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Ep 150: Pinball Expo 2024 Day 1
14 Plays5 months ago
Scott and Josh are recapping the first full day of Expo and how Metallica, Alice in Wonderland, Uncanny Xmen and more play.
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Transcript
Introduction and 150th Episode Celebration
00:00:07
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into loser kid pinball podcast.
00:00:09
Speaker
This is episode one 50.
00:00:10
Speaker
It's a big number and it's kind of a random one.
00:00:13
Speaker
Cause we're just kind of sitting at the hotels day one of expo.
00:00:17
Speaker
Uh, there is a ton of games out there with me, my co-captain as always Scott Larson ended.
00:00:23
Speaker
We're doing this in person.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's a little different.
00:00:25
Speaker
Um, but, and Josh, who are we brought to by?
00:00:28
Speaker
Oh,
00:00:29
Speaker
Well, that's what I was trying to get to.
00:00:30
Speaker
We're brought to you by Flipping Out Pinball by Zach and Nicole Menny.
00:00:35
Speaker
They're here at the expo.
00:00:37
Speaker
It's been great.
00:00:37
Speaker
This whole thing has been awesome.
Experiences at Pinball Expo
00:00:39
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.
00:00:46
Speaker
You were there a little late.
00:00:48
Speaker
And we got to hang out and play Metallica.
00:00:51
Speaker
This is what I'm getting to.
00:00:53
Speaker
So if you want the new Metallica, which looks amazing, I hit up Zach Nicole, many don't ask him for an Ellie.
00:00:58
Speaker
Cause apparently they're gone.
00:00:59
Speaker
You can beg for an Ellie.
00:01:01
Speaker
Give it a shot.
00:01:01
Speaker
If someone drops out and they're insane, then go ahead and get the Ellie.
00:01:06
Speaker
But if not get the premium, cause it is boss.
00:01:09
Speaker
It is amazing.
00:01:11
Speaker
So hit up Zach Nicole, many at flipping out pinball.
00:01:14
Speaker
Check out their website.
00:01:15
Speaker
The phone number's there.
00:01:16
Speaker
Amazing customer service.
00:01:18
Speaker
We've talked about it multiple times on here.
00:01:21
Speaker
I think my brain's rattled because we've had so much going on today.
00:01:25
Speaker
I'll give a quick recap.
00:01:27
Speaker
Josh came in yesterday.
00:01:29
Speaker
I didn't know if I was going to be off today.
00:01:32
Speaker
I initially had plans to fly in actually about two hours ago.
00:01:37
Speaker
It's about 11.30 p.m.
00:01:39
Speaker
But because I didn't have to work today, I ended up changing my flight.
00:01:44
Speaker
And so I was able to come in, catch an eight o'clock flight and come in right at noon.
00:01:49
Speaker
Josh was invited to, we were all invited to go to Stern to check out the new Metallica.
Metallica Game Enhancements
00:01:56
Speaker
And it was scheduled from about 10 o'clock until noon-ish.
00:01:59
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:02:00
Speaker
Josh went and with everybody now, Josh, since I wasn't there, I need you to give the recap on Metallica.
00:02:08
Speaker
At least what did they tell you and how did it look?
00:02:11
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.
00:02:20
Speaker
And it's funny because like we got there, we were one of the first ones to get there.
00:02:23
Speaker
We got there early.
00:02:24
Speaker
I actually think we were there by like nine 30 and
00:02:26
Speaker
We took pictures with the new giant silver ball outside.
00:02:29
Speaker
Like, Stern's getting better and better and better.
00:02:32
Speaker
That presentation, 100%.
00:02:35
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:02:36
Speaker
So we get there.
00:02:36
Speaker
We take pictures with the new silver ball.
00:02:38
Speaker
So think of the cloud.
00:02:39
Speaker
Everybody's seen the bean.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, the bean.
00:02:41
Speaker
The bean.
00:02:42
Speaker
I think it's technically the cloud, but –
00:02:44
Speaker
The Bean in downtown Chicago, I think Millennium Park.
00:02:47
Speaker
Is that right?
00:02:48
Speaker
Something like that.
00:02:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:49
Speaker
This is like a smaller version, but this is really cool.
00:02:53
Speaker
Like how big is the silver ball?
00:02:56
Speaker
It's got to be at least what?
00:02:57
Speaker
Eight foot tall?
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:59
Speaker
And it's also elevated probably about a foot.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:02
Speaker
So Derek, Derek that works at Stern.
00:03:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:05
Speaker
I do not know how to pronounce his last name.
00:03:06
Speaker
Derek K. Derek, Derek K. Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
So Derek,
00:03:09
Speaker
He actually did some of the weld joints that hold the ball into place.
00:03:12
Speaker
That's impressive.
00:03:14
Speaker
It's cool.
00:03:15
Speaker
We'll post a picture of us standing by it.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:18
Speaker
And it's really cool looking.
00:03:19
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.
00:03:29
Speaker
So it's a nice little homage to the Bean.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yep.
00:03:34
Speaker
So they brought us in since I've already been there a handful of times.
00:03:38
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.
00:03:46
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:03:47
Speaker
And so they just take us straight into there cause that's where Metallic is at.
00:03:51
Speaker
And some of them, some of the media people haven't been there before.
00:03:53
Speaker
So they took them on the factory tour.
00:03:55
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
00:04:16
Speaker
So I do apologize for the sound.
00:04:18
Speaker
We're just kind of doing a quick and sloppy recap of day one.
00:04:23
Speaker
Just kind of like a train of thought, right?
00:04:26
Speaker
It's fresh on our mind.
00:04:27
Speaker
It's a travel log.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's fresh on our mind right now.
00:04:29
Speaker
So they took me straight in.
00:04:30
Speaker
Others went through the factory tour.
00:04:32
Speaker
There was a ton of media people shoved in that small room.
00:04:35
Speaker
Borg's doing interviews.
00:04:37
Speaker
Zach Sharp's doing interviews.
00:04:39
Speaker
I get my hands on Metallica.
00:04:40
Speaker
And it was really cool because Borg loves this game, right?
00:04:44
Speaker
Like he's a huge Metallica fan.
00:04:46
Speaker
It's a labor of love.
00:04:48
Speaker
And it was amazing.
00:04:50
Speaker
It's Borg's best game, right?
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:52
Speaker
I would argue.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:53
Speaker
It's, it's the most successful game that Borg has had.
00:04:56
Speaker
Probably.
00:04:57
Speaker
This is Stern.
00:04:58
Speaker
Doesn't release their numbers, but I would bet that it's gotta be their biggest seller.
00:05:03
Speaker
Probably.
00:05:03
Speaker
It also has Lyman sheets on rules.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yep.
00:05:06
Speaker
Which Ray day Raymond Davidson.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
Did, did a couple of extra modes, refined a little bit of the code.
00:05:13
Speaker
No one better down at Stern to do that, in my opinion.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, Rayma is the heir apparent, I would argue, is the heir apparent to rules tinkering.
00:05:22
Speaker
Now, that's pretty high praise considering the amount of talent they have at Stern.
00:05:28
Speaker
And they have Tim Sexton, who has been doing this.
00:05:31
Speaker
He's a high-level competitive player, too.
00:05:33
Speaker
Dwight Sullivan.
00:05:34
Speaker
Dwight Sullivan, who's been doing this forever.
00:05:36
Speaker
You have Keith Elwin, whose games are consistently top 10 of all time.
00:05:43
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.
00:05:54
Speaker
And we know how important that is.
00:05:57
Speaker
for the longevity of a game.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
Because if a game ends up being like a one trick pony, it ends up being a problem.
00:06:03
Speaker
So Raymond is giving the bonus code, I guess the finishing code.
00:06:10
Speaker
Is that fair to say?
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
He's doing the finishing code at a couple of modes.
00:06:13
Speaker
There is, uh,
00:06:15
Speaker
There is their, they're all shipping on family mode, but there is, they had them turned off.
00:06:20
Speaker
So I was like, wait, what, what did the game just say to me?
00:06:23
Speaker
Which it was great.
00:06:25
Speaker
And you could just, I love it when it's a passion project, right?
00:06:29
Speaker
And you can tell from Borg, this is a passion project.
00:06:33
Speaker
He loves Metallica.
00:06:35
Speaker
It's a music, it's a music thing.
00:06:37
Speaker
It's a pinball thing.
00:06:39
Speaker
So he's walking us through it, telling us some of the stories and, and,
00:06:42
Speaker
I think we'll get him on here soon.
00:06:43
Speaker
So I'm not going to like read count off his stories.
00:06:46
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.
00:06:56
Speaker
The ramps are a little bit shorter in some areas.
00:06:58
Speaker
It still flows and plays.
00:07:00
Speaker
It feels like Metallica.
00:07:01
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.
00:07:12
Speaker
Don't work in the, in the previous game and including adjusting some shots.
