Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, the favorite podcast of everybody that's never voted in the Twippies before. My name is Alex, the water boy. I am a pinball fan based out of Portland, Oregon, And I'm joined today by my faithful co-host, Alan of Wedgehead. Alan, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic, Waterboy. Yeah? Yeah. So once again, it's my turn to plug the coffee fundraiser. In case the listeners do not know, it's a way for you to support this show that we do now every two weeks, but have done over 100 episodes for y'all of hot pinball content. For a couple bucks, you can go to ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead Podcast. not only do you get to support the show and help us keep making it but as well you get to meet the growing community in our private discord server where we talk about all the things on the show and all the things we don't talk about on the show so it's a good time in there and we are always in there the best way to talk to us or other passionate pinball fans from around the world is in that discord and you get a link automatically if you donate a couple bucks to the show you know it's a good system you get to hear probably more than you want to from us if you join the discord we're in there a lot i just love people will tag you all the time they'll be like at at you know and then you're just like oh well i guess i gotta respond i i feel obligated i'm like these people spent three dollars i gotta give them their money's worth they were promised that we'd be in there chopping it up i chop it up every day so we're in there we're chopping it up what's today's episode about today's episode is all about sega pinball so we're going to start this episode with a uh quote unquote quick history of sega i always say i'm going to do things quick and then i look at the podcast after we're done recording and it's like 20 minutes i'm aware okay this is still going to be a quick little history of sega the company the company was officially founded in 1965 that's when they changed their name to sega anyway but they've been got they've got roots going back a few decades even earlier than that if you grew up playing sonic on the genesis or the much cooler sonic adventures on the dreamcast you may not realize this but sega was a coin op business from the start like from its inception coin op was the heart of the business they weren't making like playing cards like nintendo correct correct it was like they were like importing jukeboxes and shit like it was all about coin op stuff they were originally just an importer of jukeboxes and slot machines but they quickly started building their own arcade games i think basically 1965 they changed the name to sonic they kind of they combined a few companies in the 1966 they put out their first in-house developed arcade game and yeah they built some really cool electromechanical games in that era you can still find around you and i have seen a couple of those like basketball and gunslinger these games are fucking cool they made really cool really cool like without computer boards before video games these are like and they genuinely like gunslinger is really like cute and fun but like basketball is an actually good head-to-head game without a computer in it it's fun as hell it's super super rad that's all well and good though but this podcast about pinball our interest in sega starts in 1971 which is when they began designing and building pinball machines from 1971 to 79 they put out 25 games or so mostly electromechanical but including a few solid states at the end of that era these games are exceptionally rare nowadays there's a couple collections in japan that have some in rob burke of pastimes and oh you know pastimes arcade in ohio has at least one on the floor and he said he has more in the back but there was one on the floor when we went a lot of them though like a lot of those 25 games it's hard to even find photos of like there yeah there's like photos of the flyers there might be like a blurry photo from 20 years ago of one in a warehouse in japan but they are remarkably rare like these things are have disappeared which is a shame because yeah they're they're really really cool and if you're a pinball nerd they're very interesting the mechs were almost all designed from scratch with low maintenance and ease of serviceability in mind the japanese way dude the way they design all things it's funny because it's like american pinball machines were designed with like pinball techs like as part of the ecosystem yeah and it's like these pinball machines were designed to like they knew these were like going in arcades i think that's the big difference is that it's like pinball machines in america were primarily going to like bars they weren't going to arcades when they were conceived you know new yeah when when pinball machines were like first kind of like becoming widespread popular they were going everywhere and so you needed people on route kind of like going and checking on them anyway and so i think it was kind of assumed like yeah you have a serviceman like go there whereas like the sega games were going into arcades full of like other arcade games and it's like it was a different approach i think the arcade versus like bar ice cream parlor thing yeah and so they really really tried to make them like easy to maintain and low maintenance in general and so there's minimal use of rubbers in them there's minimal switches to adjust which is really bizarre when you see them if you go look up pictures you'll see what i'm talking about like they use very different mechs surfing which is the game that rob burke has at past times it's the only one we've had a chance to play it rips dude it's awesome it's like shockingly fun for it's awesome you you kind of think something this novel and like goofy and different would have some compromise and you're like whoa like it has these slings that don't have leaf switches the sling itself it kind of functions more like a pot bumper where like this the ball hits the sling which is a big like hard plastic yeah and then it moves back and it detects that it moves back and it kicks forward the whole sling moves yeah the whole big piece of plastic and so there's no rubber there's no leaf switch above the play field there's obviously there's a switch underneath somewhere i don't know what it is but it's a really it's completely different than any pinball mech i've ever seen and it somehow works awesome it functions like a normal sling but very very good and then the pops function basically as pops but in the same way they move side to side and they'll smack the ball yeah they like it's just one big chunk of plastic again and they do the same thing where they they bash the ball like in the direction that they're hit like a normal pop it's not like they're just moving in one way or something but it's completely re-engineered to be simpler it is Yeah, it's genuinely and I know this is going to be like a very controversial statement, but you're like, this is kind of better because they function remarkably well. And supposedly, I mean, just from looking at it, there's less wear parts and like they're supposed to, you know. It's unfortunate because they're not around. So are they not around because they proved over time to be less reliable or just that they weren't cared about? I think it's just the nature of Japan moving on from things quickly and Japan really prioritizing like space, small footprint stuff and kind of getting rid of. It's a culture that just I don't know. You can't hang on to a lot of gigantic arcade games that aren't making you any money. You know what I mean? So as pinball wanes of popularity, it's just they just kind of died off, got abandoned. That's my understanding. It's like the game just kind of like the. So it's also interesting, though, that on top of the mechs, they also just have like a wide variety of games they put out. They changed cabinet shapes multiple times. They did some wide bodies. The layouts, it's not like a lot of the layouts like a lot of the time back in the EM era. The layouts are very similar to each other. They might have a couple tweaks. They're just kind of changing like one thing or two things because they're putting out so many games. The Sega games are all like very different from one another. They look like fresh eyes looked at pinball machines and then decided to take the concept of it, just change it. It's really interesting stuff. So everybody, if you're listening to this and you're like, I really want to see some made-in-Japan pinball machines, go look up the Sega Enterprises games on IPDB. Pinside doesn't have a good list of them, so you have to go to the pinball database. Internet pinball database. I'll put it in the show notes. Anyway, moving on from there, though. By 1979, video games were beginning to take over arcades, and Sega decided it wasn't worth building pins in-house. So as far as I know, 1979 was the last time that a commercial pinball was manufactured in Japan. So some of you listening might be thinking, oh, I think I've seen some of these Sega EMs before. These must not be as rare as Alex is saying. And maybe you've played like a Monaco or a Faces, and you've seen Sega branding on it. This is where it gets kind of confusing, because you're kind of right. though these aren't the Japanese Sega pens. These are actually Sega-sas, or Sega S period A period, which was a Spanish subsidiary of Sega. The Japanese brand Sega had a Spanish subsidiary, which was started by some European distributors in the 60s. Technically, it wasn't even a subsidiary though, because Spanish laws at the time, Spain had all this goofy shit. I think, I assume this coming out like world war ii they had a lot of stuff trying to force domestic growth yeah it's just protectionary manufacturing laws yep it's kind of what we see in our country right now it's kind of what the current administration is trying to do exactly trying to like force trying to force your everybody to go internal yeah right keep things in the country and so they couldn't even allow sega or segasa to be an official subsidiary sega had to only had 40 i think they only had 49 percent of the company they owned they were the majority they were the biggest shareholder but they weren't the majority if that makes sense um they had all kinds of goofy laws in the the most important one to this why this is relevant regarding the amusement business pinball machines needed to be manufactured domestically so not only could the company selling them how to be a spanish company they couldn't import things right the sagasa had to build their own games for the spanish market or in some cases build their own copies of other companies games some of these games are exact replicas if you guys know sagasas or later they're branded as sonics later if you know these games some of them are exact replicas of williams games some of them are like very clearly like monaco is some of them are paid for licenses recopies manufactured with a different name different art correct and then some of them are like they just slipped it by like they did it's like a cover band like monaco is like a updated version of grand prix yeah it's like the theme of grand prix monaco and then they like it's the two spinners with like one target it's it's very very similar it's not the exact same game everything's in a different it's been tweaked but it's like okay it's kind of an interesting it's an interesting thing and then some of the games that they put out are completely original and very cool like i know you guys have had some Sonic's out. Oh yeah, we've had Mars Trek, we've had Butterfly, we had Cherry Bell. Yeah, and those are not like any other games. They're very unique and they're really good. Yes. I actually like all three of those games quite a bit. Yeah, so the ownership of this company is really difficult for me to follow online, but in the mid-70s, Sega sold their stake in Sagasa, and that's when they changed names to, ironically, Sonic. Before Sonic the Hedgehog was even a character. Yes, this is a genuine coincidence in unrelated to the hedgehog of the same name that was created 15 years later and became the de facto mascot for Sega, at least in America. It's a very confusing thing, but yes, Segasa was owned primarily by Sega. No, those games weren't Japanese. They're unrelated to the Japanese Sega games. So both of those pinball side quests are wrapped up. This is the brief history sorry both those both those pinball side quests are wrapped up and going into the 80s sega's focus was on video games first arcade games then home consoles the heart of the company was still coin op though and they never forgot that so in 1994 when data east which was as we all know a different japanese coin op slash arcade company with a separate pinball