# BDYETP 95: Jaws 50 | Spike 3 | Costco Pins | Steelbound | King Kong Review

**Source:** Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-08-11  
**Duration:** 77m 19s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/buffalo-pinball/episodes/BDYETP-95-Jaws-50--Spike-3--Costco-Pins--Steelbound--King-Kong-Review-e36miio

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## Analysis

Buffalo Pinball hosts discuss the Jaws 50th Anniversary release (Premium at $9,600 with improved playfield glitter and chrome ramps, undercutting the previous LE), Spike 3 improvements from George Gomez interview, a new Costco Stern home cabinet, rumors of a prequel Star Wars pinball game by John Borg, Steelbound (a P3 RPG-adventure game by Nick Baldridge), and personal game room updates including Kevin's acquisition of a Venom Premium.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jaws 50th Anniversary Premium is priced at $9,600, has glitter on playfield, chrome ramps, and is better than the original LE which sold for $13,000 — _Kevin and Nick discuss official Stern release details from Jaws 50th reveal_
- [HIGH] Stern is deliberately discouraging LE purchases by releasing better Premium versions at lower prices — _Nick's direct interpretation: 'They're really training their customers not to buy LEs' and 'no rush to buy any of these things'_
- [MEDIUM] George Gomez stated Stern doesn't release full code at launch and uses Insider Connected data to perfect code over time — _Summarized from Loser Kid podcast appearance via Nap Arcade highlights_
- [MEDIUM] Spike 3 will feature improved sound, better expression lighting, wireless headphone capability, and quieter fans/power supplies — _George Gomez interview on Loser Kid podcast, summarized by hosts_
- [LOW] A Star Wars prequel trilogy game (Episodes 1-3 with Anakin/Jar Jar) is being developed by John Borg as a new Stern title — _Kevin: 'allegedly, it's going to be the prequel trilogy' and 'new game from John Borg is the rumor'_
- [HIGH] New Costco Stern home cabinet has a larger LCD screen than the previous version and includes Insider Connected — _Hosts compare visual specs of cabinet images_
- [HIGH] Steelbound is a P3 module game by Nick Baldridge featuring procedurally generated dungeons and cross-module gameplay variation — _Official announcement from For Amusement Only Games with steelboundpinball.com_
- [MEDIUM] Stern strategically delays code updates to boost sales rather than releasing complete code at launch — _Kevin: 'heard a rumor that...they literally do this stern does this this person says like for a fact' about holding code ready for 3+ months before release_
- [MEDIUM] Venom Premium prices have tanked, making it an attractive buy for collectors — _Kevin: 'prices were tanking on it' so decided to purchase_
- [HIGH] Venom has an unlockable character locked behind a $1,200 topper purchase — _Kevin's direct experience: 'there's another character you can get but you have to buy the topper and I'm not spending $1,200 on a topp[er]'_

### Notable Quotes

> "They're really training their customers not to buy LEs is the way I would view this"
> — **Nick**, ~08:00
> _Core observation about Stern's pricing strategy undercutting Limited Editions with Premium versions_

> "fuck you le owners is what stern said to you like we're gonna make some more money"
> — **Kevin**, ~08:30
> _Candid reaction to Stern's Jaws 50th underpricing relative to original LE_

> "There's no reason these days to buy a Stern right out of the gate at all. I can't think of one reason."
> — **Nick**, ~17:00
> _Strong recommendation against early adoption of Stern games due to incomplete code and mechanical issues_

> "they they purposely dole out um updates to their games because it boosts sales so like they'll they'll have the code ready to go they could have pushed out today they'll wait like three months or longer"
> — **Kevin**, ~20:00
> _Allegation about deliberate code release timing for marketing impact_

> "it's pretty much what I expected but there is more like beyond the defeating null that you can go for which I like that will probably keep me more interested in it for longer"
> — **Kevin**, ~55:00
> _First impressions of Venom gameplay depth_

> "Can this be the time that we actually get a good Star Wars game, please? Please?"
> — **Nick**, ~28:00
> _Community frustration with current Star Wars pinball game quality_

> "The other thing is, I guess they said that they're going to be able to have better lighting system...The expression lighting."
> — **Nick/Kevin**, ~15:00
> _Spike 3 feature discussion_

> "I don't really understand how it's more user friendly...if the spring breaks on the TIE Fighter, you've got a problem. You're out of luck."
> — **Nick**, ~35:00
> _Critique of Costco cabinet simplification strategy_

> "I always feel like these kind of don't sell good, but they must sell well enough that it makes sense that they keep doing these."
> — **Goran (chat)**, ~34:00
> _Community skepticism about Costco cabinet popularity_

> "you put Star Wars on it, you print money"
> — **Kevin**, ~28:30
> _Recognition of IP's power to drive sales regardless of game quality_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Stern Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer releasing Jaws 50th Anniversary, Spike 3 system, Star Wars sequel, and Costco home cabinet |
| Kevin Manning | person | Co-host of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball; Buffalo Pinball member; recently purchased Venom Premium |
| Nick Lane | person | Co-host of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball; Buffalo Pinball member; played Predator film on Fourth of July |
| Buffalo Pinball | organization | Local pinball club that received Jaws 50th Anniversary from Flippin' Out Pinball; hosts Kevin and Nick |
| Jaws 50th Anniversary | product | New Stern Pinball premium edition with glitter playfield, chrome ramps, $9,600 price point; undercuts original LE at $13,000 |
| Jaws | game | Original Stern game released January 2024; receiving 50th Anniversary variant |
| Spike 3 | product | Next-generation Stern pinball system with improved sound, lighting, wireless headphones, quieter operation |
| George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer; appeared on Loser Kid podcast discussing Spike 3 improvements and code release strategy |
| John Borg | person | Pinball designer rumored to be developing prequel Star Wars game (Episodes 1-3) |
| Walking Dead | game | Rumored to receive Spike 3 remaster/remake for fall/Halloween release |
| Star Wars (prequel trilogy) | game | Unconfirmed rumor of new Stern pinball game featuring Episodes 1-3 with Anakin/Jar Jar by John Borg |
| Costco Stern home cabinet | product | New home pinball cabinet sold at Costco; $4,800 price point; larger LCD than previous version; includes Insider Connected |
| Insider Connected | product | Stern's data analytics system used for code refinement and in Costco/home machines |
| Steelbound | game | P3 module game by Nick Baldridge; RPG-adventure with procedurally generated dungeons; cross-module gameplay variation |
| Nick Baldridge | person | P3 game designer/developer; created Steelbound with composer John Chad Charles Wolf |
| For Amusement Only Games | company | Publishing/development studio for Steelbound; Nick Baldridge's podcast/production company |
| Rob (Hall & Oates Pinball) | person | Local Buffalo pinball delivery/setup service; new podcast sponsor; offered Kevin the Venom Premium |
| Venom | game | Stern Pinball game; Kevin purchased Premium version; features unlockable characters and topper-locked content |
| Flippin' Out Pinball | company | Pinball distributor/retailer; provided Jaws 50th to Buffalo Pinball club; operator of podcast |
| Zach Menne | person | Owner of Flippin' Out Pinball; primary podcast sponsor |
| Nap Arcade | organization | Pinball news outlet that summarized George Gomez/Loser Kid podcast highlights |
| Loser Kid | organization | Pinball podcast that featured George Gomez interview about Spike 3 |
| Cuphead | game | P3 game still unreleased as of August 2025; ongoing 'Cuphead watch' tracking status |
| Dune | game | Barrels of Fun pinball game; Kevin and Nick planning to play Friday; subject of poll about playfield anatomy |
| Barrels of Fun | company | Pinball manufacturer; created Dune; subject of design philosophy concerns about muted color palette |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Stern pricing strategy and LE devaluation, Spike 3 hardware improvements and specifications, Code release timing and Insider Connected data analytics
- **Secondary:** Star Wars prequel pinball rumor, Costco home pinball cabinet improvements, Steelbound P3 RPG-adventure announcement, Venom Premium gameplay and content monetization, Community resistance to early Stern game adoption

