Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 30th, my mother's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom. Episode 242. Yay, happy birthday. Yay. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. and we're recording remote again because I tested positive again for COVID. You got the Concrud. No, this one, the test says it's COVID. It's a rebound infection. Apparently, that can happen in about 10% of cases. Because they're like, did you feel like you had, did you test negative and feel good for a week and then it come back? Then this probably happened to you. Congratulations. You're the lucky 10%, Dennis. Apparently so. But you seem to be okay. Yes, because the day you sent me and said, hey, look, I tested positive for COVID again, I was like, oh, crud. Because I wasn't going to retest. I thought I had a cold or some other convention thing from Texas. And I had just gotten back. I didn't test until the day after I got back from a work conference. But I started to feel bad on the Tuesday I was going down. So my day zero wasn't the day I tested like it was the last time. Right. So anyway, yeah, it was just – but Tony tested and he was okay. I had to get new kits because all of our kits were expired. So I got a new kit, some new kits, and I tested and everything was okay. So I'm like, all right. So I am not – So my only concern – because I wasn't overly worried because I felt fine other than massive joint pain that I just figured was because I'm fat and we did a lot of walking over the weekend and it went away. So I'm okay. Good. Well, the, um, yeah, this is, I mean, I was mild the first time. This is mild too, but I'm coughing more than I did the first time. Um, so Tony is doing what he can to, to keep us, uh, properly on task today. Cause I may have to mute several times. However, the, uh, and I was still, uh, testing positive yesterday. So it was good for us to go ahead record remotely. I do have a little bit of feedback we've received. We did record, we didn't record a proper EGP episode during TPF because it wasn't our week that we would record. However, we did record for our Patreon members, which is available at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers, a 50-minute episode about our favorite science fiction movies and TV shows, and feedback's been positive on that. And we've received some suggestions, Tony, from Patreon members that we do TV shows, favorite TV shows in general. Oh, that'd be a good one. Or we could do favorite action movies with a specific request for James Bond films. So there are options. Favorite James Bond films. That could be a good one. There's lots of options. Yeah, with the James Bond one, it almost makes me feel like that would be more of trying to rank them all. Yeah, there would still be fun. There are a lot to rank. We could... I wonder if instead of ranking them, if it wouldn't be better to tier list them to do the SABC tier system thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's true. Tiermaker it. Yeah, Tiermaker it. Yeah, that's the software that they like to use on YouTube, Tiermaker. I've used that before for my wristwatch YouTube channel. But we're not here to talk about wristwatches. Let's go ahead and jump into the pinball segment, Tony, because holy cow, we have a lot to recap. We do. It's almost like we went to a convention and did things. We did. And so I first off have to say things actually shook out quite a bit differently than I had anticipated they would. And the reason is we – what we normally do is we go down the day before the show starts. That's our approach because the very first TPF we ever did, we didn't do it like that. Do you remember? We went down on Friday. Oh, I remember. and um it was awful we were so exhausted and it was our you know it's our first time so we wanted to do all this stuff we also were in the tournament we were in the tournament and it was just it was bleak it was bleak so we always go down thursday and then friday usually around lunchtime we go over and we get our passes before the line's really long and then we go back later in the early evening when the show opens and do the show. So that's the approach. This time we were doing that, but when we went and were in line, Nick Schell, who Roanoke Pinball Museum, he came up and spoke with us, and then Emoto came up from Marco Specialty. So I do have a link in the show notes to Marco because Emoto gave us access passes so that we could go. and I actually on behalf of Marco. So thank you very much. And so for your all your pinball part needs, Marco specialties is available for most of them. They have most of the part. Like if I can't find something anywhere else, Marco is usually the one that has it because I've worked on so many machines that I've used Marco a lot. So anyway, that was very kind of them. And so we got the point being, though, that we actually were able to play basically all of the new stuff on Friday, because what happened last year is we wait until the show opens and the lines are so long, maybe we get through half of it on Friday and we try and do the other half on Saturday. And it's just hours and hours in line. And this time, other than Portal, there really wasn't much of a line for us to stand around in. So I kind of thought we should maybe do this in basically the order we played. So the first thing Tony and I went and did was Dungeons & Dragons, the latest Stern pinball release. Tony, what were your thoughts? I enjoyed it. There were, since it's been out for a while, there's some local ones. I've just not had a chance to go play them because life gets in the way. But I enjoyed it. It's a game that I think I would like to have a lot more play time on before I'm, like, really settling. It's kind of like, it kind of grabbed me like Venom did, where it's like, okay, this seems all right. The more you play, it's like, no, no, no, I actually kind of like this. Uh, so I think it's something that I really want to put more time in. It has interested me because again, it ties into my actual direct interest. It's a license that directly interests me and it, it was fun. Yeah. I need more time on it to, uh, to get a good feel. I did not make any notable progress. I didn't achieve any notable, uh, feature. You got further in the game than I did. Uh, so there's a lot that I think we were playing, we were playing the premium. So we were able to – we had all the fancy stuff with the scoop and the dragon that could fully articulate itself and all of that. No, I don't think either – neither of us were able to get to the point where the dragon started spitting at us. But – No, no. It was full motion, and it was cool. Yeah, and it was hard to hear. We played this in the Marco booth, and so there were a lot of D&Ds around us, but it was hard to hear our D&D because there were so many games going at the same time. So, and the call-outs are one of the most exciting things about D&D to me. So, I wished I had been able to hear it. But, of course, at a show, I'm used to not being able to hear very well. Yeah, it's always a lot of the show. And that's another mildly tied. It's more show-related than directly pinball-related. I will say, this is the first year where I actually took noise-canceling earbuds with me and wore them at the show. and oh man it changed everything i did not have a headache after our extended runs when i was using the noise canceling headphones uh but i could still hear you fine because you were close and how the nature of those headphones work so so we could still talk we could still interact with people but i didn't have a headache it was great was it the noise canceling headphones or was it the attendance count oh wait i'm getting ahead of myself i'm getting ahead of myself sassy It could have been either. To be fair, most of the noise problem is just it's the machines themselves. Yes. But you are right. We'll talk about that some more here in a little bit. There was a noticeable – at no point did I have to use my favorite line when I'm trying to squeeze past people of, I'm not getting fresh, I'm just fat. because there was nowhere where we had to squeeze through a group of people like that. So D&D was fun. So we liked that. Next game you and I went over and played was Jersey Jack Pinball's Avatar. Beautiful game. It's pretty. Yes. Yes. And we played the limited edition, not the collector. So we didn't have the one with the super ultra fancy UV lighting. just a little bit of uv light like the the fancier one was the one to the left of us so um the yeah i'm here's the thing i could hear it i don't like i don't know what's going on because i don't i didn't know that i had to be like deep in the avatar lore apparently you do like they're calling out stuff and we're and tony's like did they just say something about me and i'm like i I don't know what they're saying, but the words, they