division so when when data east wanted to sell off their american pinball division sega ended up buying it and getting themselves back into the pinball business this time in the u.s of a correct it's a fun little fact before data east pinball was purchased by sega this is just a good alex fact they tried to get namco to buy it which was a different arcade you know they were clearly like oh fuck we need to find another buyer like how data east bought us or whatever and so they tried to get namco to buy at another japanese arcade company and they they actually presented a custom kabuki game themed uh pin or a kabuki yeah one-off to the namco president as a gift which is kind of cool because it's like kabuki is like japanese classical theater yes it is a really cool art package they did for this game it's sick you can find full pictures i think they maybe built two of them and one of them seems to have made it back to the u.s and like a collector's had it and like documented it and it's a very very cool game really cool art package on it it's all white and light pink really really sick back glass very very cool thing to do as a gift didn't work though namco didn't buy it sega ended up getting them what's also funny is i see it's not an outline but just to tie this up they almost bought williams at some point too oh they were shopping huh they were shopping they almost bought williams earlier oh like in the late 70s man they almost bought Williams. So and they did it. They actually had like kind of an agreement to buy it and then it fell apart at the 11th hour. It's interesting. But it makes sense, right? Because they're trying to break into the American market. They're a coin op company. They're making arcade games of all types, including video games and large peripheral video games, too. Yeah. And so they're like, well, pinball's hot. Like we should be in the pinball business in this market. It's also Also noteworthy for anyone unaware, all of these big arcade manufacturers in Japan back in the day would have their own store, like they would have their own arcades. It's not like here where you would go to a, do you have any arcade names from your childhood? Aladdin's Castle. It's not like, okay, perfect. Well, Aladdin's Castle was actually owned by Bally, wasn't it? Yeah, but they didn't have only Bally games. Yeah, they had other games there though. Whereas like in Japan, you would go to like the Sega, I'm blanking on what they call them, the Sega Game Center or whatever. and it would only have Sega cabinets there. Oh, that's interesting. So it's like they wanted their own pinball machines. There are, like, you can find old photos from the 80s where they would have, like, Gottliebs and stuff mixed in, but they really, I think they really wanted to keep it all in-house. So I have to imagine that was part of the draw where they were like, no, we want to provide everything. But yeah, so they figured at this point in time, they had tried Japanese Sega pinball, they had tried Spanish Sega pinball, and they were like, we're going to give these Americans a crack at it. See if we can actually make some money on this. So along with all the company's assets they got, so they bought Data East. They get all the company's assets. But along with that, they got arguably the most important piece of the puzzle, a strapping young Gary Stern. Can you imagine 1994, Gary? Dude. Yeah, I can't imagine. I love the photos. His shock of like bright white hair is awesome. He must have gone gray like when he was 25. Dude, he's the best. He's just timeless. And yeah, he was president of Data East. He came over as president of the new Sega. And this is where our episode really cracks up. So that was kind of just I needed to cover all of the Sega stuff. Because otherwise it'd be confusing. Yeah. If I hadn't. If we hadn't gone through all of that. If we're going to do a Sega pinball episode, I really I feel obligated. We're a historical podcast to some degree. It's also just so because every time we release an episode like we did center ramps, God forbid, we don't list every center ramp ever made. Yeah, it comes up. People are like, what about this one? Why didn't you guys like this one? So we're trying to cover all of our bases in one Sega episode. So this is where this is where we're really coming into, though, is that what this episode is talking about. We're talking about the games made by Sega of America or Sega's American pinball division, which is what Stern is now. correct stern is the same company run by gary stern but we're talking about the period from 1995 to 1999 basically in between data east and stern yep exactly because we just want to talk about these games yeah because they're fun it's good yeah spoiler alert we actually enjoy these fun fucking games people will tell you otherwise online but you listen to us your pals at the wedge hip and ball podcast we're going to communicate we're not here to make money We're not selling a bunch of Sega's new in box. Some other shows would tell you that the best thing is what they have new in box right now, and they try to sell you that shit. We're not selling that shit. We bring Megan on here to tell us why the new games are bad. That's why we don't get invited to factory tours, dude. Now we get into everybody's favorite part of our episodes where we get to read the quick stats from Pinside. Yes. I love it when we do these because we really get into a rhythm. We're going to go through the full timeline here. Just, you know, just strap in, I guess. Yeah. And, yeah, it starts off. The first game made by Sega in America is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in January of 1995. This is a John Borg design, 3,000 units. It features the big DMD, which was introduced on Data East's final game, Maverick. The game right before this. Correct. This is the best-selling Sega game. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. And it's an absolute fucking banger by Borgi. So the thing is, this was a movie. It's a hilariously earnest movie adaptation by Kenneth Branagh starring Robert De Niro as Frankenstein's monster. It's got Robert De Niro as the monster? He's the monster. Whoa. And it's Kenneth Branagh. If you don't know who he is, he does a lot of like Shakespearean adaptations of films. You're right. This is like genuine. Genuinely earnest, like trying to make a version that's not cartoony. That's not the universal monster Frankenstein. That's like trying to make it like the book. Yeah. So it's dark and gritty. It happened in the 90s. You get Robert De Niro. Made this pinball machine. And so then they made it with this into a pinball machine with some goofy ass mechs in it. Dude, and the song. And the Edgar Wintergroup song, Frankenstein. Because Gary Stern a fucking genius, dude. But I love this game. It's got Paul Faris artwork. Paul Faris is a legend. It has incredible dots. Like, incredible dot animations on this game. Honestly, some of the best. It does have really good dots. Really good. Well, because they're so big, man. They are big, but damn, they're fucking good. People were going to see those things. They put their heart into it. I think this is a remarkably fun board game. Like, this is a good one. It's really good. Very unique layout. Very interesting. The, uh, uh. Like, the grunting at you. Uh. Dude, and the way his hands are like. The ball locks. So, if you haven't played this game, there's a big molded Frankenstein toy. Robert De Niro. The ball locks. It holds the pinballs in his hands. and so to do this they've kind of got his hands like in this awkward position like behind his head kind of to hold the ball and then he when the ball multiball starts it looks like he's holding like two like if you go to a restaurant and a server's carrying like 20 beers on a tray or something yeah they're holding a big tray above their head kind of and you lock the balls and then he'll grunt and throw them at you for a multiball start and it's awesome multiball start hilarious It is hilarious. This is a really – they had to know this shit was funny when they made it. I don't know, man. I really don't know. I think they were making this, and they're all sitting around. They're like, this is good. This is doing the art justice. Next time I see Borgia, I'm going to ask him more about it. He's going to be like, yeah, we knew that shit was funny. I've talked to him – every time I see him at a show, I always bend his ear about just different games of his that I love. We really – yeah. This is one of my favorites of his, especially from this Sega era for sure. but yeah and also there's a fun little easter egg in the dot animations it features sonic the hedgehog appears but with frankenstein scars like that's pretty cool yeah it's pretty cool shit it's pretty cool okay next game just the next month which shows you that these games were clearly in works at data east and they were waiting for the sega green lights there's no way you'd put these games out fucking back jack so baywatch in february of 95 it's a Joe Balcer and joe cam and cow design that's right both joes j and j j and j this is 2 000 units it's another big beautiful dmd what i wrote about this game is it has iconic bikini butts cabinet art yeah it's not like oh it's iconic women in bikinis no it's just like focusing on their butts like it just had like their heads are cut off which i mean yeah and it's a beach scene and it obviously but before you think you're like oh gross this is just for like gross guys it's got a gorgeous uh Hasselhoff on the back glass like more bigger than any girl this was a very popular show in the 90s in the U.S. when they're making this game like got crazy ratings yeah crazy ratings and syndication and it's basically just an excuse for daytime tv to have naked hunks and naked babes on tv yep and so this game is like a beach theme and it's got a little shark flipper it's got the tower it's kind of jaws before jaws it's very jazzy and it's like the layout's not like jaws necessarily but like it's it's just very good though it's very fun it's typical the buoy sounds and stuff it has really good sound effects i would say yeah it's considered maybe the best sega game or right up there definitely up there like why yeah not just our opinion this is a widely popular one and it's a good game and it really does i feel like captures the show well as someone that's never seen an episode of Baywatch. The show's a good time. It feels like playing this game is the same as watching the show. Yeah, it's campy and it's fun. And yeah, it's probably my favorite Joe Balcer game. Yeah, it's definitely, it's a better layout than Godzilla. It will get into, I guess we'll get into there as there's some more. There's a lot of Balser to come. Well, and we'll, you know, like we have one of these in storage. So to coincide with the Sega episode, might need to dust this off from the old roadsy warehouse. I've heard these are, I mean, they've got to be a fucking nightmare to work on. The amount of, like, habit trails on this thing. It's never stopped me before, so. No, but I just don't want, don't promise a timeline. I don't want you sitting on this episode for the next three months as you're like, good lord. Oh, shit. It'll be fine. We'll figure it out. But, yeah, we'll bring this game back to Wedgehead soon. It also, just before we move on, we've got to mention that the little flipper, did you already say this, has a shark fin? On top of it, yeah. Why the fuck? They didn't use it on Jaws. Put a little flipper on Jaws in the same position, and they didn't put the shark fin on top. Why would they do that? Cowards. I know they would have had to create a new mold. But this is the same company. They should have access to the same mold. They probably sold them all off somehow, dude. I guess. Remarkable. They just, like, get rid of everything. I went to that Dutch Pinball Museum, and they have, like, the molds for, like, contemporary. Like, they had the molds. You'll get a kick out of this. They had the molds for the JJP Guns N' Roses ramps. Oh, wow. And I'm like, maybe they have multiple sets, but that seems pretty funny to me that if they already retired, and they're like, we're not making no more Guns N' Roses, that's kind of funny that the molds are gone. That is funny. That's interesting. I was like, huh, they got rid of that quick. The next game after Baywatch is Batman Forever in July of 1995. This is Joe Kamenkow. He loves getting design credits. You're going to notice that throughout this. Yep. Joe Kamenkow and Paul Leslie. This is the final big DMD game and it was 2 units sold So another good selling game This is the slide Like 95 to 99 the arrow that we covering is the massive decline Like, it shoots off like a rocket from 1990 to, like, 1994. And then this is, like, the downturn. Right. Like, even at Ballywilliams. It's a tale