# Episode 88_Transformers, Roll Out! (1)

**Source:** The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-06-25  
**Duration:** 72m 9s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://soundcloud.com/thespinnerislit/episode-88_transformers-roll

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## Analysis

Dan recently purchased a new-in-box Transformers The Pin pinball machine based on Generation 1 cartoon (seasons 1-2), fulfilling a decades-long personal wish for a Transformers themed game. The episode features detailed hands-on gameplay impressions including playfield design by Elliott Eisman (John Wick designer), voice acting by original cast (Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Frank Welker as Megatron), extensive rule depth with combiners, tech specs, and multiple multiballs, and praise for kinetics and thematic authenticity. The game is noted as feature-complete code with strong content sourcing from G1 cartoon rather than the movie, though Optimus Prime was originally intended to transform mechanically but did not make final release.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Dan ordered the Transformers The Pin immediately after announcement, right before Golden State Pinball Show — _Dan describing his purchase timing, confirmed by Spencer_
- [HIGH] This is Dan's first new-in-box game purchase in over 20 years of pinball collecting — _Dan: 'I've been in pinball for over 20 years and...I've never had a new inbox game'_
- [HIGH] Elliott Eisman designed the Transformers machine and this is his second design (John Wick being first) — _Dan explicitly credits Elliott Eisman and John Wick as his prior design_
- [HIGH] The game was originally supposed to be based on Transformers the Movie (40th anniversary) but was changed to G1 cartoon seasons 1-2 right before release — _Dan: 'right before release, they came out that it's not based on Transformers the movie...it's straight out based on seasons one and two of the cartoon'_
- [HIGH] Optimus Prime was designed to mechanically transform but the feature was cut before release — _Dan: 'you can see how he was definitely supposed to transform...it didn't make it' and describes tire tracks visible in early screenshots that were removed_
- [HIGH] Original voice actors Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) and Frank Welker (Megatron) recorded lines for the game — _Dan: 'The lines are recorded by the real voice actors for Optimus Prime and Megatron' and praises their performances_
- [MEDIUM] The game has five combiners with five parts each: Superion, Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, and Minasaur — _Dan lists combiners but briefly uncertain, says 'am I missing one?' before Mark corrects with Minasaur_
- [HIGH] One Shall Fall (mini wizard mode) is structured almost identically to song modes on Guns N' Roses — _Dan: 'the way it works is almost exactly like the way the songs work on Guns N' Roses...almost like getting the applause jackpot'_

### Notable Quotes

> "somebody saw me coming. They said, oh, we're fucking getting Dan with this one. Like, we're going to 100% laser focus it on exactly what he wants."
> — **Dan**, ~22:00
> _Expresses amazement that the game pivoted to G1 cartoon (his childhood obsession) at the last minute, feeling personally targeted by the design pivot_

> "when you see it, it's actually done by the guy who did John Wick...the playfield layout is really neat. It's kind of asymmetrical"
> — **Dan**, ~24:00
> _Introduction of Elliott Eisman as designer and key playfield description establishing asymmetrical shot design_

> "you can see how he was definitely supposed to transform...But, you know, as I'm sure anybody in pinball who knows what's going on, it didn't make it."
> — **Dan**, ~31:00
> _Confirms cut mechanical feature for Optimus Prime with apparent late-stage design cancellation_

> "It's honestly almost exactly like the way the songs work on Guns N' Roses...It just shouldn't have been every mode."
> — **Dan**, ~45:00
> _Praises One Shall Fall ruleset design as sophisticated but notes GNR's overuse of the pattern was a misstep_

> "The lines are recorded by the real voice actors for Optimus Prime and Megatron...the depth of scripting so far is really good. Like there's a lot of lines."
> — **Dan**, ~55:00
> _Confirms authentic voice acting and extensive dialogue content, differentiating game from typical licensed games_

> "Tech specs were a toy thing, so it's really cool to me because I'm a toy guy that they included those kinds of details"
> — **Dan**, ~68:00
> _Demonstrates deep thematic authenticity through inclusion of toy-line lore (tech specs), validating fan-focused design_

> "when you restart, rather than playing the whole show intro, what it plays you is one of the one of the commercial clips. Like and now we return to the Transformers"
> — **Dan**, ~52:00
> _Highlights clever UI detail mimicking G1 cartoon's commercial break format for game continuations_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Dan | person | Co-host of Spinner Is Lit podcast, purchased new Stern Transformers Pro, 20+ year pinball veteran and Transformers G1 fan |
| Spencer | person | Host of Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast |
| Mark | person | Co-host of Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast |
| Elliott Eisman | person | Designer of Stern Transformers pinball; previously designed John Wick |
| Peter Cullen | person | Original voice actor for Optimus Prime in G1 cartoon, recorded lines for Transformers pinball |
| Frank Welker | person | Original voice actor for Megatron (and Soundwave) in G1 cartoon, recorded lines for Transformers pinball |
| Chris Latta | person | Original voice actor for Starscream in G1 Transformers; also played Cobra Commander; deceased (mentioned as legacy inclusion in game) |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Transformers pinball machine; current major pinball manufacturer |
| Flip N Out Pinball | company | Retailer/distributor where Dan purchased his Transformers Pro; praised for communication and pricing |
| Hasbro | company | Owner of Transformers IP; made Transformers the Movie (40th anniversary re-release planned for September) |
| Zombie Yeti | company | Art studio credited with majority of Transformers pinball artwork (vintage-style with modern touch) |
| Transformers The Pin | game | New Stern pinball machine announced/released 2024, G1 cartoon-based, designed by Elliott Eisman |
| John Wick | game | Elliott Eisman's prior pinball design; reference point for playfield design sophistication |
| Guns N' Roses | game | Jersey Jack Pinball game with complex song-based mode structure that influenced Transformers' 'One Shall Fall' design |
| Transformers the Movie (1986) | product | Original 1986 film; originally planned basis for game but changed to G1 cartoon at last minute; 40th anniversary re-release September 2024 |
| Golden State Pinball Show | event | Event timing reference for Transformers announcement (occurred right before Dan's purchase) |

