# Transformers Pinball - Dirtypool Reaction Mode Engaged

**Source:** Dirtypool Pinball  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2026-05-22  
**Duration:** 58m 0s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mX7pESmKJY

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## Analysis

A content creator from Dirtypool Pinball provides an in-depth hands-on reaction to Stern's new Transformers pinball machine at a media event. The game is praised for its smooth playfield layout, complete code at launch, and thematic integration, though the non-transforming Optimus Prime toy and stripped-down Pro version draw criticism. Elizabeth Gieske is highlighted as the first female lead programmer on a pinball machine in industry history.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Elizabeth Gieske is the first female programmer to lead development of a pinball machine in pinball history — _Dirtypool host explicitly states this at the beginning of the Transformers discussion, framing it as a significant industry milestone_
- [MEDIUM] Transformers is the best game Stern has released in the last 1.5 years since Kong — _Dirtypool host opinion based on hands-on play at media event_
- [MEDIUM] The Optimus Prime toy was originally designed to transform based on an RC transforming toy Hasbro sent, but the concept was scrapped and the sculpt was repurposed for the final version — _Dirtypool host discusses community speculation and a chat member (Sim 13) providing additional details about Hasbro's involvement_
- [HIGH] Transformers code is as complete at launch as any Stern game has ever been — _Dirtypool host directly attributes this to 'Pinballs' (likely a community member or fellow player in chat)_
- [HIGH] The Pro version of Transformers is severely stripped down compared to Premium/LE, lacking Soundwave tummy lock, Decepticon cannon mechanism, and other mechs — _Dirtypool host provides detailed comparison of Pro vs Premium/LE features from direct hands-on experience at media event_
- [HIGH] The game has a mode called 'Piss Lake' (official name 'Golden Lagoon') where a Transformer scoops yellow liquid into its mouth — _Dirtypool host repeatedly describes this mode with enthusiasm and searches for footage during stream_
- [MEDIUM] Transformers playfield layout is comparable to Jurassic Park with similar shot positioning and difficulty — _Dirtypool host provides detailed comparative analysis of shot placement and mechanics_
- [LOW] The backglass art composition would be better swapped between Pro and Premium versions — _Dirtypool host's subjective aesthetic opinion_
- [MEDIUM] Game will be out in 1-2 months with additional wizard modes and side features still in development — _Dirtypool host citing information from Stern's presentation video at media event_
- [MEDIUM] Hasbro was extremely cooperative with licensing and providing assets for the game — _Dirtypool host relaying information from Stern's presentation at media event_

### Notable Quotes

> "This is Elizabeth Gieske's first game. And this is the first time that a female programmer has led a development of a pinball machine in the history of pinball. And I mean, like all of the history."
> — **Dirtypool host**, early in video
> _Establishes historic milestone for women in pinball industry_

> "The game is super fun. I had a blast on it. This is not a fan layout at all."
> — **Dirtypool host**, early review section
> _Contrasts Transformers positively with recent Stern releases (Star Wars, Pokemon)_

> "This is the best game Stern's put out in like the last year and a half, since Kong, I would say."
> — **Dirtypool host**, gameplay analysis
> _Strong endorsement despite caveats about difficulty_

> "When you jumped on to the layouts for Star Wars and Pokemon I didn't feel like the games had a lot of like soul for lack of a better word... when I got on Transformers, I felt like I was playing like an experience."
> — **Dirtypool host**, design analysis section
> _Explains thematic and design superiority of Transformers over recent Stern titles_

> "This code is as far along as any Stern game has ever been at launch."
> — **Pinballs (chat member), quoted by Dirtypool host**, code completeness discussion
> _Highlights production readiness and rules depth_

> "Don't buy the pro. It's too stripped down. It has almost nothing in comparison to the premium and the LE."
> — **Dirtypool host**, Pro vs Premium comparison
> _Direct consumer recommendation against entry-level model_

> "If I'm spending like seven grand on a pinball machine, like I want it to have like a mech."
> — **Dirtypool host**, mech discussion
> _Articulates collector/enthusiast expectation for premium pricing_

> "I would totally own this game on the fact that it has Piss Lake in it alone... more games need giant, giant lakes of urine and they need big robots shoveling into their mouth."
> — **Dirtypool host**, Piss Lake discussion
> _Highlights unique, memorable mode design and thematic integration_

> "Hasbro was like so extremely cool to work with and just provided like all the licensing assets and stuff. It was just like a dream IP in terms of getting approval and doing everything they wanted."
> — **Dirtypool host (paraphrasing Stern presentation)**, licensing discussion
> _Explains smooth development and IP cooperation_

