Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning into loser kid pinball podcast.
Speaker: This is episode one 50.
Speaker: It's a big number and it's kind of a random one.
Speaker: Cause we're just kind of sitting at the hotels day one of expo.
Speaker: Uh, there is a ton of games out there with me, my co-captain as always Scott Larson ended.
Speaker: We're doing this in person.
Speaker: It's a little different.
Speaker: Um, but, and Josh, who are we brought to by?
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Well, that's what I was trying to get to.
Speaker: We're brought to you by Flipping Out Pinball by Zach and Nicole Menny.
Speaker: They're here at the expo.
Speaker: It's been great.
Speaker: This whole thing has been awesome.
Speaker: It's kind of been a blur today because ever since we kind of got invited to Stern this morning and I showed up on time.
Speaker: You were there a little late.
Speaker: And we got to hang out and play Metallica.
Speaker: This is what I'm getting to.
Speaker: So if you want the new Metallica, which looks amazing, I hit up Zach Nicole, many don't ask him for an Ellie.
Speaker: Cause apparently they're gone.
Speaker: You can beg for an Ellie.
Speaker: Give it a shot.
Speaker: If someone drops out and they're insane, then go ahead and get the Ellie.
Speaker: But if not get the premium, cause it is boss.
Speaker: It is amazing.
Speaker: So hit up Zach Nicole, many at flipping out pinball.
Speaker: Check out their website.
Speaker: The phone number's there.
Speaker: Amazing customer service.
Speaker: We've talked about it multiple times on here.
Speaker: I think my brain's rattled because we've had so much going on today.
Speaker: I'll give a quick recap.
Speaker: Josh came in yesterday.
Speaker: I didn't know if I was going to be off today.
Speaker: I initially had plans to fly in actually about two hours ago.
Speaker: It's about 11.30 p.m.
Speaker: But because I didn't have to work today, I ended up changing my flight.
Speaker: And so I was able to come in, catch an eight o'clock flight and come in right at noon.
Speaker: Josh was invited to, we were all invited to go to Stern to check out the new Metallica.
Speaker: And it was scheduled from about 10 o'clock until noon-ish.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Josh went and with everybody now, Josh, since I wasn't there, I need you to give the recap on Metallica.
Speaker: At least what did they tell you and how did it look?
Speaker: So it was interesting because like we've been to media days before with Stern and it's very much like you walk in, you press the flesh, you do a tour.
Speaker: And it's funny because like we got there, we were one of the first ones to get there.
Speaker: We got there early.
Speaker: I actually think we were there by like nine 30 and
Speaker: We took pictures with the new giant silver ball outside.
Speaker: Like, Stern's getting better and better and better.
Speaker: That presentation, 100%.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: So we get there.
Speaker: We take pictures with the new silver ball.
Speaker: So think of the cloud.
Speaker: Everybody's seen the bean.
Speaker: Yeah, the bean.
Speaker: The bean.
Speaker: I think it's technically the cloud, but –
Speaker: The Bean in downtown Chicago, I think Millennium Park.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This is like a smaller version, but this is really cool.
Speaker: Like how big is the silver ball?
Speaker: It's got to be at least what?
Speaker: Eight foot tall?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's also elevated probably about a foot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Derek, Derek that works at Stern.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I do not know how to pronounce his last name.
Speaker: Derek K. Derek, Derek K. Yeah.
Speaker: So Derek,
Speaker: He actually did some of the weld joints that hold the ball into place.
Speaker: That's impressive.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: We'll post a picture of us standing by it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's really cool looking.
Speaker: And it's really smart not only to market pinball because it's a giant pinball, but with the added bonus that it's in Chicago.
Speaker: So it's a nice little homage to the Bean.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So they brought us in since I've already been there a handful of times.
Speaker: They're just kind of come, they have this room in the middle of the building where it's just kind of like the game room you wish you had in your house.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: And so they just take us straight into there cause that's where Metallic is at.
Speaker: And some of them, some of the media people haven't been there before.
Speaker: So they took them on the factory tour.
Speaker: took him through by the way this this episode is gonna be a little sloppy sloppy i a couple things i've been fighting a cough for like a month and so when i'm recording and josh is talking i can usually mute the mic but because we're in the same room i am trying not to completely uh submarine the episode by me hacking
Speaker: So I do apologize for the sound.
Speaker: We're just kind of doing a quick and sloppy recap of day one.
Speaker: Just kind of like a train of thought, right?
Speaker: It's fresh on our mind.
Speaker: It's a travel log.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fresh on our mind right now.
Speaker: So they took me straight in.
Speaker: Others went through the factory tour.
Speaker: There was a ton of media people shoved in that small room.
Speaker: Borg's doing interviews.
Speaker: Zach Sharp's doing interviews.
Speaker: I get my hands on Metallica.
Speaker: And it was really cool because Borg loves this game, right?
Speaker: Like he's a huge Metallica fan.
Speaker: It's a labor of love.
Speaker: And it was amazing.
Speaker: It's Borg's best game, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would argue.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's the most successful game that Borg has had.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: This is Stern.
Speaker: Doesn't release their numbers, but I would bet that it's gotta be their biggest seller.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: It also has Lyman sheets on rules.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Which Ray day Raymond Davidson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Did, did a couple of extra modes, refined a little bit of the code.
Speaker: No one better down at Stern to do that, in my opinion.
Speaker: Yeah, Rayma is the heir apparent, I would argue, is the heir apparent to rules tinkering.
Speaker: Now, that's pretty high praise considering the amount of talent they have at Stern.
Speaker: And they have Tim Sexton, who has been doing this.
Speaker: He's a high-level competitive player, too.
Speaker: Dwight Sullivan.
Speaker: Dwight Sullivan, who's been doing this forever.
Speaker: You have Keith Elwin, whose games are consistently top 10 of all time.
Speaker: Raymond seems to be thinking on a similar level, though, and being able to really fine-tune that, especially coming from a competitive matrix.
Speaker: And we know how important that is.
Speaker: for the longevity of a game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because if a game ends up being like a one trick pony, it ends up being a problem.
Speaker: So Raymond is giving the bonus code, I guess the finishing code.
Speaker: Is that fair to say?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's doing the finishing code at a couple of modes.
Speaker: There is, uh,
Speaker: There is their, they're all shipping on family mode, but there is, they had them turned off.
Speaker: So I was like, wait, what, what did the game just say to me?
Speaker: Which it was great.
Speaker: And you could just, I love it when it's a passion project, right?
Speaker: And you can tell from Borg, this is a passion project.
Speaker: He loves Metallica.
Speaker: It's a music, it's a music thing.
Speaker: It's a pinball thing.
Speaker: So he's walking us through it, telling us some of the stories and, and,
Speaker: I think we'll get him on here soon.
Speaker: So I'm not going to like read count off his stories.
Speaker: Cause I don't feel like we have enough time to do that today, but just the little details that they've added to this game that I didn't realize that some of the shots have been adjusted a little bit.
Speaker: The ramps are a little bit shorter in some areas.
Speaker: It still flows and plays.
Speaker: It feels like Metallica.
Speaker: It's Metallica, but like any vault edition, they, they have said this repeatedly, like any of vault edition, they are going to fix things that they have perceived.
Speaker: Don't work in the, in the previous game and including adjusting some shots.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, we're, we're talking millimeters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because if you, to, to my eye, I look at it and it looks like Metallica.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: And it shoots like Metallica.
Speaker: So it doesn't feel like they have changed much.