00:07:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:07:17
Speaker
You know, we're, we're talking millimeters.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:19
Speaker
Because if you, to, to my eye, I look at it and it looks like Metallica.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:07:25
Speaker
And it shoots like Metallica.
00:07:27
Speaker
So it doesn't feel like they have changed much.
00:07:31
Speaker
The only thing they've done is refined it.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yep.
00:07:33
Speaker
Well, and they've added like that giant billboard in the back behind Sparky.
00:07:37
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:07:38
Speaker
It's amazing.
00:07:39
Speaker
You're lighting up letters.
00:07:40
Speaker
Sparky's now a skeleton instead of the dude from the original, um,
00:07:45
Speaker
it sounded like the same Sparky to me.
00:07:48
Speaker
Someone asked if Brandon Smalls was still doing the voices.
00:07:51
Speaker
I'm not for sure.
00:07:52
Speaker
And we kind of missed the seminar because we still hung out at Stern after Borg did his seminar one today.
00:07:57
Speaker
So... Well, okay.
00:07:59
Speaker
So Josh was able to do that.
00:08:02
Speaker
I fly in at...
00:08:04
Speaker
You know, I 1215 or something.
00:08:06
Speaker
I landed 1215 and I text him like, hey, OK, so I land.
00:08:11
Speaker
Are they still OK at Stern or should I go to the seminar?
00:08:15
Speaker
And Zach was like, yeah, come on over.
00:08:16
Speaker
So I came over and we ended up playing for, you know, for another hour.
00:08:22
Speaker
Probably.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, something like that.
00:08:24
Speaker
And so that was great.
00:08:25
Speaker
It was actually really great because we kind of got.
00:08:29
Speaker
like exclusive access.
00:08:30
Speaker
Cause a lot of the other people had left.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:32
Speaker
So we had our time alone with that.
00:08:34
Speaker
We also got some time on X-Men.
00:08:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:08:37
Speaker
We got some time on X-Men pro, which I haven't played.
00:08:40
Speaker
I hadn't played.
00:08:40
Speaker
I'd played the, the LE.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:43
Speaker
And, um, but so we'll talk, we'll get to all that stuff, but okay.
00:08:48
Speaker
So getting back to Metallica, what are the things, Josh, that you thought they, um,
00:08:55
Speaker
Compare and contrast.
00:08:57
Speaker
So this is a high school essay.
00:08:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:59
Speaker
So you have Metallica from, uh, when did Metallica come out?
00:09:03
Speaker
20 years ago, 2013.
00:09:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:04
Speaker
So, so 11 years ago and compare and contrast that Metallica versus this Metallica.
00:09:11
Speaker
Why should people sell their old Metallica and buy this game?
00:09:16
Speaker
Because they should, I don't think I have to convince you.
00:09:19
Speaker
And I know a lot of people, like there are some people that have already mentioned to me that are upset.
00:09:22
Speaker
They didn't do a pro version for this Metallica.
00:09:25
Speaker
But let's be honest.
00:09:26
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?
00:09:35
Speaker
And so they're gearing this all towards collectors.
00:09:39
Speaker
And
00:09:40
Speaker
Looking at the old Metallica LE, I never felt like it was worth going from the Pro to the LE.
00:09:46
Speaker
This one is so well refined.
00:09:49
Speaker
If you're looking for that extra bling and the bells and whistles, it's definitely worth it.
00:09:53
Speaker
The premium is just as good.
00:09:54
Speaker
And you can add the premium lighting in.
00:09:57
Speaker
And really, the premium lighting pulls this together.
00:10:00
Speaker
It shocks me how much of...
00:10:03
Speaker
You know, it's funny because someone has a, there's a handful of Metallica pros down on the floor.
00:10:08
Speaker
And I'm looking at this and it's weird because it's the same game, but it feels dated.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:10:15
Speaker
So the DMD.
00:10:17
Speaker
So anytime you have a DMD, and this is my argument when they talk about
00:10:22
Speaker
doing like a vault edition and redoing the DMD.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:27
Speaker
The problem is it's going to look dated just because of the presentation.
00:10:32
Speaker
So the factors that take this Metallica to the modern era would be one, they have the LCD screen.
00:10:42
Speaker
Which the animations hold the crap.
00:10:43
Speaker
The animations are awesome.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:45
Speaker
The animations are great.
00:10:46
Speaker
And in some ways I was...
00:10:48
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:10:48
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.
00:10:54
Speaker
But...
00:10:55
Speaker
We even mentioned, you know, there's some things that are really kind of funny about the old dot matrix.
00:11:00
Speaker
Like when
Pinball Machine Comparisons
00:11:01
Speaker
the snake eats the ball, it's a great look.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:05
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.
00:11:12
Speaker
So it kicks that in.
00:11:14
Speaker
But the new mode with new animations, new call outs, the band playing, it looks fantastic.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:21
Speaker
Also, the old games,
00:11:24
Speaker
They all look dark.
00:11:26
Speaker
Don't they know?
00:11:26
Speaker
They do.
00:11:27
Speaker
When you compare a new game to an old game, it is like night and day.
00:11:33
Speaker
And I'm intentionally using that metaphor because it does feel like the old games are so dark.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:42
Speaker
What I love about this game too, the lighting, it is RGLB, you know, RGB.
00:11:48
Speaker
RGLB.
00:11:49
Speaker
But the thing is, is they've color coded it.
00:11:52
Speaker
So it fits the theme, right?
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:55
Speaker
It doesn't look, okay.
00:11:56
Speaker
This has always been my complaint and we've talked about this.
00:11:58
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:59
Speaker
When something looks like a carnival game or a slot machine, for some reason, the colors don't look exactly correct.
00:12:10
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.
00:12:26
Speaker
No, I agree.
00:12:27
Speaker
Overall, an amazing game.
00:12:30
Speaker
I'm on the fence of like, you know, I'm just kind of holding out on Elwynn's.
00:12:36
Speaker
Elwynn's kind of my jam.
00:12:38
Speaker
I feel like he's the most bang for your buck right now.
00:12:42
Speaker
You know, Metallica is making me like, I'm like, I know Owen's up here soon, right?
00:12:45
Speaker
But this Metallica, holy crap.
00:12:48
Speaker
Like, I don't know.
00:12:51
Speaker
I really want this Metallica.
00:12:53
Speaker
And I don't feel, I didn't feel that way.
00:12:55
Speaker
When they said they were remaking Metallica, I'm like, well, it's a good game.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:59
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:13:00
Speaker
When I say, it was more of, they made so many pros.
00:13:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:05
Speaker
Pro was the jam.
00:13:07
Speaker
And when people complain about there not being a pro, I would argue there are pros.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker
Like there's 10,000 of them out there that you could, that you could buy.
00:13:18
Speaker
And if you really wanted to buy it and put like, yeah, I saw like three pop up today.
00:13:23
Speaker
Right.
00:13:23
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.
00:13:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
But yeah,
00:13:33
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.
00:13:43
Speaker
When you look at this game, what would you want to pull out?
00:13:48
Speaker
You could arguably maybe pull out the hammer, but they fixed the hammer.
00:13:54
Speaker
That was one of the big problems with the other one.
00:13:56
Speaker
This hammer looks good.
00:13:58
Speaker
It looks amazing.
00:13:59
Speaker
The effect is good.
00:14:01
Speaker
Well, and to show that the...
00:14:03
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
00:14:25
Speaker
I hit Sparky and I was like that mode.
00:14:29
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:14:30
Speaker
Look at go find find a video of it.
00:14:32
Speaker
Find Sparky like lighting up.
00:14:35
Speaker
It looks really cool.
00:14:37
Speaker
John told us he said that there's a new mode added called Blacken because there's eight new songs that are added.
00:14:43
Speaker
And by by time you get to Blacken you you've shocked Sparky a couple of times.
00:14:48
Speaker
And I guess he's not happy with you by time you get to Blacken Charboiled because he flips you off.
00:14:53
Speaker
And then all the band members just kind of laugh and like shock him again.
00:14:57
Speaker
You know, he just, it really, this game, here's the thing, Stern.
00:15:02
Speaker
I know you're listening.
00:15:04
Speaker
I told Gomez this personally.
00:15:06
Speaker
These are aces in the pocket, right?
00:15:08
Speaker
We've talked about these for years.
00:15:10
Speaker
You've got Metallica.
00:15:11
Speaker
You've got Lord of the Rings.
00:15:13
Speaker
Spider-Man, if you do Spider-Man, right.
00:15:15
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:15:15
Speaker
Lord of the Rings would be a home run with us.
00:15:18
Speaker
Could you imagine getting, like, doing that?
00:15:21
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:15:22
Speaker
That's what everybody loved about Hobbit was the immersion factor.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:15:26
Speaker
And that's what, okay.
00:15:29
Speaker
Could you imagine Tron?
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:15:32
Speaker
So that's what JJP has always had the leg up.
00:15:34
Speaker
We've talked about that.
00:15:36
Speaker
presentation and immersion.
