# The Jurassic Park Home Edition $4900 Question **Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-10-14 **Duration:** 99m 47s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/The-Jurassic-Park-Home-Edition-4900-Question-e2qoa1p --- ## Analysis Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss the Stern Jurassic Park Home Edition ($4,899) available at Costco. Chris played it extensively and found it well-built with metal ramps but criticized the small DMD screen, lack of clear coat on the vinyl overlay playfield, reactive (non-guiding) display design, and limited gameplay depth—concluding it's overpriced for enthusiasts but potentially valuable for nostalgic casual buyers unfamiliar with the pinball market. Jared purchased two vintage 1979 electromechanical machines (Pokerino and Lost World) for similar cost. They tease an upcoming segment on the worst pinball machines manufacturers have made. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Jurassic Park Home Edition retails for $4,899 at Costco — _Chris directly observed the price tag at Costco_ - [MEDIUM] The playfield appears to be a vinyl overlay with no clear coat — _Chris analyzed the playfield for wear patterns and lack of wood reflection, noting raised vinyl edges and matte finish_ - [HIGH] The DMD screen is 9 inches and too small for a full-size machine — _Chris and Jared discussed the screen size directly during gameplay observation_ - [HIGH] The game has no mode start system—all play is ramp/shot-based animal/people rescue — _Chris detailed the gameplay structure after multiple play sessions_ - [HIGH] For the same $4,899 price, you could buy two late-'80s pinball machines in better condition — _Chris directly compared market values_ - [HIGH] Jared purchased Pokerino and Lost World (both 1979) for approximately the same price — _Jared announced his purchase at the end of the episode_ - [HIGH] Stern Jurassic Park Home Edition has commercial-grade components (genuine Stern pop bumpers, metal ramps) — _Chris verified components during hands-on inspection_ - [HIGH] The target market for this machine is casual buyers seeking nostalgia, not collectors — _Chris had direct conversation with a casual buyer at Costco and reflected on the market positioning_ ### Notable Quotes > "I honestly would have rather had a basic DMD than this. This just feels cheap." > — **Chris Freebus**, ~25:00 > _Key criticism of the video display implementation and overall value proposition_ > "It's not worth this much money. For the same price, you can get two reasonable late '80s pins." > — **Chris Freebus**, ~30:00 > _Direct value comparison that defines the machine's weakness for enthusiasts_ > "When I was a kid, I used to play Captain Fantastic. It just brings back nostalgia, and I had a lot of fun playing with those." > — **Casual buyer at Costco**, ~31:00 > _Exemplifies the actual target demographic and their motivations_ > "You've hit the target market right on the head." > — **Jared Morgan**, ~32:30 > _Validates Chris's realization about who would actually buy this machine_ > "For those that have no clue and are shocked to see a pinball machine out in the wild that you can purchase...amazing. For us, the pinball fanatics, this is a big nope." > — **Chris Freebus**, ~35:00 > _Concise summary of the market segmentation and value perception divide_ > "It's Fireball Home Edition all over again." > — **Jared Morgan**, ~36:00 > _Historical comparison indicating the machine will have poor secondary market value_ > "This is something you would only be able to sell on Facebook Marketplace as a home-use pinball machine." > — **Chris Freebus**, ~36:30 > _Indicates the machine won't hold collector value_ > "The video display is not value-adding at all. Not value-adding at all." > — **Chris Freebus**, ~24:00 > _Core complaint about design choice and perceived cost-cutting_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Jurassic Park Home Edition; subject of retail distribution strategy analysis | | Jurassic Park Home Edition | product | $4,899 pinball machine sold at Costco; primary subject of episode analysis | | Jurassic Park Pro | product | Standard commercial version; mentioned as $6,400 alternative to Home Edition | | Costco | company | Retail distributor of Jurassic Park Home Edition; creates market intersection between casual buyers and pinball enthusiasts | | Chris Freebus | person | Host of Blockade Pinball Podcast (aka 'Shut Your Trap'); conducted hands-on analysis of machine at Costco | | Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Blockade Pinball Podcast; competitive pinball player; recently purchased vintage electromechanical machines | | Pokerino | product | 1979 electromechanical pinball machine with double scissor flippers; purchased by Jared | | Lost World | product | 1979 electromechanical pinball machine; purchased by Jared | | Fireball Home Edition | product | Historical comparison point for poor secondary market value; precedent for Jurassic Park Home Edition pricing | | Captain Fantastic | product | Vintage pinball machine referenced by casual Costco shopper as source of nostalgia | | Insider Connected | product | Stern's connected play system; confirmed present on Jurassic Park Home Edition | | Arcade1Up | company | Manufacturer of arcade cabinets sold at Costco; contextual comparison for home arcade market | ### Topics - **Primary:** Home edition vs. commercial-grade pinball pricing and value, Playfield construction quality and durability (vinyl overlay vs. traditional painting), DMD screen size and display design philosophy (reactive vs. guiding), Market segmentation: casual buyers vs. enthusiast collectors - **Secondary:** Retail distribution strategy for pinball machines, Secondary market value and resale prospects for modern Stern games, Vintage electromechanical pinball acquisition - **Mentioned:** Game design philosophy: rule depth vs. accessibility ### Sentiment **Negative** (-0.72) — Chris is critical of the Jurassic Park Home Edition's value proposition, playfield construction, and display design. However, he acknowledges the machine's appeal to casual buyers and recognizes its engineering as commercially sound. The tone is analytical rather than hostile—frustration with pricing/design choices rather than contempt. Jared is more neutral, asking clarifying questions and validating Chris's market insights. The episode ends on a lighter note with discussion of upcoming 'worst pinball machines' segment. ### Signals - **[event_signal]** Blockade Pinball Podcast planning 'worst pinball machines' segment as community engagement exercise; hosts spitballing design failures and expecting audience participation. (confidence: high) — Chris and Jared's episode preview; explicit framing as audience-participation topic; scheduling as second half of episode - **[design_philosophy]** Jurassic Park Home Edition uses reactive display design (shows information after actions) rather than guiding design (tells player what to do next), limiting gameplay intuitiveness and video screen value-add. (confidence: high) — Chris's detailed analysis: 'It's a reactive display rather than a guiding display'; comparison to how modern Sterns rely too heavily on screen for information - **[market_signal]** Stern's Costco retail distribution targeting entirely different buyer demographic (nostalgic casual players) than collector/enthusiast market; machine positioned as lifestyle product rather than hobby equipment. (confidence: high) — Chris's conversation with casual buyer seeking nostalgia; realization that buyer demographic has no knowledge of Stern brand prestige or alternative pinball market; Costco floor model trial accessibility - **[community_signal]** Jared Morgan's acquisition of vintage 1979 electromechanical machines (Pokerino, Lost World) represents collector expansion into pre-DMD era pinball. (confidence: high) — Jared's announcement of dual purchases; machines arriving soon; discussion of scissor flipper mechanics indicating enthusiast-level interest in mechanical design - **[market_signal]** $4,899 retail price for home-use pinball machine with questionable durability (vinyl playfield overlay, no clear coat) and limited gameplay depth is perceived as unsustainable value proposition for collector/enthusiast market. (confidence: high) — Chris's repeated value comparisons to late-'80s machines and direct statement 'it's not worth this much money'; Jared's agreement on floor model pricing expectations ($2,500-$3,000) - **[product_strategy]** Jurassic Park Home Edition lacks clear differentiation from standard Pro version beyond retail packaging and distribution channel; pricing gap ($4,899 home vs. $6,400 Pro) does not correlate with feature/gameplay differences. (confidence: high) — Chris's observation that commercial components (metal ramps, Stern pop bumpers) match standard editions; no exclusive features mentioned; Jared's point about customer not knowing Pro alternative exists - **[product_concern]** Potential manufacturing quality concern: playfield appears to be vinyl overlay without clear coat, showing early wear signs at edges; matte finish and lack of wood reflection suggest different material/finishing process than standard commercial Sterns. (confidence: medium) — Chris's visual inspection identifying raised vinyl edges, edge separation, matte finish, and absence of typical playfield reflections; speculation about durability under home use - **[sentiment_shift]** Community perception of home-edition pricing: shift from novelty acceptance to skepticism about sustainability and value retention; comparison to failed Fireball Home Edition precedent. (confidence: medium) — Jared's immediate comparison to 'Fireball Home Edition all over again'; Chris's prediction of poor Facebook Marketplace resale value; no collector market interest anticipated - **[technology_signal]** Small 9-inch DMD screen inadequate for full-size pinball machine; video display implementation diminishes rather than enhances gameplay experience, contradicting Stern's investment in screen-based guidance systems. (confidence: high) — Chris's repeated complaints: 'Much too small'; 'you're squinting'; preference for basic DMD over video; comparison to Jersey Jack's overwhelming display complexity --- ## Transcript BlahCade Pinball Podcast this is the BlahCade Pinball Podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap and joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everyone how you going it's a bit of a different lighting condition here at the moment we're doing a little bit uh in my world this evening and jared's world is mid-afternoon so yeah yeah sun's shining a little bit differently there that's right the day star is different for us that it is what's going on jared oh geez all sorts of things um yeah stuff and things you know what i love right i think nothing worth mentioning well there is some stuff worth mentioning in the context of this show which we'll get to yeah we'll get in a few moments but um yeah apart from that life is good just playing