of... Arcades dying. Yeah. And it's a tale of, you know, two halves of the decade. The first four to five years, really good. The last four to five years, bad. Mm-hmm. It's absolutely loaded game. Dude. this game is fucking like a loaded the you could not put more shit in this game absolutely loaded fun movie fun game they stole Steve Ritchie's canon mech that he used on terminator and star trek it was also the last game that featured screen printed artwork on the playfield really okay so before this every game by every manufacturer used individual screens to screen print playfields that's how it was done it's a very old school way but it's also labor intensive you got to separate art every color that used to be on a pinball machine had to have its own screen so you would limit your colors yeah because you know you're like oh maybe we only need eight we have to run this color on top of one another adjust the registration it's a whole process but it creates art of a certain type like limitations create style right like in the same way that like like you like to shoot photos on film because it looks different than a digital camera yeah it creates grain or it creates just different effects and so this is the last one that is a screen printed play field and in my opinion we'll get to the rest of these uh the last time the playfields look good yeah that's what i was going to say this is the end to me it's like i know these games are branded as segas and they all got them but but this is the last three data yeast games to me because these feel like a continuation in every way of what they were trying to do at data east as they were jamming more and more shit in the games and they had these like these artists they were working with and the art like the way their their approach to everything on the data east games towards the tail end was carried into these three into this is like the final and then there's a shift there's a very there's a big departure in my opinion and this isn't this is just you know up for debate or whatever but after this the next game to come out or was there anything you wanted to say about batman forever before we move on well the last thing i want to say about this you mentioned it joe came and cal gets a design credit but there's also an interesting design credit paul leslie this is his only design credit that's a fucking rad only game i don't know anything about paul leslie i'd like to know more if anyone knows more about paul leslie paul leslie on the show reach out contact us with any information you may have i'm assuming they were an engineer or something most of the time when you see i mean i guess every once in a while they let like a software guy they they kind of sometimes they even let outside people bring them games i mean that happened with gottlieb that happened with stern electronics gary's dad's company like see that much moving into like the dmd era but it's definitely like this one we have no idea who this guy is so that's very interesting to me but yeah i was gonna say so that this feels like the big shift in the next the next game to come out in also in 1995 is apollo 13 and it sells 2 000 units it's another joe and joe game that's cam and cow and balser on it and it's the introduction of the white star board set which i believe is just kind of a knockoff the wpc it is yep yeah someone can check yeah okay and i don't need somebody to check me on that yeah it i mean there's there's minor differences but it is basically from the inception gary for data east ripped off the Williams board set, the System 11 board set. And then they ran it up until this point. It's funny because Stern Electronics, his dad's company, ripped off the Bally boards. Yeah, it's a family tradition. I mean, it's a good idea. And then this one is a ripoff of what Williams, that's what we call the WPC era, is the Williams 90s games, the DMD games. Starting in 1990, Funhaus was the first one. So this is five years later. they redesigned their board sets to add more functionality to compete better with williams and by doing that they just again took the boards and we're basically like well these work for them let's make our own that are basically the same more or less the same there are some differences but i didn't realize that last game the batman forever was the last game with the screen printed artwork because the art immediately starts feeling different isn't that funny everything it's like the boards changed the art changed everything suddenly changes they move away from the big dmda the big dmd were any of those last three games wide bodies batman forever is a wide body yeah yeah and i don't know if we see any more of that moving forward it's just this is like a big departure it's like suddenly it's like okay sega management suddenly was like you guys are spending way too much money on these games there's something that happened i feel like selling enough for how much you're putting in there was a bill of materials reckoning yet seemed to happen that's why so although apollo 13 is kind of loaded that's why i can't say it was cost cut too much because if you know this game you know it for one reason and one reason only and that is the bat shit crazy 13 ball multiball i think this shit is dumb oh wow okay this is where you and i disagree i think dumping 13 balls at once is dumb dude it's just stupid okay well let me ask you did you consider that the name of the game is apollo 13 do you see what i'm saying no it's it's not just apollo 3 it's like apollo 13 that's where they got the 13 it's like the joe's joe cam and cow was looking at this shit and he's like what can we do about this game about like space shuttles or this movie about space shuttles right i've not seen apollo 13 but oh dude they get it's based on a real story astronauts get trapped in space make a miraculous trip it's awesome great movie i'm glad that it goes honored by another another very serious movie about a real life tragedy done very earnestly and then they make kind of a very goofy pinball machine out of it 100 it's it's super funny to me because it seems like they're like yeah hell yeah we're gonna just make this shit funny yeah i think it's goofy i know did we have did tyler do a die on this hill for this game no our buddy tyler also loves this game tyler white in la we love you buddy uh i miss you but yeah he and i both love this game and for the same reason it basically is just a gimmick game it is the 13 ball multiball and trying to get there and launch it but to me that gimmick is hype as fuck and i love it like it is like like just and it carries over game to game so it's like a progressive you have to build it but like you can show up and only be a couple shots away yeah you can just have be a complete casual and have 13 balls dumped on your it works on me for sure anytime i see one i will play it and then if it takes if it takes me more than one game to get the 13 ball then i will play until i get it like so i have to it kind of works on location in that way i could see what they were going for and uh i think it's fun after this we get golden eye in 1996 it sells 2200 units this is the final game designed by ward pemberton of fathom fame he's a very good designer that made some really interesting games kind of spread out over a big period i prefer mouse and around fame but i kind of agree like that's that's my favorite ward pemberton game but fathoms maybe what he's most arguable i guess i guess i would say uh gilligan's island fame yeah that's true that was kind of that was kind of a collab he took over and kind of retweaked dan langlois game right right yeah that's what happened there this is a fun game though oh yeah and it's the pierce bras this movie was huge at the time pretty successful nintendo 64 game just a big deal genre defying you know some would call it you know and the game the pinball machine is a fun-ass game it has a very cool jump ramp to the satellite dish shot so it's got this kind of like wow feature uh it also has Paul Faris art dude it's got a good like it's a good james bond translate yeah and because it's Paul Faris and it's the highest rated game on pinside this is the highest rated sega yes oh interesting so it's this one and then baywatch is number two yeah and i just i put a little excerpt of the design team on this one because it's a lot of the names that on in this era this early era of segas you see a lot of these guys working on them in the Lonnie D. Ropp is doing a lot of the software with uh mr john carpenter Yeah, not the movie director. Which is funny because I would definitely remember the name because of the director's name. I don't know if this guy disappeared, but he did a lot of these Sega games. Yeah, well, and he's also un-Google-able. Yeah, that does happen. And then Paul Faris, obviously, on the back glass. And there's another co-art credit, Jeff Busch. Yeah, so Jeff Busch did some of the Playfield art. or the playfield art uh you'll see this with Rand Paulin some of these games coming up where he does portions of it kind of like python used to do where he would get portions and then other artists would do other portions i think it's very clear what's paul's work and what's not just being a fan of paul's art yeah you can kind of spot it i can spot it he has a style and the thing about it is these like apollo 13 goldeneye every game down man the the new printing was basically like in the t-shirt realm it's like dtg if you ever buy a t-shirt and it looks like kind of like lower res and like the colors aren't that bright and like lines aren't that sharp or whatever that's like that's a dtg print it literally means direct to garment that's essentially what they move to direct printing playfields yeah just what they're using now still to this day every company is using now nobody's screen printing playfields but back then since it was early tech it looks way worse It looks like the print quality is bad and the artists didn't know what to do with it. Yeah. They didn't know how to like design around it. Now it's like they're like, hey, if stuff's going on the play field, it needs thick lines. Even though you can print it at a high resolution, you should design for like how people are going to be viewing it. Back this era, it was like they're like, oh, we can put people's faces on the play field now, just a picture of them. You don't have to be like, oh, we only have eight colors or we only have 12 screens or whatever. You could be like, we can have 38 colors. Yeah, they can. There's really no limit. Bruce Willis in Apollo 13? Yes. Yeah, because he's on the play field. You can kind of tell it's Bruce Willis. Yeah. Well, and some of these things with Gary's companies at Data East and then Sega, you know, Gary's a smart guy. He knows he's always been in even to this day, Stern does this where it's like they'll pay for the assets that he thinks he needs. Yeah. And then if he thinks he doesn't really need a certain piece, he just won't pay for it. And so some of these games, he'll be like, that's a guy that's kind of like Bruce Willis, but also maybe it's not. Like, maybe we could be like, come on, that's not Bruce. Like, don't sue us. Yeah, you're like, that's just a guy. That's just a guy. You're putting that on us. That's not what we did. So, you know, he's very good business. You do see some stuff like that in here where you're like, what's going on there? I had to look at some of these because I was like, on a game coming up, Independence Day, I was like, are these real likenesses? I guess they are. I know. It's kind of... Are they? ...in this era. I can't tell if it's the art, the print, or if it was an intentional thing. Yeah. But GoldenEye, not that problem on the translate, looks very good when Paul's involved. Yeah. And the translates on these games, in my opinion, still, by and large, look pretty good. Dude, the translates on almost all the Segas will kind of suck that up. The playfields are where they look bad. Yep. But Gold Knight, good game all around. Very, very cool game, I would say. And then we have Twister, 1996. Only sells 1,000 units. Designed by John Borg. This has got an incredible multiball start. Borgie would recycle this later on another Sega game coming up, Lost in Space, and a Stern game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah. So if you remember on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which more people have probably played, you know you lock the balls they come out they go to this disc a magnet holds it distarts you know it drops more they touch the other balls in a circle then the then the disc spins them around spits them all out in wild directions doesn't make a ton of thematic sense on turtles makes a ton of thematic sense on twister and it's cool as hell cool as hell cool in all the games like it's a cool little mech to see the chained magnetized