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It's 10 Inches Man: It Fits Through the Hole

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 59s·analyzed·Mar 21, 2016
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

BlahCade hosts discuss early SS machine maintenance and critique Ghostbusters (Pro) mode design and video modes.

Summary

Chris and Jaren discuss personal life topics (Slurpee cups, fitness, biking) before pivoting to pinball content. They provide detailed technical maintenance tips for early solid-state machines (contact filing, flipper tuning), then analyze Jack Ghostbusters (Pro) (Pro) Pro gameplay footage from the factory, critiquing its ladder-based mode structure, aggressive drain characteristics, and random video mode mechanics. They compare it favorably to other recent games like Roadshow and Indiana Jones.

Key Claims

  • Ghostbusters on the Pro model hasn't been released yet; Premium and LE models have additional features like Slimer left-right movement and echo goggles not present on Pro

    high confidence · Chris and Jaren discussing Jack Danger factory footage: 'Because they haven't even got those off the line yet... we didn't get to see what the ghost slings look like. Didn't get to see the echo goggles.'

  • Ghostbusters (Pro) features a ladder-based mode structure where modes are always played in the same linear order, which limits variety and makes upper modes rarely accessible unless player is highly skilled

    high confidence · Jaren: 'The modes, it's a ladder. It's a ladder... the modes get more difficult as you go up the ladder but the bad thing was you'll probably never ever get to see the upper modes unless you're really good'

  • Ghostbusters (Pro) has aggressive outlanes and wide flipper gaps, making it a 'drain monster' that plays similar to how Pat Lawlor designs machines (Trudeau reference)

    high confidence · Jaren: 'it's obviously a Trudeau machine since the flippers are so damn far apart... Those outlanes... the outlanes are pretty vicious'

  • Ghostbusters (Pro) video mode is a pure coin flip with no skill element; players must guess which card the machine is thinking of

    high confidence · Chris: 'which card am i thinking of right so two cards will flip and you need to guess which card and if you guess correctly then you get the option... It's a coin flip. There's no skill. It's a complete coin flip.'

  • Stern indicated the Ghostbusters ladder mode structure is a hard setting designed to preserve narrative story elements, though it can theoretically be changed to random mode

    medium confidence · Chris: 'From what the guys at Stern were saying now... It's a hard setting. They want it to be a story, so they actually want it to play.'

  • Early solid-state machines use high-voltage switching (50 volts) through cabinet switches for flipper buttons, unlike modern machines which use low-power switching

    high confidence · Jaren explaining technical maintenance: 'these earlier solid states all use high voltage switching through the cabinet switches... it actually transfers 50 volts through the contacts inside the cabinet to the flippers'

Notable Quotes

  • “it fits through the hole that's what she said”

    Chris Friebus @ ~00:06:30 — Running joke about 10-inch PVC pipe suggestion for Fill Your Own Cup Day; establishes show's humor tone

  • “These earlier solid states all use high voltage switching through the cabinet switches... it actually transfers 50 volts through the contacts inside the cabinet to the flippers rather than like just switching them on and then letting the circuitry do the work”

    Jared Morgan @ ~00:26:00 — Core technical explanation of early solid-state flipper mechanics that drives maintenance advice

  • “The modes, it's a ladder. It's a ladder... the modes get more difficult as you go up the ladder but the bad thing was you'll probably never ever get to see the upper modes unless you're really good”

    Jared Morgan @ ~00:47:15 — Key critique of Ghostbusters Pro's mode structure limiting gameplay variety

  • “it's obviously a Trudeau machine since the flippers are so damn far apart... Those outlanes... the outlanes are pretty vicious”

    Jared Morgan @ ~00:48:45 — Describes Ghostbusters Pro's challenging drain characteristics and flipper spacing

  • “Jack was finishing games off with, you know, between 250 and 315 million... everybody else was scoring, I don't know, would be finishing game off with maybe 8 million points”

    Chris Friebus @ ~00:47:00 — Illustrates skill gap and that Jack Danger was the only player able to access upper game content

  • “It's a complete coin flip. So you can guarantee that if that's a looking forward to like the Stern Pinball app, if they use the same sort of goal wizard structure that's going to be a wizard goal for you to actually fluke your way through”

    Chris Friebus @ ~00:52:30 — Critiques randomness of ESP video mode and implications for mobile app integration