lots of pinball tournaments winning some of them losing a lot of them it's the usual thing i am uh or i well i shouldn't say i'm currently i have been going through uh resume hell so uh oh no well i keep on trying to apply for uh a managerial role at the park and it requires a resume and I think I have something and then I turn it in and then I don't get a response and then I show it to people and they go, well, what you should change is this and then you change it and the next time you submit it and you still don't get a response and then you change it again and then you're sitting there going, am I battling the AI? Am I trying to put in buzzwords that'll make it attract and get me in you know so that a human is looking at it but then are there so many buzzwords that the resume is just complete and utter garbage it's yeah it's it's a balancing act isn't it between a resume that a human can read but also a resume that gets past the ai recruitment yeah yeah and you know there's i mean it's funny too because nobody can agree on if they're actually using ai or not i mean my personal opinion is it's freaking disney um they're using ai they're a you know massive corporation they're gonna have yeah a thousand resumes dropped off for the for this position they're not gonna have humans some human looking at all every single one of them i just i don't know they're doing they're doing a broad um for sure they're using ai there's there's actually so many ai recruitment tools out there now that they would be mad not to and it's it is super frustrating for candidates who are trying to go through the process i see similar stories that you're telling with all my technical writer colleagues over in um the right the docs area like people going for jobs over in the us and sometimes they submit their application and literally five minutes later they get an automated rejection now no no human has cited that resume that has just gone ai says no yeah the machines do not want you working for this business and it's so impersonal when really the hiring process itself is a really human-centered thing and cost saving in this in this area and doing it the way that they're doing is really uh it's it's a really bad anti-pattern that big corporations are using. So I feel your pain, and I'm sorry. The funny thing is, last time this opportunity came up, they made a big point of telling everybody, hey, there's a resume workshop that's happening on this date and this date. Bring your resume. There's a whole group of people that'll look at it and tell you how to spruce it up and do whatever you need to do. And so I didn't go to it because I had better things to do. But other people did go to it. And then after the process went through and they found the people that they were going to interview, feedback got back to the managers. And the feedback was, it's really weird. Everybody's resumes really looked a lot alike. Well, what do you expect? You told them what to put in it. Right? it's like they did exactly what they what you told them to do yeah so it's it's astounding it's really kind of uh strange strange but uh anyway this i get to go through this process it seems like you know once every six months and um and then i just fret over it uh but i'm now i'm to the point where i don't know what else i could possibly do to it we're talking splitting hairs now because it's literally, hey, I don't know what they're looking for. I may be on the right path, or I might go, well, apparently they didn't like that, and go the other way, and then I'm way off the path. So who knows? Yeah, you're feeling your way through the dark. Yeah, you really are. But anywho, that's what's going on in my neck of the woods. Recruitment hell. Yeah, it's never fun, man. No. Never fun. so let's uh let's just dive right in folks let me give you a roadmap hey roadmaps we like those uh for what this episode's gonna look like um as the title says i'm gonna talk about the old uh stern pinball home edition of jurassic park at my local costco uh because i did put hands on it so we're gonna talk about that uh straight away um after that uh jared has something that uh he'd like to say that he purchased. And then we're going to do what we call, what are the worst pinball machines the manufacturers actually made? Yeah. So that's something you're going to want to stick around for. Not the best list. It's not the best list. This is, what were they thinking? Yeah. Yeah. We were spitballing having a blast, and also we were just like, you know what, I bet our audience would have a blast with this too. So that's going to be at the back end of the back half of the podcast. So stick around for that. But first, let's talk about Jurassic Park Home Edition for sale at Costco. Which must have been, describe to me the feeling walking into your Costco and seeing a stone product just on the floor. So the first time that it happened, you know, the Christmas section is up at Costco. Yeah, right. They've got all the toys, and some of those toys are of the more expensive variety. So they've got some arcade one-up cabinets. They've got a foosball table. They've got a cocktail version of Ms. Pac-Man, or I think it was Ms. Pac-Man. It probably was. I don't know, from arcade one-up. Dartboards. I mean, it's those items that will make somebody's eyes light up if that's underneath the Christmas tree. But it's also not anything that you're on a whim just going to go buy, you know. Yeah, they're not just like, oh, I just happen to have that money in the back of my pocket. I'll just go and put this on the trolley and run it through the checkout. Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, it's not the steep discount that Costco does. These are pretty much the same price that you would buy it if you bought it online from these companies. uh yeah so yeah yeah i'm pushing my cart and and i see a big giant box that says stern on it and unlike your typical stern boxes this one is full color and has all right jurassic park just on the on the outside of the box um yeah and it is made up exactly the same as we saw all the arcade one up cabinets exactly yeah it is meant for a retail shelf designed to sell yeah yeah and so i was like oh well that's interesting i wonder how long this is going to be here for and i saw the price and it was yeah 48 for 4900 dollars i believe because i think it was i think it was i think it was 48 48.99 us yeah okay so it's just like damn that's and in my mind i i thought well that's definitely not an impulse buy and that particular day i saw a guy i i you know went did my shopping and come back around and there's a guy standing in front of it phone to his ear going well yeah but i mean don't you think we should we can get this right so there was a guy negotiating with the director of finance yes for permission to purchase this item at costco but it's at costco and right it's costco and you know think of the points we'll learn on this um and the thing was is when i went back a couple of days later it was gone so i was like whoa so someone just went here's a cool five grand somebody purchased it dollars here you go i will take this box away with me yeah wow so that is something else it was gone for maybe two weeks didn't see it and then the next time i went in uh and there was the box again but now they had one set up for play to try out and I was like, oh, well, okay, here we go. Let's plunge. I can't not do this. I have to do this. Yes. I must. It's my duty, I'm sorry. And I spent a good 15 minutes bashing around on this thing because I really wanted to get a feel for it and see. Walking by, I mean, it's impressive. It's a pinball machine. you know it's a big chunky floor tape floor real estate taking up thing yeah and the last time we saw a machine on the floor it was the arcade one up uh i think it was the star wars cab that they had set up which was significantly smaller you know very much a toy there's not a toy so not a toy um yeah so i went to go go play this thing and i uh took some video so that you all could see what it is. You're going to have to forgive the sheer amount of fingerprints that are on the glass. I even rubbed it down with my shirt just to try and help. But it was obviously not the Invisiglass on this particular model. Not the Invisiglass and Costco has samples so sticky fingers. Oh, greasy finger samples. Really, it's exactly the same as the condition you'd find one in a fish and chip shop or a greasy spoon takeaway yes yes yeah um so as usual with our show uh no audio but you know just you know it's okay let me just put it to you this way we don't really want the audio anyway because it was playing the jurassic park theme and then that would get our video flagged so yeah we instantly get flack from williams ago no thank you um but i've only got one speaker anyhow so no it's got two i think or does it i'm pretty sure it does i think that i think that other speaker panel is a fake one i don't know all i know is it was really loud right um oh hold on i'm gonna pause right here but actually i'm gonna reverse you know i did i i wasn't even thinking back to the beginning Okay, Translite. That's what it looks like the entire time. There's no other... It's probably just a fluorescent tube behind it. I mean, that's exactly what all the modern Sterns have. Okay. Yeah, I mean, and that is actually, from memory, that is the Translite from the Stern game with minor adjustments to it. Okay. And then the DMD screen. that is it is tiny it's the exact same size as what's on my uh arcade or not my um at games 4k seven inch no it's not seven it's nine or 15 oh nine that's right i think nine i know it was single digits there it's it it's pretty small i'm just gonna say that um much too small for a full size machine right like you're squinting at it trying to see the yeah information uh we'll get into more of that in a moment but here let me just scroll through here so as you can see metal ramps metal habit trails um it looks very pinball-y to me it's pretty pinball-y yeah got the chrome going home some stand-up targets there yeah you have stand-ups you got some uh drop targets back there a t-rex that does spit out a ball um yeah that's cool little turnaround path there you got a raptor trap there to the right whoops yeah um yeah oh look it looks i mean the fact that it's got middle ramps yeah it's that's pretty premium feeling no it does there's no doubt about it i mean i It wasn't like it was heaps of plastic on there or anything. Yeah, the metal ramps were nice and the habitrails. When you launch the ball, the ball goes around to the top and then goes into inlanes on the top. But then if you shoot the orbit from the left, it goes up and it jumps around. There's a gap in there. And I have an image of that a little bit that you'll be able to see when I'm talking about that. So it's just kind of a cool feature that you don't jump on the ball. That's cool. Like I said, the T-Rex toy, it's three drop targets. You knock the drop targets down. You shoot into the T-Rex. You lock