balls spinning around like that it's one of the most impressive on twister it's like oh shit like you nail this you couldn't have a cooler tornado toy in a game yeah i agree like arguable like whirlwind invented the spinning discs and in this game rips off the topper from whirlwind and it kind of rips off the i mean i guess whirlwind didn't invent the spinning discs because uh fireball fireball did but whirlwind used them for a tornado themed game already this is a literal storm chaser movie it's a pretty fucking big movie and a good movie i like this movie a lot yeah megan loves this movie it was like she watched this all the time as a kid it's an awesome movie funny to me it's very clear that they that gary was keenly aware that six years earlier pat lawler made a massive hit on a tornado storm chasing theme uh it's very clear the influences in this game on that you know it does feature a mismatch to our package Jeff Busch doing the play field and unfortunately poorly in my estimation and then Paul Faris doing the hand-painted back glass and cabinet it was paul's final pinball art package last time paul ever did that it is a little divisive i guess it came up in our discord one time where i think we were arguing about i was like man harry potter's so fucking ugly and then like and then somebody's like well uh what about you twister this is that and i was It's like, see, to me, like, Twister glass is really good. That's what I'm like. The Twister glass in the cabinet. It all matters on your taste, I guess. But, like, I think technically, like, it would be really hard to critique this from, like, a technical perspective. The glass. Well, that's the thing. It's like, to me, though, it's like it came up in our Discord. But it's like, to me, this is what I want. This is what I'm, that's how I want the back glass to look. And I'm not getting that now. It's all, you know. It's all subjective, you know. It's all subjective, I suppose. but i think it looks good i thought Paul Faris did the stupid american vacation home he did but that's like not a real game yeah this is last real it's like this is the last real game that makes sense that makes sense because i was like that has a really weirdly good translate on it yeah yep okay next game independence day in 1996 sold sells a thousand units uh this is rob hurtado on design he seemed uh to mainly be a mechanical engineer but he had a design credit i thought this was interesting on capcom's pinball magic before this yeah so this is his second game a lot of ramps it's a very flowy game with lackluster rules in my opinion really lack it's it feels like nothing's going on like there's not really a fucking bummer because it looks cool it shoots cool and then there's like not much to do yeah i played this recently for the first time in i played it maybe in passing like a next level or something but they had one at a bar here in town and me and megan were there and i was like whoa independence day like that's a weird one to see on location and so we just played like four games in a row and i think i did literally everything in the game and i was like i don't know what else to do yeah you know rob wasn't holding back when he got his shot on this game for design it's it's looking they put like three sick ramps in there dude he was snapping dude these ramps are buttery these sega ramps this is when we start getting And then to GoldenEye has that too, where it's like real smooth, fast ramps. Yeah. And these are like even more so. These really feel good. I really like the ramps in this game. And it's got Jeff Busch again on art. Yep. I don't love the overall package on Independence Day, but I do appreciate that the back glass and a lot of these other ones have. This is what I'm saying. My critique of modern art is a lot of these back glasses, even these Sega's here, they have good hierarchy they're legible from like 30 feet away yeah so like a lot of the new games are so clustered a lot of the new games you can't they just look like a blob from like 10 feet away from 10 feet away you you can't tell until you're right there this but it's like a lot of the games are designed because people they're like well it needs to be visually interesting to look at for like years you're gonna have this in your house and you want to really be like studying this fucking thing like it's like a rembrandt and you're like it's a billboard first and foremost yeah it's supposed to sell someone the i mean the way we look at pinball is commercial first and it's supposed to sell the game when you're sitting at the bar 30 feet from it and so if it can't do that it's lost you're like what the fuck is going on there when we interviewed greg freres he told us that basically pinball basics of doing art packages was its point of sales advertising yeah so it needs to from across a room draw somebody's attention and immediately the impact needs to be like oh yeah it's this thing and as someone who has a graphic design background and does graphic design work for wedgehead the new stuff sometimes sticks out as horribly failing at good graphic design in my opinion like some of the art is really detailed really colorful really technically good it's like really cool in a vacuum but i don't know if it's necessarily serving its main purpose it's kind of the difference between like being a super talented illustrator and the importance of graphic design in general yeah for a long time in pinball's history you were combining great illustration with great graphic design or just design ethos and hierarchy and legibility and communicating information and i think we're losing that part even if arguably some games look really great now but they don't they don't look clean they don't communicate that well nobody fucks up like anatomy on a modern game you never see someone where you're like oh like if you go play old games you go play old games even when they have like you know realistic likenesses and you'll be like laughing because you're like oh wow they really messed up the proportions of this person's body yes you know you never see that on a new game they never will mess that up unless you're looking at the uncanny x-men animations on the screen but outside of like animations and stuff like the glasses they never would mess that up now but those old games with goofy issues like that sometimes still kind of just work better for what their actual purpose is my opinion again it's all subjective we just have to start adding that disclaimer like when i'm being like center ramp suck because i people do we start talking and it's like is this all everyone listening needs to remember this is all just our opinions none of it matters we're not like like when i say a game center ramp sucks it's not like that game's gonna stop existing yeah all i want is for you to think about it yeah exactly this is so all of this don't ever take any of it too seriously anyway moving on from Independence Day. We're going to follow this up with two poor sellers. Space Jam from Kamikawa. I don't know why I put that note in here. It's just that's what I'm laughing about. Yeah. They were only selling a thousand, but I must have started paying attention when I saw these numbers because Space Jam from Joe Kaminkow, Lonnie D. Ropp and Orin Day in 1996 moves 800 units. I guess I thought this was notable because this is a huge license. Very huge license. Massive. You'd think this would be one. Michael Jordan. Especially at this point. It's like, okay, we've kind of lost pinball as like a cultural like in every bar and laundromat but like kiddie arcades are going pretty strong in the 90s somewhat you'd think they'd sell a million space jams just to like every fucking chucky cheese but they don't they sell 800 it's a really important game though said this is very important because it's the first game with what is known as the sega showcase backbox from the flyer says featuring the all steel sega showcase that gives space jam a fresh new look that will attract players back to pinball so they know that players are leaving pinball people are leaving and it did not work this thing looks like shit dude this is by far and large my biggest complaint all you can all make fun of like the the lack like the the shallow rules or the bad play field artwork or whatever but the worst part about this run of segas is this goddamn backbox it's an eyesore it's the convex if you don't know what we mean it's the convex bulges out towards the player it's curved you know how like you see if you go to costco or you might have them in your house you see the big tv screens that are curved inwards it's like the reverse of that but for the backbox for anyone that hasn't seen it like bulges out kind of like an old crt tv but like way exaggerated yeah and with like no framing around it so it's just kind of like leering at you and the they really they're very tall too and they really just jut out in an aggressive manner when you put them in a lineup with other standard good-looking games the idea was to be a market differentiator to be like this is a new thing this is a cool thing players want to see also was no more fucking art on the side of the on the side of the head yeah when they went to this they quit doing art on the side which is just cracks me up because they're always they always cost cut something they're like new feature and then you're like wait a second this is cheaper for you isn't it and they're like maybe it's cheaper for us and sometimes i'm you know i love them trying to save money to stay in business is always great that's business but this thing looks like shit dude do you think that the bulbous backbox do you think it hurt sales i have to think it did i mean space jam's not like an incredible game i do think space jam's pretty fun yeah but operators that were buying this they're not buying it knowing that the game's good or not i know so it's like buying things off a theme i think really it was just the market's in a downturn market was in a downturn and then this comes out and then they're like huh i have to move that thing is that going to be a pain in the ass and operators are like yeah it is a pain it's now that i'm thinking about that how do these do these fold down nice they do fold down and they got like a fucking bar in the set it jesus not Jesus Christ, man. Dude, this is what you're like. Anytime people fuck with the pinball cabinet, it's always the wrong move. It's always a bad move. American literally thought they were going to do the same shit when they started making their fucking Houdinis. Otley perfected the pinball cabinet with the wedgehead shape. Wedgeheads are the coolest looking one. I understand the need to move to, well, actually, there's not really a need, but just to have more real estate for the DMD and the square proportions. Yeah, all mistakes. May as well. But I think as long as you have, it needs to be like, I don't know. I've gone off at length about this because it's a big part of why I dislike massive toppers because they ruin the classic lines of what a pinball machine is. And from like an industrial design perspective, it's too top heavy, which is ironic because wedge heads are top heavy. They put the biggest part at the top, but it's in like a natural, nice looking way. dude wet sheds are gorgeous anytime you fuck with the pinball cabinet too much though like this it's a mistake and like you can blame the market you could blame an act of god but they were punished for this with really poor sales and i just want to say for the listeners if you want to hear more about space jam we had an early episode episode 26 of our show was a die on this hill for space jam with john dozier who is an operator in the midwest and go back and listen to that episode it's a good time space jam is a fun game though i actually like this thing it's one that i despite that backbox i've considered picking them up when i see them come up for a good price because i'm just like it's a fun game you never get to fucking play it you never see these things because they only sold 800 and it's a cool theme so nowadays people just hang on to them after that though we get the first game in 1997 and it's star wars that's right star wars the original trilogy that had come out 14 years prior and Data East had already done a game of just five years earlier. They sold the shit out of that one five years ago. They did. And that's what you can see is this the sales. They came off a string of big licenses with horrible sales. They selling a thousand units and shit buying like big modern licenses Some would say this is still happening today Perhaps Perhaps going back to the well again Star Wars well dude never runs dry And they managed to sell, with this fucking Sega Showcase backbox, they managed to sell 2,250 units. This was designed by the Joes. That's just a given. If I don't list the designers, it's