### Signals

- **[product_launch]** Stern Transformers Pro now shipping and in players' hands; Dan received within ~1 day of episode recording, played 70+ games already (confidence: high) — Dan: 'last night...some of my local PIN bros...came over and we unboxed it and set it up...I don't know, 70 games on it so far'
- **[design_innovation]** Transformers features intentionally asymmetrical playfield with longer left-flipper shots vs shorter, technical right-flipper shots; three drop targets and heavy standup layout creates defensive-first design (confidence: high) — Dan detailed playfield layout: 'shots coming off of your left flipper are much longer...off your right flipper, there are some long shots, but it's almost kind of trying to force them...some really technical short shots'
- **[design_philosophy]** Optimus Prime transforming mechanical feature was designed but cut late in development, likely redesign rather than post-launch oversight; tire tracks and design evidence visible in early screenshots but removed (confidence: high) — Dan: 'you can see where there would have been an insert right about at the bumper of the truck...I think that it had to be long enough ago that they were able to redesign the playfield...they took out a lot of the play field detail'
- **[product_strategy]** Game shifted from Transformers the Movie (40th anniversary hook) to G1 cartoon (seasons 1-2) immediately before release, targeting core collector/fan demographic over broader casual market (confidence: high) — Dan: 'right before release, they came out that it's not based on Transformers the movie...it's straight out based on seasons one and two of the cartoon...somebody saw me coming. They said, oh, we're fucking getting Dan with this one'
- **[content_signal]** Game features original G1 voice actors (Peter Cullen/Optimus Prime, Frank Welker/Megatron) with extensive custom scripting; deep cuts from source material and character-appropriate dialogue praising quality (confidence: high) — Dan: 'The lines are recorded by the real voice actors...scripted in a super good way...very, very deep cuts...Optimus Prime kind of sounds more like your wise grandpa than your wise dad'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Game features 5 combiners (Superion, Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, Minasaur) with 5 parts each, tech specs collectibles, multiple multiballs (Transformers, Dinobot Island, One Shall Fall/timed wizard), Energon/Cosmic Rust resource management, hurry-ups, and Megatron trick shots (confidence: high) — Dan: 'there's five different combiners...five different parts...Autobot tech specs and Decepticon tech specs...One Shall Fall...mini wizard...the code that's on the game is pretty complete'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Game praised for exceptional ball physics and kinetics; upper loop described as 'almost demolition man level of satisfying shot'; right ramp creates good flow with air ball returns; pop bumper adds defensive challenge (confidence: high) — Dan: 'the great thing about this game is the kinetics...the upper loop is...almost demolition man level of satisfying shot...when it comes around, it comes around fast...the kinetics are really good'
- **[collector_signal]** Dan purchased on immediate announcement after decades of waiting for G1 Transformers theme; theme was on personal 'never will happen' wishlist alongside Weird Al (which Stern also released); represents deep personal/nostalgic investment in collector journey (confidence: high) — Dan: 'I had a...list...Generation One Transformers is one of them...Weird Al would have been another one...both of those have actually been made and I've actually gotten both of them. So I feel super lucky'
- **[market_signal]** Dan's first new-in-box purchase in 20+ years; ordered from Flip N Out Pinball with 'pretty seamless experience,' good communication, and expected pricing; represents baseline positive retail/distributor experience (confidence: high) — Dan: 'I ordered from Flip N Out Pinball, which was a pretty seamless experience. And the communication was pretty good. And the price was right what you expected it to be'
- **[design_innovation]** One Shall Fall mini wizard mode uses Guns N' Roses song-mode structure (base scoring + modifiers + countdown + final jackpot) but applied to single mode rather than as overarching pattern; praised as 'super cool' approach (confidence: high) — Dan: 'One Shall Fall is pretty cool...it's almost the way it works is almost exactly like the way the songs work on Guns N' Roses...you get more perks...to make the mode a little bit easier...you have to hit Megatron to win'
- **[content_signal]** Game includes tech specs (from toy line), character profiles, clip art from G1 episodes, commercial break intro clips, and appears to have comprehensive character roster (Bumblebee, Soundwave, Starscream, Grimlock, etc.) (confidence: high) — Dan: 'Tech specs were a toy thing...they included those kinds of details...clips from the episode...when you restart...it plays one of the commercial clips...they got a lot of mileage out of the franchise'