Speaker: The only thing they've done is refined it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Well, and they've added like that giant billboard in the back behind Sparky.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: You're lighting up letters.
Speaker: Sparky's now a skeleton instead of the dude from the original, um,
Speaker: it sounded like the same Sparky to me.
Speaker: Someone asked if Brandon Smalls was still doing the voices.
Speaker: I'm not for sure.
Speaker: And we kind of missed the seminar because we still hung out at Stern after Borg did his seminar one today.
Speaker: So... Well, okay.
Speaker: So Josh was able to do that.
Speaker: I fly in at...
Speaker: You know, I 1215 or something.
Speaker: I landed 1215 and I text him like, hey, OK, so I land.
Speaker: Are they still OK at Stern or should I go to the seminar?
Speaker: And Zach was like, yeah, come on over.
Speaker: So I came over and we ended up playing for, you know, for another hour.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker: And so that was great.
Speaker: It was actually really great because we kind of got.
Speaker: like exclusive access.
Speaker: Cause a lot of the other people had left.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we had our time alone with that.
Speaker: We also got some time on X-Men.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We got some time on X-Men pro, which I haven't played.
Speaker: I hadn't played.
Speaker: I'd played the, the LE.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, um, but so we'll talk, we'll get to all that stuff, but okay.
Speaker: So getting back to Metallica, what are the things, Josh, that you thought they, um,
Speaker: Compare and contrast.
Speaker: So this is a high school essay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you have Metallica from, uh, when did Metallica come out?
Speaker: 20 years ago, 2013.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, so 11 years ago and compare and contrast that Metallica versus this Metallica.
Speaker: Why should people sell their old Metallica and buy this game?
Speaker: Because they should, I don't think I have to convince you.
Speaker: And I know a lot of people, like there are some people that have already mentioned to me that are upset.
Speaker: They didn't do a pro version for this Metallica.
Speaker: But let's be honest.
Speaker: Stern looks at this as like the pros for location, the premiums for the collector, for the person that wants it all, and then the LEs for the elitist, right?
Speaker: And so they're gearing this all towards collectors.
Speaker: And
Speaker: Looking at the old Metallica LE, I never felt like it was worth going from the Pro to the LE.
Speaker: This one is so well refined.
Speaker: If you're looking for that extra bling and the bells and whistles, it's definitely worth it.
Speaker: The premium is just as good.
Speaker: And you can add the premium lighting in.
Speaker: And really, the premium lighting pulls this together.
Speaker: It shocks me how much of...
Speaker: You know, it's funny because someone has a, there's a handful of Metallica pros down on the floor.
Speaker: And I'm looking at this and it's weird because it's the same game, but it feels dated.
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: So the DMD.
Speaker: So anytime you have a DMD, and this is my argument when they talk about
Speaker: doing like a vault edition and redoing the DMD.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The problem is it's going to look dated just because of the presentation.
Speaker: So the factors that take this Metallica to the modern era would be one, they have the LCD screen.
Speaker: Which the animations hold the crap.
Speaker: The animations are awesome.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The animations are great.
Speaker: And in some ways I was...
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I was even talking to Ray Day a little bit, and he's so excited to talk about this, and we're going to have him on.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: We even mentioned, you know, there's some things that are really kind of funny about the old dot matrix.
Speaker: Like when the snake eats the ball, it's a great look.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, you know, doing like a consider, that would be an idea to like do like a retro mode or something like that.
Speaker: So it kicks that in.
Speaker: But the new mode with new animations, new call outs, the band playing, it looks fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Also, the old games,
Speaker: They all look dark.
Speaker: Don't they know?
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: When you compare a new game to an old game, it is like night and day.
Speaker: And I'm intentionally using that metaphor because it does feel like the old games are so dark.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What I love about this game too, the lighting, it is RGLB, you know, RGB.
Speaker: RGLB.
Speaker: But the thing is, is they've color coded it.
Speaker: So it fits the theme, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It doesn't look, okay.
Speaker: This has always been my complaint and we've talked about this.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: When something looks like a carnival game or a slot machine, for some reason, the colors don't look exactly correct.
Speaker: With the way Stern has been able to do it, they seem to have threaded that needle, so they have used the lighting to enhance the environment of the game without making it feel Vegas-y.
Speaker: No, I agree.
Speaker: Overall, an amazing game.
Speaker: I'm on the fence of like, you know, I'm just kind of holding out on Elwynn's.
Speaker: Elwynn's kind of my jam.
Speaker: I feel like he's the most bang for your buck right now.
Speaker: You know, Metallica is making me like, I'm like, I know Owen's up here soon, right?
Speaker: But this Metallica, holy crap.
Speaker: Like, I don't know.
Speaker: I really want this Metallica.
Speaker: And I don't feel, I didn't feel that way.
Speaker: When they said they were remaking Metallica, I'm like, well, it's a good game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: When I say, it was more of, they made so many pros.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Pro was the jam.
Speaker: And when people complain about there not being a pro, I would argue there are pros.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like there's 10,000 of them out there that you could, that you could buy.
Speaker: And if you really wanted to buy it and put like, yeah, I saw like three pop up today.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If you could, if you could buy it, you can, and you can put some brighter lights in there and, and make it, it's still the very, a very similar feel.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: You have to remember for Stern to do a pro versus a premium, there is a bill of material that they, so they would have to pull stuff out.
Speaker: When you look at this game, what would you want to pull out?
Speaker: You could arguably maybe pull out the hammer, but they fixed the hammer.
Speaker: That was one of the big problems with the other one.
Speaker: This hammer looks good.
Speaker: It looks amazing.
Speaker: The effect is good.
Speaker: Well, and to show that the...
Speaker: hammer's lit for lock yeah there's a key projected by the uv it's the uv paint in the play field yeah the black light shines on it and you know oh i gotta shoot that key yeah to get the law it is insanely cool the black light on the thing the whole game shuts off goes into reds uv and all of a sudden sparky turns into a skeleton and just
Speaker: I hit Sparky and I was like that mode.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: Look at go find find a video of it.
Speaker: Find Sparky like lighting up.
Speaker: It looks really cool.
Speaker: John told us he said that there's a new mode added called Blacken because there's eight new songs that are added.
Speaker: And by by time you get to Blacken you you've shocked Sparky a couple of times.
Speaker: And I guess he's not happy with you by time you get to Blacken Charboiled because he flips you off.
Speaker: And then all the band members just kind of laugh and like shock him again.
Speaker: You know, he just, it really, this game, here's the thing, Stern.
Speaker: I know you're listening.
Speaker: I told Gomez this personally.
Speaker: These are aces in the pocket, right?
Speaker: We've talked about these for years.
Speaker: You've got Metallica.
Speaker: You've got Lord of the Rings.
Speaker: Spider-Man, if you do Spider-Man, right.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Lord of the Rings would be a home run with us.
Speaker: Could you imagine getting, like, doing that?
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: That's what everybody loved about Hobbit was the immersion factor.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that's what, okay.
Speaker: Could you imagine Tron?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: So that's what JJP has always had the leg up.
Speaker: We've talked about that.
Speaker: presentation and immersion.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I didn't think that you could get a better immersion experience than guns and roses.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: This absolutely rivals guns and roses.
Speaker: And I, I, me personally, I like Metallica more than I like guns and roses.
Speaker: I think Metallica is a better as a band.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's also a better shooting game.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's, it's, I mean, there's a lot of really cool effects that,
Speaker: that they did with, with guns and roses.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just metallic.