> "There's not going to be any shortages of these. They're obviously going to be manufacturing these, and you will be able to pick one up from your distributor. Don't feel obligated to get an LE because of fear of missing out."
> — **Dirtypool host**, purchasing advice
> _Signals strong production allocation and anti-FOMO messaging_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Elizabeth Gieske | person | Lead programmer on Transformers Pinball, first female to lead development of a pinball machine in industry history; also programmed Dune; asked by Dirtypool about hidden Transformer language messages on LE cabinet |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Transformers Pinball; presented game at media event; previous releases criticized by Dirtypool include Star Wars and Pokemon |
| Transformers Pinball | game | New Stern release with Elizabeth Gieske as lead programmer; features Decepticon cannon, Soundwave tummy lock (Premium/LE), Optimus Prime toy (non-transforming), 'Piss Lake' mode, and three-tier difficulty system; available in Pro, Premium, and LE versions |
| Dirtypool Pinball | organization | YouTube/streaming channel providing hands-on reaction and detailed analysis of Transformers at Stern media event; known for detailed playfield analysis and comparative game reviews |
| Hasbro | company | IP rights holder for Transformers; provided licensing assets and physical RC transforming toy reference to Stern; described as cooperative and accommodating during development |
| Keith Elwin | person | Designer of Jurassic Park; Transformers playfield layout compared to Jurassic Park by Dirtypool |
| Sperry | person | Part of Transformers design team alongside Bumblebee and others; involved in playfield layout |
| Bumblebee | person | Part of Transformers design team |
| Ozzy | person | Attendee at Stern media event who played Transformers; experienced flipper overheating and power loss later in day due to heavy play |
| Peter Cullen | person | Original voice actor for Optimus Prime in 1980s Transformers series; provided voice work for Transformers Pinball |
| Frank Walker | person | Original voice actor for Megatron in 1980s Transformers series; provided voice work for Transformers Pinball |
| Kong (Stern) | game | Recent Stern release used by Dirtypool as difficulty/quality benchmark for Transformers; described as easier L1 layout |
| Jurassic Park | game | Designer: Keith Elwin; Transformers playfield layout and difficulty compared favorably to this game |
| Pokemon Pinball (Stern) | game | Recent Stern fan layout criticized by Dirtypool for lacking 'soul'; Transformers significantly easier than Pokemon in difficulty |
| Star Wars Pinball (Stern) | game | Recent Stern fan layout criticized by Dirtypool for lacking thematic integration and 'soul' |
| Shadow (Stern) | game | Referenced for lock shot difficulty comparison |
| Godzilla | game | Stern game with lock shot; referenced as comparison for ease of lock shot mechanics on Transformers |
| South Park Pinball | game | Referenced for notable large hole/cavity playfield feature |
| Iron Man Pinball | game | Referenced for punch shot mechanical design used in Transformers Decepticon cannon |
| John Wick Pinball | game | Recent Stern release; joke about gun feature in Transformers vs no gun in John Wick |
| IFPA | organization | International competitive pinball rankings system referenced in context of game difficulty assessment |
| Stern media event | event | Press/influencer event where Dirtypool played early build of Transformers and received briefing from Stern |
| Susan Chiani | person | Female programmer who worked in a lead role on Xenon (Williams), historical precedent mentioned before Elizabeth Gieske |
| Gary Stern | person | Stern Pinball leadership; joke reference about hidden message in LE cabinet Transformer language possibly being his name |

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** Transformers code is reported as more complete at launch than any prior Stern game, with all major modes accessible and only wizard modes and side features remaining for future updates (confidence: high) — Dirtypool host and chat confirm game is 80-90% feature complete, with only 1-2 wizard modes and side challenge features pending in code updates within 1-2 months
- **[personnel_signal]** Elizabeth Gieske becomes first female programmer to lead development of a pinball machine in industry history (confidence: high) — Dirtypool explicitly states this milestone; notes prior female contributions (Susan Chiani on Xenon) but distinguishes Gieske's lead role as unprecedented
- **[design_philosophy]** Transformers abandons 'fan layout' approach seen in recent Star Wars and Pokemon, returning to satisfying shot design philosophy with immediate feedback and thematic integration (confidence: high) — Dirtypool contrasts Transformers positively against recent Stern titles, noting individual shots feel satisfying rather than clustered and difficult; plays like Jurassic Park (Elwin-designed) rather than recent fan layouts
- **[design_innovation]** Decepticon cannon mechanism with directional aiming and multi-ball placement capability represents significant mechanical innovation; Soundwave tummy dump mechanism uses cassette player visual metaphor (confidence: high) — Dirtypool describes cannon firing ball across entire playfield to ramp or flipper with potential for future programming to add aiming variety; 'tummy dump' physics praised as satisfying
- **[product_concern]** Pro version criticized as severely stripped down with removal of all major mechs (Soundwave tummy lock, Decepticon cannon), making it poor value for home buyers despite addressing operator maintenance concerns (confidence: high) — Dirtypool explicitly recommends against Pro purchase; details missing features; notes Pro has diverter instead of cannon, plastic instead of Soundwave tummy lock
- **[licensing_signal]** Hasbro provided extensive licensing assets and reference materials (RC transforming toy) and was exceptionally cooperative with approval process, enabling creative freedom for designer (confidence: medium) — Dirtypool paraphrases Stern presentation statement that Hasbro was 'dream IP' to work with; notes RC toy was provided as reference for original transformation concept
- **[gameplay_signal]** Transformers positioned as intermediate difficulty: harder than Kong and Pokemon, similar to or slightly easier than Jurassic Park; criticism that some shots (particularly lock shot) are too easy (confidence: medium) — Dirtypool compares to Kong (easier L1), Pokemon (significantly easier), and Jurassic Park (similar); notes lock shot comparable to Godzilla which is 'easiest shot in world'
- **[market_signal]** Stern signaling strong production volume with statement there will be no shortages and players can obtain games from distributors without FOMO urgency (confidence: medium) — Dirtypool emphasizes Stern's messaging that no shortage expected, encouraging measured purchasing decisions rather than panic LE buying
- **[sentiment_shift]** Transformers represents notable improvement in community perception after recent Stern releases (Star Wars, Pokemon) were criticized for lacking thematic soul and relying on fan layouts (confidence: medium) — Dirtypool contrasts Transformers favorably as having genuine 'experience' and 'soul' vs recent titles he found soulless; frames as best Stern output in 1.5 years
- **[design_innovation]** Game features randomized target positioning (green/orange/blue/purple shields) that build progress bars toward mini wizard modes, creating dynamic rules structure with visible progression UI (confidence: medium) — Dirtypool describes shield targets that move positions each game, building toward ramp lights and mini wizard multiball; appreciates visible progress UI during gameplay
- **[content_signal]** Transformers features original voice actors from 1980s animated series (Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Frank Walker as Megatron) providing authentic audio experience (confidence: high) — Dirtypool praises voice talent authenticity and discusses how original actors' callouts enhance immersion; chat confirms identification of voice actors
- **[design_innovation]** Game uses 16:9 aspect ratio for Ark bridge screen to match original 1980s TV series authentic format rather than forcing 4:3 footage into widescreen, creating letterbox effect that preserves historical accuracy (confidence: high) — Dirtypool details why borders appear on screen (original show was 4:3, screen is 16:9); explains this was intentional design choice by Stern to honor series authenticity