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## Transcript

Transformation Welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast. Tonight's episode, episode 88, Transformers Roll Out. I'm your host, Spencer, and with me are my co-host, Dan. How's everybody doing? And Mark. Hey, everyone. Hope everybody's enjoying the first weeks of summer. It's pretty nice out. We're going to just, man, we are diving hard tonight. We're going to dive right into it. Dan, what have you been up to lately? Well, as anybody who's on our Facebook knows, I got a new game. Ooh. What'd you get? Sonic the Hedgehog. That is a cool looking game. No, I picked up a pro of the new Stern Transformers. And I don't know if we'd mentioned on the show before that I had ordered it, but as soon as they announced it, and I think it was right before Golden State, right? Yeah, it was. They announced it and I put down a deposit and I was like, okay, I'm going to buy a new inbox. I've never actually bought a new inbox game before. Wow. Yeah, I know, right? It's like, you know, I've been in pinball for over 20 years and everyone's like, oh yeah, you know, what was your first new inbox game? It's like, I've never had a new inbox game. I've bought games reasonably soon after release. I think Mandalorian was probably the newest game that I'd ever owned. P3 was still pretty current. I think that Guns N' Roses was still the current P3, I think. No, yeah, it was right before Final Resistance because I got Final Resistance 2. And then what was the other one? JJP when I bought Guns N' Roses. Okay. I've never actually, you know, unboxed my own game. I've unboxed games with buddies a million times, you know, and it's always fun, right? It's always cool. And then it got to kind of be a thing. It's like, well, when I do get a new unbox, I want it to be something that I really want. I just don't want to do it because it's, you know, new game number one. And so I tried to do one of the medieval remakes and I ended up buying a used one before it came out or before it showed up. And then I tried to buy Weird Al new in box mine got done. And so this is my third time up. But this time I ordered quick enough and all my ducks were in a row and I ordered from Flip N Out Pinball, which was a pretty seamless experience. And the communication was pretty good. And the price was right what you expected it to be. And everything worked out. So last night, it's that recent, some of my local PIN bros, Dan, other Dan and Rick and Alex and Adam all came over and we unboxed it and set it up. And we put about, I don't know, 70 games on it so far. And it's been pretty faultless, man. It is a really cool game. Awesome. I think the thing I think I'm most excited about, not only are you now part of the New Inbox Club, because Mark and I both had our one experience. I know, it's cool. We both had our one experience each with the New Inbox game. But, you know, in the games we bought were games like, oh, I really want that. That's really cool. But for you, this has been this is a theme you've wanted for a long time. You know, I think the funny thing about about themes is that when a game comes out, I guess if you're lucky, it's something that you just absolutely love. But I think a lot of the times, at least for me, it's just like, do I like this or do I hate it? Right. There's some themes that come out that you're just like, oh, yeah, you know, that's that's not for me. You know, the game could be the best game ever. And then there's a lot of themes that, you know, you're like, it's not my theme, but it's also not so bad that I wouldn't want to have that game. Like I had Iron Maiden and I'm not a big Iron Maiden fan, but I definitely, you know, appreciated it more because I had the game. So I had a, you know, a list and we'd probably done it on the show before, but like themes that you would love that will never, ever come out. Right. And I'm sure that I probably would have mentioned, you know, Generation One Transformers is one of them. You know, Weird Al would have been another one. And, you know, since then, both of those have actually been made and I've actually gotten both of them. So I feel super lucky. But yeah, when I was, you know, an eight, nine, 10 year old kid back in, you know, 84, 85, 86, you know, pre Nintendo, Transformers was my thing, right? You know, I didn't ever have He-Man or Star Wars. I had G.I. Joe and I like G.I. Joe fine, even though I was never really like an army kid because G.I. Joe's, you know, Had helicopters and vehicles and stuff like that. And then, you know, these maniacs come out with a line of cars that transform into robots and then shoot at each other. And that just played right into my wheelhouse. I was like, oh, dude, like, yes. Where do I get these? And I don't I mean, you guys were probably of of an appropriate age for Transformers, right? Yes, absolutely. I was the one that watched the cartoons for sure. I was fixing to go into the Navy. I was actually dating a girl. Yeah, you're a little older, aren't you? 84, you're probably a little out of it. I was actually dating a girl just before I went into the Navy who had a young son, and he had Transformers, and I would play with them with him. These are really cool, man. He had one that was like an F-14 or something, a jet plane, a fighter jet that transformed. I don't know which one it was, but it was cool. You know, I was like, these are cool toys. He's like six or seven at the time. And so when we were kids, you know, they started off with commercials. Right. And it showed kids playing with these robots and the robots would turn into, you know, when or the they're playing with these cars and the cars would turn into robots and the robots would shoot at each other. And you're just like, oh, my gosh, like that's that's great. And then the cartoon came along. And when the cartoon came along, that's when, you know, it got real. Right. Because, you know, there was a world. And then there were also comic books. I think I probably had some of the comic books, but the comic books always felt a little bit weird to me because I was looking more for the world of the cartoon. But at the same time, I don't know, maybe I brought some of that G.I. Joe into it because, you know, I think that your play world is based around what you like. And so I was always very much like, oh, yeah, Optimus Prime is the boss. And then these guys are his right-hand mans. And these guys are the guys who go out and do field missions. And these are the bad guys. And it was the thing that as a kid I really liked. And then the cartoon came and it gave you the world. You know, it showed you these characters in motion. And then a couple of years later, you know, Nintendo comes along and you're just like, oh, yeah, those were those are great. And, you know, they end up in a box, they get given away and you wish you still had them. And then, you know, girls and cars and jobs and, you know, wasn't until probably like 2000 that they started reissuing like G1 Transformers. And I was like, oh, shoot, man, you know, here's a second chance. And it's funny because I had already been buying like reissued G.I. Joe's. And as soon as the reissued Transformers came along, like I immediately sold all my G.I. Joe's to my buddy because I was just like, yep, don't don't need you guys anymore. I got my real love back, not my first love, but my real love. And I still have all those like they're actually in boxes underneath the pinball machines in the garage. I still have all those figures, you know, in adult collected look, adult collectible condition because by then, you know, I knew to be careful and not to break them and how to put the stickers on straight if I did it all. But, you know, ever since then, you know, I've been buying Transformers, you know, every few years, you know, they come out with a cool toy line and I'd pick them up. So I've got, you know, boxes and boxes of Transformers squirreled away. And, you know, eventually it was what, like a year ago, maybe a little bit more. I ended up buying a Transformers Pro, the movie Transformers Pro. And I was like, OK, great. You know, so I've achieved, you know, as a pinball, as a pinball person, I've achieved pinball Nirvana or pinball Transformers Nirvana. You know, the I put a color display in it and it's got like, you know, some good generation one, you know, lines that they put in there. And it's got the Generation 1 theme song. And I was like, this is it, you know, unless I go get an LE, like this is as good as it's going to get. Like this is going to be my Transformers pinball machine. And the funny thing is, I actually always had it sitting right behind me in my office so that when I went on like Zoom calls and stuff at work, people would see, you know, my Transformers pinball machine. And then I had my childhood toy box, which is just chock full of Transformers underneath it. Right. So it's definitely one of those, you know, hanging on to your youth sort of things. But yeah, as soon as it came out, you know, that, hey, Stern's working on Generation 1 Transformers, it's going to be based, I guess, I think at the time the theory was it was going to be based on Transformers the movie, since this is the 40th anniversary of Transformers the movie. And I don't know if you guys are familiar with Transformers the movie, but it's got a little bit of an infamous reputation because Hasbro made the decision to wipe out the whole original toy line, including Optimus Prime and a lot of the fan favorite characters and replace them all with, you know, the new model year. And I guess for a lot of kids, that wasn't what they were ready for and it traumatized them. For me, because I was a violent little shit, I was like, cool, guys are getting iced in this movie. Dudes are swearing. This is amazing. Aren't they re-released? Oh, go ahead, sir. No, no, go. Are you asking if they're going to re-release the movie? Yeah, I heard something about that. You told me about it. Have they? And we went and seen it, but they are going to do another re-release this September. And they have the best movie poster for it. It's the Dead Optimus Prime. And it says like, even after all these years, it still hits like a truck. Really? Somebody at Hasbro has their marketing pants on. Wow. That's genius. Oh, dude, it's fantastic. So, you know, I was like, hey, you know, I was telling my wife, Jamie, who's also a Transformers fan. I was like, hey, you know what? They're going to make Transformers the movie as a game. And she's excited because she loves the characters from Transformers the movie. That's kind of her generation of Transformers or mine's a little bit more of the earlier guys, the guys who turned into trucks and Jeeps and Lamborghinis and stuff. But then it was right before release, they came out that it's like, no, it's not based on Transformers the movie, although I guess