00:15:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:39
Speaker
I didn't think that you could get a better immersion experience than guns and roses.
00:15:45
Speaker
I agree.
00:15:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:47
Speaker
This absolutely rivals guns and roses.
00:15:51
Speaker
And I, I, me personally, I like Metallica more than I like guns and roses.
00:15:54
Speaker
I think Metallica is a better as a band.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:58
Speaker
I think it's also a better shooting game.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:00
Speaker
It's, it's, I mean, there's a lot of really cool effects that,
00:16:05
Speaker
that they did with, with guns and roses.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:08
Speaker
Just metallic.
00:16:09
Speaker
It's a, it's a leaner, cleaner shooter.
00:16:14
Speaker
And that's just because also of the era it was designed.
00:16:17
Speaker
It was designed and it was, it's a board game.
00:16:20
Speaker
And so it typically doesn't have tons of bells and whistles.
00:16:24
Speaker
It's more of a, like a brutal shooter.
00:16:28
Speaker
And so it feels very thematically consistent with the band.
00:16:34
Speaker
And, and this presentation takes that to the next level and brings it to the modern era.
00:16:40
Speaker
Well, that helps too.
00:16:41
Speaker
So like we had this with guns and roses, right?
00:16:43
Speaker
Like Eric needs advice from what the band wanted in the game.
00:16:47
Speaker
He called up slash, right?
00:16:48
Speaker
You've got John Borg.
00:16:49
Speaker
If he needs advice, he calls off James Hetfield.
00:16:52
Speaker
And James is like the whole band's on board, right?
00:16:55
Speaker
They love this.
00:16:56
Speaker
And yeah,
00:16:58
Speaker
seriously looking over this game.
00:16:59
Speaker
It's funny.
00:17:00
Speaker
Cause from pitchers, I'm more of a green guy.
00:17:02
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.
00:17:11
Speaker
If you can get the Ellie and you want the Ellie, get it.
00:17:14
Speaker
Good luck.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
Good luck.
00:17:15
Speaker
And you can get it.
00:17:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:17:17
Speaker
There's only 500 of them.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:19
Speaker
And so it's truly limited.
00:17:20
Speaker
Well, and honestly, what half of them may not half go overseas, but you got a good chunk.
00:17:27
Speaker
If you could get ahold of this and this is something you're interested in, this will hold its value.
00:17:31
Speaker
And you will not be disappointed.
00:17:33
Speaker
No, honestly, I think you've been holding out all year.
00:17:35
Speaker
Right.
00:17:37
Speaker
Oh, well, this goes back to the Gomez thing.
00:17:38
Speaker
Right.
00:17:38
Speaker
Right.
00:17:39
Speaker
So I'm telling him, these are the aces in the pocket.
00:17:41
Speaker
You let your designers still innovate and design and do risks like danger did with X-Men.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:46
Speaker
Because you don't know how it's going to be received.
00:17:48
Speaker
And then Metallica makes up the difference, right?
00:17:51
Speaker
Or if you have a whole home run, you just have a nice Christmas.
00:17:54
Speaker
You know what I'm saying?
00:17:55
Speaker
But when you stumble and you have like, I mean, not to bag on Wick, but Wick has not been very well received.
00:18:01
Speaker
Wick is a solid game.
00:18:02
Speaker
It's a solid game.
00:18:04
Speaker
It's not going to move the needle the same.
00:18:06
Speaker
It's just not.
00:18:09
Speaker
From a marketing standpoint, Wick would be in the C-theme category.
00:18:15
Speaker
And there's nothing wrong with that.
00:18:17
Speaker
Even Borg's talked about, hey, we're successful.
00:18:20
Speaker
We can take risks.
00:18:21
Speaker
We can take flyers on different themes that may not have the same mass appeal.
00:18:26
Speaker
And he even talked about that during the WIC seminar.
00:18:29
Speaker
So it's not surprising that Metallica is going to have the appeal that it does have, right?
00:18:37
Speaker
Yep.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
Let's move on to X-Men.
00:18:42
Speaker
Metallica, seriously, if you want one, get a hold of Zach and Nicole.
00:18:46
Speaker
They will hook you up with a premium.
00:18:47
Speaker
And even tell them, Loser Kid, send them your way, and they'll give you a little extra, too.
00:18:51
Speaker
That's what Zach was telling me today.
00:18:52
Speaker
I don't know if there's a discount code Loser Kid.
00:18:58
Speaker
In all sincerity, we bought all our games through them, and they've been so good to us.
00:19:04
Speaker
And the good news is, get it.
00:19:07
Speaker
If you can't get the LE, get the premium.
00:19:10
Speaker
Get the lights, the speaker lights, get the enhancement, and you can actually have a really good, still a great game.
00:19:20
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.
00:19:30
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.
00:19:40
Speaker
And it's solid 100%.
00:19:42
Speaker
That's probably what I'm looking at getting a premium.
00:19:46
Speaker
I really am.
00:19:47
Speaker
And by the way, I was not interested in having Metallica before.
00:19:51
Speaker
It sells to getting your hands on it.
00:19:53
Speaker
It sold me.
00:19:53
Speaker
Sold me.
00:19:55
Speaker
So as far as X-Men, you've played this before.
00:19:57
Speaker
We've discussed this, so I don't want to rehash this for too long.
00:20:01
Speaker
This is my first time hands-on.
00:20:02
Speaker
So you played the Pro.
00:20:04
Speaker
I played all four of the games there.
00:20:05
Speaker
And the Premium and the LE.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:08
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.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yes.
00:20:16
Speaker
All four versions I played down there, so there's only three versions, but there was four games.
00:20:21
Speaker
Every one played differently.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:22
Speaker
And they were just a little enough difference that it annoyed me.
00:20:28
Speaker
I love this game.
00:20:29
Speaker
I think the shots are fantastic.
00:20:31
Speaker
It annoyed you when it wasn't set up.
00:20:33
Speaker
Correct.
00:20:34
Speaker
It annoyed me that it seemed... Okay.
00:20:38
Speaker
So the first... Okay.
00:20:39
Speaker
The first one I played...
00:20:41
Speaker
the plunger didn't go all the way around.
00:20:43
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.
00:20:50
Speaker
There's like two or three shots.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's, it's, it reminds me a little bit of Avengers.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yep.
00:20:55
Speaker
Avengers infinity quest where if this is how I shoot, I shoot Avengers.
00:21:00
Speaker
I don't like the short plunge.
00:21:02
Speaker
I usually just hit the button, shoot it around and then hit start tower.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yep.
00:21:07
Speaker
So, so that's a similar type of special,
00:21:11
Speaker
Like a skill shot.
00:21:12
Speaker
That's what you're saying.
00:21:13
Speaker
So that was one of them.
00:21:14
Speaker
One of them, it was different in each game, but it was consistent.
00:21:20
Speaker
So it concerns me a little bit, and I had pointed this out to Gomez as well.
00:21:23
Speaker
The left flipper has ball hop.
00:21:26
Speaker
And it's hard.
00:21:28
Speaker
I don't know a single person that likes ball hop.
00:21:31
Speaker
He reassured me you can move the lane, the guide, because it's a wire form on the left side.
00:21:37
Speaker
On the right side, it's your typical metal plate that leads to your flipper.
00:21:40
Speaker
On the left side, because there's no sling on the left side, it's kind of a gate.
00:21:49
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.
00:21:55
Speaker
I'm going off of Faith, okay?
00:21:58
Speaker
but each one had ball hop that drives me absolutely nuts.
00:22:02
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.
00:22:09
Speaker
Um,
00:22:10
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.
00:22:23
Speaker
And I hate that because it's like, I made the shot and you reward me by making me punish it.
00:22:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:30
Speaker
I will say when I played it, when I played the, um, the, the LE about a month ago, um,
00:22:38
Speaker
it felt like I, when it broke it, it still was able to get to the right flipper.
00:22:44
Speaker
So it didn't, it didn't drain as much.
00:22:46
Speaker
Now I wasn't playing.
00:22:49
Speaker
I was playing in a very controlled setting.
00:22:50
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?
00:22:57
Speaker
If you're considering buying the game,
00:23:00
Speaker
This is one thing you always need to look at.
00:23:02
Speaker
What are the features that the differences between the pro and the premium while in Ellie really, and what makes a difference?
00:23:12
Speaker
What makes a difference?
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:14
Speaker
And this could be one of those situations where like teenage mutant Ninja turtles, where the ball paths on the pro are,
00:23:25
Speaker
are there.
00:23:26
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:27
Speaker
Right.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yep.
00:23:28
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.
00:23:38
Speaker
It is, but it may, you may not like that as a player because it can feel unfair.
00:23:46
Speaker
So one more thing too, and this only happened on one version.
00:23:49
Speaker
I think this is adjustable.
00:23:50
Speaker
So the cerebral walk is right above the left flipper.
00:23:54
Speaker
And the ball comes in and with most wire forms, you kind of hit something.