Speaker: It's a, it's a leaner, cleaner shooter.
Speaker: And that's just because also of the era it was designed.
Speaker: It was designed and it was, it's a board game.
Speaker: And so it typically doesn't have tons of bells and whistles.
Speaker: It's more of a, like a brutal shooter.
Speaker: And so it feels very thematically consistent with the band.
Speaker: And, and this presentation takes that to the next level and brings it to the modern era.
Speaker: Well, that helps too.
Speaker: So like we had this with guns and roses, right?
Speaker: Like Eric needs advice from what the band wanted in the game.
Speaker: He called up slash, right?
Speaker: You've got John Borg.
Speaker: If he needs advice, he calls off James Hetfield.
Speaker: And James is like the whole band's on board, right?
Speaker: They love this.
Speaker: And yeah,
Speaker: seriously looking over this game.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: Cause from pitchers, I'm more of a green guy.
Speaker: So the premium, I actually liked more in the pitchers, but when I saw him in person, the Ellie is just stunning, but you can't go wrong.
Speaker: If you can get the Ellie and you want the Ellie, get it.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: And you can get it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There's only 500 of them.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And so it's truly limited.
Speaker: Well, and honestly, what half of them may not half go overseas, but you got a good chunk.
Speaker: If you could get ahold of this and this is something you're interested in, this will hold its value.
Speaker: And you will not be disappointed.
Speaker: No, honestly, I think you've been holding out all year.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, well, this goes back to the Gomez thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I'm telling him, these are the aces in the pocket.
Speaker: You let your designers still innovate and design and do risks like danger did with X-Men.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because you don't know how it's going to be received.
Speaker: And then Metallica makes up the difference, right?
Speaker: Or if you have a whole home run, you just have a nice Christmas.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: But when you stumble and you have like, I mean, not to bag on Wick, but Wick has not been very well received.
Speaker: Wick is a solid game.
Speaker: It's a solid game.
Speaker: It's not going to move the needle the same.
Speaker: It's just not.
Speaker: From a marketing standpoint, Wick would be in the C-theme category.
Speaker: And there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker: Even Borg's talked about, hey, we're successful.
Speaker: We can take risks.
Speaker: We can take flyers on different themes that may not have the same mass appeal.
Speaker: And he even talked about that during the WIC seminar.
Speaker: So it's not surprising that Metallica is going to have the appeal that it does have, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let's move on to X-Men.
Speaker: Metallica, seriously, if you want one, get a hold of Zach and Nicole.
Speaker: They will hook you up with a premium.
Speaker: And even tell them, Loser Kid, send them your way, and they'll give you a little extra, too.
Speaker: That's what Zach was telling me today.
Speaker: I don't know if there's a discount code Loser Kid.
Speaker: In all sincerity, we bought all our games through them, and they've been so good to us.
Speaker: And the good news is, get it.
Speaker: If you can't get the LE, get the premium.
Speaker: Get the lights, the speaker lights, get the enhancement, and you can actually have a really good, still a great game.
Speaker: That's one thing that Stern has done a really good job in that the LE does give you more if you are willing to pay the money.
Speaker: If you don't want to pay that money and you still want to get the premium and put in the extras, add $1,000, put in the extras, it's still really good.
Speaker: And it's solid 100%.
Speaker: That's probably what I'm looking at getting a premium.
Speaker: I really am.
Speaker: And by the way, I was not interested in having Metallica before.
Speaker: It sells to getting your hands on it.
Speaker: It sold me.
Speaker: Sold me.
Speaker: So as far as X-Men, you've played this before.
Speaker: We've discussed this, so I don't want to rehash this for too long.
Speaker: This is my first time hands-on.
Speaker: So you played the Pro.
Speaker: I played all four of the games there.
Speaker: And the Premium and the LE.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What I've decided about X-Men is this game, if you're buying this game, you need to make sure it's set up perfectly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: All four versions I played down there, so there's only three versions, but there was four games.
Speaker: Every one played differently.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And they were just a little enough difference that it annoyed me.
Speaker: I love this game.
Speaker: I think the shots are fantastic.
Speaker: It annoyed you when it wasn't set up.
Speaker: Correct.
Speaker: It annoyed me that it seemed... Okay.
Speaker: So the first... Okay.
Speaker: The first one I played...
Speaker: the plunger didn't go all the way around.
Speaker: And so it's annoying because to do the, the skill shots, you got to plunge it as hard as you can all the way around and you got to shoot the ramps.
Speaker: There's like two or three shots.
Speaker: It's, it's, it reminds me a little bit of Avengers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Avengers infinity quest where if this is how I shoot, I shoot Avengers.
Speaker: I don't like the short plunge.
Speaker: I usually just hit the button, shoot it around and then hit start tower.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So, so that's a similar type of special,
Speaker: Like a skill shot.
Speaker: That's what you're saying.
Speaker: So that was one of them.
Speaker: One of them, it was different in each game, but it was consistent.
Speaker: So it concerns me a little bit, and I had pointed this out to Gomez as well.
Speaker: The left flipper has ball hop.
Speaker: And it's hard.
Speaker: I don't know a single person that likes ball hop.
Speaker: He reassured me you can move the lane, the guide, because it's a wire form on the left side.
Speaker: On the right side, it's your typical metal plate that leads to your flipper.
Speaker: On the left side, because there's no sling on the left side, it's kind of a gate.
Speaker: He said you can bend the wire form to get more of a straight shot onto that flipper so there's not ball hop.
Speaker: I'm going off of Faith, okay?
Speaker: but each one had ball hop that drives me absolutely nuts.
Speaker: And then I don't want to take shots from that flipper because of depending on how the ball hop is, you know, you can trap up, take shots.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: the, the one thing that was consistent on all of them is on the premium and on the LE, the wire form, when it breaks on that right side from that hand, it shots ball right down the middle every time.
Speaker: And I hate that because it's like, I made the shot and you reward me by making me punish it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I will say when I played it, when I played the, um, the, the LE about a month ago, um,
Speaker: it felt like I, when it broke it, it still was able to get to the right flipper.
Speaker: So it didn't, it didn't drain as much.
Speaker: Now I wasn't playing.
Speaker: I was playing in a very controlled setting.
Speaker: I wasn't playing with a lot of people, so I don't know how like it changes over time, but that is something to consider, right?
Speaker: If you're considering buying the game,
Speaker: This is one thing you always need to look at.
Speaker: What are the features that the differences between the pro and the premium while in Ellie really, and what makes a difference?
Speaker: What makes a difference?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this could be one of those situations where like teenage mutant Ninja turtles, where the ball paths on the pro are,
Speaker: are there.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: You're not getting any extra, but the only extra ball path you may get is a, is the hand coming down and breaking it, which is a cool effect.
Speaker: It is, but it may, you may not like that as a player because it can feel unfair.
Speaker: So one more thing too, and this only happened on one version.
Speaker: I think this is adjustable.
Speaker: So the cerebral walk is right above the left flipper.
Speaker: And the ball comes in and with most wire forms, you kind of hit something.
Speaker: It kind of stops the ball and drops it just directly above the flipper with one of them.
Speaker: It kind of shot like through the wire form, pass the flipper into the out right down the middle.
Speaker: And so I know that's an adjustment thing.
Speaker: I know you can, because it was only doing it with one, but that's, that's the thing is like,
Speaker: Other than, okay, those are just all like little tweaks, right?
Speaker: Like that's, you're going to have these like fresh out of the box.
Speaker: I had it with Avengers.