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## Transcript

As well. So let's talk about the game. Double mic stereo still? What? What is this? I don't believe you. Yeah, he's full of shit, right? All right. Should I lean? Yeah, I'll just point it this way. Everyone's like, when are we going to actually talk about the game? All right, so Transformers Pinball. First and foremost, I think it's really important that we mention that. Stern hasn't really, I mean, they have mentioned a little bit, but this is Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske's first game. And this is the first time that a female programmer has led a development of a pinball machine in the history of pinball. And I mean, like all of the history. There have been other females that have worked on pinball machines and lead roles like on Xenon with Susan Chiani. But this is like kind of a big deal. But more importantly, the game is super fun. I had a blast on it. I have been a little disappointed in the previous offerings of the last two Stern games, mostly because I'm not a huge fan of fan layouts. That's just not my jam. And this is not a fan layout at all. Sperry, Bumblebee, and the rest of the team. This game actually plays, we're going to do it from here. So, let me know if that's too loud. We can mute it if it's like invasive or annoying. But I'm going to give a general rundown on how the flow and layout for this game actually works. So, here we go. Okay, so on the plunge, right off the bat, right? You come up. Can you see my mouse cursor? No, it's going to be not. Dang it. Can we? Okay. Yeah, you can see here. Okay, so on plunge, you go up here and come immediately right back through this spinner that's on just to the next of the Decepticon here. And that's, it's fine because you hit the spinner right off the bat. But what's really great about this game is all of the shots are immediately satisfying. It doesn't have a lot of kind of the clunk and thud. And in that vein, I think that some of the criticism starts here. I think this game is an easier shooter than a lot of the other Stern offerings recently. There's a lock shot here that's right next to Optimus Prime, and we'll get into the Optimus Prime thing in a minute. It keeps focusing on you. I know, I keep hiding. It thinks it's like she's so much prettier than me. Like, obviously, that's going to happen. Let's turn it off. Auto focus. Sorry, you got to lean in if you want to get the camera focus. That's okay. All right. Anyways, something like that. It's still got you, man. Look at this. Amateur hour over here. Does the game transform into pizza and beer? It does not. And so this is like the first thing that I think a lot of people and when I say a lot of people, look, this is a very loud minority in my opinion. So the toy that is in question here that is talking, that's getting a lot of hubbub is Optimus Prime here. So he doesn't transform. There's been speculation in some of the promo videos that he may have in the past and Stern was working on it because the height difference, he was like not visible. It would be cool if it does. But to be honest, like they clearly put what's up, Great Pyramid. They put the effort into the mech here, the Decepticon. And the Decepticon launching the ball out of the gun is super awesome. God damn it. Insanity, look at you dropping on with your cool stream, playing a great game called Dune that somebody may have worked on here. Anyways, so what's neat about the Decepticon cannon is it doesn't just shoot it over the ramp here. It also turns it to the right or left, depending on how you're standing, and it dumps it out for the upper flipper here so you can make these shots here. This orbit which goes up around here. You can also bash him in the dong. I know it's kind of his legs, but it's a lot funnier to say dong. Dong is a funny word. So you can smash the bash target here. There's also kind of like a con lock shot here, similar to like the shadow. I found this shot to be extremely difficult to hit. Pretty much every shot on here other than that was extremely like smooth to hit. Satisfying. With a few of these being too easy. Most of that being the lock shot. But I was thinking about it and like the lock shot on Godzilla is maybe the easiest shot in the world. And it's a lock shot as well. So I don't know how big of an issue that is. Also, later on, you need to bash the dong in order to like set up the lock. So what's up, Lazarus? Shout out to France. Thank you so much for hopping in, man. And yeah, we're talking about Transformers. So please, I do fire questions off because like there was obviously a lot to talk about in this game. And it's a little difficult to kind of dive in and just give an entire like synopsis of a game like off the bat. It's impossible to know how good a game's code is from the one day that you get to play it. Like you need to have a game for a week and consume yourself with it to really get an idea about it. So I think a lot of what I would like to talk about is really like the flow and just like how smooth it is. It's and it's it's fun. This is, it's the best game Stern's put out in like the last year and a half, since Kong, I would say. You may or may not like Kong, but it's at that level. Yeah, so Ozzy says, Ozzy was also at the media event. What's up, my dude? Good to see you. So he was having a little trouble on the right ramp. When I jumped on before you went on the tour at the beginning of the day, and then when I was playing again later in the day, the flippers had like no power. Like it was very clear that they had been just abused and were overheating and not firing as hard as they are or as they should. So I didn't have any problems hitting the right ramp early on in the day. But later on in the day, even hitting this left ramp here, which is by the way, this is really cool. Let me full screen it and see if I can find some photos. So there's you can shoot up into this kind of what you would imagine as a left orbit scenario. Can I do it over here? Where am I going to get? Okay, you can shoot into this like left orbit area here and it comes up and immediately returns down the ramp over here. So you've got like a, I don't know, there's a cluster of ramps over here kind of like 007, but it's formatted differently. Do they have the license for Europe this time? I believe so. I didn't ask at the little preview video that they gave us to talk about the game where they talk about how big of a license it is and how many billions of dollars Transformers makes and all this because they make the same presentation that they give to the distributors and stuff. So yeah, you approach modes. There's this cluster of these. These down here in the center are these modes, right? And I believe you start a mode by hitting the right ramp. And then you can choose three difficulties of the modes. Every mode has a light, medium, and hard kind of version of it. You can't do the hard version of it until you've played, I believe, the light or medium version of it. They also increase the value of the jackpots and stuff. I did play the pro. So, okay, let's address that. So, Digitally Incorrect asks, shut up, shut up, Stern. Digitally Incorrect says, have you played the pro? This is my criticism with Transformers. Don't buy the pro. It's too stripped down. It has almost nothing in comparison to the premium and the alley. So, you know, for Soundwave over here, which normally the balls like lock in his tummy and then he like opens up and they dump out. It's not. It's a vertical plastic and the ball like passes by it as like a virtual lock. Same