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.45) — Hosts are enthusiastic about new releases (Steelbound, Jaws 50th) and content, but express frustration with Stern's pricing strategy (LE undercutting), incomplete code releases, and strategic update timing. Skepticism about Star Wars quality and Costco cabinet value. Positive reception of Hall & Oates Pinball sponsor and personal acquisitions.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Stern's strategic code release timing appears designed to maximize sales through repeated marketing pushes and updates rather than shipping complete product; concerns about artificial scarcity and forced adoption patterns (confidence: medium) — Kevin: 'they purposely dole out um updates to their games because it boosts sales...they'll wait like three months or longer and then they'll push a button and that instantly would generate more sales'
- **[community_signal]** Buffalo Pinball hosts engaging community with interactive polls (Dune playfield anatomy vote) and transparent game room acquisition updates (confidence: medium) — Poll setup for Dune playfield features; community participation via Twitch chat voting
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong community frustration with current Star Wars pinball game quality; desire for redesign with better mechanics and clearer rule integration (confidence: high) — Nick: 'Can this be the time that we actually get a good Star Wars game, please? Please?' and 'it's a whole lot of okay'
- **[competitive_signal]** Jaws 50th Anniversary positioned as premium collector item at $9,600 with glitter enhancement and chrome ramps; outperforms original LE at lower price point (confidence: high) — Kevin: 'this is better than the le and it's priced at a premium so instead of 13000 it's 9600'
- **[market_signal]** Venom Premium experiencing price decline, creating buying opportunity for collectors; indicates potential oversupply or market saturation for this title (confidence: medium) — Kevin: 'Venom's been a game that I've always kind of been interested...prices were tanking on it I was like I'll take a shot at it'
- **[business_signal]** Venom features character unlock locked behind $1,200 topper purchase, indicating aggressive post-sale monetization strategy (confidence: high) — Kevin: 'there's another character you can get but you have to buy the topper and I'm not spending $1,200 on a topp[er]'
- **[market_signal]** Costco home cabinet at $4,800 generates community discussion about value vs. actual pinball machines; secondary market resale concerns raised (confidence: medium) — Host discussion about $4,800 pricing vs. $7,000 Pro models; Nick: 'you're going to get crushed on resale value'
- **[announcement]** Steelbound officially announced as P3 module game with RPG-adventure mechanics, procedurally generated dungeons, and cross-module gameplay variation; launching later in 2025 (confidence: high) — Official announcement from For Amusement Only Games with steelboundpinball.com; confirmed features and collaboration with John Chad Charles Wolf
- **[product_strategy]** Costco Stern home cabinet receives LCD screen size upgrade over previous version while maintaining accessible price point and Insider Connected integration (confidence: high) — Visual comparison of cabinet images showing expanded LCD screen size
- **[product_strategy]** Spike 3 system planned with improved sound, expression lighting, wireless headphones, quieter operation; Walking Dead rumored as launch title for fall/Halloween (confidence: medium) — George Gomez interview summary from Loser Kid podcast; Nick: 'Walking Dead...it would make sense for that to come out around the fall and Halloween'
- **[rumor_hype]** Unconfirmed rumor of Star Wars prequel trilogy pinball game (Episodes 1-3 with Anakin/Jar Jar) in development by John Borg at Stern (confidence: low) — Kevin: 'allegedly, it's going to be the prequel trilogy...new game from John Borg is the rumor'
- **[business_signal]** Stern deliberately constraining LE appeal and adoption by releasing superior Premium versions at lower prices to drive volume and prevent FOMO-driven early purchasing (confidence: high) — Nick: 'They're really training their customers not to buy LEs' and 'no rush to buy any of these things. Right. Like, you know, like with King Kong, right, they're going to have a black and white version'