by the Joes. So what do you think of this game, Alan? I think it's like it's got kind of some cool mechs. I wrote cool mechs, sort of. Because they are kind of like sort of like they don't really sort of they don't matter. The big turrets like yeah, they don't matter. But it's kind of cool when you hit them and they go kind of looks like a big toy box. Yeah, it looks like a toy box. Like all Star Wars games. I think this game wasn't designed for us. It was designed for like kids and casuals. Yeah, but I think this is the worst of all the Star Wars pins. I do think it's the worst of all the Star Wars pins too. I've played it so little though. I can't really tell you anything. I just dislike it. it's not for me yeah that's a nice way to say it after that jurassic park jurassic park that's right jurassic park but not a repeat of the data east game that had just come out fucking back it's this is it based off of the second movie this time they hit second movie that everybody loves the lost world lost world yeah and they sell 600 units of this of this john borg baby very rare game i think it's a very fun game with actually very cool mechs on this yeah i think it's got like a tiny like that cracks open there's like a little baby dinosaur in it it's got that cool little like that little thing that folds out that captures the dinosaurs in the movie and it folds out and it captures a ball and then brings it back yeah the whole like a magnet is in the mech in that magnet the whole thing fucking comes out of there like the what was in the space shuttle the little little claw in the space shuttle that they used to like grab stuff yeah you know i'm talking about yeah i don't know the name though there's like a name and it was designed it was canada's contribution to the space shuttle which is why all canadians should know it i'm only half canadian so i apologize so you know that it exists you just don't know about it right that's right that's because that is my responsibility but uh it's got a center ramp a true center ramp oh yeah and it has a back glass without the game's name on it back glass cool as hell back glass That's like, whoa, what's going on there? Because why would they choose to not put the, it has the Jurassic Park logo on it, doesn't it? I don't believe it does. I think it just has it on the speakers or something. It has the T-Rex and there's like, it's very cool conceptually because again, from far away, it's attention grabbing and it's got good hierarchy again, like I said. And the fact that it doesn't have text over it is also very interesting in a row of games that all have that prominently featured. this doesn't so again it kind of stands out i really like this game a lot it's kind of a basic game it is but i think it's fun and i like playing it and i like seeing it around uh you don't see it much but i love playing it when i do see it yeah it's actually kind of a cool one it's one that i considered buying when i first got into the hobby i really wanted one for some reason i don't i don't know why i had just played one and really liked it i liked it a lot more than the data east game actually yeah well because it shoots better than the data east game yeah like most of these sagas dude these sagas shoot like butter yeah they are buttery they're big plastic ramps in the flippers they've got i mean the data east games already had i mean they have all very powerful flippers and they're all very similar but they this is an upgraded version and then stern has upgraded this version again so there's like a lineage of their flippers and why they're so good now next up after that we got a little game called x files this is rob her tad or her rob hurtado designed but joe kamikau had to make sure to get his name on the credits too yeah i imagine joe just suggested they put a filing cabinet in the game that's what i like to nailed it when you see when you see how many credits that joe kamikau is on you're like what was he doing like i really feel like he's like sitting there and he's like a filing cabinet in x files game they're like oh joe we hadn't thought of that okay you got your name on there i don't know maybe he was like no man like i was fucking drawing up ramps i was he has said that he did lots of David Hankin sketches for games that makes sense so i think there's value in that but i think a lot of like that kind of shit if you let the other guy do it probably would come to you know well i think i think though that that happens in all companies where people bring yeah i'm sure even to this day george Gomez interacts on every Stern game in a way that's not credited directly to him. I meant to talk on that earlier when we were talking about GoldenEye, but these games have tons of people listed on the credits and they don't do that now. And I think they don't do that now because they want the names to sell the games. So they want people to strongly associate a game. They're like, oh, it's a Keith Elwin game. Oh, this is, you know, they want that. And so even though there are probably other people contributing at all levels, I mean, like how can you have you can't fucking sit there with a straight face and be like oh no there's one programmer for a pinball machine no there's probably fucking 40 people that should be listed but that's not how the credits work that's not how the credits work absolutely anyway though this game has some buttery orbits this has like the coolest orbits it's got two orbits right it's got the inner orbit and the big orbit and it's just like they're fast and smooth they feel really good you really can see the ball on them which is the older i get the more i realize pinball is only good when you can see the ball the ball could be doing this is why everybody's always like i would be so cool if you make a sonic game it's got to have a loop in it so everybody always wants loops you make a hot wheels game it's got to have a loop in it all this shit if you make an actual straight like a vertical loop not like a you're not like a not like a pigtail on a ramp like if you make an actual loop that you shoot into the ball goes around that so fucking fast and you can't see it because the loop will be blocking it doesn't matter you know it's cool because you know in your brain oh the ball went around that but you're not getting any satisfaction out of that shots are only satisfying when you can see them it's the reason harry potter's not particularly satisfying to shoot even though it's kind of a marvel of design i would say the way it works is very interesting to me and it does shoot well but you can't see what it's doing so it doesn't feel good to me anyway that's my that's my opinion again just my opinion but these orbits you can see the ball for a lot of them and it's just good orbits hurtado made some he didn't make a lot of games but you know he's proving that he had a feel for shots feeling smooth he had like some some Steve Ritchie like just kind of like he got it naturally like this is smooth yeah there's something about his games that i'm like i really do like how his games shoot and this is a pretty good game all around except for i'd say the playfield art is horrible it's like very empty yeah i i wrote this is a terrible art package i can't really i'm blanking on the translate right now but i feel like to me i don't i'm not it's just like little heads again this is one of the ones where i don't think the hierarchy is great it actually looks pretty modern like just kind of like little heads around none are really that much bigger than the others it has the logo but the contrast between the logo and the red it just it's just kind of very blah like lobby to me but i love this theme and it is another kitchen sink design and programming team so it kind of feels like that too it doesn't feel like super focused yeah uh it's unfortunate because this was a super hot license this is a show that i absolutely love i wish you know which was better i think it's okay it's okay i was playing it recently it's not a game i'd like want to own forever but i think it's as a location game especially this whole thing is pretty fun we'll say absolutely hilarious flyer for it they got a dude dressed up as like a little alien on there it's very funny if you if you look at it and it's got an interesting tagline i thought which is the ultimate x-mas gift obviously they just wanted to put the x pun but i do wonder if at this point they were like hey you could buy this for like a gift you know you could put in your house because that seems really interesting no one no i've never i don't look at the flyers we should do a better job of that maybe when we do these kind of episodes i should pull up flyers when i can find them but a lot of the time the operate like in this era they're they're marketing to operators so it's really interesting to be like oh it's the ultimate xmas gift you're like an operator would be like what the fuck like i don't care totally does it earn and so anyway i just thought that was interesting they follow this up with starship troopers from the joes It's just Cam and Cam Pulser. In 1997, this is 1,500 units sold of this thing. That's a nice step up. Dude, that's a big step up in sales. I didn't write down the sales for X-Files. I don't know why, but that's like fucking three times what Jurassic Park sold. The monster-licensed Jurassic Park in a good game, I think. Space Jam is almost double what Space Jam did. Yeah, 1,500 units of Starship Troopers featuring the tri-flipper action. Well, there's the reason, of course. It is fucking awesome. on. The tri-flipper, if anyone doesn't know, it's got like two normal flippers and then it has a little flipper above the right flipper and that little flipper is controlled with its own button. Very cool. You can cradle on the right flipper and then usually with the flippers aligned in the most of the ones I've played, if you cradle and then hit the little flipper, it shoots it right into that. There's like a hole or a scoop on the left and it shoots it right in there. So it's like a little freebie shot, which I think everybody gets a kick out of when you teach them that. I really like this game. It's got really clear objectives with the play. It's got displays in the play field and it's color coded and kind of like a babyish way. That's my biggest complaint. It's like red, green, blue, yellow. And you're just shooting. It's like, okay, it shows that you need nine of them and you have to shoot nine yellows and you just kind of follow the yellow targets around until you do that. I like it. It's really, when I started playing pinball, there was one of these and it was like one of those games where I'm like, hey, I actually know what to do for once. Like I know how to score points. Thank God. Because a lot of games aren't like that. I just have fond memories of this game. I still enjoy playing it. It's definitely one that I would consider buying. You know? Yeah. One of the Segas. Dude, I love this movie. It's a fantastic film. It's actually like a... That does help. Is that the movie's fucking great. The movie's great. It's an all-time favorite movie of mine. I think it's a Verhoeven masterpiece. He's the director. Did he do RoboCop? Did RoboCop. He did Total Recall. He did Total Recall? Yeah. I mean, the guys... I just watched that for the first time recently. Yeah, he's the best. He's really good, too. You know, this is just a masterpiece kind of fascist military satire, and it's actually based on the Robert Heinlein novel, the same name, which I also really like. Heinlein's my favorite sci-fi writer, classic sci-fi writer of that golden era. The game doesn't feature such nuance. Oh, you think the people that brought you Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were going to be like, oh, this is a little bit of like a tongue in cheek. Like, you know, it's like they missed it again, like they are keen to do. But I still think it's fun, even if the layout. I don't think the layout's one of the best of the Sega. This game could exist in the Starship Troopers universe. Yeah, totally. But I just don't like the layout is a little bit not as buttery or as a Vera target. It's been a while since I played this thing. And it's got this brain bug that's legitimately upsetting to look at, although it almost never works. on location and the location when i started playing it worked beautifully it's like it's like for anyone that hasn't played this game it's like the trolls from medieval madness but three times the size it's fucking huge the whole game the the legs of the game lift off the floor when this thing slams up because it's like a five pound mech boom it's so good yeah and it's the sculpt of it is legitimately upset grotesque and they ripped it off from medieval which i think had come out like six months before this game it's actually pretty impressive for them to