00:23:59
Speaker
It kind of stops the ball and drops it just directly above the flipper with one of them.
00:24:03
Speaker
It kind of shot like through the wire form, pass the flipper into the out right down the middle.
00:24:09
Speaker
And so I know that's an adjustment thing.
00:24:10
Speaker
I know you can, because it was only doing it with one, but that's, that's the thing is like,
00:24:16
Speaker
Other than, okay, those are just all like little tweaks, right?
00:24:19
Speaker
Like that's, you're going to have these like fresh out of the box.
00:24:22
Speaker
I had it with Avengers.
00:24:23
Speaker
I had to do so much tweaking with Avengers.
00:24:25
Speaker
Once it was finally.
00:24:26
Speaker
You have to bend that Captain Marvel around because otherwise it just.
00:24:30
Speaker
Well, I had to bend the cross ramp that comes across the whole play field because the ball was falling off.
00:24:33
Speaker
I mean, they're just a little stuff like that.
00:24:35
Speaker
And it's annoying.
00:24:36
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:24:37
Speaker
It's annoying for the first 20, 30 games that you play and you're tweaking and doing.
00:24:42
Speaker
Once you get dialed in, you love it, right?
00:24:43
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.
00:24:49
Speaker
You shoot these shots and it's just like, wait, what happened?
00:24:53
Speaker
I got to do that again.
00:24:54
Speaker
And it's fast.
00:24:56
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:24:57
Speaker
If you like Borgs, if you like Richie's.
00:25:01
Speaker
It's fast, but the ball paths are long.
00:25:03
Speaker
Because remember, I have pointed this out that even though it's fast, the ball paths typically follow like a longer trajectory.
00:25:13
Speaker
True, but I still feel like even following, it's not like Godzilla long.
00:25:16
Speaker
Like Godzilla long, you showed your shot and you're like, I can watch the ball come back.
00:25:20
Speaker
This is still, it goes so fast.
00:25:21
Speaker
It almost like, did that just happen?
00:25:23
Speaker
If you miss it, it's going to kill you.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:25
Speaker
It's going to punish you.
00:25:26
Speaker
And okay.
00:25:27
Speaker
So Josh, you've played both.
00:25:30
Speaker
Would you lean for, what would, what would inspire you to buy a pro or a premium on X-Men?
00:25:37
Speaker
Me personally, a hundred percent pro.
00:25:39
Speaker
You just go pro.
00:25:40
Speaker
I go pro because that premium breaking wire form, I guess if you get dialed in, sure.
00:25:46
Speaker
I just don't like that kind of punishment.
00:25:47
Speaker
I don't.
00:25:48
Speaker
And it's a cool effect, but I, you do have to look at the trade-off, right?
00:25:52
Speaker
Is it worth a few thousand dollars?
00:25:55
Speaker
And the only difference really mechanically beside the wire form breaking is
00:26:05
Speaker
You have that like hammer very target, which is not, it's not really a physical very target.
00:26:11
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.
00:26:18
Speaker
The beast lab.
00:26:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:19
Speaker
The shot's still there.
00:26:20
Speaker
It's either Elvira leaper jumper.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:24
Speaker
Or it's, it's a very target.
00:26:26
Speaker
Like you said.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker
So really, and then the finger on the wire form really doesn't do a ton for
Media Mixer and Community Engagement
00:26:32
Speaker
you.
00:26:32
Speaker
I don't really, I didn't.
00:26:33
Speaker
It's cosmetic.
00:26:34
Speaker
I really don't think.
00:26:35
Speaker
Well, it stops the ball and stuff, but I didn't really feel like it.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:39
Speaker
I just don't feel like the value between the pro to the premium is justified.
00:26:45
Speaker
That's me personally.
00:26:46
Speaker
I talked to multiple people today that said premium all the way.
00:26:49
Speaker
It's the only way they go.
00:26:51
Speaker
Me personally, if you're looking for the way I play, I like to play for score.
00:26:56
Speaker
I like to explore the game, but I like to get a high score too.
00:26:59
Speaker
I might not be like Tom Graff, Travis Murray, Escher Lefkopf level, but I can hold my own.
00:27:07
Speaker
And so that's how I play pinball.
00:27:10
Speaker
So if you're looking for a perspective of like how you play me, you can take that with you.
00:27:17
Speaker
Now, there are people who just prefer pros.
00:27:19
Speaker
Like my buddy Garrett Ledger, he likes pro Godzilla.
00:27:24
Speaker
He actually does not like the premium Godzilla, which blows my mind.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, it blows my mind.
00:27:29
Speaker
But he's like, no, that's my thing.
00:27:32
Speaker
And I would lean toward on this one.
00:27:36
Speaker
I would lean toward a pro because it keeps the ball paths in check.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:44
Speaker
And you are missing some cosmetic features.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:47
Speaker
Like the hands are, they're like the, you know, they're 2D plastics.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:53
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.
00:28:05
Speaker
where Iron Maiden, you know, the Eddy sculptures, they're sculptures in the premium.
00:28:10
Speaker
They're 2D plastics in the pro.
00:28:12
Speaker
And, you know, every little thing that helps keep the bill of material down is going to affect this.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I would argue the same thing about John Wick.
00:28:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:22
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.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:32
Speaker
And if you're considering like a,
00:28:35
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
00:29:00
Speaker
But it is different.
00:29:02
Speaker
Now, so fast forwarding, we actually played it in Tyrion tonight, and all the games were, they were brutal hard.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:11
Speaker
Someone's ringing the doorbell.
00:29:12
Speaker
Okay, just a second.
00:29:13
Speaker
Hold on.
00:29:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:15
Speaker
So getting back to, I would say X-Men, I would say, I would highly suggest getting the pro.
00:29:21
Speaker
And I would, I would argue the same thing about wick.
00:29:23
Speaker
If you can find a Metallica Ellie, get it.
00:29:27
Speaker
Cause it's, it's totally worth it.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:29:31
Speaker
So let's, so we stayed at Stern until about three 30.
00:29:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:29:34
Speaker
And then we went pretty much came back to the convention for maybe 30 minutes and
00:29:40
Speaker
And then we got ready.
00:29:41
Speaker
Well, I guess we were here for like an hour and a half.
00:29:43
Speaker
But then we went to the media mixer.
00:29:45
Speaker
I left my wallet at Stern.
00:29:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker
So I had to go back to Stern to get my wallet.
00:29:52
Speaker
That was kind of funny.
00:29:54
Speaker
It was like ringing.
00:29:57
Speaker
So anyway, got that.
00:29:58
Speaker
Picked them up.
00:29:59
Speaker
We went to the media mixer, which was a lot of fun.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yep.
00:30:02
Speaker
So Colin from Kinesis slash this weekend pinball put on a medium mixer.
00:30:08
Speaker
He did it last year.
00:30:08
Speaker
This was 2.0.
00:30:10
Speaker
It was packed.
00:30:11
Speaker
It was amazing to see how many people were there.
00:30:13
Speaker
Really busy.
00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:14
Speaker
Shout out to Erica's pinball journey too.
00:30:16
Speaker
If you haven't checked out her channel, you got to go check that out on YouTube.
00:30:20
Speaker
I got a raffle ticket and immediately lost it because I thought it was a drink ticket.
00:30:23
Speaker
So I may have, I may have won something, but I have no idea.
00:30:26
Speaker
Cause I didn't, I didn't have my ticket.
00:30:27
Speaker
Also shout out to planetary pinball and to, uh,
00:30:31
Speaker
What is the name of the... Well, there was a lot of like, you know, there was a lot of like ABBA stuff.
00:30:36
Speaker
There was Alien.
00:30:37
Speaker
Planetary Pinball gave everyone that showed up this neat little keychain.
00:30:41
Speaker
I wish I had it.
00:30:42
Speaker
But this little keychain was from Planetary Pinball and another company.
00:30:46
Speaker
I wish I could hear... The problem was it was so loud in there.
00:30:50
Speaker
The gentleman that was there got on the mic to talk about what they were doing.
00:30:54
Speaker
So the sticker right here.
00:30:55
Speaker
So New Wave Toys.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, this is awesome.
00:30:58
Speaker
It's called Replicate Amusement.
00:31:00
Speaker
So...
00:31:00
Speaker
Check this sucker out.
00:31:01
Speaker
This is, uh, so they gave this to everyone.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:06
Speaker
It's like, this is heavy.
00:31:07
Speaker
Like I could assault someone with this cause it's, it's super heavy.
00:31:10
Speaker
It's a little pull tab.
00:31:12
Speaker
And then you push the button.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:14
Speaker
So those that aren't watching right or watching the YouTube right now, it is the illuminated.
00:31:19
Speaker
It's the quarter slot on the coin door of a pinball machine.
00:31:24
Speaker
It's actually illuminated.
00:31:26
Speaker
It's really cool.
00:31:27
Speaker
I'm super excited about this.
00:31:29
Speaker
I have no idea what these costs, but they, this is, this is the stuff that's cool.