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## Transcript

 All right, coming up on this episode of Brody Even Talk Pinball, we've got the Jaws 50th pinball machine has been revealed and is out. We've got another Costco pin for everybody who's excited about that. And then lastly, we're going to review King Kong. All that and more coming right up. Double Super Jet Pod! I need a loop. I want targets I can hit. I need the scoop. I need a double super chat bot. That's my life. That's right. Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Boom shakalaka. Hey, what's happening, everybody? This is Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, episode 95 for August 10th, 2025. I'm Kevin. That's Nick. Nick, how's your summer going? It's good, and I want to start off the podcast. I do apologize for something. Oh, boy. Okay. Yeah. So last episode, some people were really upset with me because I had not watched Predator. Like, there was at least two comments, and they were very upset with me. They were not very nice comments either. No, and sometimes we get not nice comments and people are absolutely wrong, but they were right. They were absolutely right. I was in the wrong for never having watched Predator. I meant to watch it for years, and I just never got around to it. So this Fourth of July, I made myself whiskey, had a cigar, and then I sat down after that and watched Predator, and it was the best Fourth of July ever. So apologies to everybody, but I know you're concerned, and I just want to make sure you guys know I rectified the situation. Well, you know, the audience is concerned about your health and well-being, and rightly so. So I assume you watched it in glorious 4K on your setup at home, yeah? You know what? I think I couldn't get in 4K from – it was on Amazon Prime. I think it was just 1080, I think. I don't know if it was 4K or not. So I watched it. I know. We got through it. It was good. I enjoyed it. And now you can truly appreciate the disparity in the difference of the call-outs to get to the choppa that we appreciated last month. I didn't need to watch it to know that that was just garbage. But, yeah. But I can definitely appreciate it at a higher level now. Exactly. Ten of you is unwatchable. That's very good. Awesome. All right. So why don't we kick it off by thanking our partners. And we got a new one this month that we can talk about, too. So, Nick, why don't you do the honors? All right. First of all, we've got to start off with our premier partner, FlipAndOutPinball.com, Zach Menne. Once you go, Zach, you never go back. The only place, in my opinion, to buy pinball machines is the best selection. They even have some used games that Zach will sell you, and they provide the best customer service in the industry. And Zach has always been very good to us. He hooked the club up with a Jaws pinball machine for one of our members. He makes sure we get those nice and safely. And then he also sends swag out to our events. So always taking care of us. Thank you, Zach. We want to give a shout-out to some other partners. I want to start off. We got hopefully people. I meant to caution people of us skipping this over. I feel bad if they skip it over because they're going to miss out on a really good special deal. So I'm going to highlight this and do this upright. We've got a brand-new sponsor, and that's Hall & Oates, Hall & Oates Pinball. I didn't say that incorrectly. Kevin, can you go back for one second? Yeah, yeah. Uh, partners. There you go. So to get in touch and look into this more and contact Hall & Oates Pinball, you go to bit.ly slash Hall, N as in Nick, and then Oates. Hall & Oates. And it's Hall as in like hauling pinball machines and not like Daryl Hall. H-A-U-L. Correct. It couldn't be more confusing trying to do this on the podcast. That's why I asked this morning a million times. But you can also search for Hall & Oates on Pinside, and you'll probably get the right thing. But here's the deal. We love Rob. Rob is local in the Buffalo area. He has been doing a phenomenal job over the past year in delivering pinball machines. I've had him deliver, like, I think at least four games now in the past six months. He's done two for me. Yeah, I cannot recommend him enough. His cell phone is on the screen. I don't know. He wanted to give that up. Okay, so his cell phone. Also, this might be easier than a website. If you want to get in touch with Rob, it's 716-523-5570. Do not send him nudes. He specifically asked. Do not send him nudes. Okay? Just for business. Unless it's like close-ups of various parts of the Dune Pinball Machine that look like nudes. You can send those. Yeah, correct. You can send him the quote-unquote worm pics on Dune Pinball Machine. He loves that. But Rob is running a special promo right now being a new sponsor. So anybody who reaches out to Rob for the month of August and wants a pinball machine moved, he'll give you $50 off. He delivers specifically in the Northeast. I mean, he's gone quite far. I mean, he's been down to, I think, like Kentucky and the Carolinas. Texas, I think he did once, too, yeah. Yeah, he'll even do that. I mean, that seems prohibitively expensive, but he crushes the Northeast and Ohio and surrounding areas. So, again, 716-523-5570. Do not send him nudes, but he will give you $50 off for the month of August. You've got to mention that you heard it on this podcast, though. You've got to say that. Your boys Nick and Kevin hooked you up. So the thing about Rob is, like, sure, you can get delivery. There's, like, Fastenal and all these other services. But Rob is a pinhead. He knows what he's doing. He's going to set it up for you. He's not going to mess around. He's not going to, like, ship it on the legs and strap it to the side of a panel van and crank down the ratchet straps. He's going to, hey, he handles it with care, wraps it up nicely, does an amazing job. So especially if you're feeling lazy and you're like, I just want this delivered to my house and set up, Rob's going to hook you up. Right. White Club Service. Yep. Right. Like, he'll set the game up for you. He'll take it up and downstairs. Like, you don't have to mess with any of that. He'll wrap the game that you're going to sell. Like, it's a no-brainer. I never want to move a game any other way. I'm not joking. That's been the hardest part of this hobby for me, and it's a godsend having Rob. So there you go. Great guy. Check it out. New sponsor. All right, go back to the sponsor page. All right, yep, yep. And then, you know, we love our other sponsors. Been with us for a long time. We've got Comet Pinball, maker of the finest LEDs on the marketplace. We've got Multimorphic. We've got some Multimorphic news coming up, maker of the P3. Titan Pinball. Titan Pinball for the silicone rings, sweet floor mats, and other pinball accessories. You've got pinside.com, best place to go to buy and sell a game. If you're an owner of a game, there's a great owner's thread on there. And then last but not least, we've got Pinball Life, the place I've been purchasing pinball parts since 2011. Yeah, I placed an order with them to get some stuff for my Venom, which we'll talk about later. So, all right, let's talk about some pinball news. Here we go. Here's the tip. it's the latest pinball news so hunt it's on fire all right breaking news from nap arcade uh from you know july 2nd yeah we're right on top of it ladies and gentlemen it's been a busy month uh but jaws pinball or stern pinball released jaws 50th anniversary oh my god they took the machine and changed some of the powder coating and they made the playfield glittery and they put a holographic sticker on the back glass. And there you go. It's not an LE though. It's a premium because they're not doing anniversary LEs anymore or something. I don't know. Nick, what do you think? What do you think of the Jaws 50th? I mean, like no surprise, right? Like this is, they're really training their customers not to buy LEs is the way I would view this because this is a great deal if you've been wanting a Jaws. I'm wondering how the LE owners are feeling because they paid, what, $13,000 for an LE. Right. So this is basically the same as the LE. It's got a nice powder coat on. It doesn't have that shark bite out. Who cares about it? Maybe some people prefer white. This has red. I think the red looks fantastic. And then it's got, I don't think, does the LE have glitter on the play field? The glitter looks pretty cool in the water. I can't believe I'm saying the same thing. It does not, no. Okay, so this is a better play field, and the ramps are chromed out. Yeah, look at that. This is, and here's the kicker. this is so not only is this the 50th edition this is in my opinion better than the le and it's priced at a premium so instead of 13 000 it's 9600 like fuck you le owners is what stern said to you like we're gonna make some more money that's crazy but that's crazy they didn't put a numbered plaque on it though so you know it's not a limited edition so it's a better version it's a better version so there probably are a few differences like the premium the le's usually come with the better speakers right and the the uh hd glass right so i'm sure there's a couple little things that you would get on it ellie that you don't have on here but that's all stuff you could add to this if you wanted i uh i i think i have the hd glass on my john wick that i bought used unless some like somebody swapped it out i don't think they did and it's also hd glass on the the kong but to be and it looks good but to be honest i didn't i was like is that hd glass is it not like anti-reflective glass it's kind of a wash i mean it's not as impressive i think as the ones that jersey jack ships out are probably the um what's the one that p3 does cap in glass yeah i've heard uh stern's is not as good i don't yeah there's because some of them are like but they'd coat both sides with the ar yeah thing and stern might only do one side i don't know i don't remember the specifics but i've i've seen like people kind of rank them and stern's tends to be lower in the rankings as far as the uh anti-reflective properties of it so i can tell you i mean not to get sidetracked but um i would have never known that it had anti-reflective glass on it if somebody didn't tell me that that's how underwhelming stern's anti-reflective glass is so yeah i got i got more i'm going to talk about the pink glass later i bought some white glass white body and it looks incredible on alien oh my gosh uh but yeah so we we have one like you mentioned earlier we have one of these at the club uh the jaws 50th thank you jared yeah nice job jared you flipping out yeah and it uh it looks really good um yeah i mean it's jaws but a little fancier a little well a little better looking i guess i know if you if you didn't just buy a jaws didn't it come out like last year uh like yeah Yeah, last January. No, yeah, January 2024. Yeah, so they revealed it, and then it started trickling out. It seems awfully soon after the game came out to do another version of this. Stern does not want you buying LEs anymore. They clearly don't. Based on the price point and everything else that they're doing. I always thought that was, like, their cash cow, too, but it's like their business operations are, like, driving everybody to not do that. I mean, they must know what they're doing, but it's still, I don't know. To me, it sends a signal, like, no rush to buy any of these things. Right. Like, you know, like with King Kong, right, they're going to have a black and white version. So if that's something you want, like, maybe wait. Yep, yep. All right. Let's see. Let's talk Spike 3. So you had George Gomez was on the Loser Kid podcast, and he had some things to say. What were your takeaways on that? So I didn't listen to it, but thankfully Nap Arcade summarized the highlights of it. Maybe I'll go back and listen to it at some point in time if I have, like, I listened to a little bit of it, yeah. Oh, good. Okay. I should. I should. I like to hear what George has to say, and then Loser Kid does a good job. So, yeah, so Spike 3 is the next game. I think they talk about maybe what