Um, it, the shots on it, there were some cool combos.

Speaker: There were some very, very fast shots on it.

Speaker: There were ways to slow the ball down.

Speaker: The shots were obtainable.

Speaker: I'm not a good player, but I felt they were attainable, but they were difficult.

Speaker: You had to find them.

Speaker: Um, um,

Speaker: The art package was gorgeous.

Speaker: If you go into it taking that game seriously, you're going to be disappointed.

Speaker: Because that game is not to be taken seriously.

Speaker: Think of the movie Attack from Mars.

Speaker: And then animate it.

Speaker: And put it on Disney.

Speaker: And that's kind of what this was.

Speaker: Like the colors and the animation, in my opinion, that's kind of what it reminded me of.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: It was good.

Speaker: I love the cow abduction.

Speaker: The cow abduction was so fun.

Speaker: It's really good.

Speaker: George, what do you think of it?

Speaker: So a couple of different things.

Speaker: The art package is maybe some of the best art to come out in recent memory.

Speaker: It's awesome.

Speaker: It has dubstep as its primary music, which I think is just great.

Speaker: Okay, I have no idea what dubstep is.

Speaker: So you're going to have to educate the non-hipster me.

Speaker: I don't get it.

Speaker: Go Riggs.

Speaker: Skrillex, Nero.

Speaker: Imagine two robots making out

Speaker: The noises they're making is dubstep.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: With electronic in there.

Speaker: Go check out Skrillex if you get a chance.

Speaker: We should insert.

Speaker: What was that?

Speaker: Skrillex?

Speaker: Skrillex.

Speaker: Is that a band?

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: S-K-R-I-L-L-E-X.

Speaker: R-I-L-L-E-X.

Speaker: There we go.

Speaker: Oh, uh, Skrillex American DJ.

Speaker: Skrillex.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, uh, scary monsters.

Speaker: Nice sprites is a decent album.

Speaker: The other one, if like maybe check out the song banger ring, that would be a really good introduction.

Speaker: My favorite is first of the year.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: I'm pulling it up for you right now, Scott.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I can't wait.

Speaker: And then I'll just cut it out because we're going to educate him.

Speaker: Five minutes later.

Speaker: You would be totally gangster driving around in your F-150.

Speaker: Oh, totally.

Speaker: With some dubstep going.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It would remind me a little bit of Office Space when he's like driving his Corolla and listening to the gangster rap.

Speaker: Hey, don't hate.

Speaker: We were driving around in a Corolla.

Speaker: That was our friend.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Mike's not allowed to drive anymore, by the way.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Never again.

Speaker: Never again.

Speaker: Never again.

Speaker: So amazing art.

Speaker: The sound package, I love.

Speaker: And despite the fact that the launch showed video that was reminiscent of bad 90s porn, the animations and video in the game were decent.

Speaker: It fit.

Speaker: They were what the release showed.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it wasn't.

Speaker: It actually meshed nicely with the game.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All of that.

Speaker: So then it comes down to actually playing it.

Speaker: And despite the fact that like the lighting and the play field was gorgeous, for me, there's not a lot going on on the play field.

Speaker: Now, I think the rule set as it comes along could totally change that and force you to hit certain shots.

Speaker: And when you hit those shots, it...

Speaker: In the same way that I really like the pro version of Black Knight sort of rage.

Speaker: Okay, yeah.

Speaker: There's not a lot going on there, but the game progresses.

Speaker: And you were right on that.

Speaker: If you're getting a Black Knight, I prefer the pro.

Speaker: Yeah, I know people are like, well, it doesn't have the upper play field because the classic Black Knight.

Speaker: Okay, still, it's a better game.

Speaker: It's just, yeah, if you don't care about the past of Black Knight and don't bring that in, the pro, I think, plays more mean, brutal, and more fun than the premium or the LE.

Speaker: So you're saying, George, and I'm sorry to interrupt, I just want to clarify.

Speaker: So you're saying that the shots are there, but the reward for hitting the shots is not yet.

Speaker: No, sorry.

Speaker: I'm saying I didn't have fun shooting the game.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I liked everything but playing the game, but the rule set could change that.