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonJack DangerpersonStern PinballcompanyGhostbusters (Pro)gameDeadFlipplatformSpooky PinballcompanyAmerica's Most Haunted (Spooky)game

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Ghostbusters Pro has not yet shipped; factory floor demonstration was first public gameplay footage

    high · Chris: 'Because they haven't even got those off the line yet.' Indicates Pro mode is still in factory/pre-release stage.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern intentionally chose linear ladder-based mode progression to preserve narrative story elements over player choice or randomization

    medium · Chris: 'From what the guys at Stern were saying now... It's a hard setting. They want it to be a story, so they actually want it to play.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Ghostbusters Pro's aggressive outlane geometry and wide flipper spacing creates significant drain risk that limits player progression to upper modes

    high · Jaren observed that most casual players scored 8M-10M per game while Jack Danger scored 250M-315M; most players never accessed past mode 3

  • ?

    product_concern: Ghostbusters Pro's ESP video mode features no skill component (pure coin flip guessing), which may become frustrating during repeated play

    high · Chris: 'It's a coin flip. There's no skill. It's a complete coin flip.' Expressed concern this will appear as unavoidable wizard goal in Stern app.

  • ?

    content_signal: Jack Danger's factory stream on DeadFlip encountered technical issues: pixelated video feed, bright LED wash-out, and difficulty tracking ball movement

    high · Chris noted video feed was 'really hard to follow the ball because it was a little pixely... the LED lights on the game are really bright... you could not even see the ball'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.156

0:00
This is a Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jaren. wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization
0:44
You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frevis, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. And joining me as always, Jared Morgan. Good day, Chris. How you doing, mate? I am doing well. Good. Are you sufficiently sugared? Yeah, so as we mentioned last time, 7-Eleven had their Bring Your Own Cup Day. Except for it wasn't one day, it was two. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So you can get double the diabetes instead of just single the diabetes. And a lot of diabetes it is.
1:23
So, yeah, I collected my two and a quarter quart jug pitcher. And I grabbed another small juice container for my boy. and he looked at it and he goes, don't you have something bigger?
1:45
Good boy. So I dug around and I found one that was a container that was a little bit bigger. And then he's sitting there and he's eyeballing it and he's eyeballing my pitcher and he goes, I think I want the pitcher. And I went, why?
2:00
He goes, I think it's bigger. And I'm like... Should we do a volumetric test here, son? Let me give you a size lesson of volumetric so so i i grabbed one of our slurpee cups because i i i keep a handful of slurpee cups so that then i pay for refill price which is only a buck rather than full price which would be two bucks for the slurpee that i get we're talking like not the um not the sort of like uh wax paper cups these are like plastic yeah um yeah yeah yeah yeah no god know what i saved the wax paper cups no um so i so it's a super big gulp size and i put that right next to his container and it was the same height and you know the his container was a little bit narrower but not much and so i was like look you can fit two of these cups into one of these you don't ever get this size cup to begin with and now you're going to get two of them yeah do you really like because you can get that much free slurpee do you actually want that free slurpee right mole wasn't free buck 50 but you know yeah well yeah you know i know what you're saying right pennies on the dollar um so yeah we went and and we uh we filled that bad boy up and he sat there with his straw just nursing that thing. And he finished half of it. I don't know. That's a good effort. Strong effort.

  • Filing and sanding cabinet switch contacts on early solid-state machines can restore flipper strength but represents temporary maintenance with diminishing returns

    high confidence · Jaren: 'The easy way you can fix that is get a little file and grind down both contact surfaces... you'll find that the thing works almost as good as new'

    • Williams
    game
    Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventuregame
    Starship Troopersgame
    Firepower IIgame
    BlahCade Podcastorganization
    Hereticperson
    Wizard Amusementcompany
    IFPAorganization
  • ?

    venue_signal: Early solid-state machines in local tournament venue required contact refurbishment to restore flipper responsiveness; filing and sanding contacts yields significant performance improvement

    high · Jaren ground down cabinet switch contacts on venue's early solid-state machines and reported operator/players said 'this is like a new machine'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Contact maintenance on early solid-state machines is temporary; permanent solution requires replacement switches (5-6 dollars per contact) rather than repeated filing

    high · Jaren: 'you can go online and try and find new switches they're actually pretty readily available they're about five or six dollars a contact'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Local bowls club tournament uses $15 entry fee model; operator provides machines; premium on machine condition for fair competition

    medium · Jaren: '$15 bucks... that's pretty much unlimited play and a bit to the venue which is a bowls club... and a bit to the operator'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Ghostbusters Pro's Slimer toy uses spring-based movement on Pro (up/down only); Premium/LE versions add motorized left-right blocking mechanic

    high · Chris and Jaren discussing differences: Slimer 'will move up and down only' on Pro but 'will move up and down and left to right' on Premium/LE with motorization