the next game is. I've heard that they're doing a redo of a remaster of Walking Dead, right? That's been a longstanding rumor. It makes, like, the timing-wise, it would make sense for that to come out around the fall and Halloween. So maybe that's it. I don't know. I don't not know. Yeah, I mean, that's a good candidate, I think, because I've never really liked the art on that, and it's an incredible game. So I think that would be a great one to redo. honestly. Yeah, so some highlights I just remember off the top of my head is like, you know, like, improve sound on the Spike 3. I mean, that's good because the sound is absolute trash on Stern games unless you upgrade it. And people who think, oh, I think Stern games sound pretty good. Trust me, upgrade your speakers and you'll see what I'm saying. Like, you're literally missing out on sounds in the game. It's crazy. The other thing is, I guess they said that they're going to be able to have better lighting system. I'm really blinking out, Kevin. The expression lighting. Expression lighting. Yeah, whatever it's called. Yeah, the expression lighting. It's supposed to be better. They're going to have things like the ability to do wireless headphones. They're going to have quieter fans or power supplies, but they already have that. Yeah, I was going to say, doesn't King Kong already have that? Yeah, and then I guess the form factor is a little bit different. I've heard in the past that it has a bigger LCD screen, so we'll see. um it's funny i mean i people were speculating that spike 3 was going to come out like a year ago i think like they were saying metallica was going to be the game um so i guess it's finally happening and uh looking forward to their new improved system yeah more and cooler yeah the part that i listened to they were talking about like the the differences in length between the their system upgrades and like previous generations were like like seven years and this is spike one spike two is going on like 10 years which it doesn't seem like it but i guess it is you know what i mean yeah uh it's pretty wild first one was uh um well the first one of the lcd was aerosmith but i think that maybe wwe actually was under the hood it's a spike three spike two or spike two and then uh maybe even kiss as well yeah because i think on the wwe le had that secondary screen and they couldn't do that with the spike one so that was one of the telltale signs you know what i like about stern's like compared to jgp is it's just i mean there's this it's got ups and downs but it's very simple in the back right that very small computer like um c yeah true and motherboard is running everything right it's just really like it's super intimidating with a jgp game not to mention how heavy the damn thing is yeah yeah jgp is more old-school Bally Williams with the different driver boards and things like that. Plus, it's got more standard computer parts in it. So, yeah, there are pluses and minuses for sure. Yep. Yep. All right. All right, so that's good. Oh, here we go. One more thing I got in the notes. This caught my attention. So, in the article it said, I guess George was saying, that they don't release the full code upon release because they use insider-connected data to perfect the code. But, like, okay. Okay, that makes sense. I guess I'm not surprised. But, oh, man. That seems like an excuse. Well, yeah, we're using Insider Connected. That seems like not the primary reason. Yeah. I just, again, don't buy games. Do what you want to do, but be cautious about buying a game until it's done. Or mostly done. I think there's no reason these days to buy a Stern right out of the gate at all. I can't think of one reason. It used to be like if you wanted an Ellie, you got to get it out of the gate. That's not true anymore. No. And even if you miss it, they'll just do another version that's better, premium, so you can just get that one. You're going to get a better – if you wait, you're going to get a better game that's more complete. You're going to be able to see what the game really is. You're going to get it for a cheaper price. Somebody else probably went through and fixed any issues in the game. Usually the first runs always have mechanical issues or where that they didn't identify, so no reason to buy a game out of the gate. CERN has conditioned us. That's not something that we necessarily want to see, but that is just the truth. Also, I think now this explains why every game is like a baby game. They probably have this bell curve, and they look at everybody playing the game, so it's almost like they have a target play time that they're trying to hit on their games. I wouldn't be surprised at that. Like, oh, this game is playing way too hard. We'll put that in quotes. It's playing way too short, so now we've got to hit the target game time as every other game, and it needs to be this long, and yada, yada, yada. So for better or for worse, that's what Insider Connected is doing. Yep, yep. Well, you know, it's also like it's funny because they always like every time a new code drop comes out, they make a big splash, and it gives them an opportunity to promote their games again every time. they do a code update, and it also has, they've kind of flipped it around from where's the code to, like, look how great they are at all these code updates because they, like, instead of, like, finishing the game, they're like, oh, well, we'll just, you know, we'll just, you know, do a bunch of updates, and it'll make us look good. People like that. It makes us look like we're paying attention to our code. Yeah, well, we were talking about this yesterday, so I won't say the person, but I heard a rumor that, and maybe this is well-known. It's, like, rumor, Nick. this is exactly like well known but like they they literally do this stern does this this person says like for a fact that they they purposely dole out um updates to their games because it boosts sales so like they'll they'll have the code ready to go they could have pushed out today they'll wait like three months or longer and then they'll push a button and that instantly would generate more sales so they've really they've really conditioned uh market in such a weird way but that's that's how it's working now yeah just be aware be aware of the game and make your decisions uh accordingly yeah i mean good for them if it works then yeah you know totally increase sales keep keep yourself afloat yeah whatever they i mean look if it works for stern they got to make money right like good on them i do the same thing if that's what generates money right right so there you go interesting interesting okay uh in more stern news they uh you tease this earlier they uh there's a new home pin at Costco. What I found was interesting is that they, it actually slightly improved So let me see Yeah Like the LCD is bigger So I pulled up like look how dinky this guy is It like the size of the speaker panels here And here it's like expands beyond. It's still dinky. It's still dinky. But the other one was like ridiculously, like you could not see it. You couldn't read anything. It was like looking, taking your phone and putting it four feet away from you on the backbox and trying to read it. Right. Show it again, Kev. Yeah. So here's the new one. I mean, that's like, that's like, I mean, you could be forgiven for not noticing it's better. Right. Yeah. But so it is slightly improved over the last one. And it is interesting. I always like, like, uh, Goran saying in chat, I always feel like these kind of don't sell good, but they must sell well enough that it makes sense that they keep doing these. This one also has insider connected, which the other one didn't. So you can see it on the apron here. There it is. you can use your qr code all that uh but also what was kind of interesting about this is this came up in this is in the star wars collecting subreddit it's people are mostly commenting on the price of it it's 479 so basically 4800 and people in the chat are like in the comments are like i don't even have 479 for this uh you know uh when i when i read 479 i thought that was a deal and then i saw the actual price tag um somebody else is like i don't even have 49 dollars this 47 for this um and then you know there's comments about like wait till you see what actual pinball machines sell for and then there's comments about you know the old classic just buy a use stern pro and it's like okay you could do that but are the people at costco they probably need the warranty and everything that's coming with a new inbox game so it's It has to make sense for CERN to do this, otherwise they wouldn't keep doing it. But, yeah, the pricing is crazy. Yeah, I mean, that's, what is that, $4,800? A Pro goes for $69, let's call it $7. So, I mean, it's for $2,200 cheaper. That's not negligible. Yeah. You know, it's not like it's $1,000. that's a significant price difference I just wonder on this like I think you're going to get crushed on resale value first of all good luck selling that that's the other side of the equation you're better off buying just the actual thing and it's still a pinball machine things are going to break things are not going to work right things are going to need adjustment they try to make these scale down things to make it more user friendly I just don't really understand how it's more user friendly Of course, there's less things on it to break. Although that's arguable if you look at Star Wars Pro because there's not much on there. I guess if the spring breaks on the TIE Fighter, you've got a problem. You're out of luck. All right. Have you heard the rumors that there's things doing another Star Wars? No. Jesus. God, no. Whatever. What are they doing? What's Star Wars? Well, allegedly, it's going to be the prequel trilogy. So episodes one, two, three with Anakin, young Anakin. In Jar Jar? Yeah, in Jar Jar. I think it's probably like we're like 25 years from when the first one came out. It feels like nostalgia time for those movies. That's probably a good time to tap into that. Is the rumor a reskin? No, a new game from John Borg is the rumor. My money's safe. Can this be the time that we actually get a good Star Wars game, please? Please? I would be interested. Make a good one. The other one's okay. It's okay. Yeah. It's okay. It's ripe for, like, amazing mechs and cool, like, tricks with, you know, Jedi's throwing balls around with magnets and stuff. I know. Yeah, it's a whole lot of okay. And you have to, like, know this esoteric, like, pattern rule set, like, of choosing which things to, like, which modes to start with this mode and that mode and that order. Like, it's really. and lock in your multipliers. Yeah, it's really complicated. That's if you survive the plunge that likes to send it into the outline to start with. But that game, I've heard they sold a ton of those games just because it's a Star Wars game. Sure, yeah, you put Star Wars on it, you print money. Yeah, so they know what they're doing. Okay, so look out for that. Okay, that's all your Stern news. Let's do some multi-morphic news. Let me just say, there's not a lot of news happening this month. So we're going to get through news pretty quick, but this is a cool one coming from for amusement only games. Nicholas Baldridge, you know him from a lot of his P3 work, his, his podcast for amusement only the EM and bingo podcast. He did drained. This is his sixth P3 project quest for glory ranger in the ruin, silver falls, flipper, Foxtrot. And as the aforementioned drained. so nick is teaming up with john chad uh charles wolf who did the music for drained he did that cool like chiptune castlevania-esque music for uh for drain which sounds really good he's got a 3d model animators i'm gonna butcher the names salute jimmy you yep nailed it i'm sure you're pretty sure that's 100 right and uh so the concept of this game it's like a role-playing adventure and you're trying to figure out what you're doing. It's like the coming-of-age kind of story. But she also gets you to pilot a robot to explore dungeons and collect treasure and unearth dangerous truths about the world of pinball, which sounds pretty cool. And here's a sample of