see that and be able to implement their own ripoff in such a quick turnaround that is interesting that they were able to do that so fast you wonder if they're working on it beforehand i think that they were working on the game and they were like we gotta put one of these in they're like what if we can make it what's funnier if they were like we got to make it bigger or if they're like like the russian approach like ussr and they're like we couldn't make it the small we couldn't make it smaller yeah yeah well and they also i'm sure had to they had to make it different enough that i'm sure williams had patents on those yeah so they had to be like it's different yep yep so i put the design credits in here because i thought this was a good representation of like these later segas have lost a lot of kind of like the earlier people and we're seeing neil falconer or in day Those names are on a lot of the software. Morgan Weisling is the artwork on this. He's doing a lot of this kind of, it's not really collage-y artwork. It feels like it's pulled from movie stuff. I don't know. I think the back glass is pretty solid. I'm blanking on this game, and I used to play it so much, and I just haven't seen it in a long time. The play field's weird looking, and the cabinet's weird looking, but it's also kind of thematically appropriate, kind of the time. I wish it didn't have like those bright colors, but that's also why it was so intuitive to me on location. So I can't really diss that. It's an interesting one. You're seeing less of, it's not like they've got 20 names on the credits here, though. Yeah. It's getting cut down a little bit. After this, they follow up Starship Troopers, one of my favorite sagas, with one of my least favorite sagas. It's 1998's Viper Night Driving. They sell 1,100 units, which is crazy because this is, to me, the most disappointing game of all time because I'm a big fan of the Dodge Viper. Of all time. It's like your Halloween where it's like they made a game that's the opposite. You really like the theme, and they made the opposite of what you wanted. Yeah. And that's what this is for me because I really like Dodge Vipers. For anyone that's been listening to the show, they know I like cars. Dodge Viper is one of those poster cars. My brother actually has. so this this car this game it has a cool translate if you ignore like the cruising usa kind of like bikini babes that kind of just shoehorn into one of the corners but it has a couple really nice renditions of vipers including a blue and white gts gen 2 viper on it my brother has like that exact car and so it's kind of upsetting to be like whoa there's this game that looks like it's like it's like that car like you know you want it to be good if it was even like a three out of ten game i would probably own one because i like the translate enough and i like the car and stuff and then you see like the rest of the game the play field and it fucking it's it's just trash man the art is trash the play field is horrible in a uniquely it's like just covered in like bikini girls they're like really proud of the fact that they licensed this fucking like shitty knockoff Howard Stern shock jock of the time, Man Cow. Yeah. And they're like, oh, it's featuring Man Cow callouts. And it's just embarrassing. And then it's got like just vulgar like girls moaning over and over when you're hitting like jackpot shots. And it's just it's genuinely embarrassing for me to even talk about the fucking game, let alone play it in public. I had the absolute misfortune of playing this thing at next level next to a child. and it just starts like going off with like you know straight up like sexual like pornographic sounds and i just like i flipped the switch because i was like this is making me really uncomfortable like there's like a six-year-old next to me in my games like just going off and you're like nope done it's not in a cool way like bram stoker's dracula your favorite game of all time bram stoker's dracula has like a woman making a noise because she gets bit in the neck and it's not like it's not it is it's sexual it's sexual but it's not like it's like and if i try to try to you know that's me imitating the noise from bram stoker's dracula i'm not going to imitate the noise from viper knight driving it's fucking embarrassing dude it sucks and it's not even that even because i'm assuming there's a way to turn that off other than that it's just a shitty play field featuring a very prominent center ramp and it's got it came with glow balls which are like the weight roughly of power balls but they're made out of plastic they get dinged up and look like shit immediately and they glow they're called glow balls because they glow under black lights and so they put full length black lights running alongside like by the glass on this game that block like the corners of the play field yeah it's it looks like trash dude it looks like if you looks like a bad head shop it's like if you started fucking uh screwing in like home depot supplies into your cabinet this shit it's just gimmick on top of gimmick it was it's garbage it's genuine garbage it's probably the the longer i think about it i'm like this is one of the worst games that to me if i have to pick my least favorite game of all time viper nitride oh nice so well we got something out of this episode that's that's it interesting little side fucking And fun fact here is that Slash of Guns N' Roses wrote an original song, I think, for this. Wow. Or they licensed the song. I think he maybe did release a single. I don't know. And he, like, came to the premiere party where they had, like, actual Dodge Viper. It was like a really, like, they pushed this. And I was like, really? Good marketing campaign. Terrible game. Fucking dog shit. Dude, it's horrible. Yeah, there's a reason why you don't see this game. Yeah, man. Hopefully you never have to. It's a bummer. So anyway, that's my feelings. I just want to talk about that one a little bit. Next up, we got Lost in Space 98, John Borg, back to selling 600 units. Yeah, Alex likes the game, so it's going to sell like garbage. Famously, this is the only game featuring Matt LeBlanc. Yeah, it's a real shame, right? Famously. That's what everyone, everyone's like, God, it's a shame Matt LeBlanc is only in Lost in Space. But the most important part about this game, other than Matt, is that they finally realized those showcase back boxes were dog shit and they switched to a new good looking backbox. So thank God we have lost in space to thank for that. Playfield art, I think, is actually kind of rad. It's still like minimal, but it's got it's got like cool, like different colored lightning and stuff across it. It's got kind of that generic like space. Yeah, space graphics. It's not like high-end, like the Jack Kirby crackle that everyone is trying to do. Yeah, no one's going to fucking be given this game awards for the play-filled art, but I just, compared to most of the Segas since 96 or whatever, this is a step in the right direction. Yeah, I think it's actually kind of a cool game. It's got huge molded toys in it that look cool. They don't really do anything, but just big molded sculpts. Yeah, typical of Sega at this time. I played the hell out of this game. Really? Like, when I first got into pinball, yeah. Huh, I didn't realize that you saw these around, or was there just one where you went? Yeah, I mean, there was one at a place on Hawthorne that's not there, defunct. It's called Oasis Pizza, or was called Oasis Pizza. For any of the Portland listeners, they'll know what I, the longtime Portland listeners, pizza was bad, end of Hawthorne, but they had one of these for a long time, like 15 to 20 years ago. and uh yeah man it was it was one of those places that was open during the day yeah i was using the pinball map so i wanted to play games i hadn't played before and it was immediately fun it was one of those things i was like i don't think we've ever talked about this game before i didn't know you had good like any positive thoughts about it as a new player like it immediately because it's kind of easy like sega's are yep kind of very easy and it's pretty straightforward like it's another one like collect the colors i hadn't seen at this time i hadn't seen twister yet so the the multiball start with the feeding it onto the magnet and then the other balls and then they all scatter yeah that board brings back onto this game that blew my fucking mind when i saw it i thought that was the coolest shit and then i just want to play it over and over and do that every time i played the game it's like i just wanted to get that multiball so that's the power of a good like toy like that yeah good multiball start too gimmicks are good dude that's like what pinball's all about yeah it's all just one big gimmick at the end of the day i do think this is a fun game it's one that i always want to play more it helps that it comes with a nice backbox it actually like is a pretty good looking game especially when you compare it to like what they were just putting out like yeah just immediately prior but yeah it pales in comparison to the game that comes next because we finally have made it to godzilla that's right sega's godzilla To quote the play field, this is yet another J&J design. I'm not joking. They literally printed that on the play field, which cracks me up because they sold, they're putting their fucking name on this thing. Like they're Max Martin and Shellback, like another J&J. They think they're going to like have a number one fucking hit on their hands. And then they go and sell 510 units, which is like the rarest production Sega game and just a very rare dmd game in general yes it's really really rare to see i know there's a lot that are right in here in 600 or whatever those were all really fucking rare too no one was making games like in this small of run in this era except for sega except for sega everyone else kind of like threw in the towel like if gotley was hitting these numbers with their system threes they would have shut down yeah and you're like no man these segas are genuinely rare which is kind of nuts considering they're the company that sort of hung on yeah so we did uh we did die on this hell episode uh with uh mr sean irby right sean irby episode number 42 where he chose this as his die in the hill game water boy we're looking at his sega godzilla right now in the basement studio i believe in that die on this hill i said i was like looking to buy one and then when our friend todd who's also been on the show was looking to part ways with his he hit me up and i was like ah shit now i actually have to buy it because i said it on air you guys know that's the number one way to get me to actually buy something is if i say it on air and then you come in the discord and you give me shit give me shit for not buying one that's available locally but yeah this godzilla is a very cool game it's it's kind of hated on some people it doesn't have good reviews it qualified for a dime on this hill somehow despite that it's still valuable because the real ones know this game's fucking rad it is rad it's got a very it's got kind of a little bram stoker's dracula like you're trying to stack the multi balls together so that they're more valuable when you play the multiball any chump can go up there and slop their way into a like multiple multi-balls on this and you can be like oh this game like kind of just drags you're not really like getting close to those scores you and it's because you gotta stack them yeah stack them yeah just like branch jokers yeah stack them to get the real points and uh it's super fun to try and do terrible call outs and music there's like there's so few call outs in the game it's remarkable it's like they fucking gave up halfway through making this thing what's what's the favorite the the matthew broderick the oh go get it get it get it go go get it get it or whatever when he's yeah when you hit the taxi or something i can't remember and then if you have one like mine uh the magnet the magnet core in the back is kind of fucked up so you you if you you need a really clean shot i guess most of them you need a really clean shot to hit the orbit ramp yeah it's the left orbit right ramp return or whatever you need a clean shot and if it doesn't go up the ramp like the stranger thing shot or the bond 007 shot those have like nice like nice fails nice bailouts this one it feeds back into the launch lane if you don't make it into the ramp entrance and you get this call out that goes like it's the other dude in the movie he's going like you're going the wrong way and so if you're playing one of these with like tired right flipper you will hear that call out so much yeah and that's everything about this it's got the most repetitive fucking background music of all time it's horrible once i brought