with like the gun that, you know, there's no gun system in it whatsoever. And I think even the bash is different, right? Even Optimus' bash target is different. Don't quote me on the last one, but the cannon works with a diverter instead. So instead of it going into this like kind of, it's not a vuck, it's more of like the punch shot on like Iron Man that blasts it down the cannon over this air graph and then lands onto this like platform and then continues down. Instead, it follows this orbit all the way down and returns to the left flipper as if it would anyways. So, yeah. For the operators that don't want to have to worry about any mech breaking or being serviced, this is a huge win for them. But for anybody that wants a more budget version of the game at home, you're getting totally fucked on the pro. Sorry. Thank you for watching. But I'm not 100% up to date on what the Spike 3 kind of extension expansion modules are. Also, I really liked on the LE that they had cutouts of like the Transformers language cut into the metal and then that lit up with LEDs on the sides of the cabinet. And I just I like those little details. I also asked Elizabeth what those said and she wouldn't tell me. So whoever can decode whatever the transformer language is, the side cabinet LEDs have a secret message on there. I don't know. It probably says Gary Stern or something. That would be cool. What's that? It can be less flowy. I don't care about the max. Yes, you can. I don't know what you're talking about, Pinball. It's also good to see you, my dude. So, yeah. I mean, I really don't know what else to say about the game. I got to both the multivols, which is there's one associated with starting Soundwave, and then there's the one associated with the Decepticon ramp. I got to one of the mini wizard modes. The game's code is extremely complete. I know that in the presentation, it was weird. In the presentation, they kept talking about all the stuff that's coming to the game. Thank you for watching. I mean, he's not wrong, but also like, what the hell, man? All right. How did you think it was, difficulty-wise? It was harder than Kong. I would say it was easier than, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was harder than Kong. I don't know. That's all I got. Well, moving on then. It's just its own thing. That's why it's hard to be like compare it to a certain game. It was a lot way harder than like Pokemon or like something that's a fan layout. 100%. But like I would say the rules. I don't agree with that. To me, I think it's about as hard as Kong is. I think Kong is one of the easier L1 layouts. It plays like Jurassic Park on like slightly easy mode. Yeah, it was harder than a Pokemon game. I thought you said Pokemon was harder, which is like, yeah. No, Pokemon's easier by a lot. So, hey, what's up, Ian? Ian says the shots are pretty far back. That usually means easy. So yes and no. So there's a whole cluster of all of this shit that's right here, which is it's not quite in like shadow, like all up in your face. Go fuck yourself mode. Right. It's a little further back, which is why I really compared it to Jurassic Park. And so let me let me go down why I believe that. Right. So you've got this entry here is very similar to the lock shot on the, what is it, the raptor cage, right? Then you've got this even further shot that is the one that goes up into the orbit ramp that's kind of like the control room, right? You've got this Decepticon cavity here, which is, this is the only shot that's a little different. It's somewhere like going into the smart missile shot. The right ramp here is absolutely the, you know, pterodactyl shot. The right orbit is kind of like an easier shot for the O. And then, you know, this upper left stuff, the bashing homeboy here is the T-Rex shot. And the lock shot here is very similar to the spinner, even though there's also a spinner right here. So there are a lot of similarities to Jurassic Park, which is great, in my opinion. It's not a copy cutter game. It doesn't feel like you're playing Jurassic Park. It feels very unique. All right, here. In my opinion when I jumped on to the layouts for Star Wars and Pokemon I didn feel like the games had a lot of like soul for lack of a better word They just they felt like they were games which I feel is like an obvious statement But when I got on Transformers, I felt like I was playing like an experience. Like the shots were unique. They felt satisfying. The theme integration is really there. The objectives and rules that you do are super fun. So so there's this. All right. So similar to like in Elling games, like when you need to like build up the shark, an Iron Maiden where you have to hit certain things. So there are these, let's see if you can see them. They're these shield looking targets here. You can see them here. They're like little arrows, but kind of not. So the game randomizes where these are and there's four different colors. There's a green one, which I realized that doesn't really look green, but I believe it is. There's an orange one, there's a blue one, and there's a purple one somewhere. I don't know where that is. Anyways, so if you hit those shots wherever they are and you hit them three or four times, let me pull up the UI. Okay, here it is. So if you hit them three times, it builds these bars here on the left. And when you build up those bars, then it lights the ramp, I believe, for this like kind of mini wizard multiball scenario. Again, this is all probably like 80% true. I'm trying to pull this from memory from the very short time that we were diving into it. But that shit's super fun. You get to see your progress towards all of it while you're, you know, in the weeds, which is super cool. Are you picking hair off my microphone? Yeah. So, yeah, pinballs. I mentioned that at the beginning of the stream. This code is as far along as any Gastern game has ever been at launch. So that's right. That's what my train of thought was. Thank you, pinballs. So in the introduction video, they're talking about all these unique, weird side feature modes that are there, and they're just not in the game yet. And what I thought was really strange is they didn't really focus on the fact that basically the whole fucking game is there. You can get to, I believe, every mode. You can get to one of the wizard modes. They just have a few wizard modes and these side things left to put in, or at least very close to it. And they said it would be out in a month or two. Right, so you're looking, if you're buying this game new and you're not buying the pro because you shouldn't unless your pinball is like big ass, dumb ass, you're getting a game that is straight up like almost complete. And that's really cool. So let's talk about the transforming module. So Stern sent a photo, Gomes responded to Kaneda, which is always a risk, that Hasbro sent them this model. This is a G1 Optimus Prime. Like, he had the physical toy showing that Hasbro sent it to him. So if you have a problem with short bus Optimus and his little, like, T-Rex arms. No, that's what the 80s toy looks like. This is what the 80s toy looks like, and this was what Hasbro wanted in the game. I'm sure it also has benefits of not getting balls stuck on it and stuff, but that's just how it is. I thought it was a great touch. I'm personally a huge Transformers TV show fan and from the 1986 movie as well. And they incorporated a lot. So the main game is primarily seasons one and two from the show. And then the special mode they use the 1986 movie. I'm sorry. Ian said, do you even auto lift, bro? And I just