Speaker: And it might make some of those shots.

Speaker: Like I really wasn't feeling flow because there's this big blocking thing right in the middle.

Speaker: So you're, you're kind of forced to hit either the left ramp or the orbits.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Cause that's pretty close up.

Speaker: That's like halfway down the play field.

Speaker: And then you have this giant,

Speaker: It basically takes a whole wedge out of the game.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: But you can shoot behind it.

Speaker: You can get behind it.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Into pops.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I don't want to say it's not...

Speaker: I'm still keeping a really an open mind because once again, the art, the animations, the sound, all of the other things, it's a, it's a, it's a huge win.

Speaker: And I just, I couldn't find the magic and actually playing it, but I think it could get there.

Speaker: I'm just, just waiting, I guess at this point, if they would have let you drive around on the tank, you would have had a different impact.

Speaker: Very different.

Speaker: That's why he's so salty.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, and I want to point out one thing too.

Speaker: So if you want to listen to one of our past episodes, I can't remember if it's like 70 or a little bit before that, but we did an interview with Jack Hager.

Speaker: He is the animator and he is the, like the artistic design of the animations and stuff for Galactic Tank Force.

Speaker: But during the interview, he did not, no one knew what Galactic Tank Force was going to be, right?

Speaker: They just wanted to kind of introduce some of the people they brought on board.

Speaker: And if you haven't watched Insert Coins,

Speaker: I watched that last week.

Speaker: And Jack Hager is a predominant figure in that documentary because it's more about the arcade side than the pinball side of Williams.

Speaker: And it makes sense now, looking at what Jack did, he was specializing in live capture video and then putting it in video games.

Speaker: So like Mortal Kombat.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: NBA Jam.

Speaker: And...

Speaker: when he got to direct his first game, it was Aerosmith's Revolution X. Do any of you remember this game?

Speaker: Oh, absolutely.

Speaker: It's a crazy gun game where you're gunning down everybody and you end up in a theater gunning people down while Aerosmith is performing on stage.

Speaker: It would not be released today.

Speaker: You're shooting CDs, not bulls.

Speaker: You're shooting like aliens or something.

Speaker: Yeah, you're not shooting Aerosmith, but it's still, it's...

Speaker: It's an interesting game.

Speaker: But back to my original point, I feel like this is where they've went the direction.

Speaker: Because that's what Jack did, right?

Speaker: That was his bread and butter back at Williams.

Speaker: That was what he's brought to the table.

Speaker: So I'm thinking in the future, this is going to be a lot of what American Pinball does.

Speaker: Just because that's what their animator is.

Speaker: I would say the live action things, it looked like a...

Speaker: okay.

Speaker: Um, a high school bill and Ted's, uh, uh, presentation where you got your buddies, you got stupid, uh, you got stupid outfits on and you're really trying to be a bad actor.

Speaker: Cause it seemed like they nailed it.

Speaker: It was, but I think that was more of an intentional action.

Speaker: No, absolutely.

Speaker: This is not accidental comedy.

Speaker: This is, this is intentional.

Speaker: This is,

Speaker: Yeah, they are trying to be intentionally B movie.

Speaker: Terrible.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, I think George had a good point.

Speaker: You said it's hard to compare.

Speaker: You have to play the game, right?

Speaker: the video itself at two and a half minutes or whatever, three minutes.

Speaker: And it's mostly just the video assets.

Speaker: If the way that's chopped and everything, it feels like a bad B movie and almost like deleted the scenes from a bad B moving.

Speaker: That's just the way it felt, but it sounds like it's, it's integrated a lot better than what we're giving credit based off of that three minute video.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well said.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Now for the final reveal, uh,

Speaker: We have The Godfather.

Speaker: Okay, so we've been waiting on this.

Speaker: I think Stern has released like eight games since Toy Story came out.

Speaker: And The Godfather is the next release by JJP.

Speaker: We interviewed Erica a few episodes ago, and it was a...

Speaker: It was a great interview.

Speaker: It was really interesting hearing his take and his approach.

Speaker: But how did it view in person?

Speaker: I want to point out, they've only released technically two games since Toy Story because it was a feat that they've done this in nine months.