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Ghostbusters Pro's ladder structure resulted in players seeing same opening modes repeatedly during factory demonstration; upper content (Stay Puft multiball) never accessed

    high · Chris: 'stay puff marshmallow man right he's a huge on the back of this play field full 3d toy never saw him do a thing... the most modes i saw was three'

  • ?

    comparative_analysis: Ghostbusters Pro's mode ladder compared unfavorably to Roadshow's randomized city selection and Spooky's America's Most Haunted narrative structure

    medium · Jaren suggests EPL-style pyramid progression 'a tree your way up' would provide better variety than pure linear progression

    • 3:36
    The sleepy force is strong on this one. And so then the next day, which is Saturday, we do what we call the Saturday morning routine, which is he goes to his karate practice and then that gets out at noon and then we drive over to the Little Caesars pizza pick up our pizza and then right next door is a 7-Eleven so then we'll get a Slurpee. So that's our Saturday morning routine.
    4:08
    So before we left for karate he was like, are we going to get another fill your own cup, dad? I was like, I don't know.
    4:20
    He's like, come on. I'll find my arm. Right. Twist my arm. So yeah, we went ahead and got another, got another cup of that. No, what's funny is this coincided with a buddy of mine goes for a bike ride every morning and he's not an athletic guy at all, but probably for the past year, year and a half, every morning on his Facebook feed, up pops his bike ride. And it's only like 15 miles or so. but considering the shape he was in when he first started it was like hey that was a really really good ride for him right and but the fact that he's doing it before he goes to work it was just kind of like wow you know that's a lot of dedication and it's just become a part of his life now right so I've been doing this fitness class at my boys martial arts studio they offer fitness kickboxing which is basically like Taibo So it's 45 minutes of hell.
    5:22
    And this is the third year I've done this, what they call a 99 day challenge. And it's basically you get it for free for four months.
    5:31
    And so I do it for those four months. Well, the first two years I did it, I would get done with it. I feel really good and I felt really good while doing it. And, you know, it's probably about three weeks into starting it that, you know, felt really strong about it. this year it's just been misery i don't know really oh my god the pain in my leg it feels like somebody's just twisting it and and just got this you know like a steel cable running all the way up my leg and it's just i can't relax i can't loosen up um i get done with the workout and i don't feel that you know rush of endorphins or anything i'm more just like hobbling um so it's been no fun whatsoever and so i kind of was like well okay is this just a factor of me getting old or is it that i'm not having a good time doing this particular exercise anymore should i do something different exactly and that's just it i was like you know what i'm gonna go on a bike ride i haven't gone on a bike ride in forever i'll go ride in a bike ride so I did that on the Friday morning that the Fill Your Own Slurpee Cup day started. Then I do it on Saturday.
    6:46
    I'm sitting there posting my bike rides on Facebook, but I'm also posting pictures of these Slurpees.
    6:53
    I think it was our good friend Heretic who commented on my feed, oh, I wondered why there was a reason you were starting to ride a bike.
    7:05
    Cheeky bastard. i didn't i had a look at your uh facebook feed i don't often log on to facebook but i did like your sleepy post because and then i saw it on twitter as well because you were like sharing the sharing the sleepy love everywhere you see um but i didn't actually notice that heretic was on there he doesn't obviously go by his real name and he doesn't go by heretic either it. All right. He goes by some misspelling of Bob Dylan.
    7:35
    All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even when typing in a username, he misspells that. I love it. That's typically everything. God forbid you take the time to push a backspace and correct anything. One take one demand. That's right. Move forward. There is no backward.
    7:55
    Backspace is for wimps. Yeah, in a Scottish accent, which I can't do. I tried doing it. I think we all can all attest. If you ever want to hear some very, very, very poor comedy, go back to our first.
    8:15
    It's the second or third episode. Second or third episode, yeah, where I tried to do an impersonation. Where a Californian tries to be a Scottish Scotsman. Yeah. Except he's not Scotsman, he's an Irishman. Just because I sounded Scottish. he's going to come down on plane and kick my ass and tell him to say that sorry heretic I dare ya the wankers come and call me Irish or I'm Irish not Scottish yep he will kick my ass so yeah go on to our if you haven't already signed up which you should at blockade on twitter or at ShutYourTraps, I posted photos of the Slurpee. And unfortunately, I was very disappointed nobody else posted photos. Although I did get a bunch of likes from people. I have no clue who they are. And obviously, it was because I hashtagged BringYourOwnCupDay.