it on my house i was like oh that's why like that that's why the the these reviews are so low yep yeah because that background music is not good but all that all that means said i consider this personally it's not the last game that sega made but to me this is kind of the swan song because it's a really good representation of sega it's It's like the cost cutting measures. It's got a really sick back glass. Yep. It's got a pretty underwhelming play field art package. Typical Sega. It's got huge fucking molded plastics. Everything's huge on this game. Everything's big. I mean, it's Godzilla and they stuck to that. They were like, Godzilla's got to be big if we're making a Godzilla. I love him coming out of the play field. The sculpt of this game is fucking cool It cool It is very cool Yeah His head looks like a football but that the character design choice not not sega choice and uh yeah the cost cutting definitely hurts it in some ways but it kind of makes it great too because it's like the rules are really simple yeah and like barely there but these ones they click here it works because it's like oh there's a satisfying stack that's challenging yeah because the game itself is set of factories kind of easy yeah but it's hard to stack yeah and so you want to stack yeah it's a game that it's just very tight and really nice it's one that i think benefits i think a lot of these segas would really benefit from setting them up as like hard like doing whatever you have to do to make them hard because the rules on a lot of them are shallow aren't there yeah and they can barely they're really long on factory settings so it's like i'm not always like i'm not always i know it's kind of our shtick on the show, but every game needs to be harder or whatever. A lot of the time it's like a stern Godzilla. It's arguably maybe more fun when you set it up harder, but if you're trying to see all the content in the game, you kind of need to play it for 45 minutes. Oh, yeah. Sega Godzilla, if you play it for 45 minutes, you will see all the content in the game like 10 times. So you need to make it play shorter. Yeah. That's just not fun. Yeah. It's not fun to be stuck in like purgatory with these Segas. So if you have one, set it up hard. You'll enjoy it more. You'll quit beating it every time you play it. Makes them better. Yeah, after that, though, we move on to Golden Cue, I guess. 1998, they made 12 prototypes. It's The Joes and Jon Norris. It's notable to me because Jon Norris famously, again, no one probably knows this except for me, but Jon Norris loves 8-Ball Deluxe. and this is the second of three times that he pulled clear inspiration from that play field he made bad girls which is basically a tweaked revert mirrored version of the lux version and then he did this which is like eight ball deluxe with some ramps and then recently he did merlin's arcade which it's not really like a ball deluxe but it has like the eight balls on the side with an upper flipper yeah it's clear inspiration he also did cue ball champ for right isn't that what it's called the system three got leap which is only in theme i guess yeah just in theme but that's where i learned that he likes able to lux because he's like oh that's one of my favorite games and i wanted to do my own pool game that would fit in at taverns and i was like oh it actually sold really well that was the best-selling system three got leap yeah man so maybe we need more fucking cowboy pool games honestly right now i bet that shit would do really well she would go hard with like the western resurgence we're having anyway this they didn't end up building this it would later get a re-theme into Sharky's Shootout and some tweaks and be released by Stern a couple years later. Yeah, it was meant to be a collaboration with the company that makes Golden Tee. And their combination of like you have the cards and you can keep your account on the physical cards when you go play the coin op game. And so sort of like Insider Connected before Insider Connected. Interesting. I had no idea. So it was supposed to be a collaboration. That's what they were working on together. for some reason after the prototypes they decided not worth it company's not in a good enough spot whatever they just abandon it but then of course they take all that out and then re-branded a sharky shootout later which we did a whole nother episode with our buddy mitch that you should go listen to another die on this hill yeah a lot of die on this hills for this era game you know why because they're generally considered to be bad but actually they're pretty fucking fun yeah so you know don't believe everything you read on pin side the next game that i would argue isn't fun but did get a die on this little episode is 1999 south park by joe ham and cow it sells 2200 units like how he's like i'm taking full credit for this one oh nobody else wanted their fucking name so it's it sells well for them still not well overall especially williams is famously ending at this time but still selling way more of the pinball 2000s yeah like the pinball 2000s sold probably what three times this both of them i don't know what yeah like combined i think they sold like 8,000 of the two pinball 2000 games so yeah so they're doubling this double two and a half times in it yeah but joe will tell you this is the game that saved pinball or whatever and you're like jesus christ dude this game is not very fun supposedly it earned well for operators and that's great but yeah i mean if you want to learn more about south park uh we had marcus on the show he's an operator in susanville california episode 81 die on this hill with marcus he tries to convince us, gaslight us into thinking that South Park's a good game, but... I don't think I've played it since that episode. I keep meaning to, because I'm like, I have to go beat the wizard mode so I can, like... We gotta finish, tie up some loose ends on this. We should do, like, a corrections and loose ends episode at some point. It'd be funny. Anyway, though, that's not Sega's last game. Their last actual game is the next release, and that is Harley Davidson by John Borg and Lonnie D. Ropp. Gets a design credit on it. We don't know the units of this one, because the company was sold before the run was disclosed and it continued its production under the name of the company's new ceo mr gary stern stern pinball's first game sega's last game correct pinball's first game right kind of the blending this is the handover so this is the lowest rated of all the segas this is considered the worst it's interesting because they ran this game like multiple times with multiple art packages i think it act we don't know because once we get into sterns it's no longer a publicly held company so we don't know they don't disclose numbers yeah but i have i feel like i've seen quite a few of them just in bars and shit i feel like it had to have sold fairly well it sold okay they if they wouldn't keep running it if it didn't and so it's kind of interesting because you're like it is the most hated and you're like yet it seemed to do okay it's the lowest rated i wrote this is a guilty pleasure pin for me because unlike a lot of these where i'm like i will i will argue with people that i think frankenstein's a good game or that i like sega godzilla or goldeneye or whatever but like to me it's like i know this game's bad i just don't care like it's very grindy it's the same thing over and over again but it's like the motorcycle that you hit and it lifts up into a scoop it just cracks me up like it just makes laugh popping a wheelie dude it's cool it's just funny to me the art's funny i don't know i just like it so i play it i think it's fun yeah i can i can understand that i'm kind of the same way i'm like i'm not gonna tell anybody that this harley's good now but i'll play it yeah of course if anyone i don't want to defend it but i will like i play it i'm not gonna die on this hill no no no i like i'll go put quarters in yeah for sure for sure like no photos no photos dude like i don't want any pictures to be playing it but yep yeah no i agree and that is that's it dude that's the end of sega like i like i said at that point sega was like we're not making shit on this pinball and they wanted to sell the company and gary stern was able to get some investors together i believe and take it over and raise the capital and kept it running yeah take it over and his own name with himself as CEO. You know, if you want to hear more about this transition into Stern, we did an episode on the Stern Golden Age. That's the beauty of doing this show for so long is we've covered so much of this stuff that we get to be like, go check out that other episode. Yeah, but there's always more. But it's just like, yeah, we don't have to go into details on that because there's more. Yeah. We've already done a full episode on that. Fortunately, yeah, from now on to the end of time, anytime Sega's come up, we can direct him to this episode. Exactly. I think he's covered all of it. Okay, so Alan, we ran through all the games. What would you say, what do you most associate with this era of pinball machines? When I say Sega pinball, what do you think? In one word, what do you think? Underrated. Okay. What do you think in like five words? This is what I wrote. Experimental, ugly, hot games. Because I think they're kind of like that episode of Seinfeld, where it's like she's a Two-Face. where she's like she's hot and then she's not hot yeah i think some of these things like especially with the Paul Faris stuff you're like some of them are like oh it's kind of good looking and then you look at the play field and the printing you're like oh but it's ugly yeah like the bulbous backbox uh it's ugly but other parts of it are cool and they're very experimental layouts and you know they're just i don't know they're like it's like a mixed bag but it makes it really exciting to play like they're kind of like there's fun in all of them there's like good and a lot of bad and then they mix in a bag and i think what what i find interesting about these games in general is for some boutique companies now i don't find them to be they might be experimental they might be weird they might have good and bad things at the end of it the amalgamation isn't fun yeah these are most of them all fun to me i walk away and i go i had fun playing that yeah that's what I was going to say in one word, I was going to say fun. But now thinking about it, I'm going to change my one word to smooth because they all shoot very smooth. Most of them. And the rules are great if your brain is smooth. Oh, there you go. It works on multiple levels. Yeah, you smooth brain it. Because most of these rules are like really fucking straightforward for DMD games. Like there ain't, it's not like, oh, how do you activate the play field? You're like play field multiplier on a Sega? Yeah. You better take your ass back to fucking Bally Williams. You're like, we're playing X-Files in here, buddy. There's three arrows on the play field. The whole thing. That's how all of them are. In a few words, I would say fun layouts, bad rules, mixed art. Yeah. I don't know. That's good. Because, right, that's kind of – that sums them up. I do think those first three we're talking about, those feel like I'm like Mary Shelley Springsteen, that's a Data East game in my head. I know it's a Sega. and this is all arbitrary, like, lines in the sand. But once we get into the White Star Segas, it's like, oh, shit, now they're getting cost cut. Stuff is getting weird. That's when it starts, like, the things get their Sega flavor. So, for good, you kind of sum that up? You're saying, like, what's the good about Segas? I think about half of these games I consider to be very fun games overall. They were all in on gimmicks, and I think they were getting desperate to compete with Williams and carve out some of the rapidly shrinking pinball pie during the second half of the decade. I think these games feel incredibly different from Williams in both good and bad ways. And I personally think that I prefer the Sega run over the Data East run overall, personally. I think that's maybe a little bit of a hot take. I like playing Data East, but I kind of think about them as equal. But I do like the best, my favorite Segas, I prefer over any Data East. So I'd say I like the Segas more overall. There's quite a few Segas. Because it's like listening, going through this list, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'd buy one of those if one of them popped up. And I'm not talking like I'd buy anything that's cheap enough. But I'd buy, like, there's a good number of here that I'm like, yeah, if I had a space and that came up at market price, I'd probably buy one. And I don't know. There's a lot of them that are fun, I think would be more fun with some tweaks. And what's