the ball. Lock three balls. And then T-Rex will spit the ball out at you. for a two ball comes out the T-Rex's mouth comes out the T-Rex's mouth for oh that's cool two ball multiball just two okay so you lock one and then you lock the other one and then you're in two ball multiball well you shoot them three times oh okay right yeah so it actually has a way of locking two balls in that thing well no I don't think it actually I think it just is counting them oh it's virtual locks I think it's virtual locks so it'll lock one and spit it back out yeah oh okay that's fine facial looks is um flippers feel like stern the uh pop bumpers feel like stern because they are they're those those are actual genuine everything is stern I mean but it's the commercial grade what they're using um it's not like it's a you know cheesed down scaled down home version or whatever yeah um plunger feels fine like the volume was loud it was you know what you want on a Jurassic Park table I mean At least that's what I would want on a Jurassic Park table, is something nice and loud and boomy. So no, I mean, it felt just fine. It has a coin door. I don't know for sure if it's legit. Like, I don't know if you can set this up to take coins or not. Oh, no. It was in free play mode. Was it? It was in free play, but like I said, it looked like a legit coin door to me. That's really odd. Normally they have like a plastic fake one on those ones. Yeah. No, I mean I even pushed... you could... like the button pushes in... Push the reject buttons and everything. Yeah, yeah. Wow, okay. That's cool. So like, yeah, that's pretty rad. So next up what I'm going to show you is I tried to play... I tried to play with one hand. Oh, okay. The classic I'm going to record Pimple footage. Yeah, that's not the best idea. Well, it's hard. It's what I tried. You know what I mean? You've got to give it a go. What else are you going to do? You didn't bring your tripod with you. No, again, I had no idea it was going to be there. Did I go back on another day and play it some more? Of course I did. Naturally, you know. It was all in the name of our show, you know. It's pinball in your area. Yeah, right. which is pretty damn rare. Insider connected. Yes. Oh yeah. It does have insider connected on it. Wow. Um, so this is pretty good. This is a little play. You can see all those fingerprints. So there you go. The ball goes into the, and that's a skill shot that you can do at the air. Yeah. Um, call outs are, are all original voices. It's not from the movies. Okay. Yeah. so it's relatively level as well which is interesting I know right considering it was up on a pallet and now it's gone you know the funny thing is we actually did this novelty tournament mode where we had to play with one hand and we had to switch like this it was really hard it was difficult I know I've done a tournament where it was one person on each flipper yeah split flip is great i love it it's one of my favorite ways of playing pinball actually okay so having had a bunch of games on it this is where the uh the warts start coming out right um there is no mode uh start it's not one of those tables so what it is is each ramp, each shot. The idea is that the volcano is exploding on Isla Nublar and you're trying to rescue the animals. And so if you shoot the shot, was it three or four times? I'm not sure. Animal rescued. There's also, and it's indicated by an insert light. also there's another insert that'll be a picture of a of a person and sometimes the person needs rescuing uh i believe once you've rescued all the animals and you've rescued all the people that starts its wizard mode i don't know i didn't get that far so i never saw what the that was um And that's it. That's it. That's it. The multiball, once you start it, it's not like it goes into a specific multiball, you know, music changes, lights change, you know, what you're supposed to shoot changes. No, you're still rescuing animals, but now you're scoring a jackpot when you hit their ramp. but it's not like it's i i like it i was kind of surprised that there was no noticeable difference uh happening it's just lots of a lip for jackpot and that's basically um and it's like it wasn't even when i hit the jackpot it wasn't like a super loud jackpot sounded it was more like a muffled jackpot and and then you look at the you look at the the score screen there is very little going on there it's really um okay it's not quite magic pixel bad for their you know their dmd but uh zen is definitely doing a much better job than this rise uh the the animation or the the video that they have it's like really simple but it's a velociraptor jumping or whatever kind of thing trying to like you would think the score would be huge no it's kind of small um because it's trying to pack a little bit of information but like once you start a mode or you're starting to rescue a particular dinosaur it's not like that information is up on the screen um i was looking it's not just it's reactive it's what you would call a reactive display rather than a guiding display it's interesting you know because we we played a mode where we were playing jaws standing behind the backbox and playing down it was a novelty one and somebody made a point of saying there's so much information conveyed on the dmd now from these sterns that if you don't have vision on it it's actually really hard to work out what to do in the game yeah like really hard at the moment and it was a really telling point actually that remember where the old designers were going well the gameplay is on the table and now it's a lot on the video display yeah it's uh very interesting which is one of the problems that i have with uh jersey jack that there's so much going on it's not it's like their screen will be divided into four segments and i'm like i don't know what segment i need to look at to give me the you know i'm gonna spend all my time cradling a ball trying to read what i need to know yeah the instructions yeah yeah yeah because i mean the lights on jersey jack like as an aside they've been i mean everything is lit yeah it's just how how lit are the lights it's what it is oh anyhow anyhow okay video display is not really value adding at all not value adding at all um it it in my opinion it completely cheapens the thing game i i honestly would have rather had a basic DMD than... Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. At least the DMD would have classed it up a little bit. This just feels... This feels cheap. That's... It really... Yeah, right. That's what it is. So that got me then looking closer at the table. So, again, forgive all the fingerprints, but I tried to spot something here. I'm going to let... Jared, I'm going to just play this and you tell me what you see and then I'm going to tell you what I was focusing on myself. That's a thin wire form instead of a lane guide. Oh, on both sides, there's no playful wall on this table in the areas that actually need it. How interesting. I'm not sure what you're getting at there. That's the jump. Oh, that's the jump. Okay. Yeah. That's all right. Okay. So I don't know how much stood out to you there, but here I'll walk you through. The thing that I most noticed, there's not an ounce of wood showing. And I was shocked at the lack of reflection on the playfield itself. Right. And I was like, is there even clear coat on this? I don't know. And then I started looking closer. I think this entire playfield is a vinyl overlay. Really? So right there what I was kind of looking at is normally I feel like if you were painting you wouldn paint in an area that the ball is never going to touch I mean I don know how it is on modern playfields but I don know I started looking at it, and I was just like, that's not printing. It's not a screen print on this playfield. It looks like it's a sticker, a vinyl overlay. And I don't know for a fact if it is, which is why then when I focus over on the other side of things. So that little yellow and black tab is raised. It's actually like it is a sticker. It's almost like a sandpaper. It looks like a sandpaper thing. Whatever. But now, so look at the rollover there and the black edge. Tell me that doesn't look like it's a sticker. It does. And it also looks raised already. Yes. Like, it looks like it's coming away already from the edge. Right. So I honestly don't believe that this thing is clear-coated. I don't think it is. either and i mean it's a home play so obviously it's not gonna you know they're not expecting it to have the abuse that uh you know if it was out in the wild but on the other hand that stuff's gonna wear and heal family playing this thing like a family who's into it they're gonna like and i'll tell you now the ball quality in sterns is rubbish like they they're the first thing you swap out of the certain table when you buy one right and you put ninja balls in it um but like yeah i mean look at that it on i think it was just an optical illusion i don't think it was sticking up i think it's the rail reflecting now look at those lights they're just on off on off on off there's no interesting pattern uh so this here that's the jump at the back oh yeah which is cool and all but then again it got me thinking how many times what happens when that ball drops from that jump and does a hard impact back there. Well, you're going to have some serious wear. Same thing at the pop bumper area. You're going to have some serious air. Unless they put like a playfield protector in that area. They haven't. Oh. I wonder if it's just they have done a clear coat, but it's not the same sort of clear coat as we're thinking. But I mean, again, there's like no reflection. It is... The reflection you see is off the glass and off the playfield. So it's like it's matte. Yeah. Yeah, it just has a very matte finish to it. That Raptor pen right there, where you see that lightning bolt in, that's very interesting because it goes... Your ball goes in there and kind of bounces around, but it can also bounce into the shooter lane, and you can shoot again. Oh. So is it like a pass through? I think it does that. But that or is that orbit, if you don't hit the orbit hard enough, it can go... There was a couple of times where the ball went back into the shooter lane. Huh. What does the text say? It says... Well, good luck. Something in the Raptor pit for Raptor... Shoot the Raptor pen for Raptor hunt. Okay. So there's got to be a target in there. Is there a target up where the lightning insert is or something? Yeah, I'm not sure where it is. It looks like a really odd angle. Like, because it'd be a late show on the flipper to get in there. Yes, yes. And it looks like, yeah, okay, it's a weird one, eh? Yeah. There is a spinner on there, though, no? Like... There is a spinner, yes. There is a spinner. Like I said, there's actually... It's got all the pinball tropes. It's got things that, you know, Stern likes to charge for their... I was going to say... Premium editions. Like, you know, on this, like, type of game, game like i was i would be