sound made, all the words sound made up. And so I don't know what any of this means. It's like, shoot for the nananaburrder. And I'm like, I don't know what a nananaburrder is. Trying to find the label of it in the beautiful art on the play field. I'm like, I can't find it. It's probably one of these flashing RGBs, but I don't know. Right. Every time it said something, I was like, what is this talking about? It's one of those things I'm sure once you've played the game and you know what it is, but since it was all just sci-fi nonsense words for a movie that I've seen once, I'm just like, uh, okay. Yeah, so anyway, I mean, the display animations were good. The art was great. The lighting, as usual, was top tier out of it. I just – maybe it's because I haven't seen the second movie. I have seen the first, but the combination of the theme and the play field, I mean, it's not surprising if you looked at the photos, but it's really open. It's like, I don't know. It just, in a lot of ways, it didn't, like, I didn't have that one thing that drew my eye, like that toy. You know, normally there's something, like with Toy Story 4, you know, you had that jump ramp to fly up into the back. And with Wonka, you know, you had those weird upper shots to do. And this, I just – it just felt really, really open. And unlike Elton John, it felt like we were right back to the usual flipper feel of JJP. And I just – I don't like that flipper feel very much. And so it felt – and again, it's a show, so power issues might be in place and stuff. But it just – it didn't feel slow, but it didn't – nothing about it aside from the art really grabbed me. And the art, I would never be in – like, I'll just buy a back glass if I want the art. I'm not going to buy a game for art. And here's the thing is I'm not going to be buying an Avatar backlash. The art is beautiful. Everything on the machine is beautiful. I don't care that much about the world. And we had a decent – I mean the game – our game lasted longer on this than it did D&D. So it's not like we just drained out. It wasn't like a really long player, but it wasn't – our experience wasn't brutal on it. I just don't have a feel for it. Or I should say my feeling for it is numb. I didn't hate it, but I'd say it was a middling game for JJP. I personally feel that Toy Story plays better. I think Wonka plays better. Obviously, Dialed In and Elton John play better because I think those two are stronger games. I'd say Avatar played better than Hobbit or Woz. but there's a lot of stuff in Woz that at least attracts your eye. I don't, so that's kind of where I'm at with it. Yeah. I find it kind of problematic that the thing I remember most about, about playing Avatar, the thing that stands out the most to me is the jokes we were making about being in the little crab submarine thing. Based on the fact that we've been listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl on the way there and for anybody who's seen it, we just met Audette. It was the last thing that had happened before we shut off to go to the show. All one person listening to this is going to know what you mean. Trust me, it's going to be more than one person. Okay. More than one person has listened to this. Dungeon Crawler Carl was very funny, but we were about halfway through it by the time we were at TPF. So all All the jokes we made around the crab thing, that's the thing that stands out the most to me. So that's not necessarily a good concept. Here's the thing. If I had the room and the money, I would walk out the door today and buy an Elton John. No qualm at all about it. But Avatar, I wouldn't care. Yeah, middle to lower middle for me. In fact, I'd say I'd probably place every JJP game I can think of other than Woz and Hobbit above it. That's sort of my walk away. I don't know. Pirates is kind of tough because I don't have a lot of time on Pirates. But anyway, it wasn't a bad game. It just didn't work for me. Just in basically any way other than the art, it didn't work for me. So anyway, not a highlight for me. No. And so then after that, we actually linked up with Joel and Travis of the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast for our next three games that we went and played. So – and I may mess up the order a little bit here, but I think the one we did first was Spooky's Evil Dead. Yes. For sure, that's where we started. So what did you think of Spooky's Evil Dead? So you know the movies. I know the movies. You're right. I think it looks great. I mean, it's not like Avatar, shiny, super pretty. I think it looks great based around the movies. It is very fetching of the movies, and it has some really interesting mechs in it. And because we were with Joel and Travis, stuff that I would never activate and get going, we were able to see. Joel, per his own admission, had basically the game of his life on it. Right. So he was like, this is the best game I've ever had on Evil Dead. So Joel got quite a bit far. He stole my multiball, which was not nice. It was not nice at all to have done. But, you know, he pretends to be nice, but I've seen what he does to Travis. So I wasn't surprised at this sort of behavior. The – yes, the world under glass, that joke of a phrase, very much captured in Evil Dead. The – there's – it's – it was really – it was really good. It was a really solid game. I think other people loved it more than me, maybe because I was bitter because my multiball got stolen. there are there are still there are a few little pieces to it where uh up close you're you might kind of feel where it's a little lower but like you could like the um the seller the seller shot uh with the solid bank that pops up it felt a little i don't know a little rough around the edges would maybe be the way i would say it worked well i just meant visually you know there's just a little bit to the aesthetic of it um the flipper in the sling is a really weird choice uh kind of neat though because that's a good way to try and shoot the hand over on the left uh the cabin ball lock though was was really fun yes it was the the rules and stuff um as near as i could you know follow them and joel was explaining uh what certain shots would do and stuff uh it's a it's an approachable layout uh they've been doing that lately it was they kind of reached peak crazy spooky with halloween ultraman and since then they've made the layouts more and more normal but this one, in my opinion, is the best layout I have played of theirs. I thought Texas Chainsaw Massacre slash Looney Tunes was a really approachable layout, but I think this one works better on a variety of fronts. The theme integration is far stronger in this one. It's a really, really good job. Bug with Spooky came up and spoke with us while we were playing it. He gave me a completely inappropriate hat that I cannot discuss on this episode. But it was very kind of him, so I appreciate the gesture. And so he explained a little bit about what they were going for with certain things, especially while you were playing. So you might not have heard some of this, but he was explaining what some of the – like what the purpose of doing this was, what it was trying to convey from the movie or whatnot. So, yeah, it's – when we had went up, one of the things he had also mentioned, and again, I think you might have been the one playing at the time, is they were – The Spooky Crew, they were in a great mood. They had already, and this is why we were still using our early access passes that Emoto through Marco Specialties gave us, had sold out of the run. They're like, we're golden, guys. We've sold every Evil Dead we're planning to make. And the only thing at the time before the show had formally opened that they still had for sale were like they had a Looney Tunes, a Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I think a Scooby. I think that's like we have like three or four games in our booth that are for sale, show special for sale, and all the evil deads are spoken for. So mission accomplished. So they were in a really good mood, and I was really impressed. I knew from the photos the theme integration was awesome on this game. But they finally got a theme that they love and a layout that I think a lot of people will really like. Of course, I can't speak to its long-term quality. I've heard Spooky's quality has stepped up as they've gone along, but you would assume that would be the case. They've definitely struggled to step up as fast as a lot of other companies have. So that's probably the question that a lot of people would have. But at this point, you've either ordered one or you're not getting one until it goes used. So anyway, it could have been game of the show. It wasn't, but it could have been. It was that impressive. I will go so far as to say I think it is the spooky game that I've been the happiest with. Oh, yes. It's their best