    9:13
    The one that I love the most, though, Slurpee itself liked my post. Oh, nice. Respect. Yeah. Keeping it real. Game knows game. Did you see any other fine examples of vessel usage on the day? You know, I saw a kid walking down the street with what looked like a Tupperware-ish sort of bowl.
    9:38
    And I saw a mom and her daughter, they both had sport drink cups. But nothing creative. um like nothing like i suggested like get a bit of pvc pipe with an end cap on it that's that 10 that's 10 inches in diameter or is it 10 yeah then make it 50 meters or they just it's 10 inches man look it fits through the hole that's what she said um juvenile humor at its best um yeah no i didn't see much uh much in the way of of cool vessels this year uh i don't know if there just wasn't the excitement over it like last year um spreading it out over two days i don't know this hasn't happened like this isn't like a long-standing thing is it no this is the second year they've done it second year so right last year was a learning experience with people for you waiting pools uh no i'm not gonna do that again yeah not so much is there a trick i know we're talking a lot about slurpy um stuff which is okay because it only happens really twice a year like just bring your own cup day and then free sleep day but when you go and fill your cups are you the smart guy who goes in there on each station of each flavor and goes, yeah, a bit of that one and then a bit of that one. So you actually get frozen stuff or you just take it out of the one hopper. You think that's the smart approach?
    11:14
    Well, yeah, because you get a frozen beverage. Nah. See, here's the problem. Flavors on top seep down to flavors on the bottom.
    11:25
    Oh, no, no. I'm talking about the same flavor, but just out of two separate sides. I don't know how they structure it. Oh, no. Each one of our spigots is a different flavor. ah see in the high volume stores here we might have two cola um spigots so i was thinking well you know to get lots of frozen um slurpee rather than just like slushy liquid which is gross you can actually go oh yeah from this one and then from that one but yeah mixing flavors no don't do it it turns into crap my my uh my kid usually gets wild cherry and they have this new you heard of the candy airheads? It's one of those really super sour candies. We used to have warheads here. It's kind of like warheads. It's not the atomic warhead, but it's the same similar principle. It's a citric acid. They have some strawberry or berry flavored airheads. Sour thing. My kid tried a little sip of it. He was like, oh my god. I'm like, yeah, don't get an entire slurping of that. Yeah, because you'll never, ever finish it. Just mix it in a little with your... Just put a little smidge into the bottom. Mix in your wild cherry. You'll be good to go. So he did that, and he was like, okay, that's great. So I was getting bored of getting Coca-Cola flavor. I was like, I'm just going to put a little dash of that in there and see what happens. So I put literally like an inch worth at the bottom of the cup, and that was it. Fill the rest with Coke. All I tasted for the entire drink was the sour That how potent it was Yeah right like i said mixing flavors you got to be very careful with what you mix this is science definitely yeah well that does sound interesting indeed hey did you know that i've actually got a tournament on today a real one i do know that with real pinballs yeah i know it's pretty cool and i am gonna be collecting cash this time because last time i got third you might remember yeah um which is the first time ever in like the whole year and a bit that i've been playing in that tournament what's your entry fee uh 15 bucks okay that's um that's pretty much unlimited play and a bit to the the venue which is a bowls club like a lawn bowls club and a little bit to the operator who supplies machines which is definitely fair enough yeah so anyhow what i what i did last time is i um because i got the bike i just ride it there a bit early and then I give the operator a bit of a hand to sort of clean his machines and do any minor tech stuff that's on it just so when everyone's playing on it, they get the best experience possible for the tournament. Everything's working well and nice and snappy and everything. And I found this little trick the other time when I was there. The guy has a lot of early solid state. So we're talking early Stern electronic pinball machine and stuff like that, like Meteor and a lot of that sort of era of game. And a bit of a tech tip here. For those of you who own these machines, you probably already know this tip, but the way these machines work is that they,
    14:37