it would be perfectly reasonable to see plastic form ramps vacuum form ramps on this yeah and they've gone with metal yeah so they don't have a clear coat so i'm sitting there i'm analyzing this thing i'm looking at it and i'm just like going in my head i'm like there's no way this is worth this much money it's just no no it's not worth this much money you can for the for that same price you can get two reasonable you know late 80s pins not you're not going to get a dmd but you're going to get an alphanumeric and it's going to have a heck of a lot more mode it's going to have a heck of a lot more uh gameplay to it it's going to have a three bowl multi-bowl it's going to have all sorts of things it's going to be built better uh built to last because it had lasted you know so i'm like running through all these things in my head um and as i'm thinking about that this guy walks up a little bit older than me not much and he's kind of tentatively looking at it and he goes and he pulls the plunger and nothing happens because you know he's like kind of okay i just like oh you got to push the start button what oh okay pushes the start button and the whole thing so he's like whoa okay and he's looking at And he's like, what do you think of it? And I go, I mean, it's fun to bash around on, but I go, it's not worth the price. Oh, why is that? Is it not commercial-grade stuff? And I go, no, you know, there's plenty of – and I start pointing out all the positives on it and everything. And he goes, oh, well, you know, yeah, when I was a kid, I used to – oh, you're much too young to know about this, but there was a table called Captain Fantastic. I go, no, I know about it. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, yeah, I had a lot of guys. It just brings back nostalgia, and I had a lot of fun playing with those. And so then he's back to staring at it. And that's when it hit me. It was like this guy wouldn't have a clue where to buy a secondhand pin. He probably wouldn't know where to buy a brand-new stern, for that matter. He certainly is not going to know how to repair one or how to do maintenance on one. But you could go to Costco, purchase this thing from Stern. It's going to have a warranty. It's modern. So if anything does go wrong, you're probably going to be able to find something. They're going to have parts or whatever to get it back up and running. And for somebody that is just purely looking for that nostalgia kick and itch to throw into their game room, yeah, it's actually going to fit the bill. You've hit the target market right on the head. Yeah. I'd ask for the price. Again, I went $2,500 just because, look, parts, they're not cheap these days. I'm going to allow for that. But even three, like three grand, US. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, and of course in my mind, I'm thinking it's not going to retain its value. if you try and sell this on any serious pinball market they're going to turn around and laugh at you you're right, it's fireball home edition all over again oh it totally is this is something you would only be able to sell on the Facebook marketplace as a I don't know a home use pinball machine but again for somebody that's not thinking collector is just thinking cool toy to have in my game room for when people come over and play with him. Look at it going, do you mean I can own a Stern pinball for five grand? I don't think the guy even knows, but that's what I'm saying. I don't think the guy, Stern, who's that? Doesn't know the prestige. Doesn't know the name. He's just merely going, oh, this must be what you sell for these days. Yeah. You would have no clue that for $1,500 more he can get a Jurassic Park Pro edition. A Pro Jurassic Park. Would have no idea. No, wouldn't know and probably wouldn't care because that's probably one and a half grand too much over their budget. Right. Six and a half grand is like – That's a big ask. That's a big ask. That's too – yeah, yeah. So that's why it was very interesting because I think for us, the pinball fanatics, and for those that collect, this is a big nope. for those that have no clue and are shocked to see a pinball machine out in the wild that you can purchase that you can buy off the shelf literally put it in the back of your car and take it away with you amazing now my question is what is costco going to do with the floor model are they going to sell it to their employees i'm sure they're going to give them first crack and I just want to know how much they're going to ask for it. After it's been on the table, slammed away. At Conco. And left in active game mode, standing by for eight hours a day with no one plunging it. Yeah. Like, you know, some kid walks up to it, presses start, walks away, the game's on for like eight hours. Oh, every time I walk up to it, it's got four-player. Oh, yeah. so it'll just be sitting there in standby mode everything energized yeah you know this thing is like it's like one of those showroom fridges right on the floor it's like oh yeah it's cheap but then you get it home and then the thermostat goes in it because you know it's been running for like the last year yeah uh yeah man i don't know like i said i reckon they i'm very curious about four I reckon they do a floor model for about $4,000. For how much? Think about the other stuff you see. $4,000. Oh, I think that's way too much for it. Do you reckon they go lower than that as a floor model? I do. Yeah? You're thinking $3,000. I'm thinking $3,000. $2,500, $3,000. Would you buy it for that? No. No. If they said $1,000, I might. but i know there's no way there's no way there's no way they do like the m like the cost of the bill of materials and that thing will be at least two grand like yeah that's the cost of what stone would be paying to make it easily so yeah um but anyway it got me you know like i said i was thinking about well what what two tables could you buy for the same price um and then jared goes and drop something on me. Well, I kind of did just buy two tables for that price. I have expanded the pinball collection downstairs to include some bellies and some 80s bellies, namely Pokerino and Lost World. Bellies, Lost World. And both are of that sort of, you know, both are 1979 and Pokerino is well it's basically a square pinball machine it's a square machine very much like Paragon and FutureSpa and all those super wide bellies and it's all poker themed it's got very odd back glass with like poker playing cards with sexy legs on them so go figure and it's all the biggest weirdest thing about this game is it's double scissor flippers so if you're not aware of scissor flippers they're the ones that both of them open up at the same time and your ball can go between them and whenever you're at a pinball tournament and you hear someone go I just got scissored that's exactly what they have got done so it's really it's going to be an interesting game to play I haven't got either of them yet because they're on their way to me now did these come from a container ship coming from africa also these are not from the plains of africa these are actually i think locally delivered games okay um so they are literally turn them on and play them they are flipping and working um and in reasonable condition the the lost world back glass uh is trashed and really badly flaking, it will need to be replaced. There's no saving it. But I've found a place that will actually do reproduction backglasses for a lot of these games, and I'm just going to go down that route and get one. But yeah, two pinball machines for five grand, that's a... I can't say no to that. That's too good. And these ones are different enough that I think they should be quite fun to play. Lost World is one of those games that has two two sources that you can shoot the ball into so it'll be a good a good candidate for store ball um gameplay modes at tournaments for novelty rounds and stuff and it's very like it's you would argue there's not a lot going on with um lost world but it's i think that simplicity is going to make it something that players will really like to just shoot around on and they'll just they'll know what to go for and they'll just blow it up and have a really good time getting high scores on it so i feel like uh these two editions i had to look them up because i didn't i wasn't immediately familiar with especially now with poverino um no but i feel like they will fit very nicely uh with the machines you already have in terms of play style they will yeah yeah no and they i think they will fit quite nicely with those um the there will be a six pinball collection now which is as many as i can fit on that wall without having to well yeah as many as i can fit on that wall really i can't really put any more in and i i think i might have to think about getting rid of one of them and the one that i will be looking at selling would be star race um because my machines are used predominantly for tournaments and I offer them up as tribute for the tournaments, I want them to be easy to move and easy to manage in a truck. And the Star Race is the odd one out there because it's big, it's wide, it's heavy. And while it's a really fun game to play, the rules are simple on it. Like, really, you just need to get the two centre-top lanes and then just hit the drop-type bank and your points are there. That's all you've got to do. It's fun to get there, and it's hard to do that, but once you've done it, you've done it. I was going to say, you know, with six tables, all you really need is two people to bring a machine over and you've got a home tournament. Yes, I actually do. And, you know, I've seen, and tell me I shouldn't, Chris, but I've seen a Gottlieb Premiere Stargate floating around. I know you've talked about it. I'm not impressed by that table. If you had like, okay, this brings us into the next segment. It does. Honestly, right? It does. Because we, you know, I would, if I had to say, if I walked up to a row of Gottlieb Premiere machines, like every single one released. Yeah. I would absolutely put a buck you'd be sad I'd be like god damn it they've got a ton of pinball machines they're all freaking premiere where's victory I'll just go bash on that for a while yeah I'm talking about DMD Gottlieb premiere and if you had to walk up to one of those which one would you pick I would absolutely pick Stargate it's fun it's got the glider that pops out of the thing and swings around and looks really dorky. I just remember it as being a very cramped table. There's a lot in it. Like, it's jammed. For a standard-width pinball machine, it's packed full of stuff. Yeah. And it's... Like, the thing is that if you walk up and look at it, it looks unimpressive. When you start playing it, it's a surprisingly deep game for a Gottlieb Premiere. Yeah. and it's got a lot going for it. It's got by far the steepest ramps I've ever seen in a pinball machine to date. Like, they are vertical like this. And it's only the Gottlieb flipper makes it will get the ball up there. Like, they are mountains. I