It's time for Bonus X. It's time for Bonus X. It's time for Bonus X. Do you like Bonus X? It's time for Bonus X. Just get a bunch of Bonus X. Brought to you by Bonus X. You could want a Bonus X. It's time for Bonus X. It's happening in 3, 2, 1. Oh hey, I'm not sure we've met. I'm sick, Don. Seriously, somehow I got sick. I'm pretty sure it was Diane somehow, but... but Matt and I are still recovering from John Wick beating us up pretty good. So I guess that's possible too. Anyways, on this bonus episode, we finally got a chance to sit down and talk a little bit more about John Wick. Stick around to find out how I got sick, maybe, and find out what it means to be a sap, something we made up. You're listening to the Bash Pinball. No, seriously, I really am sick. The Bash Pinball Podcast Last night when we were there These people who clearly had never played pinball in their life Step up beside you And they're just trying to figure out how to put quarters Or tokens in the machine And they seem excited about Led Zeppelin And I guarantee you They were expecting Once they started that game They're going to hear some Led Zeppelin music Instead They heard nothing They heard nothing. And they played one game and they were done because it's a terrible experience. I think that's what they heard. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. They heard plenty. They just heard no leads up. Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, I remember the people you were talking about, right? It was like a group of five or something. Yeah, and you were trying to help them. So I remember because I overheard as we were getting our asses kicked by Steve John. Yeah. Yeah. One guy was kind of explaining the basic concept of pinball. So he was kind of like the enthusiast, I would say, in the group, bringing his friends. Right. Not very, you know, knowledgeable per se, but, you know, like excited and enthusiastic. And I could tell like that was me at one point. Right. Like showing my friends. Right. And he didn't realize you could do two player. They saw us and I heard one of the other friends ask, can you do two player? He said no. Yeah, he didn't. So that's that's when I pulled the his buddy aside, who was beside us and i had to borderline yell at his face yeah so he could hear what i was saying right yeah and meanwhile you're like in the middle of a john wick game yeah yeah i'm like cradling the ball and i'm like hey man hey hey like probably like six inches away from his face yeah you can do two player yeah just hit you know can do up to four yeah he's like what did you say yeah yeah and then and then i and then i hear him trying to telephone that information to his friend in the middle of the club. You know? And then we... And then, you know, they kind of just... I think they eventually gave up. I think they ended up each playing, like, a different game. But it might have been a different experience. It might have been a new pinball convert if they had all played maybe one game as a four-player game. Because that was, like, the perfect party for, you know... It's always more fun when you have more than one person playing the same game, you know? Every time we go over there, we see people who are, like, kind of all excited about like, ooh, pinball. And they're getting hyped. And they like, as soon as they get that game started, just all of the excitement. Okay, we've complained enough about Boxcraft. We think we may have found a solution to some of these problems. Yeah, well, it doesn't help the sound problem. Stern's got a... That's on Stern. They got to add some Bluetooth support. We could consult as ambassadors. Yeah, we want to pitch. Maybe this already exists. But Stern, we will be your ambassadors. Stern ambassadors. We're going to call it the Stern ambassador. We're saps. We're saps. And all we require is a polo with the logo. Stern logo. Front or back, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. And a hat with the logo. Yep. and we will personally bend the rules. We will level those games to try to provide the best experience possible. But the idea occurred. What if we just had some official stern-looking uniforms and our little Klein 2-inch digital leveler, and we just plop that thing on the glass, don't even have to take it off the glass, and then just fix it. Fix it real quick. Take like 30 seconds. Somebody comes, Hey, what are you doing? you know pull up pull out our insider connected hey buddy yeah like the like our fbi badge yeah hey buddy you know i'm insider connection stern ambassador i'm an official stern ambassador it's like you what are you a sap yeah yeah walk away but no for real like i think if we had the get up on and we know and we had like their little tool and the little leveler like people would just be like, oh, they're... Nobody would question us. They're performing official duties. We are. We are trying to improve the experience to try to get more fans, to get more pinball love happening. Yeah, so this is our official pitch for the Stern Ambassador Program. I think the extent of it would be we would be allowed to level the game left to right. Left to right, yeah. Because I understand that places are going to set up games steep just because they don understand that that dumb But they want it that way Which you know if you want to be slightly more predatory if you want to make your game play more aggressively totally cool But I don't think anyone is intentionally not setting that level left to