the art. John Chad's a well-known pinball artist. It's got to be your robot that you're piloting. He's pretty sweet-looking. Some of the interesting features of it. it'll work on any of the existing P3 modules so it's not a new module game it'll work on the modules you already have so it's an add-on game so there's additional gameplay, characters, locations and music depending on which module you have so if you've got Weird Al in there or Final Resistance the game's going to respond differently so that's pretty sweet it also has procedurally generated dungeons that are going to change each time the game is restarted, but a player's progress through the game is automatically saved and you can reload it at any time. So all this sounds really cool, but it's not going to be out for a few months. This is kind of like an announcement of an announcement, but I think it's a smart time to announce because it's outside of the window of everybody else's announcements when things are a little bit slower in the summer. So good on Nick for getting this out. And so stay tuned for that later in the year from 4MeesMetalInGames. He's got some stuff in the store. posters and mugs and things like that. If you want to learn more about the game itself, you can go to steelboundpinball.com. Oh, we just missed Martha. Steelbound Pinball. She just went by. You missed her. You can see the curtain moving. She'll do something giveaway every time she walks through on the stream. I knew it was coming. I was like, when's Martha going to sneak through? But anyways, Steelbound looks really cool. I can't wait to try that out. Cool concept. Oh, and in our new segment. Cuphead watch. There's no mods you don't need to this month, so this is filling in. If you're watching out for Cuphead, it's still not out. Here we are. I forgot all about that game, but here we go. Yep, still languishing somewhere. August 2025, still not out. There you go. We're keeping dibs, because everybody said it was going to be out at MGC and Expo. and uh yeah oh oh not not us we never said that but yeah yeah not this not this podcast oh oh oh we saw her it's my favorite part of the show that's the only way the only reason i do this show yeah okay good job thank you martha uh all right so it's time for a poll do you want to announce the poll and i'll get it set up john shepherd says please take your time ap who who's over they're to work on it. They would have to have employees for that. Yeah, they have a lot of time and also no time at the same time. Alright, we got a very important poll. Yes. Kevin and I are going to, thanks again, Hall Notes Pinball, thanks to Rob, we're going to get to play Dune on Friday. That's the first time Kevin and I are going to play and we've been assured that we're going to be pleasantly surprised. I no comment. No comment. We'll go in there open-minded. But it definitely inspired a poll. And the poll that Kevin's going to put in chat is It's up there now. I want people to vote. Is it a dong, butthole, worm, or other on the play field that comes up? So, again, dong, butthole, worm, or other. It's in the Twitch chat. This is important. It's for science. Go to the top of your Twitch chat window. Click the worm for one. Okay. You have ten minutes to vote, so we'll check back at the end of the ten minutes. Rob voted for worm. Rob voted for worm. You know he's in the chat. There's two votes for the b-hole. Okay. All right. You guys have fun with that, and we'll check back on you in a little bit. Have fun with it. Have fun with it. All right. It's time to do some game room updates. So, number one, I'll go first. I had a pretty big game room update so I sold my WAAF Royal Rumble a couple months ago and I've kind of been like holding out for what I wanted to get and Venom's been a game that I've always kind of been interested in and curious about I've played it a few times on location I was like you know that might be a fun game to have especially because the prices were tanking on it I was like I'll take a shot at it at the current going rates so yeah the aforementioned Rob had one actually i kind of i convinced him to trade his uh scooby-doo for it uh he went down and swapped scooby-doo for it with a dude in ohio it's a venom premium and uh he brought it back and he's like yeah i'll have it for a couple months and then uh i'll sell it to you then i was like okay cool sounds good uh well then the next like one week later he's like i'm in hawaii i was we went to hawaii for two weeks this month that's a reason why the podcast is delayed a little bit but uh He's like, I'm desperate. I got to sell this game. What do you, what do you get me for it? And so I was like, okay, let's talk. And I got him to throw in a Berrios barbecue adventure t-shirt. So I got that and the venom for a good price. And he delivered it and set it up. And here it is in my room. And I've been having fun with it, doing the insider connected stuff. We may do a full review of it next time. Cause I do kind of want to speak a little more in depth about the game. but there's more to it than I thought originally it is and the code is pretty much what I expected but there is more like beyond the defeating null that you can go for which I like that will probably keep me more interested in it for longer but so far I've unlocked two of the characters I've unlocked Hulk and Wolverine what's kind of BS is there's another character you can get but you have to buy the topper and I'm not spending $1,200 on a topper for this game. So if anybody has a cheap Venom topper they want to sell, use this find. Let me know. Hook me up. Maybe I'll grab that from you. But I did upgrade it with some stuff from Pinball Life. Hashtag sponsored. But you know, I paid for it. I got the Kenwood speaker slash expression lighting for the speakers, which I like. And I put a new cabinet woofer in there. The Boom Boom 3000 thing just because the speaker in the cabinet from stern is complete garbage in the premiums you can literally hear rattling in there because it's so bad uh and what else oh i put some um plastic protectors on there because i saw sometimes the plastics in front of those kickouts on the ramps will break so i put those on there uh oh and i got the uh kit from so if you're a venom owner and you don't have this on your machine there's a plastic protector kit and right ramp support bracket you can get for free from stern uh i just emailed stern uh parts i think it was and give them the serial number of my game uh and said i don't have these two um service kits on my machine and they just sent them out to me no no charge they said they shifted it right out so kudos to stern you did something good thank you um and i got that all installed so it's working good looking good and uh yeah it's got some sweet uh magnets on it some magnet mods then one of them I took off because it was making the speakers sound terrible uh on the backbox it had this like big magnet that went over the back panel it looked really cool but it like the holes to let the sound out were so small that it was making the sound terrible so I just took it right off so sometimes your mods maybe that could be a mod I should have made that the mod you don't need this month hang on let me go get it I'll get it Kevin just left the chat. There we go. All right, impromptu Majin Oni. Here we go. I'll put this on me. Here we are. So this thing. This is a magnet for your speaker panel. And look how small those holes are. They, like, totally destroy the sound that's coming out of your speaker. Yeah, terrible idea. Do not buy this. I don't know who makes this. Do not buy. Flynn says don't buy. Look at it. Even I know how speakers work, okay? There you go. I wasn't going to do it. You got it. I'm not an engineer. Let's talk about the Boom Boom for a minute, Cap, because it's only $45 on Pinball Life, sponsored Pinball Life. How much better is it? I mean, I know the one in Stern's garbage, right? But is it, do you prefer, are you still running an external subwoofer? Or, like, if you put that in there, is that comparable to, like, a pinwoofer? Yeah, no, it's not that level. It's like, it basically gets rid of the garbage rattle sound and gives you, like, a little bit more low end. Okay. I mean, I never had a garbage rattle sound on my games somehow. I noticed it on both my Godzilla and on Venom. Okay. Yeah. If you've got a garbage rattle sound, that's the answer. Yeah. If your bass speaker is making a fart sound, you can replace it with the boom boom. It'll sound way better. Sounds like a Honda Civic with a subwoofer. Exactly. Exactly. If your Godzilla sounds like a Civic, get yourself a boom boom, and it'll make it better. Yeah. The key is going in and tweaking with the equalizer settings in your machine, and it gives you some recommended settings to tweak. And then I went in and tweaked it a little further and made it even better. Yeah, maybe I'll throw that in my Black Knight, because I think that might be doing that in that game. Okay. Appreciate the recommendation. Considering it's only like $40 in the world of pinball, that's pretty cheap. And, you know, I figured Scott knows a thing or two about sound. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Scott did it. Nice. And it's already like plug and play, right? Yeah. You don't have to stop or do anything. It's wired up for plugging into your... There you go. Extra plug for pinball life. So there's that. What else? Oh, I got my... Like I mentioned earlier, I got my wide-body pin glass. So I ordered two sheets. One went on Alien. The other went on Pirates because I was a dumbass and scratched the invisible glass on my Pirates. So... Oh, no. Yeah. How'd you do that? When I was taking the back glass off, I just wasn't paying attention and ran it across the Invisiglass. Don't do that. It hurts. That's in storage now. It's up in my attic. But yeah, as soon as I put it on Alien, I always thought the glass looked okay on Alien. But I put it on and I was like, this is a million times better. if you are in the market for ar glass pin glass plus i i know multimorphics is sponsor of ours we work closely with them but this is so good uh they sent me one sheet for free for review that i put on my uh p3 but then i went and bought four more sheets of it because it was so good so i got two standard sheets and two wide body sheets uh the price is as good or better than all the other AR glass. It's a better product because it's got the beveled edges on it. It looks amazing. So I have Invisiglass, Pinglass, and Voodoo. And they all look great. They're all comparable. But Pinglass is the cheapest and has the benefit of the cool edges on it. So if you're looking for AR glass, that's my recommendation. And speaking of P3, I got a stream coming up this Thursday. at 7 Eastern on the Twitch channel, twitch.tv slash Buffalo Pinball, where you're watching us right now. Or if you're listening, that's where you can tune in. We're going to do a P3 add-on game showcase. So, you know, like we were talking about, Steelbound, where you can play. It's a new game you can play on an existing module that you have. I'm going to do a stream. And Dave Sousa, our friend, is coming over to stream with me. And we're going to show off a bunch of the different add-on games that you can play on your P3 modules. and, you know, we may have something new to throw in the mix, too, so more to come on that, but definitely check that out, so tune in Thursday, what is that, the 16th? Do I know my dates? I'm going to look at my calendar real quick. That is the 14th, Thursday the 14th of August. Just tune in, and, yeah, that'll be fun. So that'll be the second stream I did. I actually fired the streaming rig up for Venom when I got it, too, so that was fun. I still like to do the occasional gameplay streams, and when I get a new game, that's a good excuse to do it. All right, Nick, what's new in your game room? Absolutely nothing in my game room. Just to fill this segment in, me, Kevin, and Martha went to the Barenaked Ladies concert. They were in Buffalo two weeks ago, and we had our annual showdown with Ed. and it is traveling with King Kong Ellie I particularly happy in that photo because I