Speaker: So they did Bond.

Speaker: I mean, if you want to consider 60th and then Foo Fighters came out pretty much the same time.

Speaker: It was Foo Fighters one week and then Godfather next.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That's fair.

Speaker: That's fair.

Speaker: I just want to point out, it's impressive what they've done in the last nine months.

Speaker: Quicker turnaround.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So, uh, first things first on playing the game, there's, there's, there's no easy shots.

Speaker: Like this is not Wonka.

Speaker: This is not anything else in my opinion.

Speaker: It's not toy story.

Speaker: This is nothing like what, what they've ever done before.

Speaker: And I, and I, I loved it.

Speaker: I thought the layout was great.

Speaker: I don't, there's some flow there.

Speaker: There's some trapping up and hitting.

Speaker: Um, it's, it's a really good mix.

Speaker: It's a game that I am, I'm excited to play more.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So from the, just the layout perspective, I think I liked it.

Speaker: The other cool thing is on the animation side, I feel like, I think it's, it's John Paul DeWine.

Speaker: Depends on the animations.

Speaker: Just, I'm gonna talk about the, the animations themselves are cool, but it feels very much like a Settlers of Catan or a Carcassonne or it feels like a board game.

Speaker: It feels like a role playing.

Speaker: That's exactly what I said.

Speaker: It feels like a RPG.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I dig it.

Speaker: I really enjoy the layout of the LCD and how progression is displayed, what you're supposed to do.

Speaker: So that coupled with the lighting, I could never figure out what I was supposed to hit based on the lighting on the play field.

Speaker: It felt like there was too much maybe going on, and I'm sure that will get dialed in over time.

Speaker: But I was pleasantly surprised for something.

Speaker: I've still never seen Godfather all the way through.

Speaker: I think I've fallen asleep over the past five years, the two or three times I've tried to watch it.

Speaker: So for a theme I care nothing about, I was really happy to have finally played it a few times, and I want to play it more.

Speaker: You should come to Florida.

Speaker: i have a godfather ce that will be here in a few months so amanda you're you're like rating this game of the four right yeah definitely like three and a half three and a half yeah yeah yeah no um i i loved pirates that was my all-time favorite game it still is this game has all of the best parts of pirates

Speaker: with the shots, just kind of that same feel.

Speaker: You know, there's a lot going on.

Speaker: You're kind of competing against the people you're playing against.

Speaker: There's pros and cons to which family you choose, similar to the characters that they had in Pirates.

Speaker: But Eric has evolved so much.

Speaker: You figure this is only his third game.

Speaker: You know, so when you're comparing him to people, like even Elwynn has more games out than that.

Speaker: And he's been doing this for less amount of time.

Speaker: So when you look at the evolution of him,

Speaker: starting out with pirates, which was phenomenal, you know, with doing guns and roses, which was such a beautiful game and such a great theme integration.

Speaker: And then Godfather, I think a lot of people agree that this was not the license we wanted.

Speaker: This was not something that translated well necessarily to pinball.

Speaker: It's a drama.

Speaker: I'm like George, I've, it takes from all three movies.

Speaker: I've never seen all three of them because they're boring.

Speaker: And I don't mean that in a harsh way.

Speaker: There's not, that's not my, it's not okay.

Speaker: It's not your theme.

Speaker: That's fine to say.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Not my theme at all.

Speaker: I want action.

Speaker: I, I didn't see how it would translate well.

Speaker: And then to play it, I, I got to play it the weekend before TPF on location and really, really enjoyed it.

Speaker: And then I got to talk to Eric.

Speaker: I actually had him on free play pinball podcast the day after you guys had him on.

Speaker: And talked to him some more.

Speaker: And he was giving me some tips and some tricks.

Speaker: And when we saw him at the show.

Speaker: Because he was at TPF.

Speaker: You know just kind of getting a few more of those things.

Speaker: Like hands on.

Speaker: Lessons on how to play this game.

Speaker: We were getting in line.

Speaker: It was another one that always had a line.

Speaker: They had a ton of them.

Speaker: I think they had 10.

Speaker: Or they had 10 LE's and 2 C's there.

Speaker: And it was always a line.