there will eventually be some movie content in it. But it's straight out based on seasons one and two of the cartoon. And at that point, I was talking to you guys and I was like, somebody saw me coming. They said, oh, we're fucking getting Dan with this one. Like, we're going to 100% laser focus it on exactly what he wants. And, you know, and they did, you know, so I actually went ahead and actually went ahead and picked one up. So that's awesome. It's so great that you get your theme that you always wanted, and now it's just icing on the cake that it's the correct generation. I mean, the movie one is cool, but man, the one that you grew up with as a kid and then being able to play the game, oh, man. Well, I think the other part of it, too, is like theme-wise, yeah, obviously this is better. I like the movies. The first couple movies weren't entirely bad. I know that as the franchise went on, they got a little bit more terrible. Yeah. But I think that, you know, one of the things to remember is like the 2010 Transformers was kind of that dark era of Stern where maybe the games didn't have the most in them. And I think Transformers was one, especially the premium or the limited editions because they did like three different limited editions of that. Where I think they really bet the farm on it. They put a lot of shit into that game. And of course, I have a pro, so I didn't get any of that stuff. But I think the weird thing about it is I think the pro is almost better. It like shoots fine. It's a Gomez. And, you know, it's got the it's got the Optimus Prime bash toy with the ramp that you, you know, you hit them and it's got the ball lock. And, you know, I think it's a fine game, but it definitely isn't the kind of game that like. It really super amazes you, right? Like it's a very straightforward kind of George Gomez of that era. So this game, you know, when you see it, it's actually done by the guy who did John Wick. Okay. And the playfield layout is really neat. It's kind of asymmetrical, like your shots coming off of your left flipper are much longer. And then off your right flipper, there are some long shots, but it's almost kind of trying to force them. But there's some really technical short shots, almost like on Star Trek where that scoop would be or actually like Dungeons and Dragons, like right around where Raph is. Okay. And that treasure chest thing. So it's like there's definitely some shots that it's like they're short play field shots. And so they kill you when you miss it. It's got a ton of stand ups. It's got three drop targets. So it's always sending the ball flying back at you. But when you hit one of the ramps and it's got a third flipper to like Steve Ritchie flipper. So when you hit one of the ramps, the kinetics are really good. The ball whips around. It looks really cool. It shoots some big air balls back at you. You don't need a firing Megatron with all those stand-ups and those drop targets, especially when you get that Ballybrick drop target. Yeah, it sends the ball airborne and back at you at about 7,000 miles an hour. So, yeah, you're always on the defensive. And, yeah, so the play field is cool. It's almost like it almost reminds me of like if they flip flop bond, you know, you have like that whole little like, you know, where the Aston Martin is. So you got like that whole little arrangement of shots, but it's on the other side. It's not the same, but it kind of has that thing going on where it's like there's a shot and then there's another shot and then there's a captive ball. And then there's like another shot with a stop lane. And then there's the entrance to the upper loop. Okay. So the designer we're giving credit to is Elliot Elliot Eismin. He did WIC. This is his second design. Okay. Awesome. And, you know, so there's a lot of cool stuff. You go around the kind of upper area. You have up on the upper right, you have the big ramp, and then you have an orbit, you have the big ramp. You have Megatron and Megatron's got like a scoop that goes to a little short subway and three drop targets and two standups. So there's like five targets in the Megatron section. And I think it's actually got an opto in the scoop. So, yeah, there's a lot of hitting opportunity on Megatron. Then you have a center, which will go around to that right orbit. So if you hit it through the center, it'll come out the right. If you hit it out the right, it'll come out the center. And it's got an opto spinner on it that goes mad. Then you have the up kicker. It's like a hole with an up kicker. Feels like it's about where about where the entrance to the battlefield is on Shadow. OK. Uh huh. And then you have Optimus Prime, who's basically just a set of stand up targets attached to a robot. And yes he doesn transform And yes you can see in the design how he was definitely supposed to transform because you would be hitting him mostly from that upper left that upper right flipper And you can see how he was supposed to transform and change like a little bit of the playfield, probably block off the upper loop, probably block off the lock scoop, the up kick. And you can see how cool that would have been. But, you know, as I'm sure anybody in pinball who knows what's going on, it didn't make it. So that's OK. You know, we'll we'll just have to live with him being a static figure. Unfortunately, he looks like he was supposed to transform, which is just a drag. But I'm sure that the mod community will help us out with that. I'm sure they will in the future. Yeah. Now, do they have tire tracks like where it would have? No, I don't think it does on the original. When they first showed it, and you could tell that it was like, when you saw those first sneaky screenshots, right? And you're just like, oh shit, Optimus Prime is going to transform. You can see where there would have been an insert right about at the bumper of the truck, and there were tire tracks. And I think that it had to be long enough ago that they were able to redesign the playfield. Like a lot of people feel like it's an extreme last minute thing. But they took out a lot of the play field detail. I think they kind of simplified and cleaned it up a little bit. Although I will say this, if you read the rule card, the rule card still says you need to hit Optimus Prime and then hit the lock scoop to lock a ball. And you don't. You just need to hit the lock scoop twice. So it's like they probably should have rewrote that. Okay. And the lock scoop is the vertical up kicker, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. And it has like a little sign behind it that says like lock one, lock two. Okay. Cool. So, yeah, and then you have a big Megatron static. You have above the far left shot, which will actually go across playfield and it'll feed the right, upper right. There's a Grimlock stand up. And then on the other side, we didn't even talk about that. There's a mid-playfield pop bumper, kind of total nuclear annihilation style, which will murder you a lot. And above that, there's a wide stand-up, which is Soundwave's buttons, and that's where on like your premium, your LE, that's where the upper ball lock would have been. But not on the Pro. On the Pro, it's just all virtual locks. Okay. How many multi-balls are we getting out of the gate so far? So I've done three multiballs. Wow. And I've done the Transformers multiball, which is just basically you hit the lock scoop six times and you can take a mode into it and you can take playfield multipliers with it. So you can make it pretty good. There's the Dinobot Island multiball, which is just basically there's a left and a right Dinobot target on the far, far left. And that's just dangerous shots. And then when you hit that shot, it'll start one of, I think there's three different Dinobot modes, and one of them is a multiball Dinobot Island. And then when you finish, I don't know if it's two modes or three modes. I've kind of been inconsistent. Maybe I've hit a certain amount of shots. But you'll light a timed multiball like a mini wizard called One Shall Fall. Cool. And at this point, that's the highlight of the game. And like One Shall Fall is pretty cool. And it's a fight between Optimus Prime and Megatron on top of the Sherman Dam. And you're trying to it's honestly it's almost the way it works is almost exactly like the way the songs work on Guns N' Roses. Oh, OK. So it's like if you do stuff to qualify while you're qualifying it, you'll get more you'll get basically a higher base and it's kind of a countdown. So the higher base gives you more time in the mode. If you do things like collect more Energon, get more finishing blows, which basically means that you finish more modes and stuff like that, you get more perks that will make the mode a little bit easier. And if you play through the mode and when you get down to like the last little bit of the countdown, you have to hit Megatron to win. Almost like getting the applause jackpot. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So it's like I was playing and I was like, oh, this is almost exactly like song modes on GNR, which I've always thought was a misunderstood. Like I think JJ just made a little bit overcomplicated, but like was a misunderstood and super cool, super cool way to way to have a mode. It just shouldn't have been every mode. Okay. So, yeah, One Shall Fall is pretty, pretty cool. And then if you look at the play field, there's like a whole lot of other things. There's like the Ultimate Doom, which I'm assuming is the final wizard mode. There's some other, there's like a ball save mode, almost like Oxygen Destroyer, where you have to, you have to, you have like 15 seconds to hit the ramp, And it'll let you continue your game. And that's off of the right out lane, off the left out lane. There's just a ball save there. And yeah, you know, so it's got a lot of cool stuff to shoot. I don't think I'm forgetting anything. How many balls does it have? I think five. Okay. I put them in, but I didn't remember. I feel like I would have definitely noticed if there were six, but I think there were more than four. So Dan, I'm watching video and it's like when you shoot the right ramp, what is it doing? It depends on where you're at, right? So if you have One Shall Fall lit, that's how you start One Shall Fall or like it will do the mode where you're trying to avoid the extinction. God, I wish I remembered what that was called and the ball rescue mode. But beyond that, it's just kind of a ramp. It'll divert sometimes to behind Megatron and sometimes it'll come all the way around and end up back at your flipper. But it's a really good ram. Like I said, the great thing about this game is the kinetics. And I think that, you know, a lot of times with pinball, we don't talk enough about the kinetics where like you're just watching the ball fly around. The kinetics are really good. Like you get a really