think it was taken after I really beat him but then he had to play some other games and somehow we ended up in a tie I don't know. It's amazing. I don't know. I don't know. So either everybody's happy with the tie or nobody's happy. But we had some great games. Like, you know, they were like, I think Ed and I were going back and back, back and forth and, like, getting, you know, over 200 mil. Just solid games of King Kong. It's a fun game. We're going to talk about that review soon. But, yeah, I think they're done with their summer tour. But if you've never seen the Bare Naked Ladies, do yourself a favor. That was a particularly good show, Kevin. We've seen them a lot now. They crushed it. They really crushed it. I don't know. They were just really on. It sounded great. Just a great time. Ed is a great ambassador for pinball, and he's pretty good at pinball too. He's got the sweet Dolly Parton guitar too. So he's got the Dolly Parton pinball play field in the shape of a guitar. It says Bally on the neck of the guitar. It's really cool. so yeah yeah they know a thing or two about putting on a good show he's number one ranked in uh his leaderboard for trash talking that's right that's right he's a player he's got he's got skills so i'll give him that that's that's that's an element that you know people bring the tables trash oh did you notice the comments on this too uh look at what jay had had to say he says you know who beat No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay beat him on... Back in 2016, he was clinging to that. Yeah, it's his claim to fame. Yeah. We all know Jay's a dick, right? That's right. If there's one thing we know, that's what it is. All right, should we check out our poll? You know, yeah, let's check out on the poll. Okay. Polls dong, b-hole, worm, or other. What do people think? Let's see. I have to switch. I have so many windows. So I got to switch over to this one. Sounds like it's the old b-hole. View results? Oh, b-hole is the winner Can I see the graph on that? Let's see Does it show up on the screen? If I'm logged in, I have to bring it over here You can just read the results for the people listening Okay, I will do that So it's 64% say b-hole 36% say worm Nobody said dong and nobody said other I would have gone dong Yeah. I like, you know, I like, maybe it's not accurate, but just another dong in pinball is what I'm keeping track of. Yeah, so there you go. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for your feedback. How many were for other? None. No other. None, okay. All right. It was a showdown between worm and b-hole. All right. All right. Like I said at the tournament yesterday, if you have to say it's not a b-hole, then it's a b-hole. All right. Five minutes. Give me five minutes on this. Okay. I like to do this. I like to play this game, Calvin, look at the LE sales numbers, right? And I don't have the sales numbers, of course, of LE, but I have the second best thing, and this is self-reported number of owners on a recent Stern game. So I was wondering, how is King Kong doing? How is it doing? I like this game. We're going to talk about it and review it. So King Kong LE, they only made like 932 LEs. and 289 people have it in their collection. So these people started getting it in like April, May. So 289, that doesn't seem like a ton for like an Elwynn game at this point. It's been out long enough, right? I think we can look at it. The game that came out prior to that was Uncanny X-Men. The LE on that is 300. So it's been out longer. It's been out longer, but like X-Men is not a well-liked game. Right. not a good trend. It's not an all-in game, yeah. It's not indicative that Kong's not a good game. It's more like I think things are really slowing down with people buying LEs. And this is kind of like my point earlier. I think people are learning not to go out and buy them immediately, unfortunately. And they actually had 1,000 of these. So there's less Kong, so I think people might jump on it a little quicker. Not by a lot, right? Like not statistically meaningful. All right, so John Wick, the game that came up prior to that, 164 LEs. So that game not doing good whatsoever in the LE category. Although you would think it would pick up now with the code updates. And then Jaws, 411. So Jaws is the clear winner. But I think the market has just really cooled down at this point where you've got an Elwynn game, it's King Kong and it's not even cracked 300 LE owners self-reported on pin side. So take of that, what you will. Um, people are pointing out somebody pointing out in chat Marino, that it's an unlicensed game. I mean, yeah, does that, I know that's, that's matters so much to people that will put over that. Maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's the thing. I don't know, but, um, yeah, no idea. It's so funny. The licensing thing. It's so funny. It, you know, I come back to this all the time, but people are always like, I want an original unlicensed game. Well, you know, this is kind of that, but also, like, it has the King Kong name that people know, right? Yeah. That, you know, here you go, everybody. I mean, is there any King Kong movie that you love, Kev, that you absolutely think it should be based off of? I can't think. No, I mean, I don't think that at all. I think they. So, again, the interview. Let's just go. Let's go. Let's start reviewing it. All right. All right. We're bleeding into that. We'll do the official intro, and then we'll talk more about our review of King Kong, Myth of Terror Island. Here we go. Let's go. I am okay. Whose life is horror? At least I've gotten laid before. Are you ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready for your eye exam? Showtime! All right, this is indeed our review of King Kong, Myth of Terror Island, released by Stern just this very year in 2025. It's a game designed by Keith Elwin, software by Rick Nagel, artwork by Greg Freres, Kevin O'Connor, and Zombie Yeti, and sound by Jerry Thompson. Pricing is $7,000 for a Pro, $9,700 for a Premium, and $13,000 for an LE. and now you can already get them for about six and a half nine and eleven thousand per pin side so uh you know the trend is uh holding true that new in box games after you take them out of the box they're going down in price so yeah well what's interesting is that there was when i was just looking at kind of ads and prices what they're selling for in pin side and i put those in there the pro is not really that much lower yeah six and a half is that makes sense right like you take out of the box, you're going to take a few hundred off. Same with the premium. That has not dived in price. What's dived in price is the $2,000 off of the LE. That is plumbing. Again, I think the LE is just priced too high compared to the other models where it's a tough sell. So I saw one on Pinside for, I think somebody had for like 10.5 a new inbox they were getting bro that was the best deal i saw like it was crazy yeah so you can get some good deals on this game and i guess i don't know we would consider good if you wanted le but yeah um i don't know the question is this is going to go lower right like probably i mean godzilla has kind of held its value but i feel like this is i don't know for whatever reason this isn't catching fire the way godzilla did um marino when we were talking about like why there was not a ton of owners for the le earlier made a good point that this game is going up against Harry Potter, right? So that's not. Yeah. No, it's tough, right? You've got to put an asterisk on this game. Like, going against Potter is not easy. One of the biggest licenses you could have gotten, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. And by all accounts, it's a great game. Still haven't played it yet, but hopefully soon. Yeah, it looks really cool. So, all right. So, you want to kick it off with the rules? Yeah. Kevin and I have played this game dozens of times since it's come out. We've got one at the club. We've played it in tournaments. We've played it with Ed. And so we have a pretty good grasp of the rules. It's a mode-based game. Hit the gong, start a mode, play through it. And, you know, it's got multiple ways to get multiball. You've got the Kong multiball. You've got the Spider one. And then you've got one thing I like is that you can lock a ball, and then you can bring it into mode. It's kind of like in Hobbit, maybe not as sophisticated or as deep, but it's cool to bring a multiball into a mode and having that option. So, yeah, I mean, it's just like any Keith Elwin game, and his team does a fantastic job of rules. I think my favorite part right now is I don't think that there's any victory laps in this game. I could be wrong. Please do not put fucking victory laps in the game. The games are long enough. I instantly get a boost in my rating of the game compared to Jaws. I think that just ruins the game for me. But, yeah, just great rules. The game's not complete. I think, like, the New York City modes, I think they're supposed to have four in there. When they're done with the game, it only has one. So you end up playing that a number of times as you get deeper in the game. One of my favorite modes, I forget what it's called, but, like, I don't know if you've got to this, but I think you're fighting some of the dinosaurs, and at one point, as you get deeper into that multiball, Kong starts like body slamming or slamming down the dinosaur and you do that by slapping the center button on the game that is very fun that brings joy that was a very cool multiball mode it's very fun you look forward to when you get to that point and you just start fucking wailing on that button in a very cool and good way It's a good theme integration, too, because you feel like you're King Kong Smash and stuff, right? Yes. Yes. Good job, guys. Good job, team. Very smart. So, yeah, great rules in the game. Still incomplete. Still incomplete. Yep. That will definitely affect the rating when we get to it. Yep. Yeah, so I like the kind of overall setup of the game. It seems like with Keith games and rule kind of sets, there's always multiple things going on. So you got your basic like mode multiball stuff, but then there's additional things you can go for along the way, which, you know, those, those are the great things to get into when you have it at home. And that's one of the things I really like about Godzilla is like, there's always something going on. There's additional things you can build towards. So I have no doubt that this will end up being a great game, but it feels like there's still a lot, a lot of runway here as far as like code, code wise and rules wise. Art, we can, we can dig into here. That's one of the big, you know, people like to lose their mind about the art. Um, it's, it's too colorful, blah, blah, blah. But honestly, I think, especially in person, this game looks amazing. Yeah. And, uh, I love that. It's got the throwbacks to the, um, the prototype data East King Kong with the, the kind of like set up in between the flippers. Uh, I think, I think Kevin O'Connor was the one that did that originally. Uh, so it's cool that they brought him back to work on that some more, uh, and kind of bring that vision to life while integrating, uh, work from Greg Freres and zombie Yeti. So, you know, it's not as cohesive an art package as you might get on a traditional, like where zombie Yeti does everything, but this is more of a throwback. I feel like to like the eighties and nineties games where you had one person would do the back glass art and somebody else would do the play field and somebody else would do the cabinet. So I don't know. There's something I kind of like about that, even though it doesn't, it doesn't all look exactly the same. It all works together. you know it kind of you know is all in the same you know color palettes and things like that so visually it works together even though you have different artists working on it um it's colorful it's bright especially you know i've only played the le of this um so take that into consideration i do really like the the back glass art on the uh on the le um it looks really cool yeah so there's a there's i think this