game. It is easily their best game, with the caveat that I don't actually consider TNA a spooky game. And they don't either. It was a contract build. But it is 100% their best game. And when I'd seen the pictures and saw the stuff initially, I thought some of the stuff would be kind of just kind of hokey, not a big deal. But it was actually some of the shots ended up being really satisfying. The shotgun loading shots were super satisfying and I thought they would be kind of silly when I had originally seen them But that was actually a really satisfying shot That cabin ball lock is amazing Oh and I like how there like yeah you need to shoot and you need to get both shotgun shells in at the same time Like that was a goal shot Right. It's these two kind of stand up each. I don't know. I mean, they were shotgun shells. You just they knocked them back a little bit. I was like, well, very targets. Yeah, it was. Yeah, there's a lot of cleverness to it. It was great. Yes. So so Tony and I were really, really impressed with it. So that was a nice treat. I think the one we went to after that was Merlin's Arcade with Turner Pinball. It was. So let's go to that one. Merlin's Arcade was where we went next. So Turner Pinball, they've made Ninja Eclipse. Tony and I had played Ninja Eclipse in its final form last year's TPF. And while it wasn't one of our favorite games, it had come a tremendous ways. I had not played the prior Whitewood on purpose because I knew it was going to be really janky. and I wanted to see it in a final form and not have that bias affect my judgment. And it was, I just remember it was a really hard shooter. It wasn't a game I would ever want to own myself, but it was quite a bit, I mean, when you were looking at right across the way that Barbecue Challenge was there, it's like there was no contest. Ninja Eclipse was a better game. Oh, for sure. So that a new company like that had done so much better than an established company was quite shocking, to be fair. So in this instance, Merlin's Arcade, This was a game that Jon Norris had designed with Deep Root. It's essentially a modification of the 8-Ball Deluxe layout. Think Sharky Shootout, if you're familiar with it. Stern didn't make very many Sharkys. I think they made about 1,000 of them. So for those that aren't familiar with it, think more 8-Ball Deluxe. But like with Ramp Shot and other modifications, it's not as simple as the original 8-Ball Deluxe layout. But there's a lot going on with it that is the 8-Ball Deluxe layout. so uh we went and we played it uh uh chris turner with turner pinball did come up and speak with me while uh i don't know it was while you were playing or it was travis or joel uh and kind of explained to me a little bit about the rules and so i would say to to open with i thought the rules were really workable like it's it's a very approachable game conceptually in that you have certain shots around the play field you need to do a certain number of them in order to have the ability to fight that night at a at some sort of arcade game and we're using arcade in the loosest sense like darts and and billiards and not not just like video games so so the way to go and advance in the game is really straightforward think like stern deadpool like it's really easy to understand the rules and i think approachable rules are uh are something that a lot of games could really lean more in. There's all this emphasis on depth. But I think approachability has a lot of value in today's market too. It can't be everything. The problem I had with it is I didn't think the layout worked all that well with the rules. I don't think so. And this is a layout historically, this inspiration layout, this 8-ball deluxe-esque layout. I love that layout. But there's something to remember about that layout in general. It's a brutal layout. I did not. It was very difficult to get things done in the game. There's a foosball character, which it looks weird to see it on the play field. But unlike a normal spinner, it doesn't have that same visceral physical satisfaction. I didn't have a lot of physical satisfaction shooting the shots. And I liked the rules, but I didn't like trying to do them because of the layout. So I probably had higher hopes on this one than I should have, simply because I knew the inspiration of the layout, and I really respect Jon Norris as a designer, but the way it shot didn't feel great to me. But anyway, I've kind of rambled a bit on it, but what were your thoughts? My thoughts are very much in the same vein with you. I did not really enjoy the game. I understand the whole conceit that it's Merlin running an arcade that you're playing at. and that's in the, so the foosball, and there's pool. The whole concept is completely destroyed for me when you're hitting drops that are creating pool billiard sounds. It was just, it's like, I understand this is the concept and it's built in, but I just disliked the entire thing. I will say some of the art was hilarious When you activate a mode where you're fighting against a knight And you're playing basketball And it's a knight with a big ol' afro Playing basketball with you Or like Galahad is playing air hockey with you That stuff I found humorous But the gameplay itself was not that much fun And like you said especially that foosball spinner. I appreciate some, when you hit a spinner, you know, they're small, they're light, you rip them and they scream. I love it. And there's no way anything that large is ever going to do something like that. It was not nearly as satisfying a hit as you would like. Overall, for what it is, it's fine. It's not something where I'm going to go, well, this is like the worst thing ever. But it's not something – I think even in its form, I think it's still better than barbecue. But not as much better as Ninja Eclipse was. It just – I mean, it wasn't EBD brutal, but it was not – no one had long ball times on it. And there were a lot of shots you needed to do to activate some of these nights. Right. There really was. Now I will say, I have to say I felt good because I actually hung I was able to hang in this game with Like the top tier players we were playing with, Joel and Travis So I didn't feel like I was just like My ball lasted 15 seconds I'm going to go find some place to sit down Because Joel's got a 10 minute ball coming up Yeah, yeah Our expectations out of Joel were much higher after his Evil Dead performance So the there were a couple other things. They had an extra flipper buttons to do automated tap passes. Very strange decision. It was strange. It was weird. I'm not. Maybe there was it felt weird to me because it's like. You couldn't cradle it because of the way that thing that works. It almost felt like you would have to cradle the ball with the normal flipper, release that flipper and instantly tap the other flipper to do the tap pass which unless it overrides the other I never tested it well I didn't test it I didn't I didn't test it no I played with it a little bit on my first ball just trying to figure out what it was and and that was when I think it was it was I don't know if it was Joel or Travis realized what it was what Joel did yeah because he he thought maybe he could hold it in but uh but the flipper went down he lost the ball right yeah because i was like what is what is this and he's like oh it's a tap it's like okay yeah which to be fair if you're not someone who is very comfortable with a tap pass if you can if you can have a button that does that that's an interesting little uh thing to throw in there but why right that's that's where i'm at like okay the only people who care about tap passes are people who play a lot of pinball and obviously if you're not going to learn the skill it's not going to benefit you on any other game because not all no other game's going to have these auto tap pass buttons and for a game that someone's getting new into pinball with it's a feature that they're not going to understand is confusing i mean look at the whole thing with the multimorphic p3 and all the additional buttons that always confuse people extra buttons confuse people so i i just don't see what it brought to the table other than it's kind of a neat innovation but from a sales perspective, there's no value in it. So I just thought it was a weird, I guess I just thought it was a weird feature to add in that didn't fit with the game because I don't know. I mean, I think it was Travis who asked the question, but why do you need to tap pass over in this game? Like what's the, like, you know, there are certain games like older games where people tap pass over because all the shots are accessible that you need for all the big points on one flipper. But it's like, was that the case here? It looked like there were accessible shots on both sides, and they all advanced particular nights, so why would you need to tap