good feel for the ball. Like the upper loop is it's an almost demolition man level of satisfying shot. And it's a hard shot to hit. But like when it comes around, it comes around fast and you're like, oh, oh, that's that's cool. Cool. So it sounds like there's a lot of variety of shots on the play field and definitely is a game that you're coming back to hitting the start button. Is that right? Is the replayability really good? Yeah, I've had it for a day, so it's hard to say, yeah, you know, I keep coming back to it. But at the same time, I was playing it, you know, until late last night, you know, the guys left, I played it a little bit more. I woke up, started playing it this morning. I was playing it before we started the show. And I'm, you know, learning a bit more about the rules. One of the cool things about it is I think that, again, as a Transformers affectionado, So is the theming and the art are really, really good. Okay. That's good to hear. So it's got a lot of lines in it. The lines are recorded by the real voice actors for Optimus Prime and Megatron, and Megatron's also Soundwave. I don't think they got the original guy for Grimlock, which I wish that they would have if they did. I'm glad to be wrong. But at the same time, the voices are all good. So you don't get that weird feeling you get with a lot of stones where it's like, oh, man, you guys can have sprung for some decent voice talent. And the lines are definitely scripted in a super good way. Okay, that's good to know. The comments, like, there are some very, very deep cuts of things that, like, you would expect Optimus Prime and Megatron to stay. Megatron's basically like making fun of you and razzing you the whole time. Optimus Prime is trying to be inspirational. But every once in a while, you can kind of tell that he's annoyed. Like you'll hit him and he'll be like, well, you got my attention now. You know, he always kind of has that cowboy growl. I mean, you could tell that Peter Cullen, who plays Optimus Prime, and Frank Welker, who plays Megatron, like, you know, they're getting along. Optimus Prime kind of sounds more like your wise grandpa than your wise dad. But I mean, it's just so cool that it's actually Optimus Prime and it's so cool that it's actually Megatron. And it's, you know, the depth of scripting so far is really good. Like there's a lot of lines. The announcer that they got who basically does the announcements for the episodes, like he sounds dead on like the real thing. If it's not the real guy, it's a really good impersonator. Yeah. And they've just got, you know, all this content from the show. So it's like when you're doing the modes, it's clips from the episode. When you're in between the modes, you know, it's kind of showing like readouts and stuff of what the Transformers look like on the TV. When you drain or you end a mode or something, it does that little thing where the Autobot and Decepticon shields flip around. One of the greatest things I've seen is, and I don't know if you've ever noticed this before, But on like some of the Stern games, when you restart, it'll give you like a like a special message like on like on Godzilla. It'll be like King of the Restarts or something like that. Uh-huh. Or when I continue, rather than playing the whole show intro, what it plays you is one of the one of the commercial clips. Like and now and now we return to the Transformers and it shows one of the characters doing their thing like it was a commercial break. I saw that. It was so genius. And there's like tons of them for like all kinds of characters. There's so many characters in the game. They, you know, they get a lot of, they got a lot of mileage out of the franchise. Like they got to use, I guess, pretty much anything that they wanted to. So it's like, you know, if you're an Optimus Prime or Megatron fan, of course you're going to be satisfied. But like, you know, you'll see Wheeljack and Prowl and Brawn and Bumblebee, of course, makes plenty of appearances. You know, Soundwave. Soundwave is actually huge. You know, Megatron, of course, is huge. Starscream gets some love, which is kind of cool because the voice actor who played Starscream unfortunately passed away. He was a super famous guy named Chris Lada. He also played Cobra Commander. Right. So it's good to see him. And then after all that, you also have like, you know, the art I think was mostly done by Zombie Yeti. But I guess it was just kind of the stern crew is who they're kind of crediting the art to. But the art looks it looks vintage, but it looks it looks like updated vintage, kind of like Ninja Turtles. Right. OK. It looks like you expect the cartoon to look. But with like like it's been redrawn recently and not overly redrawn where it's like they were trying to make it look like something that it's not. Cool. You know, they are for me just because, again, I'm kind of removed. It looks like what Transformers Gen 1 should look like. How's the I mean, the code so far looks pretty good. And then like how are the modes and things? So my understanding is that the code that's on the game is pretty complete. But I don't know if there's a final wizard mode in there yet because I'm not that good. But from what you see on the game and what I've what I've heard, and I've kind of intentionally avoided watching too much media on it because I didn't want to be tired of it before it arrived. It's almost like Stern Trek was where it's like there's only five main modes, but each of the main modes has different like different levels you can play. So it's like if you start a mode, it's like and you have Energon, it will give you the option to use Energon and make the mode easier to complete or not use Energon and have the mode be harder but worth more points. Like you have to hit more shots. But then like if you use Energon on a mode, the next mode will have Cosmic Rust, which will make it really hard unless you use your Energon to cure the Cosmic Rust. Okay, cool. Megatron into the orbit of the Earth and it starts destroying the Earth. Okay. That's pretty cool. That is really cool. In terms of content, it seems like there's a good amount of content. And then there's hurry-ups. There's Autobot hurry-ups where you can score a lot of points doing those. There's Soundwave interference modes, which you get from whaling on Soundwave. There's Megatron trick shots. Like if you manage to only knock down one of the Megatron targets and then get the ball into Megatron anyway, It'll show a pinball hitting Megatron in the head and you get some points for that. And then there's combiners. In fact, this is something that's interesting because I haven't really scratched the surface on it yet. But there's five different combiners. Each of the different combiners has five different parts. And I guess as you build the combiners, I'm not sure if you get a multiball per combiner or if you get a big multiball for completing all the combiners. But there's Superion, Devastator, Defensor, Bruticus, and am I missing one? Superion, Devastator, Minasaur. Wow. So yeah, there's just a ton and each of those guys has five guys. And then as you're shooting the ball around the playfield, you're collecting profiles on the guys called tech specs. And there's Autobot tech specs and Decepticon tech specs. And so each of those is like a collectible, like a goodie. So yeah, like I said, they definitely dug into the lore of Transformers. Tech specs were a toy thing, so it's really cool to me because I'm a toy guy that they included those kinds of details in there. So it really sounded like they did their homework. It sounds like they've really gone into depth with the Transformers universe and really appeased to the people who were, you know, like you said, infatuated with the toy line and just the whole, you know, Transformers universe and folklore and everything like that. So that's cool. Which I think is funny because I bet that that's not true. I bet both of those guys are way too young to have been there for Transformers the first time. But apparently there was a Transformers nut on the staff and all the other people who worked on it, like Elizabeth and Elliot. I guess that just from being exposed to the material, they consider themselves Transformers fans now. But yeah, somebody, again, somebody saw this theme coming and really, really knew what to do. I think I made this analogy earlier to Spencer when we were pre-showing. I was like, you know how well Star Trek The Next Generation is themed? I think Transformers is themed that well. Wow, that's great. You know, you don't get like, you know, eight main cast members like you do in Star Trek The Next Generation. But like, you know, having Captain Picard tell you all hands prepare for multiball is just about as cool as Optimus Prime, you know, announcing that you're going into multiball. Or that you get a ball save or having Megatron make fun of you when you tilt. Wow, that's so cool. Oh, you're losing your cool? That is so cool. Optimus Prime will tell you to be strong enough to be gentle when you get a tilt warning. Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah. And it shows Rumble, the little cassette guy who causes earthquakes on the back glass on the display when you're tilting. So, yeah, my tilt's pretty tight, so we've seen a lot of tilt warnings. You said something before, Dan, about game theming, and it's so true. Your quote, I believe, and I'm trying to get it right here, is they understood the assignment. Yeah, for sure. You know, and again, I'm the guy who, like, am set up to be disappointed with the theming, right? Like I'm the guy who knows enough about it that if there are inconsistencies, I can comic book guy it. Well, actually, it should be like this. And so far, I haven't seen anything in there that I was upset about. That's great. You know? Yeah. So if you like Transformers trust me this is for you If you just like pinball and you want something that you know it going to give you the ability to play the game but it a ball breaker Like it's going to try to kill you. You know, those stand up targets are sending the ball right back at the flippers. It's got slingshots. It's got that middle pop bumper and it's also got like a middle slingshot on the left, like right below Grimlock. So you get a lot of side to side. Oh, wow. Yeah, keeping that ball in control, you know, and of course there's an upper flipper, so you're sending it, you know, you're sending it side to side as well. So there's a lot of side to side action. Like, it was funny. We started playing, you know, immediately, you know, Dan Costa set a high score. And then a little bit later, Alex Adam set a high score. And, you know, it's about 500 million. I think I'm in about the mid 200 millions. And Rick was the guy who just really didn't seem to get his hands around it quite yet. And Rick is a championship pinball player. And