Speaker: We would get in line.

Speaker: We'd play it.

Speaker: And then we would get back in line.

Speaker: Because you just, like, you figure another thing out.

Speaker: Now you got to do it again.

Speaker: And I'm not a rules person.

Speaker: I'm not a depth of the game person.

Speaker: But this one, I was able to kind of grasp it pretty quick.

Speaker: So, oh, it was so good.

Speaker: I can't wait for it to get here.

Speaker: And you went all in, CE.

Speaker: Yeah, we went all in.

Speaker: That game is beautiful.

Speaker: And that topper adds so much to it.

Speaker: The sculptures in the CE are a little more mature looking than the Ellie.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: They kind of look characterish.

Speaker: If you look at the two, the sculpture in the Ellie looks more like a caricature.

Speaker: Really?

Speaker: I didn't know that they did different sculptures.

Speaker: They did different sculptures, but the animation and the artwork and just the lighting on it.

Speaker: And I mean, you have Keith Johnson on coats of what, how are you going to go wrong with that?

Speaker: And Jean-Paul DeWin did so much of the animation and then you can take it off of family friendly mode.

Speaker: And beat the crap out of some of these guys involved in the design of this game.

Speaker: And they're physically taking damage.

Speaker: So, you know, now it's not just I'm yelling at my designer.

Speaker: I can actually punch him in the eye.

Speaker: So, yeah.

Speaker: So that was kind of cool, too.

Speaker: Just the way that they integrated it, you could tell that he was very proud of it.

Speaker: And I love the way that the team was integrated into this game to kind of fill in some areas.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: Yeah, we went all in.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So I have two questions that stand out in my mind from since you since you both had hands on the game.

Speaker: I want to put a couple things to rest.

Speaker: So the first one is everyone complained about the lighting like the it's unicorn puke on top of a very serious game.

Speaker: How did it look in person?

Speaker: Beautiful.

Speaker: It's without a doubt beautiful.

Speaker: I was really struggling to find out what I was supposed to do in the same way that like Star Trek leads you by the nose to with every shot you need to make.

Speaker: And I wasn't there on Godfather and knowing what I was supposed to do at any given time.

Speaker: Like the LCD was a lot more helpful in that regard.

Speaker: And on top of that, there's the one shot up the middle, which is, I would say the only easy shot.

Speaker: And even that's not that easy where you start a battle or a fight with the guy with the Tommy gun.

Speaker: Gotcha.

Speaker: And then the second question I have is I felt like a lot of people were comparing this to shots from Godzilla or from Elwin designs.

Speaker: Did it feel like that?

Speaker: Did it look like that more in person?

Speaker: I know it's got like 29 different ball path is what they're touting right now.

Speaker: 29 different ball paths because of the diverters.

Speaker: The shots felt Elwin-esque in the fact that the high-risk shots were high-reward shots.

Speaker: And that's his thing.

Speaker: He's going to throw some shots in there that you're going to make.

Speaker: 90% of the time, the big old bash toy in the middle, you're going to hit that pretty, pretty frequently.

Speaker: Some of the other shots, not so much.

Speaker: They're a little bit higher of a risk, but when you do hit them, it feels really good.

Speaker: And there's a lot of shots and a lot of combos in that game that felt really good when I shot it.

Speaker: I like combos.

Speaker: I love combos so much.

Speaker: I think that's why I love L1 games.

Speaker: And Eric pulled that off big time with this.

Speaker: I didn't get any Elwyn vibes when I was playing it like this, this to me felt like its own, its own animal.

Speaker: It had a decent amount of flow.

Speaker: It had some really tough shots.

Speaker: What's surprising is that if, if you also told me like if somebody overlaid a design for Godzilla or something and you know, 50% overlaid right on top, I, maybe I wouldn't be surprised, but that definitely never entered my mind without, without some, without you saying it.

Speaker: Cause that's the first time I heard it.

Speaker: So I wouldn't have compared it to anything by Elwyn.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And something that I find interesting Christopher Franchi did art on three of these releases.

Speaker: He's been busy.

Speaker: Like that is a crazy amount to say in the last month three pinball machines with his art in it.

Speaker: I don't know if that's ever happened.