right. Left to right is a different story because it changes everything. Yeah, it ruins stuff. The whole geometry. It breaks stuff. Yeah. You hit this, it doesn't go where it's supposed to when it comes back. Yeah. So as a SAP I'm going to do my part I'm going to call the SAP helpline Or whatever the hotline The SAP hotline I guess maybe at first we'll be the ones to answer the call Are we offering to manage this program as well? Yeah Okay I think it's worthwhile You know how easy it would be to get people to just like Carry a little level with them Be like hey I'm going to level this game People would do that if they had like if they felt like they were allowed to do that, then people would do it all day long. Yeah, super easy, man. Unless there's some weird bolt situation or something. You have to be certified. You have to pass the training. What's the training? How to read a level? How to read a level, basically. How to turn little legs the correct direction to raise or lower again. Finger dexterity and strength. Yeah, and sometimes you got to twist that little nut. Yeah, be able to twist nuts. Nut twisting skills. Capabilities. It's a brief training that can be done online. Yeah. Oh, and just the casual, yes, you can play more than one person. Oh, hey, here's how you start the game. Yeah, it's like ski patrol. What is that? You ever go skiing? It's like there's people wearing the ski patrol uniforms, and I think they can ski for free, but they're basically just like volunteers yeah yeah i used to ski with a person who was who was ski patrol and she was she had like a little red jacket that she wore and i think she got in for free but yeah they're just on the lookout just on the lookout for you know somebody getting hurt somebody needing help you know it's answering a question providing solutions yeah but they're not they're not employed they're just like representatives they're not employed ambassadors No, but they have some training and like... You know, we could pitch to CERN, you know, that SAPS should also be CPR certified. I mean, you never know. By the way, public service announcement, because I heard this on Radiolab the other day. CPR, you don't actually need the breathing part. You don't need the mouth-to-mouth? No. They've now studied it and they're like, actually, you can just do the chest compressions. You know, staying alive. It's that beat. Or another one, Bice the Dust, I think. Yeah, yeah. You know, the funny ones to remember. But yeah, that's all you got to do. Just like chest compressions to that beat. If you start doing that immediately, it goes from a 10% survival rate to an 80% survival rate. It increases the chances immediately. Boom, bing, bing. We need to figure out how to give CPR to some of these machines, man. Yeah, that is the role of the SAP. Providing CPR to machines in need. Or maybe it'd be better to call it Arcade Patrol. Arcade Patrol? That sounds a little cooler, but it's not Stern branded. Stern, Arcade Patrol, dope. sap we're back to sap again i actually need to read the freaking rules now yeah yeah so we figured out you know just playing it like how to get two different multi balls or we got a we got three multi balls i think total one of them was a helicopter something or other that i don't know how i got no idea the other one is basically you hit the car a few times or you hit the building the winston shot spell winston Which I think the first time you only have to hit it once, which is the captive ball on the right. Yeah, yeah. And then you just hit that middle ramp will get lit up red, and then you can start locking balls at the middle ramp. Which is very hard to hit, actually. It's a hard middle shot for me. I don't know why. It's narrow. Yeah, I mean, it's just narrow. Is that all it is? Literally just narrower? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the three ramps on that game are all, actually all the shots on that game are on the narrow side. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think the issue that I was having, because I recall playing at the other boxcar location. Yeah. Not having that much difficulty hitting that center shot, the center ramp. Well, so this last time we went to boxcar, both the flippers were tilted downward. Downward, yeah. And it just kind of plays, makes it kind of play bad. It makes the middle shots especially wonky. I don't know how that happened. Most of the games there, the flippers are fine. Could have just been set up from the factory incorrectly or something. But I wonder if it didn't play bad because of that. You don't think it's standard? I don't think so. Just like to make it even harder. I doubt it. No, I mean, it's because it throws you off too much. It throws you off a lot, yeah. Because if you're used to, you know, the flippers being in the right place and every Stern game is exactly the same. And then for one of them to just be like a quarter inch pointed further down. I mean, it really throws off your... Anything's possible, man. Could be going bug wild out there, you know. But yeah, it's a super fast playing game. The shots are tight. And so most of the ramps have like little stand-up targets on either side of them. So if you miss the ramp shot, the little stand-up target is what you usually hit. And that just kind of rockets the ball back towards the flippers. Super quick. It just makes it a very fast playing game. Yeah. You got to be on your toes for any rejects or any missed shots because they just come flying back