it's giving me the chuckles. Obviously, I can't. Now, Pinballs isn't an idiot because he bought Winchester like on on faith. So like that man's a brilliant man. But yeah, so I really appreciated that. And then I actually like how it looks like the corny 80s toys. I think that makes it part of the experience. Oh, Sim 13 has some even more info because there's probably I'm not a huge Transformers person. So and I'll get into why I think this game is cool, even outside of the fandom. So Sim 13 said it's not an 80s toy. They sent him the RC transforming toy based on its transforming function with to base the transforming function on. Interesting. And then after they scrapped it, they had to remodel the sculpt. Oh, they should have remodeled the sculpt. Okay, so there you go. So they sent them a transforming toy. Interesting. They sent them a transforming toy. Clearly, they were trying to make that work because you could see in the early trailers and teasers that the design of it is different and it's not in the same position that it is now. And then they decided to keep using that sculpt for the final production. Okay. Okay, I mean, look, I'll be honest, it doesn't affect gameplay whatsoever whether it transforms or not. It's so it's not an issue to me. I just don't like the stripped down one. Yeah. I like the cannon fire. It's so great. If you're buying transformers because you expect something to transform, I totally understand that. It will probably get modded in later. But also, I kind of like having a giant plasma cannon shoot the bottom ball like across the whole play field onto a ramp. It was so cool. Like, if I'm going to pick whether I want something to, like, transform or I want a functional gun model that, like, can place the ball in different spots, I'm going to go with that. And in future code updates, this is not something they have said, but if the gun can aim at the ramp and the gun can put the ball on the flipper, I'm sure that the gun can do other things later on if they want it to. That means they can program it to point it anywhere, release balls, maybe release multiple balls. Like, it's cool. We should mention the giant Decepticon toilet hole. So there's like a giant hole here. Like you're taking a big, like if you could sit on a Megatron bidet, you can put it down his big hole. It's super fun. I like playfuls that have big holes in them. And shooting into those big holes is really satisfying. South Park has one if you like big hole in that. So yeah, I realize that's a weird thing to like, but if you like big holes, this is cool for you. I like the tummy dump. Tummy dump is fun too. Yeah. Tell them what the tummy dump is. It's that one over there, right? Yeah, that's Soundwave. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think. Well, I think what happens is I guess when you shoot it, then it dumps it out of its tum-tum. Yeah, that's right. So you lock balls and then he opens his little tummy. His little tummy flaps open like a cassette player, which most of you probably don't even know what that is. Yeah, accurate. Thank you for watching. This pop bumper over here. In the past, historically, pinball has put two or three. Oh, we got to talk about the piss lake. Oh, man. Oh, I can't wait. Oh, my favorite thing. Oh, my God. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something about this. This has by far my favorite mode of any Stern pinball machine. That mode that I'm talking about is called piss lake. So there's a mode in here that you start where one of the Transformers goes up to this giant lake of yellow piss and he starts scooping it into his mouth. And then he makes a funny face like it tastes funny. And that's the whole intro video. Yeah, Golden Lagoon. Piss Lake is awesome. I would totally own this game on the fact that it has Piss Lake in it alone, which may or may not color your perspective on what my opinions are of this game. But let me tell you, more games need giant, giant lakes of urine and they need big robots shoveling into their mouth. Just gobble, gobble the piss. Gobble in the piss. Yes. So, yeah, a good reason to check it out. If you want to feel good at pinball, you know, come up. I mean, truly, I don't know how I'm going to feel right here. Whatever. Her Kelly's favorite mode. Amazing. Yeah, true, true, true. What's up, Latrama? Good to see you. Hope you're back here doing good. Becca, no I'm putting a Y on it. Flippant, I'm sorry that you're waiting for your Winchester. Well, at least it's on FedEx instead of, you know, not on FedEx. Okay, nice job. Also, this is... Let me see if I can find Piss Lake while you're talking to them. Yeah. I also... There's a tiny detail I like. When you finish your ball and the credits show up of how much bonus and everything that you gain for that ball, it puts everything in Transformers language first and then it translates into English. I just thought that was a nice touch. So I asked them about the 4x3 aspect ratio stuff. I think this was really smart. So apparently the bridge of the ship, someone please tell me what the name of the ship is because I don't remember. But the screen on the ship is in a, man, you're not supposed to be above the frame. Get out of here. Showing off how I need to fix that. Okay, so the screen on the Ark is in 16 by 9 ratio format, which is what this is. And they wanted to ensure that that was authentic to the series. So they didn't try to fake it and make it a 4 by 3 screen and then put the footage in there. But obviously, when you convert to some of the footage like there, you know, you get this border on it because the footage is four by three now. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, this stuff, the show aired on television way before widescreen format for television was a thing. I know some of you probably have absolutely no idea what that means. It was such a good show. Yeah. So that's why that is that way. And it really it's not distracting at all. You forgot who it is that I'm talking about. I don't know what you mean, Caden. I know she likes real machines, but has she played any of the VPX tables? Dude, I don't know what you're talking about. Tell me what you mean. Anybody at home see that? All right, let's see if we can find Piss Lake. All right, this mode is pretty hard to get to, so I don't play it very often. We'll see if I... I really hope that they talk about it with Piss Lake. I forgot it. The vibe of the entire game is really cool. The song is in there. Look at the lights. I have you. Thank you for watching. I'm so bummed about this. There we go. And plug it. You ever feel like just when you want a piss leg but you can't find a piss leg? I was listening to your timing and it threw me off. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Chat. Which I knew we had. I wasn't listening hard enough, I guess I should say. Chat, you know what I mean? Okay, I don't think it's in there. Let's see if we can find it here. Okay. Johnny Dutton said back it up. Back it up? Oh, did I miss it? Johnny? Golden Showers is also pretty good. I like that. Let's just watch through this and see if I can scan through it. Anyways, so yeah, I don't know. That's the experience. It's a really good game. I mean it. Some of you might find it too easy. The code's really complete. Again, I would recommend playing a game before you buy any game, blah, blah, blah. There's not going to be any shortages of these. They're obviously going to be manufacturing these, and you will be able to pick one up from your distributor. Don't feel obligated to get an LE because of fear of missing out or something. Please make educated purchasing decisions, etc. Yeah. Let's learn about this professional 32-bit terabyte hard drive. No. Don't buy this shit. No, Fliptronic, that is incorrect, my dude. So we were talking about that earlier. The Pro is not the way to go on this. It is too stripped down, in my opinion. There is literally, you get absolutely nothing except for the main table, which is fine, I guess, if that's what you want. But, like, there's not even one mech from the premium or LE versions, which I think is just extreme oversight. Yeah. I wish there was more stuff in the pro. Yeah. Rest now. I can take it from here. It's so golden. Like, just to, like, reiterate, man, like, he doesn't, like, just drink a little bit of piss. Like, he drinks a lot of piss. Like he's like shoveling it. Like he's like a thirsty little robot. And then he like realizes that it's like not tasty. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, this game has a gun. If you were pissed that John Wick didn't have a gun, now you got a game from Elliot Elliot Eismin that has a gun. Boom. I'm surprised they didn't make the plunger on John Wick a gun. How so many games have that. Yeah, I guess that's true. Yeah. So Pinballs and Fliptronic are saying that the mechs are overrated because they slow down the game. That's fair. There's an argument for that. I guess my retort to that would be like, bro, if I'm spending like seven grand on a pinball machine, like I want it to have like a mech. Yeah. So. Like just one. All right. Let's see if the premium gameplay. Oh, here. You know what? We'll pull up the pro gameplay so you can see the difference. We'll go full screen for this while we look for the piss. Does the gun shoot at you? Yes, the gun does shoot at you. It points straight at the ramp on the left, and I'm sure they could point it right at you if they wanted to. Alright, time to search for the pits. I not as good of a pinball player so I can really determine if it harder than Kong I would say it about the same difficulty as Kong Yeah Personally It way way harder than Pokemon I wasn't finding myself aggressively draining out either of the outlanes. The pop bumper on the utility pop, but Jesus, Doug, moving the game. Wow. You really scooted that. Yeah, the pro was on the left side, so I'm glad because otherwise Doug would have just like murdered somebody. Sperry, Gage, and Gage. This is the video where he's drinking piss, though. Damn. Damn it. I'm positive. He's thirsty for the piss. I love the call-outs and that they got the original actors. Yeah, they got the original voice of Optimus Prime and they got the original voice for Megatron. The callouts sound amazing and authentic. It's good stuff. Frank Walker and Peter Cullen. Yeah, there you go. We're going to chill here just to see if there's any piss drinking at the end of this. So you can see here the gun doesn't move, but the, you know, you've got this plastic in front of, the stand up for hitting sound wave is smaller on here as well. Bus Call, you double-checked 542, is there piss there? I did, I did, a little bit. So, one of the modes that's not in the game, this is like the challenge mode things, is that you can be on either side of the game and the objective is to knock your opponent out, and you want to hit the other opposite color that you are. Optimus Prime, for sure. Classic. So, but what you can also do is you can fight over the center button, which apparently operates the upper flipper. And so they want people, you know, Elizabeth wants people kind of like fighting over the center button while they're trying to like, you know, hit the other person's shots. But you can also, you can hit your own shots, which is pretty funny. So you do need to, you can't just like fire away. Oh, God damn it. See, it's like I'm, now I have to watch ads. Thank you for watching. Music is very chill. Something you have to remember, like the action cues for this are like far and few between for the show. That's disgusting. Don't play the Gatorade thing after I'm talking about piss, okay? That's a good point. Piss aid? I totally lost my train of thought. Oh, right, the music. So the music is like very laid back for the most of it. So you just like you're kind of just like getting a groove. But I mean, when I was flowing and I got into multiball, like I was just like so like drawn into the game. Yeah, the flow of how you can change shots together is amazingly satisfying. There's this Energon cube thing. When you hit the spinner, it builds up your Energon cube. And then when it hits 100 percent, you can do something. I think you can use it to spot a shot. But I honestly like it's just we don't have enough time to really consume like all of the modes and all of the software that is in here, even though it really is like tons of it in here. This, I believe, is the Megatron multiball. But it's not Piss Lake, so I don't care. We need... Cybertron of the Transformers. Okay, so here's an example. So they started on solar needle mode, and you can either energize or you can keep it, which means you're keeping the difficulty the same, or you're charging it up to make it a harder difficulty. Apparently Hasbro was like so extremely cool to work with and just provided like all the licensing assets and stuff. It was just like a dream IP in terms of getting approval and doing everything they wanted. Damn, I'm really sad. We're going to have to go to the premium and see if we can find it there. If there's anybody that's watching these and can find a time code of Piss Lake and help me out here so I can finish this dumb thing and move on, I would appreciate it. I didn't record that much of the premium play. That's too bad. Oh no, there's a car on the edge. Yeah, totally wiffle bat, I agree. The difference between the premium and the LE is all the same for normal Stern stuff. I believe that it has no shaker motor, no side arc. It has no expression system on the side of the cabinet. And it doesn't have the upgraded sound package. So you're looking at the same kind of like, yeah, well, yeah. All that stuff can be purchased, of course, at a cost to put in the game if that's something that interests you. What is at the base game for all three modes is Piss Lake, though. Oh, Lake would piss in it. Are the LA's sold out? I don't think so. Jeff, what's going on, man? Good to see you. Oh, right. Thank you, Ossie. And the back glass is... Oh, okay. Yeah, let's talk about that real quick. Let's pull up the Transformers pinball here. Transformers pinball. So the art is... the cabinet art is something that I do have an opinion on. This is the pro. This is the premium. I think they should have swapped them. The composition on the side here looks cooler, and I think that that's more of a premium thing. And I think that the purple and clusterfuck of people on it should have been the pro, in my opinion. I mean, the back glasses could have stayed the same. But just to me, the pro looks like a premium version of the game, and the premium does not from an art package standpoint. The LE has like a split, you know, Decepticons, Autobots stuff and the art's really cool on it. I mean, it's just, it's great. So, I don't know. That's just, that's subjective. Perhaps you feel the same or differently on it, but let's see if we can get to, did they put any money shot? There you go. There's Tommy Time. I'm assuming they just placed that ball on there and took a picture of it because it would be dumping out otherwise. I mean, they're promo photos. You gotta do it. You gotta do what you gotta do. Okay, here we go. So this is the LE. Do we have the back glass? No, they're