Speaker: So what was the third one?

Speaker: We had Godfather.

Speaker: We had Galactic Tank Force.

Speaker: And Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: Did he do Pulp Fiction?

Speaker: Yes, he did.

Speaker: He did Pulp Fiction because that is not his normal style of art.

Speaker: I thought he did.

Speaker: I thought he did Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: On the interview we did, Mark Ritchie said it was Scott Gynes, I want to say.

Speaker: Well, OK, you're right.

Speaker: You're right.

Speaker: Pulp Fiction because they had their own.

Speaker: I do remember the story now.

Speaker: Because Quentin Tarantino said, do you want me to use my guy?

Speaker: And Mark's like, no, we got a guy.

Speaker: I'm going to tell Quentin Tarantino, no, I got a guy.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: If you did the Indiana Jones, the pinball adventures, you can say whatever you want, I guess.

Speaker: Sorry, when he said that, the first thing I thought was, because all they could hear when he said, I got a guy, I bet they heard, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.

Speaker: So like, no, no, we've got a guy.

Speaker: We're good.

Speaker: We're good.

Speaker: We're trying to keep costs down, but no, it's a cool game.

Speaker: So put your hands on them.

Speaker: Play it.

Speaker: Okay, so your top four, I want you to go in descending order.

Speaker: Because I don't want to do all of them because that would seem who came in last place may feel bad.

Speaker: But how would you rank your top four?

Speaker: Godfather, Foo Fighters, Final Resistance, GTF.

Speaker: Okay, so that's one through four?

Speaker: That's one through four.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And Pulp Fiction didn't make that list, huh?

Speaker: Like I said, it was a beautiful game and I don't think that the people who are going to purchase that are going to be disappointed.

Speaker: It's just not my style of game.

Speaker: It's not your jam.

Speaker: Not my jam.

Speaker: Okay, George.

Speaker: I don't know which one's first at this point, but either Foo Fighters or Pulp Fiction are tied for me for first.

Speaker: After that, Final Resistance and then Godfather.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I think that's still pretty solid.

Speaker: So no Ninja Eclipse for you, George?

Speaker: Definitely not.

Speaker: Not yet.

Speaker: Not yet.

Speaker: Not yet.

Speaker: It'd be awesome.

Speaker: TBD.

Speaker: TBD.

Speaker: That's what I'm saying.

Speaker: You don't feel bad necessarily putting a loser because the loser would probably be Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: And I'm not saying that as a bad thing.

Speaker: It's just.

Speaker: It's incomplete.

Speaker: Yeah, it's incomplete.

Speaker: So it's like.

Speaker: I think the loser would not be Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: I think Ninja Eclipse still has some potential.

Speaker: I think that the loser is the last one on the list that I'm looking at right now.

Speaker: I don't even know why I'm not even considering that game.

Speaker: I don't know why.

Speaker: We saw it already.

Speaker: Yeah, we played Queen already.

Speaker: Queen feels like a Data East game from 1992.

Speaker: It just wasn't that good.

Speaker: It feels retro, but not in a cool way.

Speaker: So when I was at Expo, I'm not going to name the person, but there was a person with me that is, I don't want to say critical, but they're very professional.

Speaker: And they wanted to point out how much the actual design of Queen clashes with the band itself.

Speaker: And the band was very artistic.

Speaker: And they felt like they kind of downplayed that a lot.

Speaker: It felt like a lunchbox.

Speaker: Yeah, it was a lunchbox.

Speaker: And so I'm going to take that and I'm going to juxtapose it next to Pulp Fiction because I've heard Pulp Fiction is how you make a theme for a retro game.

Speaker: And it's so on point for Quentin Tarantino game that it's funny because it's like if you put those two next to each other, I think the what thing Queen lacks is better theme integration.

Speaker: And I think that's where Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction really stand out.

Speaker: And I'm not saying that Final Resistance does and whatnot, but it's hard to get into a theme when it's an original theme unless it's one that you've come to know and love.

Speaker: I'm not saying Final Resistance can't do that.

Speaker: I'm saying we're going to have to get time on it to love it, right?

Speaker: Where Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction has that automatic built into it because you've already been growing up with it for years now.