don't know, Jared. I think that once you get these ballys into your house, you're going to go, you're going to be like, okay, I see the difference between these and the Gottlieb. I mean, you've got the Gottlieb tanks right now. uh yeah but uh i would hate that your first dmd would be another gotley but i think um i think you gotta set your sights for something a little bit williams a little bit bally you know i was i was very close because it was at a ridiculously cheap price i was very close to trolling everyone at b-pack and buying a popeye saves the earth just putting that in the competition just go all right well hey here's what we're going to do we're going to because this is starting to get into this territory uh we're going to discuss what we feel are um the worst pinball machines by every manufacturer uh our caveat was i believe our cutoff date was 1985 we weren't going to go before that um because you're opening up a can of worms if you go and hopefully i believe everything that i nominated uh i have played at least once um i don't i don't know that jared has that same but uh you know we looked at pictures and stuff and we're going to provide some photos of our of our finalists but jared do me a favor we're going to start with we're going to start with bally we're just going to go in alphabetical order here start with belly start with belly so what what are our candidates for bally all right so we've got um one 1980s pin and a few from 1990 so we'll start at the top and we'll go with lady luck lady luck so that is one of those bali 6803 uh era machines yes yep it's uh george christian was the designer on it um so and then we we move swiftly well we can do the entire we can do the entire list of what we have too just so we okay great well i'll list them off i'll rattle them off ken that way you know what we're yes what we're dealing with so we got lady luck we got bugs bunny's birthday ball Gilligan's Island, Popeye Saves the Earth and Whodunit I put Whodunit on there, just so you all know you can hate me, I'm sorry I really don't like that table Okay, so as a very quick aside, our Whodunit at Novelty Tournament you had to flip it by hanging up two old school telephones they were the flippers it was the best, it was so good The only way you should play. So, okay. So, which ones did you and I pick out of these? Right. So, we picked two, and I think we'll come to a consensus as to which one we think is the worst. So first off, we have Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash, a hideously ugly machine. That play field is just like vomit with some of its – you know where it says Looney and Tunes? That plastic is just – it's Zachariah bad. It is the worst looking blow mold I've seen. It's terrible. The insert for Bugs' eyes He always just looks demonic When they're not lit And when they are lit It just Yeah I mean You can see This is the game that actually introduced The concept of carrot flippers Yeah Because as you can see The flippers are carrots Yeah And that's what those ribbed flippers are That you see in this era And that's where they get their name from This game I'm assuming that's Lola Bunny up there. I don't know, but I'm like, when was she even in a cartoon? Why are we throwing her in? And then having just Tiny Daffy and Sylvester and Yosemite Sam. I don't know. There's so many bad choices. You've never played this, have you, Jared? I've never played it, but look at that lift play field. It's a sunken playfield, and you spend an inordinate amount of time in it. Oh, really? It's like you literally are like, oh, crap, I just put the ball in there again. It's very Johnny Blaze, isn't it, from Ghost Rider in Zen? Like that reverse playfield is exactly what that is. It's terrible. Who's our designer of this table, Jared? okay so Bugs Bunny you get to blame John Trudeau for this one there you go which is like surprising because John has made some nice pinball machines and this is not one of them this is garbage, it's really garbage and the thing is I always play it when I see it just to go wait is this really as bad as I remember and then within one ball I'm like yep it is okay our next ballet candidate that we both agreed on. Lady Luck. We're going to come back to that back glass. But look at this play field. What year is this? Oh, this... Lady Luck is a 86. 86. As you can see, it's everything about 86. The look is 86, but the design of the layout is 1977. It's almost like they've gone and taken a 1977 design and then gone uh let's put some more controlled lamps in it i guess make it a poker thing table so i do know that these 6803 models uh or era of bally it was them in cost saving mode they were it was one of those eras was it it was like every machine that they produced in those it was literally we're saving money wherever we can um this is very evident now interestingly the same era does try some interesting playfield design um yeah there are some interesting playfields but this one is not one of them this is just no so boring looking and i mean it could be an em easily it could be yeah um but yeah okay so now back to that back to that artwork 80s style yeah look at those slingshot covers triangles and confetti that's 80s right there that's 80s and look at the lines on either side of the card oh yeah it's as good as a pinstripe suit on TV isn't it which then brings me back to this back glass which is like straight off a Duran Duran cover it's that Nagel art. Oh, it is amazing. It really does just date the hell out of this. I mean, that being said, we got a table coming up that I would take this back glass over And no no no it not the one you thinking of Jared no it the one with with more sexy ladies if you will uh i would take this actually has class if you will compared to the other one that we're going to talk about so anywho yes okay so those are some redeeming factors of that yeah so of these two of lady luck or bugs bunny which one are we voting as the worst for Bally. Oh. I know where my vote goes. Oh, look. It's so close, but I think from a gameplay perspective, I actually think Lady Luck would probably be more fun to play than Bugs Bunny. It is! Because at least Lady Luck, you got some drop targets and you can get a little bit of flow going. you know you got a little upper flipper yeah i mean it's it's looking good whereas bugs i'm not kidding you you get into that lower play field and you're just like cursing it's like not here again it's literally that ramp isn't it that ramp gets you entry oh so you get one ramp and you always end up in there yeah and then there's that ramp on the on the front left that you gets you back out that you have to hit to get back out gross yes yeah that's gross okay um okay what's next alphabetically yeah what category are we going to do next Chris well okay so I believe Data East would be next Data East, it's a good selection there's a bit more in this selection than we had for Belly, I'll rattle these off for you, so we've got Monday Night Football which is 1989 Robocop also 1989, Back to the Future just snuck into the 90s as did The Simpsons Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was 91 92 Lethal Weapon 3, 92 also and rounding up the end is Royal Rumble, 1994 How many of those have you played? I've got to say Data East was they were hit and miss They really were hit and miss I can't really say that there is a Data East that I'm like yes except for when i see guns and roses that one i'm like cool i want to play that one um that's a great day to race but most of them are i think jared you're the one that told me that you recognize this they're they're one ramp wonders that's all you're saying like two ramps of a popper like an up kicker yeah and some gimmicky feature two ramps a popper and a feature that's the gameplay they were literally all about the noise but i know that whenever i put my hands on them they felt cheap they just they flipping them particularly that flipping never felt good undue flippers yeah yeah yeah just the quality you could just see the quality on the table was not in the same league as a bally or williams so when they switched from the narrow dmds to the regular size DMTs. So off that list, we're talking about, um, Lethal Weapon 3 and Royal Rumble. Yeah. Um, that's when things started to feel better, but those, the, everything from Hook down there that had a, um, a narrow DMD, they just were not great. So let's, uh, wait, did we, did I miss one or was that one? No, that was a stern. Nevermind. Okay. So let's, uh, let's take a look. Uh, here's, this is Lethal Weapon 3. Now, I might be wrong on this one. I just remember when I played it, I was very disappointed. To me, it's a loud, obnoxious table in the same vein as Last Action Hero. Yeah, but if I had to play this in Last Action Hero, it would be Last Action Hero all day. Probably, because I don't think this captured the movie very well. I think that's what probably my biggest issue was. And I think it was very Joe Pesci. I can't remember if there's just too many Joe Pesci call-outs on this or not. Oh, there's so much Joe Pesci. Yeah, there's a heap. And honestly, I think there's sound-alikes for Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as well. Yeah. I think they managed to get a good deal on Joe Pesci, but I don't think they got a very good deal on the other ones. All right. So that's Lethal Weapon. I just wanted to show it. I don't feel that it's necessarily the worst but I did want to show a picture of it. Okay. Here's RoboCop. Yeah. What is going on here? Take a moment to... Here's another angle of RoboCop because literally I can't find a good picture of this piece of crap. No, please everyone, take better pictures of your pinball machines if you've got them. There's... There's not even a toy on this that I can identify. Spinners and a... Spinners, stand-up targets, and a ramp. What's that weird thing in the top left? Left, I don't know. It's something. I could put a shoulder on it so we don't know. Yeah, it's something, but I don't know what it is. Yeah. But that art is... God, what is wrong? RoboCop is so cool. and has amazing poster art and everything. And that looks like straight out of a coloring book. It really does. Hey, on the plus side, it would be easy to restore the play feel. Right? Just black. Black and blue. Those are your... Black and blue. Easy. So, I mean, that's got that going for it. That's about it. Lots of primary colors. All right, what was another choice that we have? Oh, The Simpsons! Yeah. You might be surprised to go, well, why is the Simpsons on the list? Because you haven't played it. Get past the fact that it's the Simpsons and just look at it. And this, I'll say this one, this particular playfield shot is one that's been really looked after and restored. Yeah. They really look this good. No, rarely. Like, those powder-coated ramps are always absolutely showing the middle of the... Well, and the family on the couch is usually just covered in dirt. Oh, yeah. That's a fixable problem, but everything else, this