pass? Right. That's where I was at. Another thing, you had mentioned the billiard drops, but one of the things – and I get it from a cost perspective, but I was so disappointed that those were stand-ups and not actual drops. Right. They've always, like in all the other versions I can think of, I can't remember on Bad Girls, but like Sharky's and 8-Ball, those are drops. And normally I'm okay with stand-ups, but it's so much more satisfying if they had been drops. I think that would have made them more enjoyable. Plus, it helps slow the ball down more. So I like the art. And I get this, like they kind of did a medieval madness. Let's have like this fun, cartoony, whimsy theme going on here. so for an original theme they did what they could and I think the game actually looks pretty good even with all the yellow and stuff I think it works it's just the layout just with the rule set I'm just not it's the layout in general I don't even know if I want to blame the rule set in any capacity I just don't think this layout I would revise this layout I guess would have been my thought but it's based on something solid but the additional changes just they just didn't work for me so the toys and stuff are kind of neat but But again, that's not enough for me. It's about the gameplay. Anyway, so we did that. And then the last game that we played with Travis and Joel, and the one we had to wait the longest for, was Multimorphics Portal. Why don't you kick us off? What did you think? I think it's my favorite P3 game. Wow. I'm going to go that far. I think it's probably my favorite P3 game. it plays well with the theme. It's got a lot of fun items in it. We played the extended one, the one that had the extensions that came down over the lower play field. Correct. They had one there that wasn't. Right. I am not 100% sold on those extensions, specifically because there's a ramp that goes up and that lifts and lowers. but if you hit it, it bounces weird and I'm just curious of how long the plastic is going to hold up under continuous stress but truthfully I think if it's for home use you're probably not going to play the game often enough for it to be a problem but it looks weird to hit the ramp and watch the whole thing vibrate and shake but that said, the game was super fun some of the ball movement was like incredibly fast and very enjoyable. I will flat out say, of the new games, this was my favorite, easily. Yeah. No, it's, I honestly, I didn't think it was much of a contest. Kind of, Spooky's Evil Dead gave a really good showing, but I do think Portal was game of the show, if we want to call a game of the show. Yeah. For a mix of reasons. The theme integration is so top-notch on it. I mean, watching you push a cube through the portal and it starts popping up through the other portal and the other part of the – just stuff like that. If you knew the game – and Tony and I know the games. Right. So if you didn't know the game, maybe this – I won't even say maybe. This probably won't resonate with you if you don't really know the games, at least on a theme front. You might like it from a shot front, but from a theme front, you would probably struggle. However, these were big games. A lot of people know them. And the rules development on this multi-morphic version very much respected those rules. It did. You're going into test chambers. It explains what you need to do. I thought it was pretty clearly spelling it out. I could hear GLaDOS at the show, so I could actually hear her call-outs. She's just as evil and snarky as ever. Right. Again, that sort of thing, it draws you in. The back module had a lot of fun stuff. You've got the faith plates. The ball lock was cool. There's a lot about it. If you like Portal, you'll probably like this game. They respected the license, and it shows that they cared about the license and wanted to capture that aesthetic while making it, first and foremost, a pinball machine. I would probably do the same. In fairness, I need more time on it. But I would say it's my favorite P3 game as well. That would be my inclination. And I've liked all their last few. I didn't like the rollout of Weird Al. I thought the game was really fun. Heist, still one of my favorites to point out from Morphic. Heist is really good, which has been kind of my favorite. Final Resistance, the Denise developed one, is a really fun game, especially if you like Tone Nuclear Annihilation. and then of course we had what was the other one? Thank you, last year's game, Princess Bride the module in this one impresses me more than the Princess Bride one does it does the Princess Bride one has a lot of video clips and stuff, which hey, if you love the Princess Bride I mean it's a very quotable movie but in this, it feels more original because of you have your new callouts it's not the test chambers from the game these are their own test chambers All of that. You've got the acid. You've got the fun little ball fly in the air thing. I mean, they tried to make it feel like Portal, and they did a really good job of it. My criticisms are all minor. As you had noted, the extended ramps, that's something that got a lot of attention from people early on because one of the biggest complaints is all the shots are all in the back. And they've said for years, I know Jerry's said for years, So they could make stuff so that items exist over the main display screen part of the game. However, kind of like my criticism of the cellar shot and stuff on Evil Dead from Spooky, there's sort of a jankiness to it because the ramp's not mounted to the play field, so it rattles a lot. And I'm not sure that the plastic's going to have a big issue. I mean, drop targets can be really thin and can take tons and tons of abuse. So I'm not going to inherently say that's going to be like a mechanical problem, but it feels cheap when it's rattling around and getting struck with balls and stuff. See, my thought on that, comparing to stand-ups and drops, those hits tend to be very square on a much smaller, since this piece of plastic is so much larger and there is kind of a sweep to it, and it's got a lot more side-to-side motion than I feel plastics and drops and stuff have. where they're more front and back. This has a lot of side-to-side motion when you catch the edge of it. And my engineering knowledge is not strong enough to be able to say. So I'm not going to inherently assume it will be a problem, but I don't know. I don't know. I will say that it's not satisfying when it happens. It feels cheap when it happens. So there's that. But again, to me, it's a minor issue. You don't have to have the extenders. In fact, if you buy the game with the extenders, you can take them off and play the game without the extenders. You and I did not play the game that was there without the extenders. I spoke with someone who did, and they thought it was more fun. I considered going back to play the one without the extenders, but the lines over there were just – And after I said thanks to Marco and getting us in early on Friday, after seeing the lines, I was always just like, no, let's go over here and play something else. Yeah. But anyway, it was a very good showing. They looked like every time I went over, they seemed to have all three of them up. I saw one go down at one point. They got it back up really quickly. So from that regard, I mean, you don't have to take it from us. There are plenty of other people that were there that said Multimorphic had a very good showing. Now, I don't – in terms of what this translates into sales and stuff, I guess we'll have to see. I think I heard from an interview that Multimorphic indicated they sold the most P3s ever with Weird Al. That was during the pandemic, so that's not surprising to me. Plus, it was a great theme. And then they sold the most modules when they did Princess Bride. I don't know if this beats either of those. obviously the price goes up quite a bit if you want to get the extenders but I mean I just like Portal so much that I was already I mean I like Princess Bride and Weird Al too so to be fair that wouldn't in and of itself be anything but I just the theme integration on this one I like better than either of those other two I just thought they did a really really good job with it so I was very impressed and it was my game of the show okay we only we have one last quote unquote new game so there was an ABBA there we didn't see it until Saturday and we didn't feel like standing in the line and playing it granted it didn't help that I mentioned about maybe playing it and someone I don't remember who it was came up and said oh ABBA is not very good you don't need to stand there and play it and I took that as permission so I didn't thank you for your permission to let us not play ABBA Yes. So apologies to any of you that were hoping to hear our feedback on ABBA. However, we did with Joel. He