00:31:33
Speaker
Not like the plastic injection stuff.
00:31:36
Speaker
This stuff, it has some weight and it feels like it's an actual coin door.
00:31:40
Speaker
It feels like they ripped it off the coin door.
00:31:42
Speaker
It was like, and,
00:31:42
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
00:32:12
Speaker
So that went well.
00:32:13
Speaker
We had a 21 man stall ball.
00:32:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:32:17
Speaker
And yours truly.
00:32:19
Speaker
I got out on bond because I tried three times to get the sub the what the underwater shot scuba shot.
00:32:26
Speaker
It finally like like bricked me.
00:32:29
Speaker
And let me remind you, this was Stern Pro Circuit set up machines.
00:32:32
Speaker
Yeah, you couldn't bump.
00:32:34
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:32:35
Speaker
And I wanted that 21 bucks, man.
00:32:38
Speaker
Josh got it.
00:32:39
Speaker
I got it.
00:32:40
Speaker
He did fill out all the W-2 forms for tax purposes.
00:32:44
Speaker
I also got a, I want a t-shirt to a fun house.
00:32:47
Speaker
Rudy's nightmare.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:49
Speaker
It was pretty cool.
00:32:50
Speaker
Wonderful.
00:32:50
Speaker
It was really cool to mix and mingle this year was not only just media, but it was fans of the show.
00:32:56
Speaker
Shout out to the fans that showed up.
00:32:57
Speaker
I mean, it's okay.
00:32:59
Speaker
One, we're, we're deeply honored.
00:33:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:33:02
Speaker
That, that anybody comes and one, they feel,
00:33:07
Speaker
they feel like they're part of the conversation.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:09
Speaker
And so we're, we're super, super happy.
00:33:13
Speaker
And you know, we, we had a guy come up from Brazil who was really awesome.
00:33:17
Speaker
Came up guy from Seattle.
00:33:19
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.
00:33:28
Speaker
And so we appreciate that so much.
00:33:30
Speaker
Shout out Ben from Stern though.
00:33:32
Speaker
The gentleman that's over inside connected one of two is only two that do inside connector.
00:33:37
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.
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:48
Speaker
Great.
00:33:48
Speaker
They were so great helping out, but it was really cool to have these people like, wait a minute.
00:33:53
Speaker
You're with loser kid.
00:33:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:55
Speaker
And, and a lot of you don't watch the podcast.
00:33:57
Speaker
So I get up and be like, speak to me first so I can figure out which one you are.
00:34:01
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.
00:34:11
Speaker
But it was really cool to be there.
00:34:13
Speaker
And then we got back to, after that was like three hours of our time.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:34:18
Speaker
Also shout out to Jen Rupert and her husband now, Kyle.
00:34:23
Speaker
They just barely got married.
00:34:24
Speaker
If you haven't checked out, Jen Rupert.
00:34:27
Speaker
what is Jen's channel?
00:34:28
Speaker
It's just blanked my mind.
00:34:29
Speaker
She's on Tik TOK.
00:34:30
Speaker
She's on YouTube.
00:34:31
Speaker
She's on Facebook.
00:34:32
Speaker
Super fun.
00:34:32
Speaker
Super fun.
00:34:34
Speaker
Jen is great.
00:34:35
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.
Alice Pinball Game Review
00:34:45
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.
00:34:52
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:52
Speaker
First take first take.
00:34:55
Speaker
It's a decent game for a 90s rehash.
00:34:59
Speaker
And I want to say rehash.
00:35:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:35:02
Speaker
It's weird.
00:35:02
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:04
Speaker
The shots are very wide.
00:35:07
Speaker
It shocks me.
00:35:08
Speaker
Like I'm used to, well, we just came off of Metallica and X-Men where you got to know your shots.
00:35:14
Speaker
They're not as forgiving, right?
00:35:16
Speaker
Like you got to dial in.
00:35:18
Speaker
I felt like on Alice, if the flippers were turned up, I'd be hitting everything all the time.
00:35:24
Speaker
The only thing that was really even questionably challenging was the far left.
00:35:29
Speaker
There's kind of like this like Metallica shot, like the up into the target.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
But this one loops around instead of hitting us a target.
00:35:38
Speaker
That's really the only thing I felt was challenging.
00:35:39
Speaker
The upper play field was disabled for us.
00:35:41
Speaker
Right.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:42
Speaker
So the only thing that I wanted to do was get on the upper play field.
00:35:46
Speaker
And you did.
00:35:46
Speaker
And I did.
00:35:47
Speaker
And I was trying to activate.
00:35:49
Speaker
So maybe it was just was disabled or maybe I couldn't activate it.
00:35:54
Speaker
This could be easier because I only we only played two balls.
00:35:58
Speaker
That's true.
00:35:58
Speaker
So.
00:36:00
Speaker
And thankfully, actually, I appreciate that they only put on two balls because otherwise the lines would have been huge.
00:36:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:36:05
Speaker
So we'll play it again.
00:36:07
Speaker
I'll give my first take, though.
00:36:10
Speaker
Visually...
00:36:12
Speaker
This game looks really good.
00:36:13
Speaker
It does look really good.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's pretty.
00:36:15
Speaker
The cat topper is great with the eyes that move.
00:36:22
Speaker
I took some video of it.
00:36:24
Speaker
It's really impressive.
00:36:26
Speaker
They have laser cut armor on the side that illuminates.
00:36:32
Speaker
Shout out to Davey Price.
00:36:33
Speaker
Stumbler mods, man.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
No.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
Such a great incorporation.
00:36:39
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.
00:36:51
Speaker
That was, by the way, kind of a pain to do.
00:36:54
Speaker
We were able to do it, but back.
00:36:56
Speaker
And so think of how it's visually.
00:37:00
Speaker
So yeah,
00:37:01
Speaker
The sculpts are great.
00:37:03
Speaker
They look really good.
00:37:05
Speaker
The paint looks great.
00:37:07
Speaker
Now I'm going to readdress the cartoon.
00:37:09
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:11
Speaker
You know what?
00:37:12
Speaker
Our first take was basically on the pictures that we saw.
00:37:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
I will say that it seems less overtly adult adjacent to,
00:37:23
Speaker
Um, then on the initial pictures.
00:37:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:26
Speaker
I would say that this actually reminds me a little bit more of Daphne from, uh, from dragon's lair.
00:37:35
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:37
Speaker
So, okay.
00:37:38
Speaker
We're obviously talking someone who is, uh, very, you know, think Jessica rabbit.
00:37:44
Speaker
Think like, like she, okay.
00:37:47
Speaker
She's very curvy.
00:37:49
Speaker
And yes, things are covered, but they are kind of suggestive.
00:37:52
Speaker
I would argue though, it didn't seem, you know, it seemed cartoonish to me.
00:37:58
Speaker
It didn't seem to be awkward.
00:38:01
Speaker
And I was concerned about that.
00:38:03
Speaker
But you look at the art, it's obvious that these are, this is a re-imagining of the Alice story.
00:38:10
Speaker
So all the characters, one, are adult.
00:38:12
Speaker
Two, they are, okay, yes, there are some areas that are less
00:38:17
Speaker
that are more revealing than others.
00:38:20
Speaker
It still felt, if that's not your thing, that's fine.
00:38:25
Speaker
I understand.
00:38:25
Speaker
However, it didn't feel awkward.
00:38:28
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,
00:38:42
Speaker
more casually accepting than I thought it was going to be.
00:38:46
Speaker
So visually I thought it was a good shot.
00:38:49
Speaker
I think if you're looking, I think if you're looking for John Papa Duke games of old, yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
I like Valley Williams.
00:38:59
Speaker
I still feel like this misses the mark a little bit.
00:39:02
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:39:02
Speaker
No, I haven't even got to play the play yet.
00:39:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:05
Speaker
As far as the artwork, I,
00:39:07
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.
00:39:13
Speaker
If you want to know what they said, go listen to their most recent episode.
00:39:17
Speaker
It's not as obvious looking at it in person.
00:39:19
Speaker
I'll put that out.
00:39:20
Speaker
It's not as obvious.
00:39:21
Speaker
It's very subtle, and you can unsee it.
00:39:24
Speaker
You can't.
00:39:27
Speaker
But since we're a family-friendly podcast, we're going to leave it to Eclectic Gamers.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah, you can go check out Eclectic Gamers at Dennis and Tony.
00:39:35
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?
00:39:48
Speaker
Like the side art that's not realistic of Alice on the side of the cab, the one that...
00:39:55
Speaker
They were selling that as a t-shirt.
00:39:59
Speaker
I will also argue that European, like European styles and standards are different than typical stereotypical American.
00:40:11
Speaker
Okay, so now let's go to gameplay.
00:40:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:13
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:15
Speaker
I thought the flippers felt pretty good.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, they felt good.
00:40:19
Speaker
The shots, though, it was a little more vague to find.
00:40:23
Speaker
You're right.