he's like, yeah, he's like, I like this game. It's got a lot to do and it's a ball breaker. Yeah, that's good to know. That's really good. So just a little synopsis of the modes. What kind of variety do they offer in the different modes? I mean, you don't have to go through them in detail, but is it like the typical ones, like a mystery shot? And then one where you have to complete all the shots and then there's a roving shot. Is that kind of like that or is it completely different? So it's kind of like that. So like one of the modes you want to hit you want to hit a few of the stand ups and then you want to hit the captive ball. OK. And then another one of the modes like it just lights up a lot of stuff. That would be the golden, the electrum and lights up all these targets yellow when you want to hit all the targets. Then in the race one, like the race shots move around the playfield. So when you hit one, then it'll move to another quadrant of the playfield. So then you have to move over there and hit those. There's another one that's like you're trying to hit ramps and then it qualifies. It starts, I think for each ramp that you hit, it lights up more of the drop targets. There's three drop targets. Each drop target has a light on it. So I think if you hit more of the ramps, it lights up more of the drop targets for the collect. And then each of the modes has a finishing condition too. So like as you get towards the end of the mode, it'll tell you, okay, now you have to hit Megatron or okay, no, now you have to hit this last shot. So you finish the mode either victorious as the Autobots or if you're defeated, the Decepticons win. Oh, wow. Cool. So as far as the modes go, it sounds like it builds up towards something that they don't have done yet with the Wizard mode. But it sounds like there's a good variety of different ways that the modes are presented. And is it very clear on the display to know what to do on those shots? Or do you have to kind of figure it out? No, it tells you exactly what to do. OK. Like when you start the mode, it actually every mode has like a big old wind up where it's all like now the Autobots are in this race for charity on the next episode of the Transformers. And while you're watching the intro to the episode, you can, you know, it tells you exactly what, you know, hit lit arrows or hit this lit arrow and then hit the captive ball. Cool. Does it, does like Optimus Prime say like hit the right orbit or, you know, does he do that kind of stuff? Or is it more like taunting you or encouraging you in this case with Prime? The main thing I've noticed from Optimus Prime is he really starts talking a lot when you're running out of time. Okay, that's cool. So he's like, come on, do the job. You're working for me. We don't have much time left. Oh, that's cool. Oh, man. God, it sounds so good with the gameplay. I'm really excited to play it now. Yeah, it's super good. Gosh, dang it. It's almost amazingly good. If it just had that goddamn transforming truck, man. Oh, I know. But then you'd have to sell out three grand, right? People would be losing their minds. Hey, maybe they would have put it in the pro, right? Yeah. Bullshit. Right, right. No, and I mean, it's like, seriously, I think that, you know, that truck thing is going to hang over this game forever, right? Like, pinball people can't forget. And it's just, it's the kind of toy that, like, would have been defining. And eventually, you know, a new game would come out and that new game will have a new toy. But, like, oh, man, that would have been ultimate. Oh, I know. It would have been so good. It doesn't ruin the game that's not there. Like, you know, I hope that nobody takes this as it. It would have been so cool if it was there, but everything that's there, this game is really well designed, really well coded. Elliot and Elizabeth and their team just absolutely made this game their own. And you can tell it was made by people who wanted to make it. And so I hope that everybody who likes Transformers will give it a chance. I hope that everybody who just likes pinball will give it a chance because I think that it's cool. I would definitely call it an intermediate hard game. Okay. It certainly isn't like Ninja Turtles where it's out to kill you, but it certainly isn't something like Pokemon where you're just shooting shots and hoping for something to happen. I'm dying to see what these bonus modes look like. None of the bonus modes are in the game yet. It kind of teases you because it has the options, but it says that they're coming. So it's supposed to have a competitive split flipper mode. That's so cool. Where one side of the playfield is Optimus Prime and one side of the playfield is Megatron and you guys are playing against each other, but you're playing split flipper. And it's supposed to have a Transformers the Movie celebration mode. And that's the one where they play You Are the Touch. And I guess there's supposed to be at least two more because they're supposed to be a topper mode. And then they're supposed to, I think, be one other challenge mode. Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske seems to be the queen of the challenge modes. So when you mentioned music. But the shark is broken in there. Yeah, really. As long as they don't say Optimus Prime is broken. True. Ooh, that one hits a little close to home. Dan, so what's the music like on the game? I mean, you mentioned about you got the touch. It's not in there yet, but is it music from the series, like from the actual cartoon, or is it kind of a mix of original compositions? What kind of music is that you hear? So it seems like it's got a lot of music that's just straight from the series. Okay. So, you know, your kind of main gameplay music is kind of the music that would play over the closing credits. And then when you start the when you start the modes, it plays like, you know, some of the more intense like battle music, Autobot Decepticon battle. I think it might be reworked a little bit. I don't know if it's 100 percent original, but it sounds it sounds faithful. The multiball music is a modernization of the TV show theme. Awesome. It's very cool and high tempo. And then it's also got like the Autobot Decepticon battle has like a metal song by this band called Knights of Cybertron. Oh, cool. And it's not too bad. I didn't hate it. And then on top of that, if you go into the sound chat, you know, we have the DJ mixer. There's a lot of other songs in there that I haven't heard what they're going to go to. Wow. So, yeah, there's a lot of music in there, but it all sounds like it's pretty proper. Like, it's what you'd expect to hear. The metal song during One Shall Fall, I think, was the biggest surprise to me because at first I was all like, oh, this is weird. But, like, after one or two One Shall Falls, I was like, okay, okay. This is working. Yeah. I get it. I like it. If you watch, I put up a reel on our Facebook of Costa playing through One Shall Fall. So, you know, if you get a chance, check it out and the audio, I think, is pretty good. You might get to hear what it sounds like. Cool. I'll have to check that out for sure. So how does it feel if it was a tournament game? Is it pretty ready for that or do you think there still needs to be more stuff added to the game to make it tournament ready? No, I think it's definitely tough enough for competition. Okay, very cool. Yeah, and that's one of the things that Rick and I were talking about was it feels like it's not a pushover. So I don't think that, you know, you're going to have people hanging endless games on it. I think that, you know, just the side-to-sideness of it and the bounce backs are enough to keep you on your toes. But at the same time, I think that when you get your hands on it, if you're hitting your shots, if you're doing what you have to do, I think that you can put together a game with some content. That is awesome. So have any problems you ran into getting the game? Any issues that you've discovered? Or is it working pretty well out of the box? So my only two things so far are it's dark. Like I feel like the playfield probably needed a little bit more lighting towards the back. Okay. It's like a dark color playfield and there's, you know, some dark colors going on back there. So it can be hard to see what you're doing if you don't have good ambient lighting in the rear of the game. And, you know, a lot of those shots are important. Like I said, there's a lot of standups back there. So the other thing is the big tall VUK, it seems like it's having a little bit of a issue, probably something I need to get in there and adjust. It'll it'll work fine. Nine out of 10 shots and then the 10th out of 10th, you know, it'll have to try two or three times. I don't like that. So I'm going to have to figure that out. But in terms of everything else, I mean, it turned on, you know, it was a little little bratty when we tried to connect it to the Internet. But it eventually let us do it. So, you know, knock on wood, I think that it's okay. Again, I think those VUKs are just one of those things that as long as Stern, you know, has an allowance for an easy adjustment from the top side, oh my God, please, that'd be great. It shouldn't be any more than just a couple screw turns and a little bit of wiggling. But yeah, it seems like all the targets are registering and balls are coming out when they should come out and draining when they should drain. I had one time where I thought that it froze, but it was just like a long transition between scenes. Okay. Wow. Speaking of that, I put new software on Galactic Tank Force, so it works a little bit better. Oh, good. And you know, when you're speaking of Galactic Tank Force, is the upkicker about the same distance? Because it sounds like to me that's about like the same. Yeah, it is definitely one of those like super tall last action hero. Yeah. Galactic tank force like it's shooting that ball a good eight inches up from under the playfield up to the very top of the playfield. And then it feeds it out onto the ramp. OK, and that's the one that comes off the subway. So anytime you hit that scoop or anytime you hit Megatron, it comes out of that up kicker. So that is an important, an important element of the of the game. It probably just needs an adjustment. The Fismo kicker had that issue a lot. Like you were saying, Dan, when I first got mine, it would make like eight or nine out of ten, and then it would shoot like a real weak one out. Yeah. And then, you know what I mean? It tries and tries, and sometimes like it'll get up there. One of the funny ones is it'll get up there, but it doesn't quite make it, and it'll fall back in, and then it'll count as another hit. Oh, okay. So you'll get an extra lock out of the deal. So there you go. That's a nice little bonus. It's minor adjustments. So, you know, nothing major. So