joined back up with us, and then Matt. I think it was Matt Morrison joined up with us as well, and we played a four-person game on Home Pin's Blues Brothers. We'd walked past Blues Brothers, and it was not working. Yes. And we just were like, ah, it's not working. We moved on, and then we ran into Joel. and he was like, you want to play Blues Brothers? I was like, well, I think it's down. And then we went up to it, and the game was like on ball three for someone. Someone had walked away. The ball was like we couldn't find where the ball was. So I reached under the game and turned it off and turned it back on, and then after boot up, it gave the ball back. The ball was in the trough. It just hadn't put it back into the shooter lane. So I did that. Joel asked the two guys who had been playing it, who had just then walked away, if they wanted to play it again, and they said no. So, which was not a good sign. Tony, this might be foreshadowing. It was not a good sign. So, we started up a four-player game. We got through a four-player game, though it's a matter of perspective. now this was my best game of all the new stuff of the show well of course it was i i rolled this game i rolled the score now at some point either due to game error or due to dennis error i was playing tony's but no joel's ball i was playing player three right but you'd also played the player two ball. No one told me I'd play the player two ball. We assuming I did We assuming because there was yeah because the thing is telling which player it was is a very very small telltale light and uh dennis was playing and it looked like he had a ball save and the ball came back in the trough and he just plunged and kept going and apparently and then we eventually noticed he was on player three so we're assuming at some point he played player two and player and then it was a player three i would assume that as well uh part of the other issue that as at this point as of ball three i had two balls in the shooter lane right so that added extra so maybe i did have an extra ball and then when the extra ball drained it then while i saw the other ball in play maybe advanced i don't know the reason i say that though is like we i was able to get we were able to get joel in on player three like he was able to get up there while the ball was still in play however it moved to player four while he was still playing right that's where i'm like you know what i might have not done anything wrong oh yeah and the bottom line is my player one score did roll because you you pointed out i didn't take a photo of my score because it was so janky it was so messed up because someone had told me you've rolled it dennis you've rolled it and like okay so it was terrible this the layout is stars but they've modified it a little bit to have a ramp so what'd you think of the i mean i don't know tony what'd you i'd love i'd love The Blues Brothers the movie I love the soundtrack I even love the soundtrack to Blues Brothers 2000 I own both soundtracks And they are on a common playlist that I play All the time That said Wow this game is garbage And it doesn't look very good The one we were playing It had the topper, and the, oh, my God, the topper is so bad. And the back plate of the topper, it's like they've got a back plate to the topper and a front plate. It's just the thin plexi with painted up plexi and all that. Yeah, Stern has a booty right, right? They call it, like, booty right? Yeah. But the backplate, obviously the machine they used to make it was too small to make one the full width. The backplate was two separate pieces that were bolted together to make it the full width. And then they had like a dancing Jake and Elwood, but they literally, the bolts went through their faces. So you couldn't see the faces. So where their face should have been, it was a bolt. And then they like just kind of danced back and forth. The whole game I mean it was so janky There were so many issues with it Like I said we walked past it Several times and it was broken All the issues we had And it just It was so terrible It was I will easily say It was worst of show It was the absolute worst thing Of anything We played or looked at It was just terrible. It felt pretty bad. I made every shot. It was difficult to power-wise, it was difficult to make the ramp shot, but it could happen. I got the multi-balls. Again, as I polish off my fingernails, I did roll it. Of course, I accomplished everything I needed to do on that game. Doing all the shots, it's just super janky. You can see the way they have the optos and like the inlanes and stuff like there was like no care to mask them or any it just looks like it's just like these little rectangles cut it just it looks it reminds me of the cheapness of the old uh premier got leaves where they have the massive uh holes in the play field to uh to let the ball go in instead of like a normal scoop you just like we see these huge sarlacc pit sized holes. It's like that, but for all the sensors and stuff, it's like, here, have these huge old holes cut out where the sensor can go in and easily, even with the worst tech, get aligned so that it can detect the ball when it worked. But a lot of it didn't work. And you're just going along and the screen is not telling you anything. I guess they have four licensed songs or three or something like that in the game. You couldn't really hear this game where we were playing it, at least not the music. Not that it mattered much. it's just and i don't really have experience on stars i've probably played it once um but ron hallett uh junior from slam tilt podcast came up to us while we were playing it he and he's like because he's a big stars fan and he's like this they've just like they made the layout for the worst and i'm like do you want to play it and he's like no and it's like because it's terrible it was terrible it felt like a like the thing feels cheap in your hands you thought a stern Pro was light. This plasticky apron, which it looked bad too. You could see the pop rivets in it. It's just it felt like someone made it who didn't care. That's what it felt like. You're right. I think that's a big point and a big problem is the games in the home-built row were better quality. And seemed to be more painstakingly put together and more works of love than this was. And this wasn't even so far as to feel like it had been put together by somebody who even cared. I mean, other than the drops letting you spell Jake or Elwood or whatever, looking at it, it doesn't feel like I'm playing the Blues Brothers. No. It just doesn't. this feels like the classic we have a layout just we can plug any theme into it now to be fair i've talked about using layout reusing layouts in the past for less popular themes uh i mean it's something that i think would be a solid way for some companies to get out maybe you know a game a year instead of necessarily putting out a game every three years but in this case it didn't feel like they even attempted to connect anything in any way that worked. There was no theme integration. So considering all the theme integration we saw in Evil Dead and Portal, you turned around to this, and it was just like they didn't even attempt the theme integration. So, yeah, it was pretty disappointing. So that's all the new stuff that we played. We had a few other highlights I thought that I'd point out. You and I went back over to the Multimorphic area with Nicholas Baldridge, and we played his drained game. Yes. And he walked us through how to play it, and I won, so that was nice. Yes, you won. I did very poorly this time, which makes – because last year, I won drained, and you did very poorly. So there. Yes, but I didn't have a coach. With Nick coaching me, I was able to understand. Right. So did that. We played a really sweet pin bot restoration. Yes. The the owner had actually recognized us and said, hey, my pin bots right at the entry and talked about all the stuff you've done to it. And yeah, that thing was awesome. Yeah, I I I won't say I've forgotten, but it's been such a long time since I got to play pin bot. And it's my favorite System 11 game, so I was really excited for that. I think it actually got runner-up for, I don't know if it's Best Resto or what all the award categories are. The one that won was another game we actually did end up and play on our own, which was that Restored Future Spa. Right, which was also an amazingly well-done restoration. Yes, but it's not nearly as fun of a game as Pinball. It's too wide for me. I can't get into Future Spa. I don't think Future Spa is as good as, but it was an amazing restoration, and it looks really good. And I feel like that Future Spa has much more of its time background, and it is definitely one of those games that I think people, thinking of games from that era, it's one of the bad glasses that people think about. Oh, sure. No, it's