at you really fast. Which I think the way it shoots and like just the speed of it and all that stuff Even though it plays wrong the way it set up at our particular location like i still appreciate the way it plays i think it fun it is fun you know i again i don know why it was so hard for me this last time it could have been that it could have been the the left to right yeah well it was definitely tilted tilt that it had from yeah the left to right was not right and then the pop bumper shot where it should feed the ball like probably to the left flipper every time it came out of that thing it would just go straight down the middle because it was tilted to the right so far anytime he came out of the club yeah yeah right or the vip lounge yeah that was that was that made that extra scary it shouldn't have been it was scary i don't think it's like the monster bash at the raleigh box bar right has that scoop in the middle and it's tilted so far the scoop shoots it down the middle every time every single time and all they need is the stern ambassador program to well that's a that's a chicago gaming game but uh well uh we could be some uh caps chicago yeah we just have to okay so we'll provide this service for everyone c gaps yeah we need we need chicago gaming caps and c gaps chicago gaming ambassador program but but But yeah, on Wick, it reminds me of some other new Stern games on some level. It reminds me a little bit of Venom. It reminds me a little bit of Mando. Because it is kind of a fan layout, you know? Kind of a row of shots. Yeah. But I like the way that it's done better in this game than those other ones. It doesn't feel that way to me. Because they're not... This one doesn't feel like that to me. Yeah, they're more varied in their length and distance. It's like, it's not like Mando is just a straight row. You're just adjusting your horizontal plane. And then Venom is kind of that way, but it's just pushed further back. Yep. Which I think is better. Yep. It's better. It's better. And then on John Wick, it's fanned out more. There's more variety to it. And it's just more fun to shoot because of that. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. But the ramps like return the ball super fast. I mean, everything about the game is fast. but i like that yeah 100 it's modeled modeled after john wick himself because yeah he kills people really fast yeah the weapons crate it's all right i like it better actually than i thought it would yeah it's funny i like the way that when you smack it yeah it kind of kind of jumps into that little hole like into the little whatever that little area is behind it you know to start the uh missions or whatever yeah where you can do the the half plunge to yeah start yeah i've hit it a couple times where it was it felt very satisfying because it almost like almost like a bank shot into the so but there was one time that i hit like the crate was down yeah and i hit it from the left flipper yeah and it just immediately went drained oh yeah like ricocheted off that into the drain yeah yeah 100 that was annoying yeah it is it is but when it's open and you bank it into that little hole yeah it's like a almost like a you know like in basketball right like off the backboard or something that's kind of what it's like i kind of like that actually now we're playing le so it has all the bells and whistles and toys and stuff i don't think that thing flips up on the pro see see then i would hate it i need it to flip up and then so i can bank off of it into the hole yeah maybe i need to look at the pro i didn't feel like the pro is as compromised as like godzilla or something for example but yeah anyway that shot is fun you know the far left shot is another like scoop kind of end of flipper soft shot with which is like your extra ball and your add a ball and that's it's a fairly tough shot but it's hittable everything everything's pretty hittable like you might not get it on your first try but i think the flow on that game would be really good once you get dialed into it yeah if you could like rent that thing you know take it home for like a week man i bet you would love that game yeah i think the art the vibe colors colors like the neon the aesthetics yeah i love it man little city yeah yeah the little buildings and it's more of the world under glass thing that we were wishing that Jaws was. Seeing it in person is definitely way cooler than just looking at pictures of it. I always have this problem with pinball, but just looking at a picture of a play field, it's really, really almost useless. The pictures make it look kind of cheap. The colors don't even look right, you know? Yeah, I don't know what it is, but definitely seeing this game in person is much more impressive than the pictures. The lighting is cool. Everything about it, aesthetically, I thought was... Yeah, yeah. The inner child in me, I had this thought actually when we were playing yesterday. Wanted to grab that car and drive it through the city. It just felt like a toy car that I wanted to grab, pick it up, and roll it somewhere. It's cool. A little bash target. Yeah, it kind of has all the things I like on a basic level. It looks good, maybe sounds good, I don't know, because we can't hear it. Who knows? um tell us yes let us know how's the sound is it good how are the call outs we can't hear them at all we're playing this game on mute yeah basically but yeah it's got all the things i like it's got three ramps something about i just love