Speaker: I had to do so much tweaking with Avengers.
Speaker: Once it was finally.
Speaker: You have to bend that Captain Marvel around because otherwise it just.
Speaker: Well, I had to bend the cross ramp that comes across the whole play field because the ball was falling off.
Speaker: I mean, they're just a little stuff like that.
Speaker: And it's annoying.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: It's annoying for the first 20, 30 games that you play and you're tweaking and doing.
Speaker: Once you get dialed in, you love it, right?
Speaker: I think if you get this game, if you've been sitting on the fence and you get this game and you get it dialed in, you're going to love it.
Speaker: You shoot these shots and it's just like, wait, what happened?
Speaker: I got to do that again.
Speaker: And it's fast.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: If you like Borgs, if you like Richie's.
Speaker: It's fast, but the ball paths are long.
Speaker: Because remember, I have pointed this out that even though it's fast, the ball paths typically follow like a longer trajectory.
Speaker: True, but I still feel like even following, it's not like Godzilla long.
Speaker: Like Godzilla long, you showed your shot and you're like, I can watch the ball come back.
Speaker: This is still, it goes so fast.
Speaker: It almost like, did that just happen?
Speaker: If you miss it, it's going to kill you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's going to punish you.
Speaker: And okay.
Speaker: So Josh, you've played both.
Speaker: Would you lean for, what would, what would inspire you to buy a pro or a premium on X-Men?
Speaker: Me personally, a hundred percent pro.
Speaker: You just go pro.
Speaker: I go pro because that premium breaking wire form, I guess if you get dialed in, sure.
Speaker: I just don't like that kind of punishment.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: And it's a cool effect, but I, you do have to look at the trade-off, right?
Speaker: Is it worth a few thousand dollars?
Speaker: And the only difference really mechanically beside the wire form breaking is
Speaker: You have that like hammer very target, which is not, it's not really a physical very target.
Speaker: It's kind of a simulated, I guess, or I'm not exactly sure how they calculate that in, but the shot's still there.
Speaker: The beast lab.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The shot's still there.
Speaker: It's either Elvira leaper jumper.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or it's, it's a very target.
Speaker: Like you said.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So really, and then the finger on the wire form really doesn't do a ton for you.
Speaker: I don't really, I didn't.
Speaker: It's cosmetic.
Speaker: I really don't think.
Speaker: Well, it stops the ball and stuff, but I didn't really feel like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just don't feel like the value between the pro to the premium is justified.
Speaker: That's me personally.
Speaker: I talked to multiple people today that said premium all the way.
Speaker: It's the only way they go.
Speaker: Me personally, if you're looking for the way I play, I like to play for score.
Speaker: I like to explore the game, but I like to get a high score too.
Speaker: I might not be like Tom Graff, Travis Murray, Escher Lefkopf level, but I can hold my own.
Speaker: And so that's how I play pinball.
Speaker: So if you're looking for a perspective of like how you play me, you can take that with you.
Speaker: Now, there are people who just prefer pros.
Speaker: Like my buddy Garrett Ledger, he likes pro Godzilla.
Speaker: He actually does not like the premium Godzilla, which blows my mind.
Speaker: Yeah, it blows my mind.
Speaker: But he's like, no, that's my thing.
Speaker: And I would lean toward on this one.
Speaker: I would lean toward a pro because it keeps the ball paths in check.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you are missing some cosmetic features.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the hands are, they're like the, you know, they're 2D plastics.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's one way that Stern consistently is able to keep costs down where they can do a 2D plastic in an area that, and they did a similar thing really on Iron Maiden.
Speaker: where Iron Maiden, you know, the Eddy sculptures, they're sculptures in the premium.
Speaker: They're 2D plastics in the pro.
Speaker: And, you know, every little thing that helps keep the bill of material down is going to affect this.
Speaker: And I would argue the same thing about John Wick.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: John Wick, if you look at the pros versus the premiums, the pro actually has a great ball path that is consistent with the premium.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if you're considering like a,
Speaker: john wick i would suggest the pro yeah like save some money get the pro and well that creates annoying on the premium the crate it's different yeah it's that that well it's it's sorry i play the brutal one today that was set up for the stern pro circuit oh okay yeah so that's why i'm a little tarnished on it right now i played it both ways and i thought it was fine like yeah it was fine when it's set up not so brutal
Speaker: But it is different.
Speaker: Now, so fast forwarding, we actually played it in Tyrion tonight, and all the games were, they were brutal hard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Someone's ringing the doorbell.
Speaker: Okay, just a second.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So getting back to, I would say X-Men, I would say, I would highly suggest getting the pro.
Speaker: And I would, I would argue the same thing about wick.
Speaker: If you can find a Metallica Ellie, get it.
Speaker: Cause it's, it's totally worth it.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: So let's, so we stayed at Stern until about three 30.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then we went pretty much came back to the convention for maybe 30 minutes and
Speaker: And then we got ready.
Speaker: Well, I guess we were here for like an hour and a half.
Speaker: But then we went to the media mixer.
Speaker: I left my wallet at Stern.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So I had to go back to Stern to get my wallet.
Speaker: That was kind of funny.
Speaker: It was like ringing.
Speaker: So anyway, got that.
Speaker: Picked them up.
Speaker: We went to the media mixer, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So Colin from Kinesis slash this weekend pinball put on a medium mixer.
Speaker: He did it last year.
Speaker: This was 2.0.
Speaker: It was packed.
Speaker: It was amazing to see how many people were there.
Speaker: Really busy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shout out to Erica's pinball journey too.
Speaker: If you haven't checked out her channel, you got to go check that out on YouTube.
Speaker: I got a raffle ticket and immediately lost it because I thought it was a drink ticket.
Speaker: So I may have, I may have won something, but I have no idea.
Speaker: Cause I didn't, I didn't have my ticket.
Speaker: Also shout out to planetary pinball and to, uh,
Speaker: What is the name of the... Well, there was a lot of like, you know, there was a lot of like ABBA stuff.
Speaker: There was Alien.
Speaker: Planetary Pinball gave everyone that showed up this neat little keychain.
Speaker: I wish I had it.
Speaker: But this little keychain was from Planetary Pinball and another company.
Speaker: I wish I could hear... The problem was it was so loud in there.
Speaker: The gentleman that was there got on the mic to talk about what they were doing.
Speaker: So the sticker right here.
Speaker: So New Wave Toys.
Speaker: Yeah, this is awesome.
Speaker: It's called Replicate Amusement.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Check this sucker out.
Speaker: This is, uh, so they gave this to everyone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, this is heavy.
Speaker: Like I could assault someone with this cause it's, it's super heavy.
Speaker: It's a little pull tab.
Speaker: And then you push the button.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So those that aren't watching right or watching the YouTube right now, it is the illuminated.
Speaker: It's the quarter slot on the coin door of a pinball machine.
Speaker: It's actually illuminated.
Speaker: It's really cool.
Speaker: I'm super excited about this.
Speaker: I have no idea what these costs, but they, this is, this is the stuff that's cool.
Speaker: Not like the plastic injection stuff.
Speaker: This stuff, it has some weight and it feels like it's an actual coin door.
Speaker: It feels like they ripped it off the coin door.
Speaker: It was like, and,
Speaker: we're putting a key chain on this yeah i'm not kidding this thing is i think this is this has to be like steel i think this is new wave toys.com i'm what which it makes me curious if if planetary and new wave was doing this together i wish i could hear he was so hard to hear oh yeah it was he was announcing something i don't know if it was a partnership with to do stuff with cgc don't start quoting me let's not throw out rumors actually reach out and find out because he was he was making an announcement but just the mic wasn't yeah
Speaker: So that went well.