iconic. It's not a bad game, but I always struggle with these really wide, wide bodies. Let's see. Another thing, we weren't in the seminar, but of course it got a lot of discussion. I even had people messaging me while we were at the show because Jack Guarnieri with Jersey Jack Pinball apparently took the opportunity to tell everyone, Harry Potter is coming. We have all the assets. We've been working on the license for 10 years. Save your money, which I don't know if reeks of desperation or if this was a smart move or what, but it was weird because they showed nothing, nothing. And they said it's coming later this spring. well and and i and i understand what he meant by save your money is like hey be be ready so you can order this game when it comes out but save your money also sounds like don't bother we're not that no it's not gonna be that great no no i mean he's done this twice before where not to this not this clearly like articulated but two other times there have been these things where like posting the photo online on social media, posing with the Harry Potter poster. One of which was the, I think when Jaws came out, they did it. And there was another instance as well. Maybe it was with D&D. I don't remember. But anyway, it's like they've cried wolf. I mean, it's not the right way to say it, but I'm going to say it that way. They've cried wolf three times now where they've brought up, save your money, save your money. We're going to make the game you all need to buy. And I'm getting a little tired of it. Right. They clearly weren't ready to show it or else it would have been at TPF. So I just thought it was a really strange decision. But given what's going on economically, I'm wondering if there were – I mean, they have billionaire backing, so I didn't think they're really that big of an issue. But here's the thing. If you say that and say save your money, the only – well, not only thing, but the big thing is you just sucked all the air out of any potential avatar sales you were hoping to secure at this show. If that was a goal, like you just undermined your own game. They had a lot of avatars there. They were really trying to move demand into that unit. And it's like when your owner-founder is out there undermining everything, it includes undermining yourself when he's busy trying to get you to save all your money for Harry Potter. So I thought it was a weird move, but I'm not surprised because similar moves have been made by him in the past. Yeah, but here's the thing. It doesn't matter how garbage of a Harry Potter game is. If it looks good, it's going to sell gangbusters. It'll be insane selling as long as it looks good, just because there's so many Harry Potter fans out there. It will be a next-level sales event. It is one of those license grabs that is just guaranteed money, because as long as it's not like a, oh, I don't ever work and it's the worst game ever. as long as it's going to make huge money. So why do this announcement then? My guess is because, like you said, with the economic stuff, they are more under the desire of trying to make sure people know it's coming and have money set aside for it because people are having to pare down their purchasing and they can't rely on everybody having the kind of money that lets them buy every new game. Okay. I saw it was strange. The last thing I wanted to end the pinball segment with is we, of course, you mentioned earlier, I had alluded to it about the attendance levels, and this felt like the least attended TPF I've ever been to. It did. I mean, it definitely felt much lighter than normal. Part of that could be they did some serious layout changes, but the truth of the matter is there was noticeably less crush to a point where it wasn't just rearranging. Yes. And so, for example, the well, one of the interesting things that Tony had messaged me about this and I'd actually already typed it into our internal notes for today was we got an email. The attendees did for Texas Pinball Festival where they went to the trouble of saying that the attendance was within 50 of last year and last year felt the lightest I'd ever seen until this year. Right. And when Tony mentioned, he's like, did you see this thing? They're claiming that they were within 50 of 2024, and I'm like, my immediate response to Tony was, I think that they're counting everyone who registered who didn't even show up because it sure didn't feel like 50 to me. Right. And then I also wonder how much of it is people where it used to be a lot that people would come in and they'd be there for hours and hours. They'd be there for the whole day. It was more people came in, played some games and left, and they just never came back. but I think I feel like it was the most noticeable Saturday night, typically Saturday evenings before people like the earlier section of the evening before people start going off and doing dinners and everything is always jam packed, shoulder, shoulder, super loud, can't get around. And it just wasn't. Yeah, there were just, there was a mix of things this year. The, and they, the email that they sent was actually, I would almost say shockingly defensive. They were justifying why there were a bunch of vendors. I mean, we noticed there were big old swaths of space where there was nothing. There were no vendors that were set up for vendors, and so there were some issues. There was the stuff at Heathrow and all of that that caused issues. I'm not saying there weren't good excuses, but they're defending all of this. I heard that the swap meet didn't go over very well. Nothing notable was there. It was poorly attended. Didn't the swap meet open at like 6 a.m. this year? Something like that. Because I think of the email they sent us, they said they're going to open it at 7 next year. Right. And then on top of all of that, I think I got like 10 survey emails while I was at TPF. It's just like, guys, are you trying to make me go to Expo? Because that's, honestly, I'm kind of annoyed. That was ridiculous. I can't believe I got that many emails. and the surveys were ridiculous. It's like asking me to play trivia and stuff. It's like, what is this? Right. Well, I think the thing that really got me on the surveys is they sent a survey that's like, hey, here's the Friday survey. And like 12 hours later, they're like, you haven't answered the Friday survey yet. Here's the Friday survey. Because I got multiple emails per survey. To be fair, I didn't answer any of them because I didn't read. I was on vacation. I didn't read email until Monday. Personal or my work, I didn't even go through my work emails like I normally do. Because normally when we're in the hotel room, I go through my work emails every day. And I didn't this time. I like full on disconnected, disconnected, all of that. I pretty much, I talked to you guys, made a few Instagram, I didn't even Instagram that much. and I apologize for that, but I didn't even Instagram that much. But other than you and the people at the show that we physically talked to, the only other people I talked to was my wife and kids. That was it. So anyway, I'm not surprised that it was a down year, given what all is going on. Not at all. I expected it to be. But some of their reaction to all of this is a little, I mean, I don't know. I like the rearranged show. I think they've done some good things with how they've handled the layout. But this survey stuff, you need to pull the plug on that because that is – I didn't answer any of them. I started one, and it pissed me off so much I aborted. And then, of course, like you didn't finish your survey. I'm like, I'm not going to because you annoyed me. Oh, and just point it out there. If you have a question that is mandatory to answer that is, which seminar did you enjoy the most? You need to include a, I didn't go to any seminars choice. Yes. Yeah. When I tried to answer one of the things, it was like, oh, you need to answer this one. It's like, but I didn't go to any of the seminars. I don't go down there to go to seminars. Yeah. I haven't been in a seminar. I don't think since one of the Steve Ritchie talks. Right. Years and years ago. Yeah. Pandemic. I mean, I've gone to some of the we've gone to some of the other like things, but I wouldn't consider them seminars like events, other event type thing. I mean, I will say. I find it interesting. Some of the changes that they've done, like the music, like last year and this year, they had the musical guest on Saturday. So loud. It was louder out there than it was in the game room. It was. It was way louder out there than it was. And honestly, I think it was more packed around the music stage than it was in the game room at that time. Sure. No, it was well attended. And I don't actually have a problem with them doing the music stuff. But then we also didn't hang around and listen to music and drink or