not gonna give us the back glass, huh? Oh well. Anyways. So, amazing game. It's super fun. It's very code complete. I do think the pro is too stripped down. I wish the pro and premium artwork was switched. It may be a little too easy for some people, but what you're getting is an incredibly satisfying... If you were mad that John Wick was too difficult, and when I went into the media day, I was just like, oh my god, I really didn't like John Wick. I don't want to have to talk about that with Elliot. This is not that. He definitely made a more accessible game, but it is not a fan layout. It is a very interesting layout. It is a very interesting game in terms of ball paths. So yeah, I think it's worth checking out. There you go. Playfield Arts, good. I mean, it looks like, you know, Transformers. Backlash on the OET. Thank you for watching. And you've got your modes that are very much dependent on what's going on for like main story modes and stuff. Then you've got your secondary objective things. You know, you're just the extra ball light is here. I mean, it's it's it's very clear what you need to be shooting at. I really like the middle ramps, too. It's really satisfying. She right. Yeah. So look like the right orbit shooting, shooting the spinner whips back down the right orbit, which is neat. And shooting the right orbit also comes back down the center, if I remember correctly. Super satisfying. Shooting it into these drops. Oh, you also, I believe you get more points if you can sneak it through the drops into the toilet bowl without dropping them all, which is a neat idea. Like, hopefully they do that on other games. You get, like, this big toilet bowl shot, like I said, which is satisfying. Shooting the ramp and having it load the gun, amazing. The lock shot is just kind of a dead-end saucer that vucks it up into the armature. It feels fine. It's not as exciting as it dropping down a hole or whatever. Bashing Optimus in the dong is fun. This whole left cluster, all the shots are really satisfying. Like, it's fun to hit everything, so. Did you say it's a Megatron bidet? No, I would not say that, Syd. Why? It's not piss related. I said bidet. I'm talking about Megatron. It's your butthole, man. I don't wash my penis with a bidet. What are you doing? It's not how you use it. What's your head doing? Why are you putting your head in your hands? Everybody knows that's Big Dick B. Yes, I wish that they had put a reference to that meme in here. That would have been hilarious. My favorite Pokemon are Party Wiener and Three Floor Shits, probably. Anyways, yeah. So much shit and poo talk. Does anybody have any other? It's Dirty Pool, man. I know, but this isn't a podcast. It's Dirty Pool, not poo. Just put an L on it. Yeah, so that's probably it. I don't really have any other opinions on this. It's pretty simple. It's a fun game. Stern did a good job. There you go. Yay, geese key. If you have any other specific questions, fire away. We'll try to answer them. I'm not getting one because I don't have space. I considered, I can't believe I'm going to say this. Am I going to say this on stream? I mean, I will if you won't. All right, I'll say it. I was considering selling my Kong to get one. No, you were going to trade. Or trade my Kong. Put it in somebody's place. I sit down for that. Everybody, let's go. Yeah. I don't know why this Lego Batman, what is a lot of Lego Batman doing? Kiss from a Rose. All right. Gameplay premiere. Five minutes, 55 seconds. Bro, you are my absolute hero. Everybody, can we can we have an MVP moment? Can we just have like a moment of like solace here? Hold on. Sid Snow. It's going to give you a nice little 10 second silent praise. Guys, thank you for finding Piss Lake Forest. From one fellow Sid to another Here we go Starting right now Here your 10 seconds That's for you, my dude. Thank you. Yeah, we got to do a little warm up. We got to build the excitement. Okay, this is it. This is the moment. Yes. All right, here we go. Look at them. Scoop it up. Drink it. Put it in your mouth, dude. Oh, no, he just stares at it. Damn it. I fucking thought he put it in his mouth. I got so excited. Did you remember it wrong? I think I was just so excited that he was going to drink it, but then he didn't. Look at that. Look at that face. That's a really, like, interesting facial expression. I mean, if I put my hand in a big lake of piss, that's exactly what I would do. Look at that. No. Such a tease. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Sperry, Bumble, and Sperry. Does the Mega Cannon shoot anywhere else? Yes, the Mega Cannon aims down and feeds the upper right flipper here. Slow dribbles down to the upper right flipper. You can't see my thing. So he points it down this direction and then feeds this flipper with it. Oh, what's the third one, Aussie? I didn't see him point it a different direction. Oh, he pointed it up that way. Where did he go with it? Is he just jiggling? Oh my god, Piss Like Edition would be so good. Screw black and white. Just do a totally yellow play field. Golden Lagoon Edition. Thank you for watching. I'm all about Snorlax. Snorlax completes me. Oh, it can fire it down to the right flipper. There you go. Very cool. So it does shoot the ball at you. Oh, okay. So I got... Elizabeth talked about how the scoring is similar to a traditional game and that she was thinking about boosting the points a little bit. Of the stuff that I played, I played four or five games. Two of them were well over in the 200 to 300 mils. And she said that the scoring for that should have been higher based on how much progress I had made through the game. So that's why I'm saying when I walked up to Jaws or Jurassic Park, I was scoring 20 or 30 mil. You can make fun of me all you want based on my skill set, but I would consider myself a slightly above average player. And, you know, if she's saying that that was low, that means that scores to me should have been around like half half a billion. And I don't think you should be scoring a half a billion on a game the first time you like walk up to it personally. But also Elizabeth mentioned. What was it called? They're adding something to Insider Connect with the cyber coin. Oh, right. They're putting like shark teeth stuff in it. So if you're familiar with how you can like spend your currency in Jaws to like buy challenge modes and stuff like that, that's going to be in Transformers. And you're going to use that to do the split flipper mode, the training mode. But you can tack on those modes that you complete and it tacks on to your overall score. So you can get even more points. You were talking about points. What in terms of? So like. You got a billion. If you didn't get a billion on Attack from Mars, like... So it's a cybercoin wallet system. So you can unlock challenge modes that tack on to the end of your game. So that's how you get a bunch of points. What secret stuff are you reading? It's not secret. She was there too. But this is... She took notes. So I was... Oh, oh, right, right, right. Okay. No, okay. So that's kind of true. So for people that don't have Insider Connected, they want to promote them to be interested Thank you for watching. Practice how to do a shot as an amateur player after you finish playing a game for it. So it's just an effort for them to try to continue to get people more interested in playing pinball that aren't like. And more people on Insider Connected. But they clearly want like on their platform. Totally. Pinball's just sent me a picture of a bunch of chicken in a bowl. This man's insane. Anyways, so. It wasn't