    unlike the more modern machines, which all use low power switching, these earlier solid states all use high voltage switching through the cabinet switches. So when you press your flipper button, it actually transfers 50 volts through the contacts inside the the cabinet to the flippers rather than like just switching them on and then letting the circuitry do the work right so what happens is over time these contacts lose this like the coating the constant coating on them and they start to arc and you might notice that if you've ever stepped up to these ones it hasn't been well maintained and it's sort of in a dark environment you see lightning inside the machine pretty much yeah because it's going and it's it's arcing away and what happens over time is that causes a big hit in the contacts which means less contact surface which means less electrical connectivity which means weaker flippers so the easy way you can fix that is get a little file and grind down both contact surfaces of the um the switch and then give a bit of a hit with some sandpaper like some 150 grit or something like that um and you'll find that the thing works almost as good as new um grinding down the contacts on these older machines it's just like one of the biggest tips to get them working well again so i did that to pretty much all of his machines last time i was there and everyone was just going wow this is like a new machine wow what do you do to it to the operator and he said um no jared did something to it because the guy is the guy you know can change a sleeve and you know resolder a wire but he doesn't know these little tuning tips yeah he does now because i've shown him but um he was at least aware that you don't do it on the modern machines because they they don't have high voltage going through the cabinet switches but on the older ones he just wasn't quite sure so and i did some tuning of the pop bumpers and stuff like putting the contacts close together so they're really really snappy and that made a huge difference the old machines because you know when you play the old machines there's not a lot to them so yeah you've got to have everything working really, really well because otherwise it's a pretty flat experience.
    16:45
    There's nothing more frustrating than trying to play a machine that well, this is what I run across a lot of times with these EMs where you can't get the ball more than halfway up the playfield. Yeah, because everything's just arced too much. That's the problem because EMs, especially EMs, everything relies on electrical connectivity because there is no sole state circuitry. So you've got to do this all the contacts in ems there's a lot of contacts in ems like burnish so yeah it's it's you're right it's really tough and it it spoils the experience doesn't it like when you can get the ball to hit half the targets because it's just not strong enough no it's definitely like playing on a okay i played a firepower 2 a while back that the flippers weren't strong enough to even get the ball up the ramp up the uh the side ramp it was and that ramp is i guess it's midfield i mean it's not steep it's close and it's like there is no reason why i should not be able to get this ball up this ramp yeah and yeah it just completely kills all the fun because you're like well guy if i can't even make the shot that i know i'm supposed to be able to make it's like the key shot in the game yeah like it's just like you know why bother the other thing you go watch too is that because end of stroke switches which are the things that tell the flipper coil to go into high power and low power um they work a bit differently on these early solid states too so on the more modern machines this the end of stroke switches are normally open because what they are is just a signal to the machine on the modern ones to say okay well the flip has made a stroke i'll then switch the power on the circuit board and and pass low voltage through just to hold the coil up but of course the early solid states they didn't have that sort of control yeah it's what's commonly called flip tronics in williams machines i think stern has a that they don't really copyright the name they just have yeah it's all safe flippers um but with the early solid states you've also got to pay attention to the end of stroke switch because it will actually that the the cabinet controls um where your flipper buttons are send the power to the flipper but the end of stroke switch um governs whether it's getting high voltage or low voltage so if that one's pitted and dirty as well you're going to have um stuttering at the top of the stroke so you might have seen if a ball comes down really fast on the flipper and it hits it and goes and stutters that's a sign that the end of stroke switch is either dirty or pitted or not making good contact so that a bit of a going over to and you'll have them like the flippers were just working so well after I did that and just ground down the contacts. Of course, you know, there's only so many times you could do that before you end up with nothing. Right. So, you know, it's, it's a short-term fix. And, you know, of course, as well with those cabinet switches, if you, if you do start filing it down, it's the beginning of the end because you're taking like tungsten coating off the contact. So they're going to arc more and you're going to have to keep on doing until there's no contact yet left, but you will get a bit of extra life out of your switches that way in the meantime you can go online and try and find new switches they're actually pretty readily available they're about five or six dollars a contact like a stack and they will improve like sorry the cabinet switch is about five or six but the end of strokes aren't even that much i don't think so just like put a you know put them especially if they're out in location you don't want to have to go in there every time you do a collection and grind down the contact patches again because that's just paying the bum so just pay your six bucks and just write it off with a couple of games really there you go um yeah so i'll be doing that so i'm really looking forward to it actually i love getting my fingers dirty i have to go see i need you to live near me and then you can work on my machine your five hour i reckon with that one we should see if free gold watch would be willing to give you the the vector art for their um their shirts that they did up for no i forget what it was one of the pinball tournaments because it looks so good. The vector art.