Speaker: So my suggestion is to other...

Speaker: manufacturers, because I know you all listen, take those games and learn from the theme integration on those because that's what we as hobbyists, as the community, as the industry as a whole want to see from a pinball machine.

Speaker: And it's funny because we all complained about single... That's the number one complaint here is price does not equate single play field.

Speaker: It doesn't.

Speaker: But the funny part is as soon as Pulp Fiction came out,

Speaker: The LE sold out in less than an hour.

Speaker: They were just gone.

Speaker: And people are clamoring over this game.

Speaker: And granted, it's probably the closest thing to a stern pro that's out there.

Speaker: But still, the bottom one's eight, I want to say.

Speaker: And people aren't complaining about the price.

Speaker: If you do the game right, you're not going to be fighting the price.

Speaker: And if you do it wrong, you're always going to be fighting the price.

Speaker: Not one complaint the entire weekend about the price of Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: Never came up.

Speaker: And I haven't heard that from anyone.

Speaker: Even I've got some friends that are very much penny pinchers and it hasn't even been a question.

Speaker: They're just like, yeah, we're in on Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: Which is crazy thinking of, do you remember when...

Speaker: like Stern pushed the $9,000 envelope for their LEs.

Speaker: Like that, that seems like a millennia ago now.

Speaker: Well, either let's, let's talk Beatles.

Speaker: Like remember when Beatles came out and people lost their cracks.

Speaker: It was $200 more.

Speaker: The premium was $200 more.

Speaker: Now we have $1,700 toppers.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: $2,000 toppers.

Speaker: I mean, the Mando topper is two grand.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Does it have moving gears?

Speaker: Amanda has a hologram.

Speaker: It has a hologram, but I think it goes, it goes to prove that like price equals like your product, right?

Speaker: Like if the product is at the right, um, caliber that the people want, the price won't be a problem.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: I think that's fair.

Speaker: A poorly integrated theme that shoots decent is not going to have as many people come to it as a very well integrated theme that shoots kind of crappy.

Speaker: Because you're not going to walk back up to them.

Speaker: You don't want to look at it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Kind of to maybe George's point on Galactic Tank Force.

Speaker: The theme is integrated very well, even though it's an original theme.

Speaker: It's just the shots aren't there.

Speaker: But willing to give it more of a try as the code comes along kind of thing.

Speaker: You know?

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: So whereas Queen, I think Queen shoots fine.

Speaker: It's just the theme is just not there.

Speaker: Like, just not meshed.

Speaker: Queen feels like they picked up, they did the layouts.

Speaker: And they had it as a white wood and they picked out a color scheme and then they got the theme and they said, okay, we'll just throw it on there and go with it.

Speaker: Make it work.

Speaker: Golden black mixed with confetti rainbow.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: What's wrong with that?

Speaker: Well, nothing unless you're queen.

Speaker: Like that was, it was a light, airy, colorful band.

Speaker: Let's go with the darkest colors we can.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, it looks great sitting next to an alien.

Speaker: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker: Alien at least got that part right.

Speaker: The theme integration on Alien is fantastic.

Speaker: Yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker: There's so many great moments.

Speaker: Like I am literally getting tense playing Alien as the sound of the sensor is beeping to let you know that something is getting closer, the proximity sensor.

Speaker: When that's happening, I'm kind of freaking out in the game a little bit because as a kid, that destroyed me.

Speaker: Like I had so many nightmares of that sound.

Speaker: And then when the dude pokes his head up into the ceiling.

Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker: It ain't you, man.

Speaker: Yeah, game over.

Speaker: They cut the lights, man.

Speaker: Why did they cut the lights?

Speaker: The whole play field goes black and you're just going, oh God, they're coming for me.

Speaker: It's so good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: True.

Speaker: I'll have to watch it again.

Speaker: It's so long since I've seen Alien.

Speaker: That's another one that I've only seen bits and pieces of, but we have the game and I get tense.

Speaker: I always get tense trying to find Jonesy.

Speaker: Got to rescue Jonesy.

Speaker: There's Alien and Aliens, which are two different games, like two different movies completely.

Speaker: Alien is a horror movie.