one suffers from terrible playfield wear. It's hard-pressed to find a good one. But that aside, how did this settle? Jeez. Okay. So we were split on these. There was a bit of a spread across. I went as one of the ones that I sort of settled on. It was like Monday Night Football. Hold on, do I have something else to show, though? I think I have something else to show, Jared. You do? Yeah. I think you're right. We are split between Robocop and Simpsons. This was a hard one to settle on, I would say, because it was a broad selection. There's also Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Here's one. Look, I love how this is. Hey, let's just throw a plastic toy on there and call that something interesting. Let's get the Kenner toys, figurines, and just drill them into the play field. Let's put a piece of sandpaper as a spinner that looks like the nastiest pizza pizza you've ever eaten. Because literally, it's supposed to be a vivid piece of pizza. But any time I've ever seen this in the wild, that's exactly what it looks like. It looks like a mud pie. Yep. Now, my thing is, I seem to think that Simpsons was worse than this. so that's why this again goes into that lethal weapon territory where i don't have the clearest of memories um and if i'm looking at it just visually i'm like oh there's a split ramp on the left there's a ramp on the left or on the right you do have the spinner that you know flings your ball around that it's got some interesting things that doesn't have anything interesting going on zero no it's not even anything in the way of a toy on there to bash no no there's nothing there nothing there no so do we go with simpsons or do we go with roboswap oh we go with the simpsons that's where we settled i think simpsons because it is so disappointing like yeah robocop you walk up to it and immediately you're just like nope yeah simpsons you walk up and you go oh cool simpsons and then you start playing it colorful this looks good yeah and then you go it's not and this is daddy you can tell up in the uh up the top there they were stealing straight from williams like whirlwind era with the uh oh yeah the the lights that are on the the back glass there um there's a reason for that it's because they stole the design of the boards they literally copied the the belly williams system 11 of that era and they use it as their own yeah uh out of east don't we hate you uh okay so yeah i think i think we're going to call simpsons and especially if you i think that's why people love simpsons pinball parties so much because it's like thank you a good simpsons right it's like oh you actually understood the the the homework assignment okay awesome got the brief yeah uh yeah it's great in comparison. Alright, what alphabetically comes after Data East? Well, it would be... Gottlieb. It is Gottlieb. Yeah, it is. Righto, Gottlieb. So right in my wheelhouse here, except none of the games that are on my list. Good. So, we've got Raven, 1986. Genesis, also 1986. Spring Break, 87. bone busters inc 89 gladiators in 93 and water world in 95 and closing out the list is barb wire in 96 yeah quite the list um quite the list i will say that when you if you i looked at the flyer for barb wire and it was just like boy was that your last gasp you didn't put anything into that thing you were just like here's a machine um it's exactly that isn't it gladiator pamela anderson yeah gladiator i've never been able to figure out any appeal to it it's it's a weird the theme is weird how it's implemented is weird the shots are weird the whole table's weird yeah because it was supposed to be a legend of zelda table and they and they lost the life they couldn't get the license for it and they had to like uh switch to big muscly butted people that is hilarious um raven is what i consider the worst of the we're not even trying we're just going to take a picture of a live action person on a set and make that our back glass and that's the theme but really i mean because they they had wild wings which was their top gun ripoff and raven was uh a female rambo and it was like you could completely see what the influences were um oh yeah they were the beam the b movie versions of all the latest brands yeah yeah uh just terrible okay so this is the one i want to i want to just highlight this isn't this isn't making it into our jordanized selection of worst but this is what i was talking about comparing lady luck and that art to look at spring break oh um you again there's your bag glass where it's just photos it's not photoshopped it's just plain straight up photos of people there are actual people on there there are actual people on there it's real photos and then you go into this play field that I would be just full on embarrassed to own I couldn't have this in my I couldn't have this in my house and I'll tell you that there are some tournaments where they wouldn't accept this either because of the fact that there's a topless, a concealed but topless woman on the playfield. I wouldn't be able to offer it as a tournament contender. Can you imagine what, before Zen was finally put out, non-censored playfields, can you imagine what they'd have to do to this? You might as well just put her in a burka. Just put a big floppy shirt on her. Like a muumuu. Give her a muumuu. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Like, what is the significance of no dogs allowed on the sign? I don't even know. California beaches don't allow dogs. Okay, right. But, yo, ooh, it's got new automatic percentaging, continuous multiball action, and a multi-image back glass. That's a feature? A multi-image back glass. Because it's got lots of pictures on it. Thrilling. And an automatic ball launcher. And this is Guttly Premiere where their alphanumeric screen was teeny tiny. And blue. And it was, yeah. It was, yeah. This is the worst. Okay, so let's see what's... It's not the worst. No, so here's our first choice. Genesis! It cannot be anything other than this monstrosity. Where to begin? What's where to begin? Well, you have to begin with that back glass. I'm sorry that is hands down the worst back glass in all of pinball just without a doubt yep and it's renowned for it if you're doing a top 10 worst back glasses you don't even have to worry about number 1 this is it the Pepto-Bismol purple ramps Pepto-Bismol is the name I would put it not Bismol it's just completely unappealing. And look how thin and cheap they look. Like, they just... It looks like they will break at any moment. Yeah. And they never look like that either. Those are brand new ones. Yeah. That playfield looks like how you typically find it, though. Yeah, it's very... Dull, scuffed, not vivid at all. Yellow plastics. Yeah. Now, some people have gotten mad at us in the past, saying Genesis is a lot of fun to play. Who's the designer on this? Genesis. It is actually John Trudeau. Oh, again? Yes. So he was responsible for Bugs Bunny. He's also responsible for this. Interesting. We didn't talk about who the designers on Simpsons and Robocop were, did we? We didn't. Real quick, what were those? Simpsons is Joe Kamikau and Ed Savula, and also the same for TMNT. Oh. Oh. Yeah, both the same. Interesting. I think there were a third one on there. Can you see the same? Right. Can you see a commonality of what's going on here with these tables? And we are not, we made these decisions after we actually looked at the designers. We weren't targeting our designer here for the record. Like, these just happen to be how they are. Now, again, we're talking about, you know, although it looks like you have a giant DMD area, it's, again, the teeny tiny alphanumerics. Little tiny gas plasma display. Itty bitty. Now, for the sake of our people that love this machine, I did find this image. This is what a Genesis can look like. Clear ramps, better trans light, LED lighting going on, a bright, vivid play field. You know. This I'd be okay with. Like, this is really nice. Yeah. but you have to pretty much change everything. Yeah. This is much less embarrassing, other than the fact that, what the hell is up with that apron? Is that the same on the, oh, that apron's not much better. They just haven't, they haven't put the thing on it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty, you know. Meanwhile, they got Funhaus in the background. Bust that thing open, people. Come on. Put that thing on legs. Put that thing on legs. Okay. So, Genesis, that was Spring Break, and then we have Waterworld. Waterworld. Look at this thing. At first glance, I'm like, ooh, I see wire forms. That looks interesting. And then I go, and I can't tell what thing to do because this is the busiest play field that doesn't have flow for where you're going to be shooting. Yep. And the big toy, the thing at the top there, I have actually put hands on this once. Okay. and I cannot recall how the thing works, but notably, have a look at the hexagonal hole, the hexagonal sinkhole. Just imagine for a moment how oval that would be now or how rounded out that hexagonal hole would be. It's just, there's a lot of weirdness happening here. um it's definitely a gotley premiere era um like it's got all the the gotley premiere hallmarks here like absolutely this one came out before uh stargate i believe yeah see i i mean we talked about this off off here like stargate is a gotley premiere that i it would be only one that i would own yeah of the dmd era but i would own one so what do we think This one would not. Waterworld? Out of the two. Or Genesis. That's the worst. Oh, come on. I'd have Waterworld. You would? I'd have Waterworld. I'd have Waterworld. Right. It's not even... Genesis wins, hands down, as being the worst. Oh, it's the worst. It's the worst. There's just next to no redeeming quality about it. No. Even that shop one that looks really nice with the lovely lit plastics. Yes. It's still not as good. No. No. it's it's refined hot garbage the other one's just hot garbage yeah sorry everyone if you like it i'm i played it enough times to know that it's hot garbage okay so our next era would be sega sega in somewhat distorted um right so we've got a few here uh we've got um Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, 95. Batman Forever in 95. Space Jam, 96. The X-Files, 97. South Park, 99. Harley Davidson, 99. So for clarification, Stern did a Harley Davidson as well, but under the Sega brand, that was the first iteration of Harley Davidson in 99. So that's your six options there. now and i mean i know that just off the top of my head um that mary shelley's frankenstein that that frankenstein toy is god-awful ugly oh it's it is horrible it's hideous it is hideous um and its big selling point was the giant dmd way um it wanted so badly to be dracula and it did and it it's not the the the problem with that that toy is that for the ball to get up to it it's actually it actually has to be it's got a vuk that feeds those those arms and that's where you're supposed to actually lock the balls into and it holds them and goes yeet and yeets the balls at you which of course you know from that height is really good for the play field and plastics around it like it's excellent um but it's just it's one ramp one ramp a lot of pop bumpers there's a couple of multi balls in it but really it's about the uh it's uh and everything every single time is as it grounds at you and then shoot the Geneva hole. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. Go away. Yeah. It's not the worst, though. Batman Forever is also just an ugly, gross... It's ugly, but actually it's not a bad game to play. It's not a bad game. It's actually not terrible. I also hate that movie. It's not a good movie, no. What else is on that list? Space Jam. Space Jam. I'd rather have NBA, actually. I would love NBA. I would are you kidding me not NBA Fastbreak but Stern NBA oh even because it's got exactly the same back the basketball you've got a Shaq attack from Gottlieb almost made it onto the list by the way yeah I can imagine why it's not good it is not good but ultimately we settled on two didn't we we did settle on two the first one the Harley Davidson the Harley Davidson you played this enough times oh my god i had to play it in bull arcade oh to know how repetitive this thing is like it is it's so repetitive and it's also just okay play field wise it's like a figure eight it's really awkward shooting um but then it is I'm not one to get offended by pinball machines but it is bordering on offensive in terms of how redneck crap trash it is yeah down from just the I almost want to call it a Motley Crue table I think that's the closest I could like get the vibe it's girls girls girls they need i'm surprised there's not a stripper pull on this thing it is so cliche so just obnoxious um it's it gives no it gives no fear a run for its money in terms of of just cringe factor on branding um yeah yeah it's there's nothing good about it uh but then but then but then there's south park uh yeah which to be fair the first couple of times you play it you laugh and you go oh fun this is south park hooray and then you play it some more and you go wow can they use that call out any more times and is there any other shot that i can actually shoot because this boring it's just Kenny and that right ramp and just try and get your multiball and get some points and then have enough points to get off the table yeah this is it could have been so much more and Stern not Stern, Zen absolutely does South Park better than this 100% without any doubt this is not good choice South Park choice out of the two of them Harley so between Harley Davidson and South Park jeez um it's a real Sophie's choice here it is really is Sophie's choice um I'd have to say it's just Harley Davidson for me I hate it the most I agree I hate everything about it um yep South Park I at least like the theme yeah but the theme I can put up with the call outs being repetitive Harley is just tune them out Cheers This is just offensive And the amount of times you enter into video mode on this table is just Oh my God And it a direct rip of the video mode in Well, yes, but it's isometric. True. And it is exactly the same video mode as in Guns N' Roses. Oh. Except with people in it. Where you're basically hitting people on a highway. Yeah. That's good, isn't it? Like, just get in the bin, you know? Okay. Okay. Next up. We are... Whoa, geez, where are we now? We're up to Stern? Hold on. I'm going to click through. And yes, we're in Stern. Okay. So this is the second last category that we've got, don't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Second to last. Yeah, go ahead. Second to last category. So, of Stern, we've got High Roller Casino, which was 2001. Austin Powers, also 2001. Indiana Jones, 2008. CSI, 2008. 24, 2008. That's three in 2008 there. And then closing list. No, Big Buck Hunter closes us out at 2010. Okay. so this one was not difficult for us to determine no i will say that like 24 and csi that's just a terrible choice for a pinball team um 24 the play field is just nothing but box after box of inserts it's like yeah and the whole crux of 24 was doing something in real time i don't think that's the crux of the game i don't know uh i think i've literally have put one quarter in it and that's the end of it saying csi again just not a good theme for something that you want to play and it's kind of ugly to boot um yeah and then both neither of them are pretty tables and those are steve ritchie and pat lawler tables by the way which is wild wild absolutely wild um okay what else what was the the the first one on the list uh oh high roller casino high high roller casino it's just a boring casino theme um yeah and it and it had it features at that time stern loved their three panel three color display led thing that was on monopoly and um simpsons simpsons no yeah oh yeah simpsons did actually have it um but monopoly and uh what's the other when I'm thinking of Ripley's and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Like, it was mandatory. It was almost like a, hey, we developed this thing. You've got to use it. Because remember, this is Stern hanging on for dear life. They are the last pinball company out there. They were barely making ends meet. Like, they were struggle town. The number of exposed wires that you could see on a play field or on a table was insane. Wherever they could pinch or cut corners, they could cut corners. So that's the era of that. And so you go from High Roller Casino to all of a sudden, hey, maybe they've turned a corner because they're going to start doing licensed things. And what's the first thing that they licensed? Well, I don't know if it's the first thing they licensed, but... Blah! yeah and I'll tell you what I I boy there's like a this has not aged well if you run into one of these in an arcade and you decide to put like some money in it which I would strongly recommend you don't it is really hard to listen to and And it is directly, like, everything is ripped right out of that first movie. Yeah. And it is, yeah, it's really hard to watch. And see how dull that play field is. Mm-hmm. Like, see how matte that play field looks. Boy, it looks like Jurassic Park Home Edition. It does, but I think Jurassic Park is definitely better. But, I mean, just look at, it even has the penis drill on it. Look at it. like on the right hand ramp the drill that gets mistaken for the the oh yeah the johnson yeah and you know that five that two minute session well it looks like they recycled the toilet from uh south park and put it on there oh the toilet no it's slightly smaller but yeah basically you know what i mean um yeah yeah it's where this machine should get into it should just suck itself right Did Austin Powers influence Lord of the Rings getting a target at the back? I don't know which came first. A magnet sucker? Yeah, this one, I think. Basically, it gave us that, but that's about it. It's a god-awful ugly table. The call-outs get annoying. The music will drive you up a freaking wall. Oh, yeah. Their excuse for toys is literally, you know, like they went to the toy aisle and found some action figures and stuck them on to the machine. Yep. Yep. Oh, man. Yeah. It's really, this is the low point of this era. And, I mean, we've got, I mean, CSI and 24 are in there too. Let's not be. True, because this is also the whole Photoshop central, which brings us to our next one. Make a mistake. Welcome to Photoshop. this is yeah wow i i hate to say it but i feel like zen went oh cardboard cutouts what a good idea and looked at this and went okay let's do that because it's just cardboard cutout city it's and and again photoshop city um you know fortunately they learned their lesson with the giant tongue on kiss and actually had the ball roll down it whereas here it's just there um yeah yeah i don't even know i i know i've played this completely unmemorable i don't know what the music situation is with this i don't know i wouldn't be lost in certain thing i don't know if you can change songs if there's actual songs in it i don't i really don't know um because that mick target is enough to make me walk up and go nope and then walk away yeah he can't even the thing is you can't even it doesn't stow anywhere like you know the dracula target right on monster bash it goes off the sign gets out of the way this thing is just there blocking your shots yeah what are they thinking it's horrible like but not as horrible as austin powers no um the the austin powers is hands down the winner when we started this conversation it started because of austin powers yeah yeah you know oh geez wasn't austin powers the worst people the worst well what are the other ones that could be in this list yeah yeah um honestly i think austin powers and and genesis are in a tie for worst period yeah i'd only i would only have if we had let's do a quick poll okay austin powers and genesis what would you have? Which would I own? Which is the worst? The worst. Well, I'm just saying, if you had to have one in your house and you had to turn it on and let it sit there in attract mode, I'm going Genesis. I'm going Genesis, but I'm going that nicely done up one. Yes, because I do not want to listen to the Austin Powers attract mode. No. It's just not. And it's, again, it is a, Genesis is an ugly table. But it's not garishly ugly. Austin Powers is just freaking ugly. I mean, we didn't even show what the cabinet art looks like. So, yeah. It's really not something you want to see in the house. Let's move on to. Last category. What wound up being our hardest to pick from category? This was a really tough one, and I want to see how you all go who are actually watching this. What do you reckon is the worst that he got? Jeez, it was... This took me the longest. The other ones were cut and dry for me. I had a hard time coming up with this list because freaking Williams was killing it. Yeah, they were doing good work. They were doing very good work. um everything that we talk about on this i wouldn't be opposed to if it if it if i had to own it i wouldn't be like oh man that's like yeah let's let's reveal the list the list is starting in 1986 um road kings then we move swiftly to 87 where we have fire then also in 87 we have millionaire we jumped to 91 with hurricane and then rounding out the list we have star wars episode 1 at 99 1999 yeah i had to put that in there because i think it's it's it is what killed pinball it's it is well unfortunately revenge for mars came afterwards and revenge for mars is better it's not great it's better um it's better but i personally just hate not seeing the back half of the playfield it just feels like you're playing on such a short limited small space um it really bothers me i enjoyed the heck out of it when it when both of those titles came out i got to play him i really enjoyed playing him um just they were for the time they were really novel games like really groundbreaking stuff um but yeah all right so now what made right the list okay so starting with fire fire the arcade that i worked in uh this was one of