00:40:23
Speaker
I wasn't exactly sure what the shots did.
00:40:26
Speaker
There seemed to be a lot of open territory...
00:40:30
Speaker
that I was shooting that didn't have like a designated ball path.
00:40:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:36
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.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:48
Speaker
I didn't know exactly where I was supposed to be shooting in this.
00:40:52
Speaker
I did get to the upper play field, and that totally could be user error, that maybe those things aren't.
00:40:59
Speaker
So we're going to try them again tomorrow.
00:41:01
Speaker
I felt like as far as gameplay goes, there really was only four ball paths.
00:41:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:08
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.
00:41:18
Speaker
I don't know if that's part of the game or whatever.
00:41:20
Speaker
And then to the left of that, there's a scoop.
00:41:23
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.
00:41:36
Speaker
I'm trying to think where did the ramp go?
00:41:38
Speaker
So the ramp went up.
00:41:41
Speaker
I think it came back to the left.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, it did.
00:41:43
Speaker
It circled around to the left side.
00:41:44
Speaker
Or to the right.
00:41:45
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...
00:41:54
Speaker
ramp.
00:41:55
Speaker
I can't remember.
00:41:56
Speaker
I can't remember.
00:41:57
Speaker
And there was kind of pop bumpers back in there too on that shot.
00:42:01
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.
00:42:08
Speaker
The, the upper play field was less, was less,
00:42:13
Speaker
it was smaller than I thought it was going to be.
00:42:15
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.
00:42:23
Speaker
I'd say it's, it's smaller, but it was still along the realm of like Shrek.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:29
Speaker
Like the mini pinball mode and Shrek or family guy.
00:42:34
Speaker
So it still took up a big percentage of the visual space, but it didn't feel like it was overwhelming.
00:42:41
Speaker
Not only visually, when you take up that space above, you can't do much vertically either.
00:42:48
Speaker
So you can't add in ramps and stuff either.
00:42:51
Speaker
I just feel like this design, even when Papa Duke unveiled it in foam core 15 years ago,
00:43:00
Speaker
Has it been that long?
00:43:01
Speaker
10 years ago?
00:43:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:02
Speaker
It wasn't refined.
00:43:03
Speaker
I'll put it that way.
00:43:04
Speaker
But still, I don't feel like it would have been groundbreaking at that time.
00:43:12
Speaker
No.
00:43:12
Speaker
And it's definitely not groundbreaking now.
00:43:17
Speaker
My thought process is if you're looking for a unique game, they're only making 500 of these.
00:43:22
Speaker
If you're looking for... I just... I don't know.
00:43:26
Speaker
I'm really torn on this because I kind of feel the same way as EGP.
00:43:30
Speaker
But Tony is like, we need to stop funding these projects because really... Okay, but do we?
00:43:35
Speaker
Raza, Alice...
00:43:39
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:41
Speaker
You're talking fruit of the poison tree.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:43
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:44
Speaker
And this is basically all stemming from John Papa Duke and there's a lot of baggage.
00:43:51
Speaker
There's a lot of baggage with, with John Papa Duke and the path that he has taken.
00:43:57
Speaker
Well, and I agree that like, at some point you've got to separate the art from the artist, right?
00:44:03
Speaker
And we went through this before, right?
00:44:04
Speaker
And if you guys want to look up John Trudeau, you can.
00:44:08
Speaker
But he designed a lot of games.
00:44:11
Speaker
Some really classic games.
00:44:12
Speaker
And like, you know, there are some people who decided they didn't want to support his failings.
00:44:19
Speaker
And I'm being intentionally vague, but I'm not, by no means am I endorsing anything.
00:44:27
Speaker
that he's done.
00:44:28
Speaker
It was terrible.
00:44:29
Speaker
But it is a team project.
00:44:31
Speaker
And so I have Black Rose.
00:44:33
Speaker
I still have Black Rose.
00:44:34
Speaker
Some people love Creature from the Black Ragoon.
00:44:37
Speaker
Yeah, I would still own that game.
00:44:40
Speaker
So there are a lot of things that go into this.
00:44:43
Speaker
So can you make the same argument with the John Papaduke game that
00:44:49
Speaker
I think they're still selling.
00:44:51
Speaker
They're still selling.
00:44:52
Speaker
I think Alice is a different story because it was essentially bought up by Dutch.
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:57
Speaker
I don't know much from the film court of this.
00:45:00
Speaker
I don't feel like there was much of a change, but there was, there had been some tweaking, right?
00:45:04
Speaker
Like we all know that like magic girl didn't shoot when it got out of the box.
00:45:08
Speaker
We know that Raza had a lot of tweaking and stuff like that.
00:45:11
Speaker
Raza still doesn't shoot.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:12
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.
00:45:20
Speaker
Probably.
00:45:21
Speaker
And now I will argue that as long as there are, you know, this is a market driven economy supply and demand.
00:45:30
Speaker
And so,
00:45:32
Speaker
If there's enough demand for something like this, then someone will supply it.
00:45:35
Speaker
So is it bad that Dutch is producing this game?
00:45:41
Speaker
They're obviously making a calculated risk because they didn't take money for it pre.
00:45:47
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.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yep.
00:46:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's going to be interesting to see how this one pans out.
00:46:02
Speaker
I just, I think you need to get your hands on this game.
00:46:04
Speaker
If you're remotely interested, you need to play it.
00:46:07
Speaker
Definitely play it.
00:46:08
Speaker
Pretty.
00:46:09
Speaker
It is a pretty game.
00:46:10
Speaker
I will tell you this.
00:46:11
Speaker
It's not going into my collection.
00:46:13
Speaker
It does not tick all the boxes.
00:46:14
Speaker
Wouldn't go into mine.
00:46:16
Speaker
But there are people who like games that you can't play anywhere else.
00:46:21
Speaker
That's true.
00:46:22
Speaker
And once these are all gone, they're gone.
00:46:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
Um,
00:46:29
Speaker
Uh, speaking of which, let's see, let's, let's move on from Alice.
00:46:32
Speaker
Where else did we hit?
00:46:33
Speaker
We hit, we, okay.
00:46:34
Speaker
We played Scooby.
00:46:35
Speaker
Scooby-Doo.
00:46:35
Speaker
And we also played Looney Tunes.
00:46:37
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:38
Speaker
Uh, Looney Tunes by far is spooky is
Playing Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo
00:46:41
Speaker
best shooter.
00:46:42
Speaker
I feel like it is very refined.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:44
Speaker
Shots feel good.
00:46:46
Speaker
Um, and if, it feels on par with what you're looking for, for a modern day pinball layout.
00:46:51
Speaker
Um,
00:46:52
Speaker
For me, it played long.
00:46:54
Speaker
It did.
00:46:55
Speaker
It felt safe.
00:46:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:58
Speaker
I don't think that... Spooky is not really known for having a super challenging competitive... They're not tournament games.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah, but I think... But they're thematically consistent with what they're trying to accomplish.
00:47:16
Speaker
I think, though, like with Looney Tunes, I think if you made it a little steeper, you took some rubbers out.
00:47:21
Speaker
Yeah, you could.
00:47:21
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.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:27
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.
00:47:38
Speaker
I don't...
00:47:38
Speaker
I just, I've played spookies before where they feel a lot faster and stuff.
00:47:42
Speaker
So this felt good though.
00:47:44
Speaker
And I would say that it was a, it was a loony loony tunes, the theme it was consistent with the theme.
00:47:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:52
Speaker
The, the game flow felt like that.
00:47:55
Speaker
And I know that's kind of a vague, odd thing to say, but it's, it's getting back to Metallica.
00:48:00
Speaker
When I said like Metallica,
00:48:03
Speaker
It is an aggressive band.
00:48:05
Speaker
And so when you're playing the pen, you kind of want to feel that aggressive, challenging thing.
00:48:13
Speaker
I'm only doing it.
00:48:13
Speaker
It's fun, right?
00:48:15
Speaker
You're playing with you.
00:48:16
Speaker
And this is something you possibly could play with your kids.
00:48:19
Speaker
And this is what it,
00:48:21
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.
00:48:31
Speaker
And that's always the caveat.
00:48:33
Speaker
We were able to have some, some long time.
00:48:35
Speaker
So we were able to see a lot of the game.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:39
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.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:49
Speaker
But I thought it was solid.
00:48:53
Speaker
Like, I liked it.
00:48:54
Speaker
And the last time I played a spooky game was Halloween, which I didn't like.
00:48:59
Speaker
I just didn't like the way it shot.
00:49:01
Speaker
I agree.
00:49:02
Speaker
But this one just felt good.
00:49:06
Speaker
And then we also went over and played Scooby-Doo for a little bit.
00:49:10
Speaker
Scooby was interesting.
00:49:13
Speaker
Long player.
00:49:13
Speaker
Long player.
00:49:14
Speaker
I think it still was that whole, like, it sloped a little lean.
00:49:18
Speaker
So that way it can...