the bad? The bad? The bad ones are pretty uniquely bad. Yeah, that's what I wrote. I was like, the bad ones are uniquely bad, especially near the end. and i think the hard clear plastic targets are absolute garbage clear plastic targets suck i hate them they feel terrible they sound bad they count bad it just feels like you're gonna break them doesn't give good feet it's just bad i don't know i also loathe the first gen direct printed playfields like i talked about in the episode they just look cloudy and washed out and they really feel like a massive downgrade from like kind of the rich history of pinball artwork on playfields like it immediately is like yeah like significantly worse yeah it's like immediately big step right off the bat it's kind of funny like looking at like the godzilla back glass compared to the playfield and you're just like man they like really just don't give a shit about the playfield that's why i say like kind of ugly hot like they're like something you're like yeah the translate hot yeah playfield ugly like what's going on like why are we mashing this up yeah it's it's definitely interesting i'd say the the worst part about them to me is that they have really shallow rules because it's like they can play very very long and like a modern stern can play really long but they have the rules to back it up yeah so if you're if you got the time and you're playing by yourself or whatever i i like playing long playing games if there's stuff to do but these you genuinely run out of stuff do you get to a point where you're like i'm gonna just let it drain because i'm fucking bored yeah and that's a bummer yeah how do you think they feel different from the data east dmd games like the late data east games this is why i prefer the segas i think the data east are noticeably clunkier i agree and i don't know if it's because they're all like the data east games are all metal and the sega games are all plastic i think that's part of it i think that the designers got more experience and just better at that smoothing out the roughness yep you know more of the institutional knowledge they're just flowier i and i really i I like the way that the Data East pins look way more on average, though, because there's not like classic games like the heavy line where everything even like the sketchy style that some people don't like. I think it's kind of cool. Like, I kind of like I think the Data East games. We've talked about this before on the show, but I'm like, I think the Data East like look rad. I'm surprised they get hate on for their art. No, I think most of the Data East games are pretty good looking. Yeah. The Segas are a little bit less later, like the DMD. deadies the early early deadies are dog shit but yeah i would agree with that i do think that they just feel smoother i feel like the rule sets are about the same but now the games play three times longer yeah it's a bummer and uh yeah there aren't any art packages that are like as cohesive except for those first three the first three years three are like actual fucking real like well done yeah all over no i think baywatch and frankenstein uh like are great like they look great they're cohesive batman is like such a bad package those three are great yeah yeah that's what that's why i keep distinguishing those lending of the two eras of data east and sega and sort of like that yeah conflicts that crossover what are you what are some of your favorites frankenstein Baywatch Godzilla Apollo 13 Twister Starship Troopers that's a lot like I like I like all those games I would unapologetically be like I think these games are fun these games are good I want to put surprised Apollo 13s in there anytime I see any one of those games I don't care what else is in that lineup I am for sure playing those games for sure playing those games like for sure like when I only make it out to next level maybe like two to three times a year when i'm at next level i am for sure playing frankenstein baywatch sega godzilla apollo 13 twister starship troopers for sure and then what are your least favorites south park star wars viper night driving garbage all those games are bad like bad bad you covered you put more in your favorites than i would probably my favorites are definitely godzilla and baywatch are the two standouts to me that i'm like these are real godzilla is kind of it's like well it's like if you're into this it's it's fun but i can understand it's not for everyone baywatch i'm like it's just actually a good game like that one it's like no there's no fucking like there's no like explanation needed i'm just like baywatch is like actually a good game those would probably be my two favorites although i don't plan to have a hard time buying a baywatch for my house i don't think i'd want to i don't know it'd be everyone would be like whoa baywatch big baywatch guy huh but yeah least favorites definitely south park and viper night driving are both fucking games that i just yeah both garbage i said i said enough i've said enough about both of those i think star wars is underrated garbage yeah it's pretty bad it is so bad and people it's because they haven't seen it they don't know but like that is yeah if you haven't played it if you're complaining about fall of the empire find yourself one of these original trilogies because that'll make you appreciate how much better that this new one is than this game yeah or if you hate the steve wars from 2017 that he made play this one yeah like this is bad it makes it well the sterns are like actually fun and this is not not fun there's in my opinion not fun your mileage may vary are there any games here that you wish could get a remaster like in the way you know like metallica and now walking dead got remasters where it's the same layout but with new art and modified rules so i was gonna say they've already made subsequently another james bond game they've already made another batman game and they've already made another godzilla game already so i don't think they're going to remaster any of these so i'll just put those aside even though any of those would be kind of cool you think updating frankenstein that's what you wrote here frankenstein would be sick as hell frankenstein doesn't need a remaster though no but it could see i think like if you use rules upgrades obviously like anything else yeah it's got a very cool layout but it is a it is a little it could get a little tweak to make it a little smoother yeah i put it as my number one choice on my favorites because it's like i love frankenstein more frankenstein i love frankenstein so yeah i'm like i think starship troopers with like a new package in a new game that layout and like basic bones but with some tweaks i think would be really fucking sick but i like that game a lot that's when i probably should have put my favorites i just like starship troopers a lot uh otherwise top three yeah that would round it out i'd say godzilla starship troopers and um baywatch probably in that order are my personal favorites i'm not saying they're the best they're just my three favorites i do think like independence day i really like how that thing shoots but the rules are garbage so i think a remaster of that with some just like updated rules some changes on that just some little stuff would be cool independence day has like demolition man vibes to me yeah it's flowy like that it's super smooth like that it's one of those games that it's like you you kind of like you look at it when you start first trying to find the shots you're like man these ramps are kind of hard to hit or whatever those two on the right i feel like i think there's two on the right and then when you're actually just playing it on the fly it's like the ball just yeah just kind of like everything works it's got good shit that's a fun game to play are there any of these themes that they did that you wish they would just do a whole new one like star wars has had x-files deserves a new game and a much better one in my opinion as a fan of the show i think an x-files game i don't care about that show i've never seen the show i don't have any feelings about it one way or the other the premise and everything like the vibe though i think it would just be a really cool pinball machine and it's getting to that point of the right era of nostalgia it happened long enough ago that it could happen x-files would be a good one to just see if we saw like a new x-files from stern no one would see that coming right now i've never seen anyone talk about that and i think people would be like oh shit this is cool they still have you know x-files cons and there's still an active fan community and like probably been fucking like i have no idea but didn't they do a reboot yeah somewhat recent yeah within the last five to ten years yep yeah the other one i would say is probably south park there's a lot of room for improvement on south they could do it's still a massive show it's still i mean right now it is insanely relevant they're very satirical and the show is way more than the first season from when the game dude that game is rough and so getting something like like you have rick and morty it's like getting like a better version of south park could be so good yeah those would be my choices yeah those are the two that i think i mean i'd like to see a new viper i don't think they'd sell a sit they'd sell fucking like 20 games but uh just it would be cool if there was a viper game that wasn't fucking horrible i mean they tried i mean they made that mustang game you know so it's like things also bad the car games it's funny because car guy you know i'm like i got attachments to a lot of these cars believe it or not you know we've got some corvettes and mustangs in the family but the corvette's the only one that i'm like the game's actually fun mustangs okay some people like it a lot when i've played it i'm actually like it's just a game i've seen i've seen so little of that i'm like i i really don't know it and it didn't immediately win me over but i'm like it's okay this was a long episode for all the listeners but uh sega episode sega dude we had to go we had to go hard we had to cover all of it to finalize that point i will tell one final story about mustang oh yeah when we were building out wedgehead roads and i were working every day we're doing all the work ourselves sending down concrete we're running conduit we're doing stuff every day to build out that space and Rhodes decided like, I should, you know, pop up some games in the pit ball room. We could play it in between as we take a break, whatever. One of the games he brought was Target Alpha, you know, a Gottlieb game. And then he also brought a Stern Trek. And then he brought and set up a Mustang. And our buddy was there who was helping us. And we all started playing a three player game of Mustang. And Rhodes was trying to tell me, he's like, no, man, it's good. Like, it's good. like they use it in papa like for the big tournaments like it's a good tournament game and we were playing that thing and after player three ball two i was like this game fucking sucks dude like i don't even want this game in here like i think it's gonna like stink up the joint like i know we're not even open yet like we're a shell nobody knows who we are but i was like we shouldn't be bringing in bad games to the building at all and and hit in roads like no man it's kind of cool i was like all right then you play it like we're gonna go play this other We're going to play these other games, and then you play it, and then he didn't want to play it either. Yeah, you're like, turns out. Turns out. Must have played one. So Viper Night Drive is not uniquely bad. I think that, in my opinion, I don't like Mustang either. At least it's not embarrassing, though. It's not nearly as embarrassing. No, there's nothing that's as bad. Honestly, there's nothing that could be worse to me than Viper Night Drive. That's awesome. I like that we unlocked a little bit more Waterboy lore. so you're saying brand of circus dracula's your best game of all time yeah for the record like we just we're off the fucking rails at the end of this podcast like two okay but yes brand of circus dracula is probably if i had to pin it down my favorite game of all time and then your least favorite game is viper night drive-in that's awesome yeah there you have it we want y'all to go out and play some pinball on location if you can use the pinball map try to find one of these segas near you to play when this episode comes out i will hopefully have a sega on the floor at wedge we have a baywatch so i want to get that thing dusted off and coming in and waterboy's got a godzilla so maybe we'll try to bring that into maybe perhaps perhaps yeah chance yeah per chance it comes in but until next time good luck don't suck Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.