Speaker: Aliens is a, that is a shooter game.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But you can play both on the Alien pinball machine.

Speaker: You can choose which one you want to play.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And there's assets from each, so.

Speaker: So if you think Ed Van Der Veen and team have an option to stay in Frisco, but upgrade the size of the venue, do you think they should take that opportunity next year?

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or do you think this was like a one hit?

Speaker: We had seven releases in 60 days and this is just what it ended up being.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: It was pretty busy last year and there weren't a lot of, a lot of games to talk about.

Speaker: I remember the big game was weird owl last, last time.

Speaker: Expo was amazing for the layout and there wasn't any, I feel like, really significant releases.

Speaker: It was just nice not to have to walk and be so close to everybody the entire time.

Speaker: So Expo, despite three years ago or two years ago,

Speaker: it not being laid out well, they fixed that.

Speaker: And they really started integrating games, not only games that were brought, but games actually being sold by distributors.

Speaker: They spread everything out.

Speaker: And Expo really stepped it up.

Speaker: And a huge part of that to me is that it's just in a very large space.

Speaker: So it wasn't claustrophobic being in there, as opposed to TPF this year, which was, I accidentally touched a lot of people.

Speaker: And I'm not freaking out.

Speaker: It was overwhelming.

Speaker: But yeah, exactly.

Speaker: It's cacophonous.

Speaker: It's overwhelming.

Speaker: There's not a lot of room.

Speaker: And it feels like in some places they really had to squeeze the games close together or put them in interesting configurations that made it difficult to even line up for Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: The four Pulp Fiction games, which line am I in?

Speaker: Am I in this one or am I in this one?

Speaker: And people are talking and chatting between and suddenly it's just...

Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: And it was by a main entrance.

Speaker: Yeah, and it was right.

Speaker: Pulp Fiction was literally directly in front of a main entrance.

Speaker: So it was like, then you're fighting that too with the people.

Speaker: It was featured, yeah.

Speaker: Well, and it was interesting because you walked through a door and directly in front of you, you had Pulp Fiction.

Speaker: This is, you know, again, this isn't the main entrance, but it was the, probably the next busiest entrance.

Speaker: So directly in front of you, kind of veering to your left, you had CGC with Pulp Fiction set up in there, you know, four games all with the heads against each other and kind of a star pattern.

Speaker: Right, right, directly in front of you, you have GTF and then hard, right, you have Scooby Doo.

Speaker: So here I just piled and then right behind Pulp Fiction was Turner.

Speaker: So there's your Ninja Eclipse.

Speaker: So you had all of these releases within an area about the size of.

Speaker: I don't know what Stern had set up at Expo.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: So it was not a big space.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, and then there was a van, the Scooby van, the mystery van.

Speaker: was there too.

Speaker: So, you know, so that's extra room.

Speaker: It was a great thing to promote the game, but there's more room.

Speaker: So were you ever concerned about like, if a fire marshal walked in, do you think he would have been shutting it down?

Speaker: I don't.

Speaker: This is Texas.

Speaker: This is Texas.

Speaker: There are no rules.

Speaker: There are no rules.

Speaker: They didn't even have COVID in Texas.

Speaker: Let's put a wild pitch for a second.

Speaker: They didn't even have COVID.

Speaker: I do feel, though, that this show, I stepped away from the show more frequently than I have at Expo or at TPF last year because I felt more overwhelmed just by the volume of people.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Gotcha.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Good to know.

Speaker: Honestly, that was one of my biggest concerns.

Speaker: I'm not going to lie.

Speaker: I had TPF FOMO, right?

Speaker: I was really worried I'd be listening.

Speaker: But it sounds like between the long lines and

Speaker: and people shoulder to shoulder in there.

Speaker: It just, I don't know if it would be as enjoyable.

Speaker: I really enjoyed it last year.

Speaker: I felt like it was the right size.

Speaker: It still felt very packed in there, but I never any, I don't know.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I felt left out.

Speaker: I felt left out.

Speaker: I kept asking for more, more pictures.

Speaker: He did.

Speaker: And this year, even though it was packed and the lines were so bad, I still felt this was like I said, I still felt this was the best show I've been to.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Was that because of all the game releases or was that because of the show itself though?