oatmeal? It's not oatmeal. That was chicken. Who makes chicken noodles? It's creepy, man. It's insane. It's so piss-like. That is so random. Okay. That's all I got. Thank you, everybody, for coming to hang out on this wild and wacky Friday midday stream. Yeah. Yeah, we had a blast. It was my first time ever at Stern's headquarters. Yeah, that's true. I had a blast. You did the tour. How did you like the tour? Oh, the tour was awesome. So when we were in the warehouse, it was just really cool to see just the whole process and their layout. And they were in the process of making a ton of the Pokemon game. So there were Pikachus galore everywhere. I think I just I felt so tiny in the warehouse, too, because I think the ceilings were like. I was it like I think they said 50 or 60 feet high. It's huge. It's massive. Yeah, Stern is quite an impressive location. Yeah, it was just really neat. I really enjoyed that type of stuff. If you want to see on my YouTube, there's a video where I did a video about the media day for Star Wars, for Fall of the Empire, where I go in and do videos of all of the different spots. And you can see kind of like every different moment. 90% all women worker. That's true. And Kyle had an interesting thing to say about that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so somebody noticed that when we were passing like through certain sections, particularly the wiring section, he was like, oh, I noticed like it's all females. And then Kyle was like, yeah, we hire specifically only females because they pay more attention to detail. So I thought that was a nice little like. I believe that 100 percent. You wouldn't know anything about that. No, me dumb. So, yeah, so the experience is like Stern, they've got this like a little entry portal where it's like an airlock system and then you go in and it's like this huge main area. And I mean like absolutely massive, like the ceilings literally are like 30, 40 feet high. Like it's a forever distance up there. And they have like 50 or 60 pinball machines, pretty much every Stern pinball machine back to like Sam era. Like they had Transformers, the old one. I'm trying to think, you know, they had like Elvis. I'm trying to think of like what are some of the older games that they had there. Ozzy were there. What was the oldest Stern game that you remember seeing in the big line? They like Mustang. I like that. And then, you know, there's like a luncheon room area that's kind of like right off that and the bathrooms. And then there's like a double door right past the like lunch area that opens up to a giant, giant warehouse of manufacturing where they have all of their different construction stuff set up and little modules. There's a section where they're building wire harnesses. There's a section where they're doing playfield assembly or playfield printing or not printing like the press that puts the dimples in it so they know where to put screw holes and everything. They talked a lot about that. Yeah, playfields come pre-screened and pre-painted. They don't make the playfields there. Those are outsourced. But now apparently after Spike 3 Cabinets, they do the cabinet assembly there. They do. From what I've heard. I got to see all the Pokemon ones get made and they were like pressing on the mallet. Mallet? Get banged on. There's a lot of woodwork in that room. Yeah. Yeah, it was really neat. You know what I didn't check because I didn't do the tour? Ozzy, what was the code name for Transformers? Because they have like all the playfields set up and then they have like a little thing that says what the code name for the game was. I'm curious what Transformers code name was. Cheddar? Is that true? That's funny. I wonder what that reference is. The codename should have been Piss Lake. Nobody would have got that. Three House? Interesting. To the person who commented that the videos look kind of random, they're not random. So they have all of the footage from all of the episodes. So the modes are kind of based on particular episode concepts, and then all the footage is from those concepts. But this is like a very stackable game. Like a lot of you can do a mode that has like the multiball going on. And so like there is a lot of interplay and like kind of whatever multiple concepts of videos playing at the same time. Yeah. So. I had a blast. I didn't. You know what? I was bummed out they didn't do the firing squad presentation. So like in the past, in the only one other media event that I went to, the designer and whoever else on the team that is there to talk about the game kind of like stands in front of the game and introduces it and talks about it and stuff like that. That didn't happen this time. Instead, like it was very casual. Like we just kind of went in there and they were, you know, Elizabeth and Elliot were just kind of like standing around and like you go up to them, talk about the game. They're both very like come up and help you like learn the rules and learn the game. Yeah. Dude sucks. Good classification. Yeah. So Elliot's been working with engineering at Stern for forever. And I think that's one reason why I think that the mechs are going to be pretty rock solid. Because I have heard that he also went in to help a man handle and create some of these engineering feats for the game himself because he's already got the skill set for it, even though he's doing the design. So when they were talking about the art package, it's a whole conglomerate of people working on the games. Stern has mentioned now that the games are getting so much bigger and so much more complicated that the days of assigning one person as this like credit for certain categories is like done. It's just it's more like game studios that they mentioned and that there's a whole team that really comes together to do this kind of stuff. So, you know, here we are. We're in the era of large team development games now instead of one-offs. I mean, it makes sense for how big that warehouse is. Yeah. There's a lot. A lot of stuff in there. A lot of things. Okay. I know, right? Elliot does look young. Good genes, man. I wish I aged that well, but here I am, hobo and broken. Okay. That's it. Should we go raid somebody? Hell yeah. Cool. Oh, shirts. Oh, yeah, all right. I got new swag in the thing. You can get a pyramid. It says Dirty Pool in the back. I just love that we're matching today. I just want to show everybody that we're matching. Dirty Pool. So, yeah, if you'd like to support the channel, that's great. You can check it out at www.dirtypoolpinball.com if you don't. That's cool, too. We're going to have sweatshirts and shit. I'm going to be streaming Lord of the Rings coming up. We're going to get to Valinor. This is it. We're going to fucking do it. I swear to God. Hell or high water, bring a Carl in if I need to. We're going to get to Valinor. I've done a complete flipper rebuild on it. I have made sure the right fuses are in there because we had the correct amp fuse or the slow bro that was in there. But it was just like T-move fuse, you know what I'm saying? So we got an actual good production fuse that isn't going to pop when it shouldn't. Nighty night, keep your bum tight. Yeah, that's cute. I like that. All right, nerds. Thanks so much. I'll praise the Great Pyramid. Thank you, everybody. Let's go raid. Stick around. Don't go anywhere. Love you. Bye. Pyramid accepts all to the cult of the great order. I am Dr. Cornelius Agostin, impreterper and acolyte of the Great Pyramid. Join us.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-06-06 | Item ID: 44ab27a3-a969-41bb-b1b2-e659f0c5b865*