00:49:20
Speaker
uh, be a little easier shooter.
00:49:23
Speaker
Uh, it is a wide body.
00:49:26
Speaker
Um, I just, I finally had to trap up and read the screen.
00:49:29
Speaker
I didn't understand what was going on.
00:49:31
Speaker
I was stuck in a mode.
00:49:33
Speaker
I'm like, what the heck is going on?
00:49:35
Speaker
Uh, I shoot it.
00:49:36
Speaker
I shoot a shot and the white arrow turns red and it's on me.
00:49:39
Speaker
I'm like, what is going on?
00:49:42
Speaker
Uh, and,
00:49:43
Speaker
I didn't really feel in danger in this game very often.
00:49:46
Speaker
And I think we kind of, kind of just walked away from it.
00:49:48
Speaker
Well, okay.
00:49:49
Speaker
We, no, we walked away also because we were trying to, yeah, we're trying to hit everything.
00:49:53
Speaker
We're trying to hit everything and we, we want to record tonight.
00:49:56
Speaker
So that's, that's why, and we only played two balls of magic girls.
00:49:59
Speaker
So that's, that, you know, we, we're always trying to caveat this thing.
00:50:03
Speaker
We're trying to build experiences so we can talk to you guys about that.
00:50:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
I think, honestly, I like Spooky Games.
00:50:12
Speaker
I feel like they're going in a positive direction.
00:50:15
Speaker
I'm excited to see what they have coming up.
00:50:17
Speaker
They're trending up.
00:50:18
Speaker
I would say they're trending up solid for what they are trying to do.
American Pinball's Challenges and Future
00:50:23
Speaker
Speaking of companies that may not be trending up, I don't know if I should put it that way.
00:50:30
Speaker
Okay, you're right.
00:50:33
Speaker
We went and played American Pinball and we played Barry O's BBQ and
00:50:39
Speaker
I did.
00:50:40
Speaker
We kind of started on Valhalla and I haven't played Barrio's barbecue yet.
00:50:44
Speaker
And I've been intrigued because you don't see this game very much anywhere.
00:50:48
Speaker
And so I got time on it.
00:50:50
Speaker
And the first thing America needs to do across the board is
00:50:55
Speaker
is fix the flippers.
00:50:57
Speaker
I don't know if it's the show flippers.
00:50:58
Speaker
I know they swore they fixed the flippers before they felt mushy on Valhalla.
00:51:03
Speaker
They felt mushy on barbecue.
00:51:06
Speaker
They just, the problem is we've been playing Stern all day.
00:51:08
Speaker
We've been playing JJPs.
00:51:10
Speaker
Like I played avatar.
00:51:11
Speaker
It was fantastic.
00:51:14
Speaker
It just, it felt very mushy.
00:51:18
Speaker
The best way that I could put it.
00:51:19
Speaker
And I'm playing barbecue.
00:51:22
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, I was enjoying the code.
00:51:26
Speaker
I think Steve Bowden has done a wonderful job.
00:51:30
Speaker
But it just... It's safe.
00:51:35
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.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:48
Speaker
And then they, then they made a jump to Oktoberfest, which was a risk.
00:51:53
Speaker
It was different.
00:51:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:55
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,
00:52:15
Speaker
think you need to take some risks.
00:52:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:17
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.
00:52:31
Speaker
And it's it's almost mirrored almost.
00:52:35
Speaker
And you have a very same feel.
00:52:39
Speaker
And if you're going to make that next leap,
00:52:45
Speaker
I think you need to start challenging people and challenging the layouts a little more.
00:52:50
Speaker
I think, honestly, a lot of the fixes could come from amping up those flippers.
00:52:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:56
Speaker
Well, flippers are a big deal.
00:52:58
Speaker
And we've talked about this with JJP in that with Elton John, that's the first time the flippers have felt snappy.
00:53:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:09
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.
00:53:18
Speaker
The only one you can is Wizard of Oz, which is fine.
00:53:21
Speaker
Because Wizard of Oz, it's kind of an older, like thematically consistent.
00:53:25
Speaker
It's not supposed to be like a...
00:53:28
Speaker
a brutal game.
00:53:29
Speaker
Well, even the scoring is pretty low on it too.
00:53:31
Speaker
So it feels more of a classic.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:33
Speaker
It's just, it's supposed to feel more like that.
00:53:35
Speaker
So, so the, they have taken that up.
00:53:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
So, so I would argue that my, my friendly advice on American pinball is,
00:53:46
Speaker
They need to take some risks consistent with that risk of moving forward.
00:53:54
Speaker
The challenge that I had with Galactic Tank Force is they did take some risks, thankfully.
00:54:00
Speaker
They took some risks.
00:54:02
Speaker
It felt a little bit more of risking an 80s retro feel.
00:54:09
Speaker
And there are lots of Gottlieb vibes in that layout, which, hey,
00:54:15
Speaker
great.
00:54:16
Speaker
You know, you took, you took a risk.
00:54:17
Speaker
That's not the risks that I think will make you sell more machines though.
00:54:22
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.
00:54:30
Speaker
And the reason I say that is because you get like grilling meat, like realistic grilling meat on the back glass.
00:54:38
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.
00:54:45
Speaker
There is a hand-drawn barbecuer.
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
And I swear a fifth grader drew this thing.
00:54:52
Speaker
And it's got, like, rockets on it, and it's slowly, like, landing inside the barbecue thing.
00:54:56
Speaker
Okay, are you saying, like, the...
00:54:58
Speaker
the play field, like on the play field.
00:55:00
Speaker
No, this is on the LCD.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's on the LCD.
00:55:03
Speaker
And I just, you go from a realistic meat grilling to something that looks like a fifth, fifth grader made.
00:55:10
Speaker
So it's like sketch art.
00:55:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:12
Speaker
It's almost like sketch art.
00:55:13
Speaker
So you're saying the artistic direction wasn't,
00:55:16
Speaker
consistent across all platforms.
00:55:20
Speaker
But then you have professional cartoon, like the cartoon that they've done for the play field.
00:55:25
Speaker
This project just doesn't feel cohesive.
00:55:30
Speaker
Honestly, Steve Boudin, you killed it on code.
00:55:33
Speaker
I really enjoyed what was going on, even though I didn't get some of it, but it was a one game.
00:55:40
Speaker
It still feels like Americans are a work in progress.
00:55:43
Speaker
I'm hoping they can take that next step
00:55:47
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.
00:56:10
Speaker
There does seem to be something that needs to be adjusted for them to take the next step in the future.
Reflections and Optimism for Pinball's Future
00:56:17
Speaker
And I'm, here's the thing.
00:56:19
Speaker
If the rumors are true in the next game is cuphead, I'm excited to see it.
00:56:23
Speaker
I want to see, take risks, take a show of stuff.
00:56:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:56:26
Speaker
I'm excited to see Ryan's first game.
00:56:28
Speaker
Ryan McClaskill.
00:56:33
Speaker
Dude, it's late.
00:56:33
Speaker
It's it's anyhow.
00:56:35
Speaker
Ryan's first game.
00:56:36
Speaker
The gentleman McQuaid, dude, it's a long day.
00:56:41
Speaker
Trust me.
00:56:42
Speaker
Okay.
00:56:43
Speaker
But I'm excited to see his first game.
00:56:45
Speaker
I do enjoy Cuphead as a theme.
00:56:47
Speaker
I just – I want to see pinball companies succeed.
00:56:54
Speaker
And I feel like at some point –
00:57:02
Speaker
you just, you got to start doing something different.
00:57:03
Speaker
Right.
00:57:05
Speaker
And so I just, I feel like the last couple of releases from American have not hit the mark.
00:57:13
Speaker
And I feel bad too.
00:57:14
Speaker
Cause it's like Dennis Nordman, if you didn't read his Facebook post, uh,
00:57:19
Speaker
he's frustrated.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:20
Speaker
He's frustrated that things are being portrayed differently than how it happened.
00:57:24
Speaker
Well, according to Dennis.
00:57:26
Speaker
So yeah, there's three sides to every story, right?
00:57:28
Speaker
There's one side that, you know, there's two sides and then probably somewhere in the truth.
00:57:32
Speaker
So there's in the middle and,
00:57:36
Speaker
Okay, but it does show that there's a couple things.
00:57:39
Speaker
One, it shows that American Pinball is interested in doing something because they are trying different things.
00:57:47
Speaker
And you know what?
00:57:48
Speaker
Great.
00:57:48
Speaker
I hope they – here's my wish for Christmas is I hope they have enough time to find their lane.
00:57:58
Speaker
It seems like Spooky has found their lane.
00:58:01
Speaker
It's a different lane than Stern.
00:58:04
Speaker
Like Stern is the high volume gorilla.
00:58:08
Speaker
JJP, they have found their lane.
00:58:10
Speaker
They found their lane in really pretty pinball machines that are visually stunning and thematically immersive.
00:58:20
Speaker
And so Spooky's found their lane.