that's great, man. So you've had really nothing, no major issues out of the box. Any air balls at all? Oh, yeah. Like I was saying earlier, it's an airball machine. Okay. So because you have a ton of stand ups and then you have drop targets. And, you know, with drop targets, like sometimes you get that hit, that very direct hit on a drop target and the drop target goes, no. So it'll just send the ball flying back at you. I haven't seen any air balls that have been quite as like over the flipper air balls like Galactic Tank Force or Indiana Jones. It just has that one that just goes all the way to the outlane. But yeah, it'll send some balls flying. Now, it's a brand new game. So, you know, the play field is as smooth as it's ever going to be. The targets are as springy as they're ever going to be. The flippers are as snappy as they're ever going to be. You know, most games, you know, you put about 500 plays through them and that's going to kind of, you know, beat that out of them a little bit. So nothing that I'm really worried about. Like the air balls that like send the ball flying over the flippers would be kind of the worst. And I haven't seen that. Well, that's good. Okay. So it definitely is an airball machine at this point. And, you know, sometimes on some games, you know, that's a little exciting. You know, like with Tank Force, my Tank Force, like, had had a lot of games on it when I got it. So I haven't had the airball troubles that some people have. But every once in a while, you'll hit that tank and they'll send the ball flying right over the flippers. And you're like, oh, that's stuck. With Transformers, I think most of the stuff is far back enough that, yeah, you'd need to have a prodigious hit for it to just send the ball over the flippers. So it sounds like Stern really did a great job in having something new out of the box, just getting released and having code that is way more or less half-baked than it usually is. And that really makes me happy because I know it's one thing to play a game, but it's another thing when you get it new and you're like, oh, now what do I do next? With the previous game, that's the issue that we're all running into. Well, I think that's just a Stern thing, right? You got your Pokemons, you got your X-Men. You know, you got Bond took forever for the code on that game to come around. John Wick And here's the funny thing. I think that Stern, like between me, you and the fence post, like I think if Stern came right out and said, OK, this game is done. It's 1.0. It's perfect. Like for every person who's happy about that, you'd be other people who are unhappy that they don't get code. Right. Yeah. You don't get a new new thing to add to your to your gameplay. Yeah. They're not going to get that, you know, oh, a couple months down the road, we're going to bring out this or we're going to bring out that. Like maybe if they just did bonus modes and whatnot. But I think that the code update has become an integral part of the pinball or at least the stern experience. Yeah. As long as you're on Insider Connected so you can just pretty much download it. So, I mean, part of me is like they say the game's .86, but, you know, the designer says, hey, it's pretty much done. There might be some massaging and there's going to be some bonus modes and that'll fill out the code version. But, I mean, it could be version 1 or version 2 or version 16 or version X or version Q or version red. I mean, it's done when it's done, right? They're just going to give it another name. So, you know, to me, it's like if you play a game right out of the box and you don't like it because you don't feel like there's code there, you know, don't buy it. Right. That sounds, you know, crazy, right, since I just bought a game pretty much, you know, sight unseen and just pretty much, you know, I'm fortunate that the code's good. But, yeah, for all the people who are just like, oh, my Pokemon doesn't have any code, it's just like, yeah, don't just take it on faith that it's coming. But if you did decide to buy it, then okay, strap in. That's the ride. That's right. That's exactly right. You know what you're getting into, right? And like I said, they made wonders with Bond. I'm an owner because I'm a fan of it, but I wasn't too fond on the code. And then when they developed the code, I was like, man, I got to get this game. Fix that game right up. And, you know, nine to ten times, I feel like at the end of the day with code, Stern comes through. Yeah, they do. You know, and they have great code. They have great rules. Yeah, they come through, right? They they it might take a year. It might take two years, but like they're going to get you your code. So, you know, don't be impatient, but just kind of understand what you're getting into. I think that the cool thing about what's going on here is that I think Stern has enough teams and each team is working on a game or two games or however many games. I think that they basically allot for it. It's like this is going to be our continued development time. So when this game has been in the field for a month or two months or six months and we know what it needs, we can give you more. Absolutely. And with all the advent of AI and tools that are available they can probably code a lot faster than they could five years ago So that helps a lot too Well yeah I mean I think a lot of it just you know you going to get data you going to get impressions and you going to know what that game needs rather than just being like well okay you know we playtested it and everything seems to work There doesn't seem to be any really broken scoring. So here it is. This is your game, you know. Right, right. You know, hope you like it. And so, yeah, code wise, you know, I try not to be too I try not to be too demanding as long as what I'm playing is fun, because honestly, I'm also not like such a great player that on modern games, I'm going to see wizard modes a lot, you know, right. Monopoly, I'll get to land grab, but, you know, I haven't beat Black Knight Sword of Rage, right? And a lot of people are just like, oh, that's one of the shorter games. I'm like, yeah, but it's just freaking evil. You know, I had, you know, I never beat, you know, the final modes on Pirates of the Caribbean. I never beat the final modes on Mandalorian, you know. So, yeah, the code being super deep isn't as important to me as just like as long as what's there works, it's not glitchy. It's keeping track of the ball so that when we use it in competition or when I'm when I'm putting a game on it, you know, it's not going to die. Now, on the other hand, you have dudes like Rick who, you know, he played his King Kong the other day until it gave up. Yeah. He was hitting six billion point shots. Wow. That's so incredible. A guy like him, you know, like, yeah, that code is super, super important. But, you know, to a guy like me, it's just like, does it work? Is it fun? Is the wizard mode even there? So if I have the game of my life, I get to see it. Great. I'm most excited for the side modes. I think that those add a lot of value to the game. Yeah, like Jaws. It'd be cool even if they just gave you a practice mode for One Shall Fall, although One Shall Fall is pretty easy to get to. Right. And then they have like those missions that they're going to come out with to beyond just the split flipper stuff. There's a lot of cool things to look forward to. You know, from hearing this review, this positive review about Transformers Generation 1. Honestly, real quick, I don't want to say this is a review. This is just sort of first impressions. You know, I haven't been playing the game for very long. Who knows? Maybe in two weeks I'll be tired of it. But I am going to say this. I watched the other day, I watched a review of a game, Simon's Quest, right? And the guy started off and he talked about Simon's Quest and he brought up, you know, the game's online reputation. And he finally said, like, you know, on my fifth playthrough of this game, I just decided it wasn't a very good game. And I'm like, dude, you played through that game five times. You definitely enjoyed your first playthrough. Right. You know, when it comes to reviewing, like, I don't want to tell you what you should think or what you shouldn't think. I can tell you what I like. And I'll try to tell you honestly, from the perspective of a Transformers fan and a pinball fan at the level that I play, a light competitive player, whatnot. I think there's a lot there to like. But, you know, I don't want anybody to like listen to me and be like, I bought that game because Dan said it was cool and I hate it. I'm just like, that's your fault, man. You know, play it first. Give me your first impressions, but hopefully just from this description, you walk out with an idea how everything works. And I'll just say flat out, man, if, you know, and it's definitely, you know, you almost never hear somebody who just spent $7,000 on a game dog it, right? Right. I will say that I feel extremely satisfied with my purchase. As a pinball enthusiast, as a Transformers fanboy, people talk about nostalgia a lot. And I don't really feel like I'm a nostalgic person. I just feel like I like the things that I like. Moments playing this game and hearing those sound effects and some of the stuff that happened took me back to that obsessed kid in fourth grade. Awesome. That's so cool. And I kind of see why people are like, oh, my God, nostalgia. Like, it's cool. So I'm definitely biased. But like as a pinball player, I can tell you that, you know, 24 hours in, I'm really enjoying what's there. You know, I'm going to be out of town for a few days, which is a drag because I'm not going to get to play it. But I'm sure when I get back, I'll be attacking it. And, you know, it will probably have a honored place in my collection till the end of time. You know me, I marry games. It's hard for me to sell them. But sure. On the other hand, man, I got to come up with Sonic money. So what am I going to sell? Yeah. Your positive impressions, though, makes me want to drive out there right now and play it. Hey, you know what? I just want to let you know that. The next time that we get an opportunity and you're going to be down here, yeah, let me know. We'll have a 12-hour Mark Skaff play sesh. Plus, you can replace the slingshots that I'm sure that you broke in Galactic Tank Force. Oh, yeah, probably. I was like, who cracked this slingshot? And I was like, it had to be Mark. Probably. It had to be Mark. You know what? They were only $3 a piece on American Pinball's site, so say what you want on American Pinball, $3 slingshots, even with shipping, I only paid $12 for a set. That's nice. So did you check your badges on your Insider Connect? For Transformers? Yeah, you should have an unboxing badge for Transformers. I got one that says like Transformers Owner or