Speaker: We had a 21 man stall ball.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And yours truly.
Speaker: I got out on bond because I tried three times to get the sub the what the underwater shot scuba shot.
Speaker: It finally like like bricked me.
Speaker: And let me remind you, this was Stern Pro Circuit set up machines.
Speaker: Yeah, you couldn't bump.
Speaker: Oh my goodness.
Speaker: And I wanted that 21 bucks, man.
Speaker: Josh got it.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: He did fill out all the W-2 forms for tax purposes.
Speaker: I also got a, I want a t-shirt to a fun house.
Speaker: Rudy's nightmare.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was pretty cool.
Speaker: Wonderful.
Speaker: It was really cool to mix and mingle this year was not only just media, but it was fans of the show.
Speaker: Shout out to the fans that showed up.
Speaker: I mean, it's okay.
Speaker: One, we're, we're deeply honored.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That, that anybody comes and one, they feel,
Speaker: they feel like they're part of the conversation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so we're, we're super, super happy.
Speaker: And you know, we, we had a guy come up from Brazil who was really awesome.
Speaker: Came up guy from Seattle.
Speaker: We had, and I want to, I want to say your names, but it's, you know, you guys did such a good job of like just coming and making, making us feel good and making us feel like what we're doing matters.
Speaker: And so we appreciate that so much.
Speaker: Shout out Ben from Stern though.
Speaker: The gentleman that's over inside connected one of two is only two that do inside connector.
Speaker: And, uh, was Joe the name of the other guy that was, yeah, Joe, uh, Joe works with Zach, uh, for, um, uh, for marketing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: They were so great helping out, but it was really cool to have these people like, wait a minute.
Speaker: You're with loser kid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and a lot of you don't watch the podcast.
Speaker: So I get up and be like, speak to me first so I can figure out which one you are.
Speaker: So I'm glad that our voices are different enough because sometimes we have, we have podcasts and they both sound similar and say it's a little awkward.
Speaker: But it was really cool to be there.
Speaker: And then we got back to, after that was like three hours of our time.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Also shout out to Jen Rupert and her husband now, Kyle.
Speaker: They just barely got married.
Speaker: If you haven't checked out, Jen Rupert.
Speaker: what is Jen's channel?
Speaker: It's just blanked my mind.
Speaker: She's on Tik TOK.
Speaker: She's on YouTube.
Speaker: She's on Facebook.
Speaker: Super fun.
Speaker: Super fun.
Speaker: Jen is great.
Speaker: Um, but we, we get back and a lot of you've been asking for Alice video and I only got about an hour or an hour, a minute and a half.
Speaker: Uh, I'm going to try to see if I can get a little bit more cause I know it's kind of high in demand, but we got on Alice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: First take first take.
Speaker: It's a decent game for a 90s rehash.
Speaker: And I want to say rehash.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The shots are very wide.
Speaker: It shocks me.
Speaker: Like I'm used to, well, we just came off of Metallica and X-Men where you got to know your shots.
Speaker: They're not as forgiving, right?
Speaker: Like you got to dial in.
Speaker: I felt like on Alice, if the flippers were turned up, I'd be hitting everything all the time.
Speaker: The only thing that was really even questionably challenging was the far left.
Speaker: There's kind of like this like Metallica shot, like the up into the target.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But this one loops around instead of hitting us a target.
Speaker: That's really the only thing I felt was challenging.
Speaker: The upper play field was disabled for us.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the only thing that I wanted to do was get on the upper play field.
Speaker: And you did.
Speaker: And I did.
Speaker: And I was trying to activate.
Speaker: So maybe it was just was disabled or maybe I couldn't activate it.
Speaker: This could be easier because I only we only played two balls.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: And thankfully, actually, I appreciate that they only put on two balls because otherwise the lines would have been huge.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So we'll play it again.
Speaker: I'll give my first take, though.
Speaker: Visually...
Speaker: This game looks really good.
Speaker: It does look really good.
Speaker: It's pretty.
Speaker: The cat topper is great with the eyes that move.
Speaker: I took some video of it.
Speaker: It's really impressive.
Speaker: They have laser cut armor on the side that illuminates.
Speaker: Shout out to Davey Price.
Speaker: Stumbler mods, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Such a great incorporation.
Speaker: So this actually reminds me of back in the day when I customized my Tron, that was a big thing that we were trying to do was do like laser cut armor and then illuminate it.
Speaker: That was, by the way, kind of a pain to do.
Speaker: We were able to do it, but back.
Speaker: And so think of how it's visually.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: The sculpts are great.
Speaker: They look really good.
Speaker: The paint looks great.
Speaker: Now I'm going to readdress the cartoon.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Our first take was basically on the pictures that we saw.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I will say that it seems less overtly adult adjacent to,
Speaker: Um, then on the initial pictures.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would say that this actually reminds me a little bit more of Daphne from, uh, from dragon's lair.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: We're obviously talking someone who is, uh, very, you know, think Jessica rabbit.
Speaker: Think like, like she, okay.
Speaker: She's very curvy.
Speaker: And yes, things are covered, but they are kind of suggestive.
Speaker: I would argue though, it didn't seem, you know, it seemed cartoonish to me.
Speaker: It didn't seem to be awkward.
Speaker: And I was concerned about that.
Speaker: But you look at the art, it's obvious that these are, this is a re-imagining of the Alice story.
Speaker: So all the characters, one, are adult.
Speaker: Two, they are, okay, yes, there are some areas that are less
Speaker: that are more revealing than others.
Speaker: It still felt, if that's not your thing, that's fine.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: However, it didn't feel awkward.
Speaker: And that's not, and that's not something that I would, I would put like that type of theme is not something that's going to go in my, in my basement, but I can also understand that being, it was, it was,
Speaker: more casually accepting than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker: So visually I thought it was a good shot.
Speaker: I think if you're looking, I think if you're looking for John Papa Duke games of old, yeah.
Speaker: I like Valley Williams.
Speaker: I still feel like this misses the mark a little bit.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: No, I haven't even got to play the play yet.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As far as the artwork, I,
Speaker: Tony from Eclectic Gamers, I'm not going to re-say what you said, but now I can't unsee the upper play field.
Speaker: If you want to know what they said, go listen to their most recent episode.
Speaker: It's not as obvious looking at it in person.
Speaker: I'll put that out.
Speaker: It's not as obvious.
Speaker: It's very subtle, and you can unsee it.
Speaker: You can't.
Speaker: But since we're a family-friendly podcast, we're going to leave it to Eclectic Gamers.
Speaker: Yeah, you can go check out Eclectic Gamers at Dennis and Tony.
Speaker: Okay, but Josh, did you feel that at least the art package, yeah, it felt like cartoonish, maybe risque, but it didn't feel... It did make me laugh to see that they had... The one thing that we all complained about, right?
Speaker: Like the side art that's not realistic of Alice on the side of the cab, the one that...
Speaker: They were selling that as a t-shirt.
Speaker: I will also argue that European, like European styles and standards are different than typical stereotypical American.
Speaker: Okay, so now let's go to gameplay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I thought the flippers felt pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah, they felt good.
Speaker: The shots, though, it was a little more vague to find.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: I wasn't exactly sure what the shots did.
Speaker: There seemed to be a lot of open territory...