00:58:22
Speaker
I'm wondering what American Pinball's lane is.
00:58:25
Speaker
And they've got to find it, right?
00:58:26
Speaker
Like it's becoming more and more apparent to me.
00:58:28
Speaker
Like you need to figure out your niche within the niche, right?
00:58:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:32
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.
00:58:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:40
Speaker
But, um, I'm going to leave you with this story before I left for pinball expo the day before I left.
00:58:46
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,
00:58:58
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.
00:59:03
Speaker
And the gentleman looks at me, granted, I live in a town of 30,000 people.
00:59:07
Speaker
There's not really much around us.
00:59:08
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.
00:59:15
Speaker
Right.
00:59:16
Speaker
And so there's not really much around us.
00:59:18
Speaker
We don't, we have an attack from ours at one bar.
00:59:20
Speaker
We have like a South park at another,
00:59:23
Speaker
There's not a ton of pinball out where I'm available.
00:59:25
Speaker
So the guy, I start talking pinball and the guy's eyes just light up and he's like, you play pinball?
00:59:30
Speaker
I'm like, yeah.
00:59:32
Speaker
And he goes, I own pinball machines.
00:59:36
Speaker
He's like, I'm like, you do?
00:59:37
Speaker
What do you have?
00:59:38
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?
00:59:51
Speaker
But he's like, I've got a hook.
00:59:53
Speaker
And I bought Venom.
00:59:55
Speaker
And that kind of boggled my mind for a second.
00:59:57
Speaker
Because don't get me wrong.
00:59:58
Speaker
Venom, it's an enjoyable game.
01:00:01
Speaker
I played it while I was at his house.
01:00:02
Speaker
He has the premium.
01:00:06
Speaker
I asked him, why did you pick Venom?
01:00:10
Speaker
And he feels like he's enough into the hobby.
01:00:14
Speaker
He bought it solely for the theme.
01:00:16
Speaker
He loves comic books.
01:00:17
Speaker
The man cave I worked on with his furnace I was fixing.
01:00:22
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
01:00:45
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.
01:00:53
Speaker
It's a very niche area.
01:00:56
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.
01:01:05
Speaker
Okay.
01:01:06
Speaker
Comparison wise.
01:01:07
Speaker
So here's my point.
01:01:08
Speaker
My comparison wise,
01:01:10
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?
01:01:21
Speaker
The first thing you heard was Venom.
01:01:23
Speaker
You're like, well, there's better comic book themes out there for your Deadpool.
01:01:27
Speaker
I would immediately have said you should have gotten Deadpool.
01:01:29
Speaker
Or Avengers.
01:01:31
Speaker
And it's funny because he actually was debating between Deadpool and Venom.
01:01:35
Speaker
And I can't remember why he landed on Venom.
01:01:37
Speaker
But his family loves it.
01:01:38
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:39
Speaker
He loves it.
01:01:41
Speaker
His kid is proud of blowing up this game, right?
01:01:44
Speaker
His kid said it's like 1.5 billion or whatever.
01:01:47
Speaker
And that may be the best game for that family.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yes.
01:01:52
Speaker
Considering that Venom is like a leveling up game.
01:01:56
Speaker
But Gary Stern proved this, right?
01:01:58
Speaker
Like every game has its home.
01:01:59
Speaker
Every game finds its home.
01:02:00
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:01
Speaker
And so my point being is when you make a game like Berrio's Barbecue, you're...
01:02:08
Speaker
you are narrowing the window of people that are going to buy that game because where's the home?
01:02:13
Speaker
Where's the home?
01:02:13
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.
01:02:27
Speaker
And I don't feel like Barry.
01:02:29
Speaker
Oh, it's that Mark on a home game.
01:02:30
Speaker
So you're basically saying you're,
01:02:33
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.
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:46
Speaker
That's three levels down in niche.
01:02:50
Speaker
And I don't think that you're going to move a lot of you in this that way.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:54
Speaker
So just, and I know I'm, I'm telling people that this is their job.
01:02:58
Speaker
This is what they do.
01:02:59
Speaker
Right.
01:03:00
Speaker
And so we're amateurs.
01:03:01
Speaker
We are, we are not marketers.
01:03:03
Speaker
This is just us looking at it from the outside, but it's still, these are questions that everybody's having.
01:03:10
Speaker
Yes.
01:03:11
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.
01:03:25
Speaker
it's day one.
01:03:26
Speaker
It's the first like true day one.
01:03:29
Speaker
I'm excited.
01:03:31
Speaker
We'll see if we do more updates.
01:03:32
Speaker
I don't know.
Episode Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
01:03:33
Speaker
It is kind of late, but just quick shout out to Don's pinball podcast.
01:03:37
Speaker
Thanks for the little KFC bucket for my jaws, chicken, my chicken bucket.
01:03:41
Speaker
What did I say?
01:03:42
Speaker
Oh yeah.
01:03:43
Speaker
The KFC bucket.
01:03:44
Speaker
Just saying chicken.
01:03:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:03:45
Speaker
Everybody likes chicken.
01:03:46
Speaker
Everyone loves chicken.
01:03:47
Speaker
Even, even Bruce from jaws loves chicken.
01:03:50
Speaker
Exactly.
01:03:51
Speaker
That's what they were chumming with was KFC.
01:03:53
Speaker
Um,
01:03:54
Speaker
Was it really Casey on the moon?
01:03:55
Speaker
No, I was like, wow.
01:03:59
Speaker
I haven't seen jaws in a while.
01:04:00
Speaker
I would have been surprised.
01:04:01
Speaker
It's great.
01:04:02
Speaker
I love coming to expo.
01:04:04
Speaker
I feel like this is me personally.
01:04:06
Speaker
I know people might fight me on this.
01:04:08
Speaker
This is the best pinball convention for your money and for what you get out of it.
01:04:15
Speaker
Just bar none.
01:04:16
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
01:04:17
Speaker
Texas Pinball Festival is good, but I feel like Expo has stepped it up year after year.
01:04:22
Speaker
You get the, if you want to talk to manufacturing.
01:04:27
Speaker
So I'm bringing my family to Texas Pinball Festival.
01:04:31
Speaker
That may be a more appropriate thing for my family.
01:04:35
Speaker
I know the floor here is amazing.
01:04:37
Speaker
It's good.
01:04:38
Speaker
I am just saying it's, this is focusing on the people who are interested in the manufacturing side.
01:04:44
Speaker
And that's ultimately why I decided to take my kids to Texas.
01:04:49
Speaker
I think, is there anyone we missed on shout outs?
01:04:52
Speaker
Jeff Teolis.
01:04:53
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:54
Speaker
Jeff.
01:04:54
Speaker
Great to see Jeff.
01:04:56
Speaker
I'm glad that his work schedule allowed him a little bit of a break to get down here.
01:05:00
Speaker
Shane told, I just got a message from you, man.
01:05:03
Speaker
Good luck with When We Were Young.
01:05:05
Speaker
You're going to slay it.
01:05:07
Speaker
I wish I was there this weekend, too.
01:05:09
Speaker
Staying set When We Were Young is the same weekend as Pinball Expo.
01:05:12
Speaker
Also, Iron Maiden is the same in Utah.
01:05:16
Speaker
You're right.
01:05:16
Speaker
Iron Maiden is the same.
01:05:17
Speaker
It's tomorrow night, and I'm here.
01:05:19
Speaker
Trust me.
01:05:20
Speaker
I made my choice.
01:05:21
Speaker
I'm happy, but I'm annoyed because I wanted to see that concert.
01:05:25
Speaker
If you've made it this far, it shocks me how many people have said...
01:05:29
Speaker
Where did you get the hockey jersey?
01:05:30
Speaker
Where did you get the loser kid hockey jersey?
01:05:32
Speaker
Silverballswag.com slash loser kid.
01:05:35
Speaker
I assume you've made it this far.
01:05:36
Speaker
If you listen to the show, go check it out.
01:05:39
Speaker
People are still finding it.
01:05:40
Speaker
Buy some shoes.
01:05:41
Speaker
People are loving the shoes.
01:05:43
Speaker
Backpacks.
01:05:44
Speaker
Shirt that Scott's wearing.
01:05:45
Speaker
You can get that from Silverball Swag as well.
01:05:48
Speaker
Is there anything else before I shut this down?
01:05:50
Speaker
No.
01:05:51
Speaker
We're tired.
01:05:52
Speaker
If you want to get a hold of us, loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com slash... Wait, no.
01:05:57
Speaker
Yeah.
01:05:58
Speaker
loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com.
01:06:00
Speaker
Want to get a hold of us on the socials, on Facebook, Instagram, X, Facebook,
01:06:05
Speaker
Twitch, YouTube, all at LoserKidPinball.
01:06:10
Speaker
I think that's it.
01:06:11
Speaker
I don't know if there's anything else I can say.
01:06:13
Speaker
If there's something you want us to check out while we're here, shoot us a message.