something. Okay, because I got an unboxing badge for D&D. It says D&D Owner Badge Pro when you click on it. Yeah, that's what I got. Okay, yeah. It's like Transformers Owner Badge Pro. Yeah, so you got the unboxing badge. Pretty cool, huh? So it's a cool little thing, you know, so. Yeah, some of the awards on there are pretty funny, too. They're definitely worth reading about. Awesome. Someone at Stern definitely has my sense of humor. I'll just say that. That's great. Right on, man. Pant Lover's Owner Badge Pro. There you go. Yeah. No, it's – I got an achievement seven hours ago for playing my 600 game on Insider Connected. Wow. I'm slacking. Mark, what are you up to, about 39,000? I just don't look. The problem is I only have one Insider game, so I don't log in very often. Right. Yeah. And then usually when I'm playing games, I'm playing a more like at League or something. We don't log in during League, so. I think Insider Connected is actually super dope. Me too. You know, like I think it's a cool thing for them to throw in. I mean, I don't like having to hook my pinball machines into the internet, but if I have to, it's like some of the stuff in there is pretty cool. Yeah. 264,800 or 264,800,000 is 880 or 264,885,770 is my current top score. Nice. Cool. And that's going to go up. Half the Grand Champs score. Yeah, that's going to grow up. Yeah, that's going to grow up a lot. So Adam's a monster when he gets on a game. He's the Dan. So I don't know, man. That's cool. Is there anything else? You know, like, I mean, I think we've just about covered everything on that. But is there anything in closing you want to add to it? No, I'm glad. I'm glad that I finally found the right game and the right situation and that, you know, Life has blessed me enough to be able to do something like this. I love buying my used games. I love buying $1,000 projects and shopping them out. You guys know me. I have a special place in my heart for those games with lockdown bar holes and a little bit of play field wear and all that stuff. I love games that came out of real arcades. But at the same time, it was a really cool experience to, you know, get to chop open that box and having your bros over to help you set it up. And, you know, it's always cool, you know, while you get that moment where you own the newest thing and you get to learn about it, right? All the information's not out there. So, you know, it's really, really exciting to be going on this trip. And yeah, I can't wait until you guys get to come on out here and and either play it with me or until, you know, there's one around there that you guys get to play, because hopefully every arcade in town picks one of these suckers up. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah. Cool. Wow. I'm excited for you and really happy that you got it this early in the summer and you got a chance to play it. So awesome. I hope I got to play it. Well, you know what I mean. You got a chance to have it in your garage. In your garage. We've got to put 7,000 games on that thing so it pays for itself. Yeah, that's true. Very true. And I'm only up to, I think, 70. But it's only been one day, so we got to keep up that pace. A thousand days. There you go. Boom. All right. I was so excited to do this episode because, you know, a couple years ago, Mark, or maybe a little more, You got to do a deep dive when you opened up a new Inbox. Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels, yeah. And that was a great episode. And then a little over a year ago, I got to do Dungeons & Dragons. And then now, damn, not only did you get to unbox a new Inbox game, but like I said, a dream team for you, which is so cool. Yeah. And not only that, but we all got our new games Inbox from Zach from Flip N Out Pinball, which is pretty cool too. Yeah, so if you want to sponsor us, buddy. Yeah. Yeah, free swag. We could use some of that sponsorship money, everybody else. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Where do you get your games? I get them from Zach and Nicole Mini. Wink. They're the best. So, yeah. They're awesome humans. I will say this. I mean, I don't know if anyone's ever, you know, been intimidated by the new inbox experience. It really couldn't have been much easier. Awesome. Like, you know, you put your deposit down, you know, on their website if you want to put down a deposit or I guess you can just call them up. When your game's in, they basically just send you a form that says, okay, you know, put in your tracking information and your routing information and they just suck the money out of your bank account. And then a couple of days later, they say, all right, your game is being shipped. I got like a text from Zach himself who basically said, hey, man, your probe is going out today. It's one of the first ones in the world. And, you know, when it didn't show up right on time, you know, I reached out to him and said, hey, this is what I'm seeing. And he said, OK, great. You know, let's give it a day before we follow up on it. And luckily the tracking and everything, you know, was good. You know, just there was a hang up, you know, like there always is. And so, you know, and yeah, it showed up, you know, the next day the shipper called and said, hey, and actually the shipper actually called and said, hey, we're sorry there was a delay. You know, you know, it's going to be there tomorrow between like 11 and 3. Yeah, hats off to FedEx Freight, too, because when you show that picture, there wasn't a blemish on that box. It looked perfect. You know what? And I was like, hey, I'd rather that it shows up a day late than beat up. Exactly. It looked perfect. It looked like we came right out of the factory. I was living in fear. I was like, oh, my God, if this thing shows up screwed up and I have to send it back, this is going to suck. So, yeah. Still glad that didn't happen. I'll take a 24-hour delay over having to return it and get another one. Cool. But, yeah, the new inbox experience was good. It was super fun to finally do it myself. You know, I've opened Sterns and JJPs and all kinds of other games, and I will say that Stern definitely packs their games a little bit more efficiently than JJP, but yeah, it came out of the box, you know, no problem. JJP, they use a lot of plastic wrap. Right, right. They do. They use a lot of plastic wrap, but with Stern, yeah, you just basically pull those things out, slap the legs on, hoist it on up. Hit the on button and then away you go. Cool. Ron, so do we have anything else tonight? Nope. Not tonight we don't, but maybe in a later episode when we have something coming up. We got a lot of cool things to look forward to. We got Sonic. Of course, we want to talk about that if anyone gets a chance to play that. Well, you have something coming up, right? Yeah, I do have something coming up. Real quick. You're going to have a big old recap of Pinville? That's right. Going to Pinball this weekend in Sousaville. Which is maybe the ultimate outdoor or small town, not outdoor so much, small town, you know, America pinball tournament from what I've heard. I'm super sad that I can't come this year because I'm going to my grandparents' 75th anniversary. But yeah, like based on your guys' description last year, I was like, oh, it sounds like it's so fun. It's the best tournament of the year, hands down. And you're the defending champion? I am the defending champion. So hopefully I can pull it off again. Yeah, hopefully I can. We got some heavy hitters this time. We got Brandon that's going to be in there this year. Of course, we got Dan. We got Michael. So it's going to be good competition. But, you know, it's going to be a level playing field when we have those EMs that come around for each bank. So we're up to shout outs and thank yous. I'm going to go ahead and start to my bros who come and podcast with me under busy schedules. You guys, man. And I want a special shout out to your grandparents, Dan. 75 years of marriage, man. That's really an accomplishment. So all the best to them. Hope they have another 75 together. That would be a heck of an achievement. That's a heck of an achievement. Man, if they got 10 more together, that's an odd, you know, God bless them. That's all I got to say. They're both in their 90s. Yeah, good for them, man. God bless them. And that's awesome. And to all the wonderful listeners, man, who listen to our show and support what we do and check out our Facebook page and our reels and our posts and like us, man. Oh, and to Plippin' Out Pinball, who makes sure we get our games, and to FedEx Freight, who makes sure we get our games not broken. Yeah. Because mine was the same way, Mark. Mine came and it was like, there's not a nick or a scratch or a smudge on this. Bravo Zulu, gentlemen and ladies. So, yeah, those are my shout-outs and thank yous for tonight. Cool. My shout-out real quick is to you guys, of course, and to all the people who are organizing these tournaments, Michael LaFrida, I got to give a shout-out to him. He's always having these tournaments, like constantly every week with League and all the other things. It's a lot of work to put that on, and I appreciate him for that. And also, just a little heads, just a quick preview shout-out to Marcus Peterson for putting on Pinball this weekend. Nice. Dan? Hey, big shout-out to all the competitive pinball players out there, just like you said, man, especially the ones who care enough to put on events. Big shout-out as well to my partner, Rick, who's running the show for me while I'm out of town. It'll be the first time since I've been running our league that I've missed playoffs, maybe the second time, but hopefully he gets it done. Adam, Dan Costa, Rick, and Alex are coming by and helping me set up and break in my new toy. You know, it's always good to have my pen bros over. You guys, Jamie, and yeah, my grandparents, Don and Lois, a friend for, you know, all the great stuff that they've done. And, you know, really, really appreciate you guys popping out my dad so that he could eventually, you know, be part of me getting popped out somewhere. And, you know, they raised me for my formative years, my teenage years. So, you know, I love them so much and I'm looking really, really forward to seeing them in just a couple of days. Cool. Right on. All right. Well, if you want to reach out to us, you can reach out to us at our email at the spinnerislit at gmail.com. You can check us out on our Facebook page and you can listen to our podcast, including this latest episode, episode 88, on our home at SoundCloud or on iTunes. We are on Podbean and other places where you can get cool podcasts. So this has been episode 88, boys and girls. Dan talking about his new Transformers. So Transformers roll out and play pinball. Keep America Strong.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-08-03 | Item ID: de0015f4-c0a5-4a63-b7b9-1bae3f83758d*