Speaker: that I was shooting that didn't have like a designated ball path.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, like there's a target here and there's, you know, a pop up here, but it, usually when you see a game, you can visualize the ball paths pretty fast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to be shooting in this.
Speaker: I did get to the upper play field, and that totally could be user error, that maybe those things aren't.
Speaker: So we're going to try them again tomorrow.
Speaker: I felt like as far as gameplay goes, there really was only four ball paths.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So if we start at the right, there's kind of like an orbit that goes up through the pops, and sometimes it rejected a lot on me and come back.
Speaker: I don't know if that's part of the game or whatever.
Speaker: And then to the left of that, there's a scoop.
Speaker: So that's not really a ball path, but think of like the proximity of Adam's family's electric chair, just mirrored onto the other side, right at the middle's the ramp.
Speaker: I'm trying to think where did the ramp go?
Speaker: So the ramp went up.
Speaker: I think it came back to the left.
Speaker: Yeah, it did.
Speaker: It circled around to the left side.
Speaker: Or to the right.
Speaker: And then you could, there was a buck that got, was it the buck that got up to the upper play field or was it the...
Speaker: ramp.
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: I can't remember.
Speaker: And there was kind of pop bumpers back in there too on that shot.
Speaker: And there was a, there was a step, there was a pop-up target that was kind of in between the pop or the, the pop-up or the pops.
Speaker: The, the upper play field was less, was less,
Speaker: it was smaller than I thought it was going to be.
Speaker: Like when you look at the pictures, you feel that the, the upper play field visually takes up two thirds of what you're seeing.
Speaker: I'd say it's, it's smaller, but it was still along the realm of like Shrek.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the mini pinball mode and Shrek or family guy.
Speaker: So it still took up a big percentage of the visual space, but it didn't feel like it was overwhelming.
Speaker: Not only visually, when you take up that space above, you can't do much vertically either.
Speaker: So you can't add in ramps and stuff either.
Speaker: I just feel like this design, even when Papa Duke unveiled it in foam core 15 years ago,
Speaker: Has it been that long?
Speaker: 10 years ago?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It wasn't refined.
Speaker: I'll put it that way.
Speaker: But still, I don't feel like it would have been groundbreaking at that time.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And it's definitely not groundbreaking now.
Speaker: My thought process is if you're looking for a unique game, they're only making 500 of these.
Speaker: If you're looking for... I just... I don't know.
Speaker: I'm really torn on this because I kind of feel the same way as EGP.
Speaker: But Tony is like, we need to stop funding these projects because really... Okay, but do we?
Speaker: Raza, Alice...
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You're talking fruit of the poison tree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is basically all stemming from John Papa Duke and there's a lot of baggage.
Speaker: There's a lot of baggage with, with John Papa Duke and the path that he has taken.
Speaker: Well, and I agree that like, at some point you've got to separate the art from the artist, right?
Speaker: And we went through this before, right?
Speaker: And if you guys want to look up John Trudeau, you can.
Speaker: But he designed a lot of games.
Speaker: Some really classic games.
Speaker: And like, you know, there are some people who decided they didn't want to support his failings.
Speaker: And I'm being intentionally vague, but I'm not, by no means am I endorsing anything.
Speaker: that he's done.
Speaker: It was terrible.
Speaker: But it is a team project.
Speaker: And so I have Black Rose.
Speaker: I still have Black Rose.
Speaker: Some people love Creature from the Black Ragoon.
Speaker: Yeah, I would still own that game.
Speaker: So there are a lot of things that go into this.
Speaker: So can you make the same argument with the John Papaduke game that
Speaker: I think they're still selling.
Speaker: They're still selling.
Speaker: I think Alice is a different story because it was essentially bought up by Dutch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know much from the film court of this.
Speaker: I don't feel like there was much of a change, but there was, there had been some tweaking, right?
Speaker: Like we all know that like magic girl didn't shoot when it got out of the box.
Speaker: We know that Raza had a lot of tweaking and stuff like that.
Speaker: Raza still doesn't shoot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so I think out of all the Papa Duke games that have come out in the last five years, this is probably the best one out of the box.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: And now I will argue that as long as there are, you know, this is a market driven economy supply and demand.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: If there's enough demand for something like this, then someone will supply it.
Speaker: So is it bad that Dutch is producing this game?
Speaker: They're obviously making a calculated risk because they didn't take money for it pre.
Speaker: So they're making a calculated risk that they can sell enough of these to recoup their investment costs and likely use that money for capital to do other stuff.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's going to be interesting to see how this one pans out.
Speaker: I just, I think you need to get your hands on this game.
Speaker: If you're remotely interested, you need to play it.
Speaker: Definitely play it.
Speaker: Pretty.
Speaker: It is a pretty game.
Speaker: I will tell you this.
Speaker: It's not going into my collection.
Speaker: It does not tick all the boxes.
Speaker: Wouldn't go into mine.
Speaker: But there are people who like games that you can't play anywhere else.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: And once these are all gone, they're gone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Uh, speaking of which, let's see, let's, let's move on from Alice.
Speaker: Where else did we hit?
Speaker: We hit, we, okay.
Speaker: We played Scooby.
Speaker: Scooby-Doo.
Speaker: And we also played Looney Tunes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Uh, Looney Tunes by far is spooky is best shooter.
Speaker: I feel like it is very refined.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Shots feel good.
Speaker: Um, and if, it feels on par with what you're looking for, for a modern day pinball layout.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: For me, it played long.
Speaker: It did.
Speaker: It felt safe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think that... Spooky is not really known for having a super challenging competitive... They're not tournament games.
Speaker: Yeah, but I think... But they're thematically consistent with what they're trying to accomplish.
Speaker: I think, though, like with Looney Tunes, I think if you made it a little steeper, you took some rubbers out.
Speaker: Yeah, you could.
Speaker: I think it felt... The problem is it didn't feel like a modern-day pin, but it's because it was so slow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think... I don't know if that's a conscious decision because you're at Expo, and when people feel like they're blowing up the game, they want to own it more versus if it kicks their butt, they're like, well, I never want to walk back at this.
Speaker: I don't...
Speaker: I just, I've played spookies before where they feel a lot faster and stuff.
Speaker: So this felt good though.
Speaker: And I would say that it was a, it was a loony loony tunes, the theme it was consistent with the theme.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, the game flow felt like that.
Speaker: And I know that's kind of a vague, odd thing to say, but it's, it's getting back to Metallica.
Speaker: When I said like Metallica,
Speaker: It is an aggressive band.
Speaker: And so when you're playing the pen, you kind of want to feel that aggressive, challenging thing.
Speaker: I'm only doing it.
Speaker: It's fun, right?
Speaker: You're playing with you.
Speaker: And this is something you possibly could play with your kids.
Speaker: And this is what it,
Speaker: Now that's not mean it's like, I still drained a ball or two, but I would say with, with Josh and my skills, we still were able to, on the game that we played.
Speaker: And that's always the caveat.
Speaker: We were able to have some, some long time.
Speaker: So we were able to see a lot of the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still trying to figure some, some of the shots were less predictive just because they had some paths that I was still trying to figure out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I thought it was solid.
Speaker: Like, I liked it.
Speaker: And the last time I played a spooky game was Halloween, which I didn't like.
Speaker: I just didn't like the way it shot.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: But this one just felt good.
Speaker: And then we also went over and played Scooby-Doo for a little bit.
Speaker: Scooby was interesting.
Speaker: Long player.
Speaker: Long player.
Speaker: I think it still was that whole, like, it sloped a little lean.