i don't remember who did this piece but oh and pinside's not gonna love it We'll just look at it right here. I think it's really cool and classy. You can't really tell, but it's got the foil. Did Zombie Yeti do the back glass? Did he? I don't know. I thought he did the cabinet. Oh, okay. That looks like Zombie Yeti on the sides. That's probably why I love the back glass then. Yeah. I don't know. You would think that he would do the back glass and cabinet, right? You would intuitively think that, but maybe not. Yeah. That might have been Greg. Greg. I love the back glass on the LA. Absolutely love it. Like, they knocked it out of the park. Okay. They actually have a woman on the game. Look at that. Nurb Tastic says Zombie Yeti did the LA back glass. So there you go. Good job, Zombie Yeti. I love it. I think that is, it looks so good. Yeah. It looks so good. That version stands out to me amongst the other ones. I think the second, I would say, is the Premium and then the Pro last. Yeah, I really like. The Premium at least has the iconic, like, he's on the Empire State Building fighting planes. Yeah, true. what I think of when I think of Kong. Sure. Yeah, I really like the line work around the edges that's mirrored on the back glass. It looks really cool and feels like a throwback. Yeah, it's Art Deco. Yeah, it fits right in at the club. Exactly. Cool, so yeah, digging the art. The sound, I'm trying to think if there's anything that stands out sound-wise. I mean, it's got, you know, King Kong, Roran. I do generally like Jerry Thompson's music. I don't know. Is there any standout sound moments for you in this game? No, I think if I could fault the game, if anything, I don't want to say weak point, but it's not a standout. The sound is not bad, but there's nothing that I feel is particularly praiseworthy about it where it's like, oh, this track is great, that track's great. It's kind of forgettable to me. Yeah, that was one of the things that surprised me about Venom when I had it at home. It was like, oh, there's actually some good jams in here. like i found you know based on the character you pick they have different music and like some of the there's like they have different styles so some of it's like hip-hop ish some it's like synth wavy and all of it's really pretty cool uh but actually one of the things i found interesting was when i streamed it was that some of the songs in it got flagged for copyright and i could see like they're like um licensed songs so they just like went out and like bought songs from i don't know if they're like stock audio music or anything like that they're not all created in-house, which is kind of interesting. But they work in the game, and they sound good, so that works. But, yeah, I kind of agree on King Kong. It feels right, but nothing is like, oh, that's amazing, as far as I'm concerned. And then there's the call-outs, Kev, when you think about them. They're pretty good. I don't know. I kind of feel the same way about the call-outs. It's kind of like there's nothing good or bad. It's just kind of like there. I feel like there might be one that I get annoyed with but it's not standing out to me at the moment yeah they're not they're not enough to be like not like it but there's nothing to say like oh I really like I think they did a good job right I guess it gets the job done yeah classic I don't like the put your phone away when you're not stepping up to the game I think that's like a joke that just wears on you and you're just kind of like alright let's have better theme integration yeah Let's not break the fourth wall on this. Yeah, I agree with that. That is the one that I'm like, okay. Yeah, you kind of roll your eyes at it, and I saw you do that, and I agree. Yep. Toys. The toys are cool on this game. I think Keith did a good job with this. So I can pull up some of them while we talk about it. But the big one is the Kong back in the back. One demerit on this, though, and this is funny because we podcasted when this game came out, like two or three months ago. And I was like, oh, the arms have servos in them. Let's see if they hold up or if they, you know, have problems like servos and other pinball machines come out with. And then like the next day on the CERN Facebook page, they put up this video about this robot is nearly indestructible in this pinball machine, blah, blah, blah. And it was like, you know, it's total like PR move to be like, oh, look how great, you know, don't listen to those podcasters saying that there might be problems with the mechanics on this. And then like, I was getting pictures of people with their, their King Kong arms falling off and things like that. So, um, you know, take it, take it with a grain of salt is it is servo driven in a home environment. I'm sure it'll be fine, but on location people have been having some issues with it. Um, but it is really cool. I think it's a well integrated. I like that. He kind of like swings his arm around and smashes it into the, the train. Although I have seen it. I'm the one at the club. his arm will be down when it's not supposed to and he's kind of like blocking the ball and then you'll have to wait for him to raise his arm up to kind of let it into the train so he does have some issues and I don't know if that'll get sorted out with code later on but that's a cool mech the gong is also another cool one let me see if I can find a picture of that you know there's got to be a good gong picture in here somewhere here we go there's the gong really cool sculpt the kong dong gong um the the sculpt is really cool again i like that this is dangerous uh so it kind of adds some risk into what is otherwise a pretty flowy safe layout i feel like um so and you're you're missing that on the pro so on the pro man to be more of a baby game i don't know i don't know um and also kind of behind this is a cool like i think he calls it the punch back shot so the the orbit shot to the right of this there's a kicker target that kicks it back around to you so this game does a lot of a lot of neat tricks um the other thing is like the left out lane uh it's got that diverter that you can activate with the action button and sometimes activates on its own uh so there's a lot of cool mechanical action in this uh that i think enhances the gameplay works really well and kind of adds the overall experience of the game um i didn't even mention that the spider is cool. He bounces up and down. He can grab the magnet. He helps the ball a little bit. He can grab it and hold it and you can hit the ball out of there. I don't know. A lot of cool stuff. Nick, what do you think? I can't do any better than what you said. I think you covered it well. What I agree with, I think the one thing that you didn't say is just the sweepable drop targets are a nice touch. It even has rules around sweeping it. It recognizes that. It's a conscious decision. You know, this game is pretty damn loaded. And you know again I fall into the camp I glad they didn waste a license on this because then they put the money into the game So look you got so much money you can invest in a game and you could have wasted some of it on licensing some stupid movie clips Or you can put some cool sculpts in there and Max and toys. And I think Keith and his team 100% made the right decision by doing that. Yeah, and I think what they've done with the theme is cool because, like, we were playing it, and you're just like throwing grenades at dinosaurs and stuff it's like it's ridiculous and it's a it's super fun and i i i like that so um not being constrained by the contents of a movie i think works in to your favor and if you have a a creative team that can kind of put put some thought and ideas into it so um i i think it's i think it's really fun so well the problem is too with the movies like there's multiple movies so somebody's like oh they use that movie but not that movie. They should have used the old one. Yeah, exactly. Why is it all in black and white? It's so old. I don't want that. Yeah, you can't win. Smart decision. Display and lighting. I'll let you kick this one off. I think they had to create all custom images because obviously they didn't use licensing and they didn't have movie clips to pull from, so I think they did a pretty good job with it. I don't know. I don't... Again, I don't have a moment where I'm like, oh, I really love that animation. It's amazing. But it's solid. It gets the job done. It looks good. Lighting-wise, one thing that we noticed early on with it was like the – it's kind of subtle, but like there's lightning strikes moments in the game, and that's like a cool kind of pulsing effect. But other than that, like, you know, there's no expression lighting. I don't think that the lighting is particularly stand out on it. maybe you can argue it's a little weaker compared to a game I play a lot with John Wick with the expression lighting I think that game does really good lighting stuff maybe it's just a little more subtle and nuanced in the game again nothing bad just nothing that particularly stands out to me yeah again I think what they've done with the animations is cool like I said there's fun stuff in there like the dinosaur battles and things like that so it's fun and humorous and Interesting and creative, so hats off to them for creating a unique original story around this King Kong world. It's adventure-y, and I think we're seeing some of it on screen now. People have critiqued it, like, oh, it's like PS2-era graphics, but they went for a stylized look to the animations, which I think works. And it's more than just, you know, if you think of Avengers Infinity Quest where it's like they take one guy and he shakes around on the screen and then he flies off. You know what I mean? It's way better animation than that. So I know that's like they set expectations very low with those sorts of things. And I think in this case, like Jersey Jack still is at the top of the pack when it comes to display work on pinball machines. And I really like what Multimorphic does, especially with Princess Bride and things like that. So CERN is still kind of like, I think, you know, that's because they have a smaller screen, they don't prioritize it as much either. So, and it also might be limitations of the, of the Spike 2 system that we're seeing. But in general, I think the King Kong team did a good job with what they have here for display and the lighting. Yeah, I think I, I think I should have been, I should have praised this a little bit more. I was watching some of the animations while you're running the trailer and they are, they are good, right? They're not just this static garbage that you see on X-Men and Avengers. It is good. They did a good job with this. It's hard to ask for too much more after looking at that. Yeah, for sure. And the thing is with animations, you don't see them when you're playing. So most of the time you don't notice it. But for the standby watchers, the people who are watching you play, when we were playing with that, I was like, it's really fun sitting here watching other people play this, especially because he's really good at it. He's played it a bunch. It's like learning the ins and outs. I really started to get an appreciation for this game when we were playing it there because it's like, oh, here's some of the kind of the nuance of what's happening and the strategies you can take to try to score and put up a good game. Right. So, yeah, that's what the display is really good for that. That sort of thing. And that leads us into gameplay. You know, we talked, there's kind of like the kickback target and things like that. What are your overall thoughts on the gameplay of this layout? One thing I like about it, it's not a – I wouldn't call it a baby game by any stretch of the imagination. It can be a longer-playing game, but it's not a baby game. There's certainly challenging shots and elements of it. Like, it's not a gimme-himming that huge side ramp at all. And the shot above the side ramp is really tough. Like, I struggle to find where to hit that. And it's nice to have tough shots like that. the layout itself is unique we're hungry for unique layouts and not only did