anything. Well, it's in a major walkway, though, so it's hard to get through. It's in the middle of everything. so but it was it's they're interesting choices i'm gonna go with that and like their big guest was a magician that i don't recall ever seen or but i mean we were probably actually playing games and not doing stuff but it was like why is there a magician there's no i i again maybe they were really good so i don't want to be judgmental on the magician skills i'm just saying pinball doesn't need a magician it already has the magical ability to make everyone's money disappear right exactly it's just it's one of those things that it it makes sense to me when they bring in uh famous people who did call outs in games and there were none of that this year no there was none of that this year uh no autograph line that i saw for any like there's no no flash gordon no Alvira. No Doctor Who Doctor. No Gimli. No Gimli. The one who I actually went and paid for to get an autograph with. So, yeah, it was definitely interesting. Still a great time. Loved talking to all of our friends that we get to be able to actually get and see in person and talk to in person with people that we normally just chat with throughout the course of the year meeting the fans who came up and said hey I recognize that voice And I mean, because like I said, we don't get a chance to run into, because since this is the only show we go to really, we don't get a chance to talk to everybody in person like that. So that's always great fun. but it definitely there was a noticeable reduction of people there overall it felt from any year this is like like obviously the the first year back post-covid was enormous and it was huge uh but this was had dropped off so much it just felt so different yeah and i didn't mind it being less crowded. No, no, that was nice, but at the same time, it's like, hmm, it's less crowded, but is this a trend that is going to continue? What are we looking at? At what point does it start being there's less games? At what point do we have to start looking to find another, do we have to start looking at some point to find another show to get our fixes? Southern Fried, I don't know. Southern Fried. Isn't there a big one up in Minneapolis, St. Paul? That's the same drive time. I don't know. Minneapolis, St. Paul, Dallas, Chicago, they're all the same drive time. They're all seven to eight hours. Okay. Well, anyway, that's our recap for TPF. What's going on in video games? I know there's been some stuff. Yes, we did play a video game at TPF. I can't remember the name of it. The cabinet was beautiful It was a cave shooter With weird stools That had like air ride in them So when you sat down on them they kind of sank To get to the position and it was weird It was just a crazy cave shooter So it was fun Yeah we won it easily because we're so good Yeah because it was on free play And we just got I probably would have fed $40 under that machine to get through the end of it. We beat that game. But last episode I talked about the rumors coming out of Ubisoft that they were going to launch a new subsidiary to take over Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry. That happened. That was true. And when they generated it, Tencent got a minority stake of it after investing $1.25 billion. and the Ubisoft's estimate was that the subsidiary with everything they moved to it is worth $4 billion. So Tencent has like a 25% stake or slightly more in that. And then they put out this weird statement with the announcement. I'm just going to read it and you can judge for yourself. But it's, Today Ubisoft is opening a new chapter in its history. As we accelerate the company's transformation, this is a foundational step in changing Ubisoft's operating model that will enable us to be both agile and ambitious. We are focused on building strong game ecosystems designed to become evergreen, growing high-performing brands and creating new IPs powered by cutting-edge and emerging technologies. no maybe it's just me but this just sounds like a bunch of corporate gobbledygook that says hey we did something because we're having money issues i please i guess so i don't understand why they had to restructure unless they needed the outside investment and didn't want to sell a portion of ubisoft over and that is what the consensus online is is because the owning family of ubisoft is not willing to sell any more any more stock off they're not willing to take any smaller stake than they currently have. So rolling out their biggest things, the only things that really make Ubisoft money into its own brand where they can bring in the outside players to handle it and to give extra money to it was the only way they could continue because they've been having monetary issues. This is part of their ongoing restructuring to better handle the current economic environment. Okay. Good luck. Yeah. It's an interesting... I mean, it's Ubisoft. Those are literally their biggest titles. So we'll see how that ends up being. Speaking of restructuring, Warner Brothers Games, they've been doing some restructuring due to their financial difficulties has shut down they were going to put out a major expansion for Hogwarts Legacy which has been their only successful game maybe ever. I think it might be their most successful game ever. It's definitely the most successful game they've had in the last five or six years. They were going to put out a expansion for it when they do their big collection game of the year, whatever, release version. It was supposed to include a whole new thing, a whole new expansion. They trashed that whole expansion. Now, there is a sequel to the game supposedly in the works, but everything at Warner Brothers Game is so up in the air because they've even laid off big chunks of the crew of the staff that originally made Hogwarts Legacy just because of their financial issues. So even with a game that was so huge and that when it came out two years ago, people were claiming it was going to be Game of the Year in March when it came out. I don't think it even got in most places top fives for the year, But it was such a huge deal back then, and it's still fairly popular, but it is definitely not enough to save Warner Brothers games from the hole they dug for themselves. And the other big thing I wanted to hit is Nintendo had a surprise direct that they kicked out. And a lot of information on games, we won't go over everything. Like we never go over everything in all these directs. We're just going to hit the highlights. One of the, I will call it interesting items is they put out a new app called, called Nintendo today, which is going to offer daily news and information about Nintendo. And it's supposed to be kind of like a daily calendar event thing. So, uh, the way it reads to me and, uh, another, uh, video game, Show that I watch Their first comment is So Nintendo has Given up on social media and Generated their own app so they can just Put everything on their own app and get rid of social media Altogether Okay So this is The Nintendo Today app So you can get daily Nintendo News and they opened it up on the first Day with news about the Legend of Zelda game or I'm sorry, The Legend of Zelda movie and its release in 2027. So that's how they opened their news on their new app. Other than that, the things that really caught my eye was they announced the Dragon Quest 1 and 2 HD 2D remakes. They've already done an HD 2D remake of Dragon's Quest 3. So this will let you get the first three, so at this point, the first three Dragon's Quest games will be available in the HD 2D remake style, which went over very well with Dragon's Quest 3. I'm even interested in this because I remember playing a ton of Dragon's Quest and Dragon's Quest 2 back in the day. So they put out a bunch more information on Metroid Prime 4, which removes, since this Direct was entirely about original Switch games, removes the thought that had been going around that Metroid Prime 4 was going to be a Switch 2 exclusive. So they killed that rumor. So it will be on the regular Switch. Okay. They didn't because this entire direct was about regular Switch There was no Switch 2 exclusive discussions here It was all regular Switch stuff There are plenty of rumors abounding that much like The new Xbox and Playstation That the Switch 2 versions of these games Will be upgraded Obviously They also released a gameplay video from Shadow Labyrinth which was that the short on Amazon that was the evil dark Pac-Man evil yeah that's what the game is the shadow labyrinth is that dark Pac-Man thing I don't know I watched the gameplay video the whole time I was watching it I'm just like I have no interest in playing this game at all and the Pac-Man tie in just makes it weirder, but at the same time might be the only reason that this game actually feels like there'd be any interesting