ramps and if a game's got two ramps i'm like okay two's fine two's enough i'm satisfied if the game's got one ramp i'm like already kind of got one foot out the door yeah honestly yep i agree i agree and so three ramps is just like sweet I prefer three. Three ramps. At least three. Heck yeah. Give me three. Yeah, I want three. And it's got a left one, a middle one, and a right one. None of them are super easy None of them are exactly where you think they going to be Yeah But they fun and they return the ball super fast The left one kind of like the Johnny Mnemonic slash Deadpool slash what's the other one? Oh, Foo Fighters. The George Gomez kind of inspired left ramp. But it's not the same as the Johnny Ramp. It is different than that ramp. So I wanted to say, George Gomez, I'm on to you. I see what you did there with the Johnny Mnemonic triangles. In the ramp, like the aesthetic of the ramps. Yeah. I know you did that on purpose. Well, I don't know. I don't know what he did on this game. Dude, there is no way anyone can convince me that he probably made somebody do that. Like, please put these triangles in front of these ramps. Yeah. Now, don't question me. Actually, he's a really nice guy. I don't know why I'm making him sound like he's less dictatorial than that, probably. Yeah, yeah, of course. Sorry, sorry, George Gomez. But anyways, we're on to you. I saw those triangles and I immediately thought Johnny Mnemonic. I get a lot of Johnny Mnemonic vibes from that game. I mean, obviously, apart from Keanu, just the aesthetics are not that different. It definitely feels almost like a slight homage to Johnny Mnemonic. Yeah, but better. Aesthetic, I mean, it looks better than Johnny Mnemonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, modern, yeah. Modern aesthetics, yeah. The little neon, the green, and yeah, it all really is cool and it works. But don't talk bad about my Johnny Mnemonic boy. I love that. I think he's beautiful. Johnny's a looker. No question. It's a good looking game. He took me there to this end of the world future with floppy disks. That's where I was when I was playing it. Yeah. I mean, I'll take the 90s. He took me there, yeah. The cheesiness of Johnny Mnemonic makes it better in some ways. Apples and bananas, man. apples and bananas i don't know i think they i think stern like kind of did a great job with this game is the feeling i get having played it on mute 14 times yep yeah it right on mute yeah right i'm gonna i'm gonna point eight four code i'm gonna throw it back to a comment you made earlier yeah in episode in the john wick bonus episode that it's i think still holds true for me that this is the most exciting game for me from CERN in a while. Yeah. Right? And I'm hopeful for the future of what's coming because this is exactly the way that I want it to go. Yeah. You know, if we go back to like our usual complaints about modern games, like some of them are still there just as far as like the innovation and toys and stuff like that. I mean, it has some cool elements to it, but there's nothing like, you know, groundbreaking. Right. Maybe the AI scoring is groundbreaking, but I have yet to be convinced of that. Maybe it is. I don't know. I don't know. Who knows? So we can't fully say, but maybe on a code level, there's some things going on that are innovative. But generally, yeah, I think I'm enjoying it more than the last several Stern games, I would say. Yeah, I kind of just, you know, yeah, it's funny. I've played, you know, like, oh, God, I'm going to get some hate for this. But a lot of those games, right, like Iron Maiden, Rush, and I like them. Yeah. But I don't feel the need to play them. I don't feel the... Maybe this is just me personally, because I know people that love those games, right? Stranger Things. I really, really like those games, and I enjoy them. I don't feel the need. I don't wake up at 3 a.m. and I'm like, I gotta go play. And that's kind of how I feel about John Wick. I'm thinking about it right now. I kind of want to go play right now. And it's a step in the right direction in terms of providing a little bit more personality and maybe just... Excitement. excitement to pinball which you know yeah i i wonder if the average person who walks up to john wick you know let's say it's set up perfectly and playing perfectly i wonder if it's too hard for the average person good question man yeah yeah i think it i mean i think it's one of the harder it's hard faster games yeah to come out in a while yeah it doesn't feel as forgiving i guess as like the average stern game you know jaws is way more forgiving Venom's way more convenient. Godzilla is super friendly. He's always saving me. I feel like Mr. Elliot Eismin Mr. Elliot Elliot Eismin really nailed the layout just in terms of cramming a lot of shots into this type of layout. Like a fan layout. It's tight but I feel like everything's hittable and fun to shoot. There's nothing that makes you just like, oh, that shot. They're all fun shots. I agree. I agree There's something to be said about Every shot in a game And there's like a bunch This has like 10 main shots or something They all feel satisfying They all feel pretty good Thanks for listening Stay healthy, safe, and tuned in For more fun stuff coming soon Oh yeah, and please don't forget to wash your hands Do it right now Seriously, go wash your hands right now You nasty Now I feel, excuse me I gotta get back to my Trader Joe's tomato feta soup. Sick food. Num num num num num num.