Keith give us a unique layout but the layout works and it's fun to shoot and play another thing I want to point out that I like about the layout is it's unlike Godzilla where you hit a shot and it takes a long time for the ball to return back that's not the case in this game and that's really good I think the ball is constantly moving around constantly in motion so the player is able to be engaged I don't feel like I can just sit back on this game and not worry about losing the ball. I've got to be ready to make a save. It's not brutal. It's not like Black Knight. It's not like maybe John Wick. But that's fine. I think it's the right level of engagement. So it's not totally chill, put your feet up, and it's not like I'm going to have my heart rate get up to 120 playing the game. So I think it's a fantastic layout. I think it's one of Keith's best. There's a lot to like about it, a lot of unique things. The gong shot, as Kevin mentioned, is a challenging, difficult one. You've got to be on your toes when you hit that shot, and you've got to approach it well. So there's certainly dangerous things in there that you've got to be cautious about. I don't know. I think this is just a really good game. The more I think about this game, the more I talk about it. I look over the fact that I've played it for months now, and it's still kept my engagement. And, yeah, it's just a very well-designed game. Yeah, at first I wasn't sure. I was like, I don't know if I like this game or not. But the more I play it, the more I like it, the more I appreciate it. So I think it's cool. It's a grower, not a shower. Yeah, I agree with that. So I think this one is going to have some less stability, which we're going to get into next. Yeah, I think this game, especially as Stern strategically trickles out their code updates over the next year or two, I think this is going to morph into a great game. I've heard this is not a great selling game though so I hope it sells enough that they stick with it because it's a Keith Elwin game I think they will and they have a good history of doing that although Jaws took a while to get to 1.0 so this one also could but I have confidence that they'll get there but given the depth of code the interesting layout I feel like this will have the last ability to kind of keep you engaged in the long haul we obviously don't have this in our houses so we can't speak to it from that long-term perspective. But even based on having it at the club and playing it as much as we have, the interest level has gone up as we've played it more, and I think that is a plus as far as the longevity of this game. Any other thoughts on last ability? No, that's well said, well said. Okay. Quality, are there any quality issues with this? Have you had any issues at the club? No, the game's held up great. at the club. Like you mentioned before, sometimes his arm blocks the ball, and I think that's more of a code-related issue, but no, the game's been, at least our copy's been durable. I've not been hovering around the owner's thread. I know that there was some maybe gong issues early on with rejects, but it's not, there's no major warning signs that I'm aware of. Again, we could pick on X-Men, which needed just a lot of fixes, a lot of quality issues. I don't think that's the case with Kong. Yeah. Aside from his arms falling off. That's the big thing, I guess. I don't think that's rampant. I don't know. I saw a few people do that, post pictures, but I don't know how widespread that is. Take that word of warning there. Joy factor. I think this game has it. I think it brings the fun. It keeps you guessing as far as where the shots are going to go and how do I feed this shot to get the thing that I need. The kickback loop thing on the right hand side is really cool. Yeah, I just think this game is really fun and interesting. It's not like the highest on the joy factor for me. This is a slower burn game. It's been a nice slow steady burn for me. I was like, yeah, this seems pretty good. I'm warming up a little bit more to it. You were talking to Ed about it. I was like, I don't love it, but I really like it. I think it's a good game and it is a game that i think martha likes a lot and and has talked about buying one maybe particularly in le if they go down in price so you know john wick brings me joy i don't know they might fuck up the rules so badly that it changes my opinion of it but like there are certain games that i'm like oh man the joy factor is really high that's not the case with this game but that's not a knock on it i think this is a nice slow burn that might really stand the test of time of just being a well-respected fun game to play yeah 100 i agree with you there um all right let's put a number on it and we've got the the ratings key here uh i was looking back through some of our reviews zero to two burn it three to five expensive nightlight six to eight solid game nine to ten get your wallets out i'll go first um i think this is it's so is this is a this is an eight this is a solid game right now i feel like you know we're gonna see the code evolve over time it's a really good layout uh it's got a good good bones for the rule set and i think it's only gonna get better from here so i'm gonna give it an eight at where it stands now and uh you know i could see looking back on this game in a couple years and it could be in the nine to ten category yeah i'm in the same way i think i've got i think i set a rule um can't remember what the rule is but something like I can't give a game more than an 8, no matter how good it is, that's so incomplete. There's a lot there, way ahead of where WIC was and X-Men in many ways. So what's there is great. We'll see how it develops. I mean, it certainly is a candidate for going well above an 8, but it's incomplete right now. So great place to sit at an 8. I think this is a good game. So we'll see over time if it starts picking up in sales, right? But, like, allegedly they're making $932 and sold less than $300 at least on Pinside Self-Report owners. So maybe they're all out there. Maybe somebody owns them. Maybe they've sold them all. All the distributors have them. Yeah. It's time to be a distributor. Somebody wants to unload one to me for $10,000, give me a call. All right. I might pick it up or mark the mic. So we want good praise on Venom Topper and King Kong Ali. Hook us up. TalkPinball.gmail.com. Let us know. and that is going to do it for this summer slow news era of Brody Even Talk Pinball. But don't go away. We've got a brand-new episode of Topper Talk coming up, so episode 29 of Topper Talk is coming at you. In the meantime, we'll give you a little tour of our merchandise. Why don't we do that? We haven't shown this off in a while. So if you go to buffalopinball.com and click Merch at the top, you're going to see all of this fine apparel, shirts. Yeah. mugs, stickers. You can ask your friends at work, bro, do you even talk pinball? Does he have a nice cup of coffee out of your mug? And they'll be like, you're weird. Where did you get that mug for? You can tell them buffalopinball.com for all of your merch needs. So check that out. If you haven't already, you can follow us on social media. All the stuff is at the bottom of the screen here, but we're buffalopinball and everything. One word, no space. Email talkpinball at gmail.com if you got feedback. If you have a mod you don't need and you want to send it to me, there's a link. I don't actually want the mod you don't need. I don't want your crappy mods, but I want to link to it so we can make fun of it on the show. TalkPinball at gmail.com. You can follow and sub us on Twitch to support the channel, or you can send us a donation via PayPal, BuffaloPinball at gmail.com for that. And you can review us on your platform of choice. If you give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, make it a good one, and maybe we'll read it on the next show. How about that? You want to get yourself on the next show? Review it. And I'll say this. For the folks tuning in late for the live show, go back and listen to the ad read, especially if you're in the Northeast and you need a pinball machine moved. So one more shout-out for Hall & Oates. There you go, Rob. There you go. You're welcome. Get your money's worth. You're welcome. I'll move a pinball machine for you. All right, let's do it. You did a good job. Gorin, here we go. Topper Talk, let's go. It's Topper Talk with Gorin right now. Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran. The part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now for today's episode we'll be talking about the topper and the add-on topper. like the topper for the topper, which we'll get into in a second, for Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. So let's head into the office and talk about that now. Okay, so here we are in the office, so let's dive right in. So here is the topper for Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Now, it is an included topper, which I love. That's great. I know this game was presented to be more of a premium offering from Dutch Pinball. I believe there's only one trim level, so they really went all out. So, yeah, here's the toppers of the Cheshire Cat. It's a nice sculpt. I think we can get some side angles from it. You know, you typically don't see included toppers with this level of detail, so I'm very happy about this. Also, this is from pinballnews.com. Yeah, it looks great. And something that I really like is that the eyes have LCDs in them. which is really cool as well. I mean, that's really a premium offering. What's behind it isn't too special, but overall looks really great. No notes, very happy with it. Way to go, Dutch Pinball. Now here's where things get a little interesting. Recently, there was an official collaboration with, I think it's the Electric Playground, for an add-on to the topper. It's almost like a topper for the topper that swaps out that back plate with more. So here's that. It looks really good. It really enhances the overall look and feel that they were trying to create. It's multi-levels of, I guess, plexi or plastic. The wording here can be swapped out. It ships with, I think, two different phrases, but you can purchase more for $30. But overall, it looks pretty great. If we go to their site here, it's now $680 to add on this additional expansion piece. I think when it launched, it was originally $600. So it went up an additional $80. There is a lot of interactivity to it. It is an official partnership with Dutch Pinball. Also, there are light shows and such. You can see kind of the difference here. It interacts with the game. There's an app you can download to customize the light shows. There's a little motorized piece that pops out. So they did go all out with it. Yeah, there's a little motorized piece. But it's a really interesting concept, right? So toppers typically are add-on accessories. This one's included. Great. But now you have a third-party company partnering with the manufacturer and creating an additional accessory for the toppers, and now we're, like, super niche and down the rabbit hole here. No pun intended with House of Wonderland, but it's really interesting. I think if Dutch would have offered this as an add-on when the game was first announced, like, hey, you can add on a more detailed topper at the point of sale, I think this would be easier for me to wrap my brain around. But right now it's just bizarre that after the fact it's like, hey, spend another 680 with a different company and you can complete your topper. When the whole thing kind of, I think, marketing for this game was that they went all out with it. So it's weird to have an additional accessory that you have to pay more for for a topper, which is already considered an add-on. So just my two cents. But the price isn't bad. It looks really great. I think they did a great job with it. And yeah. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Tune into the next podcast for another episode. And as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk. you you

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-14 | Item ID: 9ba441c8-7621-4b25-a6af-8703bab5dc10*