Speaker: So that way it can...
Speaker: uh, be a little easier shooter.
Speaker: Uh, it is a wide body.
Speaker: Um, I just, I finally had to trap up and read the screen.
Speaker: I didn't understand what was going on.
Speaker: I was stuck in a mode.
Speaker: I'm like, what the heck is going on?
Speaker: Uh, I shoot it.
Speaker: I shoot a shot and the white arrow turns red and it's on me.
Speaker: I'm like, what is going on?
Speaker: Uh, and,
Speaker: I didn't really feel in danger in this game very often.
Speaker: And I think we kind of, kind of just walked away from it.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: We, no, we walked away also because we were trying to, yeah, we're trying to hit everything.
Speaker: We're trying to hit everything and we, we want to record tonight.
Speaker: So that's, that's why, and we only played two balls of magic girls.
Speaker: So that's, that, you know, we, we're always trying to caveat this thing.
Speaker: We're trying to build experiences so we can talk to you guys about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think, honestly, I like Spooky Games.
Speaker: I feel like they're going in a positive direction.
Speaker: I'm excited to see what they have coming up.
Speaker: They're trending up.
Speaker: I would say they're trending up solid for what they are trying to do.
Speaker: Speaking of companies that may not be trending up, I don't know if I should put it that way.
Speaker: Okay, you're right.
Speaker: We went and played American Pinball and we played Barry O's BBQ and
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: We kind of started on Valhalla and I haven't played Barrio's barbecue yet.
Speaker: And I've been intrigued because you don't see this game very much anywhere.
Speaker: And so I got time on it.
Speaker: And the first thing America needs to do across the board is
Speaker: is fix the flippers.
Speaker: I don't know if it's the show flippers.
Speaker: I know they swore they fixed the flippers before they felt mushy on Valhalla.
Speaker: They felt mushy on barbecue.
Speaker: They just, the problem is we've been playing Stern all day.
Speaker: We've been playing JJPs.
Speaker: Like I played avatar.
Speaker: It was fantastic.
Speaker: It just, it felt very mushy.
Speaker: The best way that I could put it.
Speaker: And I'm playing barbecue.
Speaker: And don't get me wrong, I was enjoying the code.
Speaker: I think Steve Bowden has done a wonderful job.
Speaker: But it just... It's safe.
Speaker: If you look at the layout, and this is the challenge that we've had, they started off with something quite interesting with Houdini.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they, then they made a jump to Oktoberfest, which was a risk.
Speaker: It was different.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it, it just seems like they're taking safer and safer play fields and for them to become a, a player with other manufacturers,
Speaker: think you need to take some risks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the layouts, it's if you look at Hot Wheels, and and if you look at burials, they're very similar layouts, you have the cluster in the middle, and you have some ramps.
Speaker: And it's it's almost mirrored almost.
Speaker: And you have a very same feel.
Speaker: And if you're going to make that next leap,
Speaker: I think you need to start challenging people and challenging the layouts a little more.
Speaker: I think, honestly, a lot of the fixes could come from amping up those flippers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, flippers are a big deal.
Speaker: And we've talked about this with JJP in that with Elton John, that's the first time the flippers have felt snappy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we did confirm that there's a lot of games in the past that you can upgrade the flippers or at least... I think the only one you can is Wizard of Oz.
Speaker: The only one you can is Wizard of Oz, which is fine.
Speaker: Because Wizard of Oz, it's kind of an older, like thematically consistent.
Speaker: It's not supposed to be like a...
Speaker: a brutal game.
Speaker: Well, even the scoring is pretty low on it too.
Speaker: So it feels more of a classic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, it's supposed to feel more like that.
Speaker: So, so the, they have taken that up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so I would argue that my, my friendly advice on American pinball is,
Speaker: They need to take some risks consistent with that risk of moving forward.
Speaker: The challenge that I had with Galactic Tank Force is they did take some risks, thankfully.
Speaker: They took some risks.
Speaker: It felt a little bit more of risking an 80s retro feel.
Speaker: And there are lots of Gottlieb vibes in that layout, which, hey,
Speaker: great.
Speaker: You know, you took, you took a risk.
Speaker: That's not the risks that I think will make you sell more machines though.
Speaker: I think the other thing too, is it's weird to think about this, but I feel like Barrio's barbecue is not cohesive.
Speaker: And the reason I say that is because you get like grilling meat, like realistic grilling meat on the back glass.
Speaker: And then like this, this, I can't remember what part this is, but it just sticks out so prominently in my mind on the LCD.
Speaker: There is a hand-drawn barbecuer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I swear a fifth grader drew this thing.
Speaker: And it's got, like, rockets on it, and it's slowly, like, landing inside the barbecue thing.
Speaker: Okay, are you saying, like, the...
Speaker: the play field, like on the play field.
Speaker: No, this is on the LCD.
Speaker: It's on the LCD.
Speaker: And I just, you go from a realistic meat grilling to something that looks like a fifth, fifth grader made.
Speaker: So it's like sketch art.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's almost like sketch art.
Speaker: So you're saying the artistic direction wasn't,
Speaker: consistent across all platforms.
Speaker: But then you have professional cartoon, like the cartoon that they've done for the play field.
Speaker: This project just doesn't feel cohesive.
Speaker: Honestly, Steve Boudin, you killed it on code.
Speaker: I really enjoyed what was going on, even though I didn't get some of it, but it was a one game.
Speaker: It still feels like Americans are a work in progress.
Speaker: I'm hoping they can take that next step
Speaker: there is something that is, they're not able to compete currently on the same level as the other manufacturers and whether or not that's manufacturing at volume or taking a play field risk that drives volume and drives people to try them out.
Speaker: There does seem to be something that needs to be adjusted for them to take the next step in the future.
Speaker: And I'm, here's the thing.
Speaker: If the rumors are true in the next game is cuphead, I'm excited to see it.
Speaker: I want to see, take risks, take a show of stuff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm excited to see Ryan's first game.
Speaker: Ryan McClaskill.
Speaker: Dude, it's late.
Speaker: It's it's anyhow.
Speaker: Ryan's first game.
Speaker: The gentleman McQuaid, dude, it's a long day.
Speaker: Trust me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I'm excited to see his first game.
Speaker: I do enjoy Cuphead as a theme.
Speaker: I just – I want to see pinball companies succeed.
Speaker: And I feel like at some point –
Speaker: you just, you got to start doing something different.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I just, I feel like the last couple of releases from American have not hit the mark.
Speaker: And I feel bad too.
Speaker: Cause it's like Dennis Nordman, if you didn't read his Facebook post, uh,
Speaker: he's frustrated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's frustrated that things are being portrayed differently than how it happened.
Speaker: Well, according to Dennis.
Speaker: So yeah, there's three sides to every story, right?
Speaker: There's one side that, you know, there's two sides and then probably somewhere in the truth.
Speaker: So there's in the middle and,
Speaker: Okay, but it does show that there's a couple things.
Speaker: One, it shows that American Pinball is interested in doing something because they are trying different things.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I hope they – here's my wish for Christmas is I hope they have enough time to find their lane.
Speaker: It seems like Spooky has found their lane.
Speaker: It's a different lane than Stern.
Speaker: Like Stern is the high volume gorilla.
Speaker: JJP, they have found their lane.
Speaker: They found their lane in really pretty pinball machines that are visually stunning and thematically immersive.
Speaker: And so Spooky's found their lane.
Speaker: I'm wondering what American Pinball's lane is.