reason to play it, is because it's just a weird Pac-Man tie-in thing. But that's not enough for me. Yeah, I can get that. They're re-releasing a game, they're calling it Story of Seasons Grand Bazaar, which is a remake of the Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar game. Because apparently, due to rights reasons, the Harvest Moon franchise, or at least parts of it, have been renamed to Story of Seasons. I apparently missed when this happened, but it's supposed to be just a remake and re-release of Harvest Moon Grand Bazaar under a new name. So, I just thought it was weird. probably the most interesting thing of everything they put out to me is they are kicking out the Gradius Origins collection, which is a collection of all of the old original Gradius games. But not only is it a collection of the old original Gradius games, but when you pick one, like you pick Gradius, the original Gradius, you get choices of which version of it you want to play. So you can play the Japanese arcade ROM, the Japanese Nintendo ROM, the American arcade, all the various different versions of it, you can choose which version you want to play. Oh. So, and that's coming out in August, I think. And I was like, oh, that's actually really interesting to me to have access to all the old Gradius games, but like each individual version of it, I think that makes it even more interesting to me. They released more information on Pokemon ZA. Surprise. there's a Pokemon game coming this year, everybody's going to love it because that's what happens with Pokemon games. Pokemon CA is where you go to get bear mounts. You get bear... World of Warcraft reference. Wow, that's reaching back. That's reaching back. I was like... For those that don't know, and none of you would, on Horde's side, on our World of Warcraft server, now I'm really nerding out, we were the first Hordeside Guild to get bear mounts out of I think it was Zul'Aman, everyone called it ZA. We had a system down to go and do it. I would lead those raids. They were ten mans. We would go in and we'd take in one new person. I usually used a fixed crowd of like twelve people that knew how to do it. I'd take nine of them every run and one new person and we'd get that new person a bear mount. The only rule was you had to do everything I said. and that was that was when I learned I learned so much back in World of Warcraft that was where once we did one and there was this bird and there were parts where you had to run away from the bird because he did like this AOE attack sorry to go on this little tangent and so I would call out in voice chat I would say scatter and everyone was supposed to run away and then there was times where the exterior portion of the arena was death you had to run as close to the bird guy boss as possible so I would say converge and someone didn't do it. He just stood out there and died. And after we wiped, and if you died one time, you could not get that. The bare mount was a timed event. There was no way to win. If you do everything perfectly, you had like five minutes to spare. We could not wipe to a boss and reset. There was no time. So you couldn't screw anything up. You just had to, like we could recover like a couple of trash mob deaths, but we couldn't lose a boss. And so I was like, what is wrong with you? I don't remember who it was. or anything. I was like, what is wrong with you? I gave really clear instructions. Did you not hear me? And he said, I don't know what converge means. Okay. I mean, that's valid. Is it valid? Is it? English was his first language. Is it valid? Never. Clearly, I've never gotten over it. I don't know what converge means. I'm stupid. ZA, bare mounts. Alright, so Pokemon ZA, sorry. That is my World of Warcraft tangent. I don't know what converges. I don't know what converges. Do you know what scatter is? Do you know what you're never going on this run again means? Do you understand that? Do you understand permaban? I don't know. I'll do it next time. Well, I have other people on the list. You're at the bottom of the list now. Run to the guild leaders if you want. I run this event, which is why it works. this belongs to me it's like a demonstration of under proper leadership how things could function there are a lot of not so great, not so sharp people that were that tried to run things in these guilds and also a lot of people in them who didn't know what don't stand in the fire and what converge means, like they don't know what those things are right and yeah, I remember I remember being the shaman with the best uptime and the best numbers, but still not being able to get in on raids because I couldn't raid every raid of the week, even though my numbers were noticeably higher than other people. And it's like, here, I can prove that I'm the better one. Every time I play, I'm better. Well, he can't play all the... He's still got a green. It's like, if you've done the math, that green is better than anything short of a legendary in that spot. So, yes. Thank you. I knew I can't play all the time because of my work schedule I theory crafted my stuff so when I do play I was as good as possible yeah it was strange times strange times last thing on the Pokemon Direct because it's Pokemon Direct huh? I'm sorry the Nintendo Direct the Pokemon Direct was last was two weeks ago on the Nintendo Direct it was being Nintendo they have renamed digital downloads and redone how they work so it's now a virtual game card system so that what you do instead of downloading or deleting a game is you load or unload your virtual game card so you have a virtual game card when you purchase a digital version of the game and you can share your virtual game card between two Switch systems with no restrictions. So if you own two Switches, you can move your virtual game card from Switch to Switch with no issue. And if you have family members in your family gaming group, you can loan them your virtual game card for two weeks, in which case you can't play it, but they can play it for two weeks. And then it's automatically returned to you. It is such an intended thing to do. But my thought is, why would I want to loan it to somebody in my family gaming group when they can just use my Switch? If you want to loan a game to somebody, it should be like I should be able to loan a game to a friend. Well, what if your kids are at boarding school? well that is valid but if my kids are at boarding school obviously I can afford to buy them their own copy of the game that's fair I should have thought that through I mean obviously oh I need to loan my game to Reginald he did not he did not have a chance to you don't have to you taught her why is my name Reginald Because you're in boarding school darling Because you go to boarding school Why is my name Reginald Thurston the third There's nobody named Reginald or Thurston In our family Shut up And obviously Because You know this is how EGP works The Switch 2 Direct Is Tuesday So we'll get all of the information About the release date of the Switch 2 and the price of the Switch 2 and a bunch more Switch 2 information in two days. So next episode in two weeks, we can talk about the Switch 2. And we'll be the last to tell you. We'll be the very last to tell you. That's just how it is. Other than sometimes Stern respects our schedule, but no one else seems to. Stern's like, let's throw these guys a bone. But only them. No one else does. Very sad. But that's what I got. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening. If you want to reach out to us, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. Or you can go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Excuse me. Patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers is where you can support the show for as little as a dollar a month. And that will let you go listen to our 50-minute sci-fi episode. You can also purchase that separately. I turn that on. But the cheapest it would let me do it is $3. So, honestly, it's better just to join the thing at $1 if you want to hear it. Right. because it's just math. But if you just want to buy it for $3. Yeah. If you don't want to have to worry about canceling your recurring thing, then that's an option. It is. And when we're in person again, we'll look at doing a different topic because it was fun to do. It was a lot of fun. I was able to just bring a little portable recorder with us so we were able to just do it in the hotel room when we were waiting for the show to open and just made it really easy. Yeah, we were sitting there and I'm – well, I talked about the other thing, but I was sitting here playing a phone game. Dennis just hands me a lapel mic and said, here, we're going to talk about sci-fi movies. I'm like, okay. Yeah, no pre-prep. He just had to go off of his brain. Very sad. So sad. I've been Tony. Yep, and I'm Dennis. Bye-bye, everybody. See ya.