Speaker: It's because I got to hang out with George.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Ditto Amanda.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Any show with George is the best show.

Speaker: Actually every show I think I've been to, I've had George there.

Speaker: I don't think there's been a show I've been to without George.

Speaker: You can't go to a show without George.

Speaker: I couldn't have done expo without him this year.

Speaker: So yeah, that's true.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I just like going to all the big shows and I love hanging out with people.

Speaker: Like I have so many great pictures from TPF this year and what's so crazy, but you asked about how many people were at the show.

Speaker: I got, I got pinged when I, after I posted those pictures from people who we, we had been at the show for the same time and never ran into each other.

Speaker: Like, I can't believe you were at the show.

Speaker: I have that like four or five people have hit me up.

Speaker: Couldn't believe that I was at the show the entire time.

Speaker: And I'm like, weren't, weren't hiding.

Speaker: We were walking around and I was picking up people.

Speaker: It was very people.

Speaker: Very people.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Oh man.

Speaker: So much fun.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: So go again.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: We will keep on chit chatting, but we're going to, we're going to shut this down to the public right now.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So if you want to get ahold of Amanda Hamilton, where do we find you?

Speaker: You guys can check me out at FreePlayPinballPodcast on the FaceSpace.

Speaker: You can email me FreePlayPinballPodcast at gmail.com or you can check me out lurking pretty much in all the deep, dark corners of the pinball network via either the podcasters or the streamers.

Speaker: I try to check them out every once in a while because they're pretty decent.

Speaker: And George, if someone wants to find you, where can they find you?

Speaker: Uh, you can head to twitch.tv slash don't panic flip.

Speaker: Uh, you can also go to don't panic flip.com, uh, where we have, um, a bunch of articles on how to stream and just pinball in general, uh, other outside of that, um, TPN once again, with all the, uh, fun podcasts and amazing streamers.

Speaker: So yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

Speaker: With don't panic flip.

Speaker: Are you required to bring a towel?

Speaker: You are absolutely required to bring a towel.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: The best part about that, though, is if you get nervous, you can hide in the panic room.

Speaker: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker: If you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com.

Speaker: We are on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram, all at Loser Kid Pinball.

Speaker: I appreciate everyone that's been signing up on YouTube as of recently.

Speaker: That's exploded.

Speaker: And really, if you want to message us, either do it through the Gmail because that comes straight to my phone most of the time, which I found out yesterday.

Speaker: That's a long story.

Speaker: Or really hit us up through Messenger on Facebook.

Speaker: That's probably the best way to do it.

Speaker: Josh, when are you going to get that OnlyFans account set up for LuzerKid?

Speaker: That reminds me, if you do want to send us money...

Speaker: Go to swivelballspot.com slash loser kid pinball podcast and buy some shoes, buy a backpack, buy a t-shirt.

Speaker: Heck, buy a Keith Elwin shirt.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Thanks to Jen Ripper for buying the fabric.

Speaker: You can actually buy the fabric if you want to make a dress or a blanket, whatever you want.

Speaker: The shoes are awesome.

Speaker: The shoes are very comfortable.

Speaker: I have the tie-dye pairing.

Speaker: They're amazing.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: I have a pair of blues on the way for me as well.

Speaker: I'm getting red, and I'm getting a red backpack.

Speaker: How do they fit, Amanda?

Speaker: Because everyone keeps asking.

Speaker: So I run between a 7 and a 7.5.

Speaker: So dress shoes, no socks.

Speaker: I wear a 7.

Speaker: If I'm wearing tennis shoes, I bump it up typically to a 7.5 because that usually means I'm on my feet more.

Speaker: I got a 7.5 in these.

Speaker: I did wear them for a bit at TCF.

Speaker: I tried not to wear them too much just because they were new, and I didn't want to risk blisters.

Speaker: I didn't have any issues, so they fit great.

Speaker: If you're in between sizes, I would say go a size up.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Sounds good.

Speaker: Well, I think that wraps it up for us, Scott.

Speaker: Thanks for coming on.

Speaker: Really appreciate that.

Speaker: Shut up and sit down.