Speaker: And they've got to find it, right?
Speaker: Like it's becoming more and more apparent to me.
Speaker: Like you need to figure out your niche within the niche, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'll leave you with this story cause we're in an hour and, um, I just, I feel like it's kind of time to wrap up so we can go to sleep.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, um, I'm going to leave you with this story before I left for pinball expo the day before I left.
Speaker: Um, I went on my final call for my heating and air conditioning job and I show up and I'm fixing the guy's furnace and, um,
Speaker: we get talking pinball cause I'm about to leave for expo and it's kind of, that's all my mind right now.
Speaker: And the gentleman looks at me, granted, I live in a town of 30,000 people.
Speaker: There's not really much around us.
Speaker: If you live in the base and you live in the base and the outside the base, and once you get past the mountains, you have to go through a lot to get to another city.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so there's not really much around us.
Speaker: We don't, we have an attack from ours at one bar.
Speaker: We have like a South park at another,
Speaker: There's not a ton of pinball out where I'm available.
Speaker: So the guy, I start talking pinball and the guy's eyes just light up and he's like, you play pinball?
Speaker: I'm like, yeah.
Speaker: And he goes, I own pinball machines.
Speaker: He's like, I'm like, you do?
Speaker: What do you have?
Speaker: And I just assume a lot of people in my area that buy pinball machines find it on our local Craigslist, which is called KSL, and they just kind of buy what's on there and then they stick it in their home and they don't think twice about it, right?
Speaker: But he's like, I've got a hook.
Speaker: And I bought Venom.
Speaker: And that kind of boggled my mind for a second.
Speaker: Because don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Venom, it's an enjoyable game.
Speaker: I played it while I was at his house.
Speaker: He has the premium.
Speaker: I asked him, why did you pick Venom?
Speaker: And he feels like he's enough into the hobby.
Speaker: He bought it solely for the theme.
Speaker: He loves comic books.
Speaker: The man cave I worked on with his furnace I was fixing.
Speaker: comic books lying through the whole room right and it it dawns on me more and more and more theme is king right matters yeah theme is king that's what draws you in first and it's funny because like you listening to us you know that venom is it's not the best game that stern has put out in the last it's a c it's a c theme and
Speaker: which I would argue Godzilla is also a C by the way, by me saying C themes, I'm just saying, I'm really talking about marketability.
Speaker: It's a very niche area.
Speaker: And so you have, and I would argue the X-Men is probably a B theme because it's, it's more known than that, but really.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Comparison wise.
Speaker: So here's my point.
Speaker: My comparison wise,
Speaker: If you in the community that's listening right now, because you're obviously one of the very few that is so dedicated that you want to listen to Pinball Podcast, you want to engulf all this content, right?
Speaker: The first thing you heard was Venom.
Speaker: You're like, well, there's better comic book themes out there for your Deadpool.
Speaker: I would immediately have said you should have gotten Deadpool.
Speaker: Or Avengers.
Speaker: And it's funny because he actually was debating between Deadpool and Venom.
Speaker: And I can't remember why he landed on Venom.
Speaker: But his family loves it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He loves it.
Speaker: His kid is proud of blowing up this game, right?
Speaker: His kid said it's like 1.5 billion or whatever.
Speaker: And that may be the best game for that family.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Considering that Venom is like a leveling up game.
Speaker: But Gary Stern proved this, right?
Speaker: Like every game has its home.
Speaker: Every game finds its home.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so my point being is when you make a game like Berrio's Barbecue, you're...
Speaker: you are narrowing the window of people that are going to buy that game because where's the home?
Speaker: Where's the home?
Speaker: Not many people like people love burial that are in this community, but if the community doesn't buy in, you then have to go to the secondary market, which is those that want themes specific to their homes.
Speaker: And I don't feel like Barry.
Speaker: Oh, it's that Mark on a home game.
Speaker: So you're basically saying you're,
Speaker: Okay, if you have a barbecue place and you have someone who likes pinball and is interested in putting this game in their barbecue joint.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's three levels down in niche.
Speaker: And I don't think that you're going to move a lot of you in this that way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So just, and I know I'm, I'm telling people that this is their job.
Speaker: This is what they do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so we're amateurs.
Speaker: We are, we are not marketers.
Speaker: This is just us looking at it from the outside, but it's still, these are questions that everybody's having.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so I'm excited to see what comes out of American next because I feel like it's another, it's another opportunity to wipe the slate clean and to give, give the community another shot at what, at supporting them.
Speaker: it's day one.
Speaker: It's the first like true day one.
Speaker: I'm excited.
Speaker: We'll see if we do more updates.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It is kind of late, but just quick shout out to Don's pinball podcast.
Speaker: Thanks for the little KFC bucket for my jaws, chicken, my chicken bucket.
Speaker: What did I say?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: The KFC bucket.
Speaker: Just saying chicken.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everybody likes chicken.
Speaker: Everyone loves chicken.
Speaker: Even, even Bruce from jaws loves chicken.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's what they were chumming with was KFC.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Was it really Casey on the moon?
Speaker: No, I was like, wow.
Speaker: I haven't seen jaws in a while.
Speaker: I would have been surprised.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: I love coming to expo.
Speaker: I feel like this is me personally.
Speaker: I know people might fight me on this.
Speaker: This is the best pinball convention for your money and for what you get out of it.
Speaker: Just bar none.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Texas Pinball Festival is good, but I feel like Expo has stepped it up year after year.
Speaker: You get the, if you want to talk to manufacturing.
Speaker: So I'm bringing my family to Texas Pinball Festival.
Speaker: That may be a more appropriate thing for my family.
Speaker: I know the floor here is amazing.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: I am just saying it's, this is focusing on the people who are interested in the manufacturing side.
Speaker: And that's ultimately why I decided to take my kids to Texas.
Speaker: I think, is there anyone we missed on shout outs?
Speaker: Jeff Teolis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Jeff.
Speaker: Great to see Jeff.
Speaker: I'm glad that his work schedule allowed him a little bit of a break to get down here.
Speaker: Shane told, I just got a message from you, man.
Speaker: Good luck with When We Were Young.
Speaker: You're going to slay it.
Speaker: I wish I was there this weekend, too.
Speaker: Staying set When We Were Young is the same weekend as Pinball Expo.
Speaker: Also, Iron Maiden is the same in Utah.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Iron Maiden is the same.
Speaker: It's tomorrow night, and I'm here.
Speaker: Trust me.
Speaker: I made my choice.
Speaker: I'm happy, but I'm annoyed because I wanted to see that concert.
Speaker: If you've made it this far, it shocks me how many people have said...
Speaker: Where did you get the hockey jersey?
Speaker: Where did you get the loser kid hockey jersey?
Speaker: Silverballswag.com slash loser kid.
Speaker: I assume you've made it this far.
Speaker: If you listen to the show, go check it out.
Speaker: People are still finding it.
Speaker: Buy some shoes.
Speaker: People are loving the shoes.
Speaker: Backpacks.
Speaker: Shirt that Scott's wearing.
Speaker: You can get that from Silverball Swag as well.
Speaker: Is there anything else before I shut this down?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: We're tired.
Speaker: If you want to get a hold of us, loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com slash... Wait, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: Want to get a hold of us on the socials, on Facebook, Instagram, X, Facebook,
Speaker: Twitch, YouTube, all at LoserKidPinball.
Speaker: I think that's it.
Speaker: I don't know if there's anything else I can say.
Speaker: If there's something you want us to check out while we're here, shoot us a message.