the three machines that they had when i first started there it was this roller games and Whirlwind. I put my quarters into Whirlwind and Roller Games. This is the only machine that I had keys to because the amount of times the ball got stuck and so we were constantly having to slide the playfield off to get the ball unstuck. And so I could put in as many credits as I wanted and I just didn't. You just did not want to because by the end of your shift you were sick and tired of this game well because you have to have your glass off it so many times it is it has no flow none i i don't even think there's an orbit on this it is like everything is ramps everything's it's ramps and dead ends those ramps are dead ends and then the ball just comes right back down um it has this really annoying thing and old-timey music playing The building molds on the side, they're not Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash bad, but they're verging on it. It's a very busy play field. Again, your eye doesn't get directed anywhere, so I don't care for that. It's kind of boring. I don't know. It's just really just there. and the fact that they came out with a champagne edition shows that it was popular yeah but you know yeah it's not pretty no I don't have good vibes with this one our next one our next choice is not that no our next choice I gotta hit the right button here there we go it's Millionaire look at it could you get more 80s this is a system 11 folks this is system 11 but it is nothing about it like that back glass and with the giant dollar signs it i look at it today and it might as well just be called trump the pinball um it's that terrible looking it's just garish and all the wrong things of what you want from a millionaire you know what i mean uh the lifestyle it's i don't i don't know really what's going on here's a better play field yeah better better than that we can see it i'm curious to know who which came first uh teed off or this did you know who stole the idea oh who stole the mechanism yes oh uh i think t no i think this would have because teed off was a dmd this was first this was first in fact actually not technically uh there was a em that we played recently uh at b-pack that had that mechanism on it so this mechanism has been around for a while but hey who's our designer on this? Okay, so millionaire is Jerry Armstrong. Okay. Don't know. But fire, Barry Elsler. No. Okay. You can see that there is a lockball mechanism on both the left and the right. Oh yeah, there is too. So there's a three-ball multiball, I'd imagine. I'm sure there is. There is looking something, something. I can see instructions broadly on there. and there's stuff to shoot on it but it doesn't really compel me to no I can't tell if it's the layout or the theming that just turns me more off I really don't know yeah I'm not sure about this at all but I know that let's go back to that picture of Millionaire what's next to it Arena? Well, that's a Gottlieb arena, yeah. Don't know about that. Yeah, no, but I don't know. It'd probably be more fun than this. So what do you think? Would you rather play Fire or would you rather play Millionaire? Oh, geez, this is like a tough one as well. But I don't know. I've played Fire, so I know what it plays like. I've not played this before. but this would be a good transition from like early solid state to something more modern so i i wouldn't want fire i just hate the theme it looks gross i'd go with millionaire i think i would go with fire would you go with fire just because i know what fire looks like um again i can't stand the look of this a millionaire just looks like trash I don't know I can't say how it plays and that's the hard thing I know I've put a quarter into this but I it did not leave an impression in me that I would want clearly that I wanted to play it again I've put many a quarter or I shouldn't say many a quarter I've pumped the credit button many a time on fire and actually played it so I think for me a millionaire would be the one that I am going to go with worst but it's it's a coin toss it is really a coin toss yeah it's a coin toss ah well there you have it folks those are our uh our worst what uh for summary jared what do we want to picking as our worst of each category all right so we'll start from the top of my list here for data east we chose the simpsons and we chose um Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash for Bally Yep Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash Genesis for Gottlieb And it was Harley Davidson for Sega Austin Powers for Stern Yep And Genesis for Gottlieb we said that Yeah and then Millionaire for Williams Well excuse me I said Millionaire We're split on that one So if you want to have The worst playroom now you know what machines to put in a row go and buy them come find them yeah and then if you want no one to come and play pinball at your place come and just go and buy all those uh you i'll tell you what it would you be able to get them cheap um potentially so if you wanted a cheap starter pinball collection you could use this as a buying list i mean but i we say cheap and then I'm sure that you can go on, you know, Pinside and find out how much they sell for and go, what? So. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Hopefully you all enjoyed that. We enjoyed coming up with that list. We do appreciate all the questions that you guys put in the comments for us to ask Mel. We have compiled our list already. So no need to ask any more. We basically have our fill of what we're going to be talking to him about. But we definitely appreciate you guys throwing down some suggestions and questions that you're going to have for Mel. Yep. Next time we pop on here, you should have been able to get the new latest Pinball M table, which is uh camp blood something it's friday the 13th and they didn't get the license that's all i know i mean i shouldn't say i know i don't know that we're gonna ask mel that it's friday the 13th people something fell through um yeah there's no doubt about it there's too many there's too many things that are similar um uh so that will have come out Over on the ad games front, they have updated all of the Zen tables for latency. They play fantastic now. Their sound is better because they balanced the sound to match all of Magic Pixels games. So you don't have to worry about flinging up to your volume button to turn up or down based on what you last played. They even improved the graphics a little bit on some of the Zen tables. with their optimization. They were able to increase certain aspects of them. So they're playing really nice now. That's awesome. Yeah. The fun thing, though, Jared, what is it we've always said about Creature from the Black Lagoon? What haven't we said about it? That no two Creature tables play the same. Oh, correct. Yeah. Well, that tradition continues. really because so the one in people effects does not play the same as the one in at games nope they dropped they dropped monster bash and a creature in a pack together for at games and monster bash plays fantastic it's fun it plays and it plays the same way as what you play in pinball effects. And then there's creature. Where a full plunge does not send the ball all the way around to the left flipper, it can't quite clear the ramp. You can sometimes get it to clear and make it over, but usually it just drops in the inlanes up on top. For the skill shot, you can't move the light. Whereas in pinball effects, you can. When the ball drops from the pop bumpers, down the right side, usually, and this is pretty much every table that I know of, you can do a dead pass over to the left flipper. This one, it barely has any bounce and you have to really quickly flip the left flipper to keep the ball in play. Wow, okay. There's some dead flipper rubber going on on this thing. So it adds a new wrinkle into your strategy of playing on it. Does it what? Jeez, you can't even get sequential film. No, you can. Can't. I've gotten it plenty of times. Well, with a lot of extra wood chopping, you can, yeah. Yeah, that's the problem. You've got to hit that kiss target now four times, and that's not a fun target. Yeah, so just off the plunge, you get it immediately. Yeah. Yeah. So, that being said, I real quickly got the number one score on it, and then I've since been bumped off of it. But it was like all my old ways of playing came back to me. And that was kind of like, okay, I just have to be weary of, you know, I got to remember, don't do the dead pass because that's not going to function. But, yeah, I really did have just a laugh. I was like, are you kidding me? It doesn't even play the same. As pinball effects. As pinball effects. And it's zen. It's like, what is going on? This is just astounding. Absolutely amazing. The only thing that Monster Bash has a problem with is the scoop eject sometimes goes straight down the middle. like unsavable just right down the middle yeah well i've seen that happen on real tables too many times yeah um the problem is is when you shouldn't the problem is when you've you know just started the mode you know because you had dracula and mummy lit and it goes and right down the middle and you lose all your points there like are you kidding me come on um enough people have complained about that i'm pretty sure zen's gonna have to uh go in there and tweak something and well here's the thing i don't even know if it's zen that will do it or if it's at games um oh it would be saying because they're the software provider the software provider but there are certain aspects that i know that uh that at games handles uh and i think it has to do with their hardware so that's probably why the plunge doesn't plunge like it should. It's not registering a full back. Yeah, they've got too much of a dead zone in the plunger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think... That sounds about right, actually. Yeah. So I don't know. And I wouldn't know why the scoop would be on Monster Bash, that they would have anything to do with that. So I don't know. I wouldn't, no. Hopefully that'll get passed along to Zen, and they'll get on that and fix it. But I did just want to point that out. also by the next time we talk to you I'll know what playing Chucky and the thing on AtGames is like because those are coming next that's going to be really interesting I'm very curious to see what the parental lock does and all that and how they've tweaked it you're going to maybe think about doing a video separate on that? Nah I'll just talk here ok that's fine I had a video all made up about my Costco trip, and then after I got done editing it and watching it, I went, eh, nah. Nah. Nah. All right. Dope. All right, cool. So that's what you all got to look forward to. Lots of stuff coming up. Things for us to talk about. As usual, though, it's what Jared loves to talk about. Stuff and things. Until then, folks. Bye-bye. See you later. Thank you. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: bf250898-0020-4f3f-b882-b40e15d3f976*