    20:56
    It's the perfect fit for that game. If you need to reset it, I would love to see them release a playfield deck for that. That would be so good. That would be pretty sweet. Speaking of new releases,
    21:06
    we talked about the Ghostbusters table last week and over on Deadflip, what is his name? Jack Danger? Is that the host? Jack Danger. He was over at the Stern Factory and actually got to play the game they had it uh posted online it was you know they had a camera looking at the player they had a camera looking down at the uh play field they had a camera on the dmd so you were able to see a lot of free camera mix pro sort of like pretty much what the ifpa do when they do broadcasting the the only downside was that uh either their connection speed wasn't top notch or the video feed. Anyway, it was really hard to follow the ball because it was a little pixely. It wasn't like it was high def.
    21:58
    It's rough when you try to actually, if you're not just recording a session and then streaming it later, it's really tough to get it right. And then on top of that, the LED lights on the game are really bright. So whenever they would flare... They're like epilepsy-inducing bright. It's insane. But I mean, whenever they would flare, you now could not even see the ball. The white balance swing would be off and you couldn't track it. Completely blew the image out. So that was a little bit of a disappointment. But it did give a chance to actually see what the gameplay was like, how the people were doing, you know, playing it. This was on a pro, right? Yeah, it was on a pro. Because they haven't even got those off the line yet. Yeah, no. So this was on a pro. So we didn't get to see what the ghost slings look like. Didn't get to see the echo goggles. The lock mechanism. All the things that are just completely missing from the pro. Right.
    22:57
    We did hear complaints of people saying, oh, it's obviously a Trudeau machine since the flippers are so damn far apart.
    23:05
    It is a drain monster. Oh, is it? Oh, yeah. Those outlanes. And yeah, the outlanes are pretty vicious.
    23:15
    So, you know, extra wide gap between the flippers, outlanes that are very hungry for the ball. Yeah, so it's definitely a challenge. Well, what was funny was the guys that were there playing the machine, yeah, everybody was having short games except for Jack. I mean, like everybody else was scoring, I don't know, would be finishing game off with maybe 8 million points. He was finishing games off with, you know, between 250 and 315 million.
    23:49
    So the good thing was, is you're able to, obviously with ball times that long, you're able to see what could be done. You know, the bad thing is, is what it pointed out to me and a few other people. And I'm like, oh, really? The modes, it's a ladder.
    24:05
    It's a ladder. Yep. You would do it in order. so you will always start with the same mode and then you go to the next mode and so i guess the reasoning behind this was the modes get more difficult as you go up the ladder but the bad thing was you'll probably never ever get to see the upper modes unless you're really good yeah and i never even i mean you know stay puff marshmallow man right he's a huge on the back of this play field full 3d toy never saw him do a thing never got to see that i think the most modes i saw was three um really yeah so that was just because it's so hungry it was so hungry but maybe the guys didn't quite know how to activate them or you know didn't care or whatever but even still it was like it was really sad for as many games that got played to just see the same thing over and over and over again and you know my general impression is that's going to get boring they They need to have some randomization.
    25:08
    It might be a setting. I know you might be able to change that in the operator settings from ladder to just whenever. From what the guys at Stern were saying now. Oh, really? It's a hard setting. They want it to be a story, so they actually want it to play. That's fair enough. I think America's Most Haunted plays a bit like that, too. You've got to do all the ghosts in order. there's quite a structure to the way that Spooky want that story unfolded so who knows maybe Stern actually took a few cues from that since it's sort of Spooky themed I wish that it had and it's funny because last week's Table of the Week wound up being a road show and there's how you do the modes I think in terms of yeah you traveling across the country right it quite linear but there a variety yeah you don always start with new york it new york or miami and as you travel across it you know there one of three cities that you're going to hit for that grouping you might say and then you go across so it's always random what you're going to be getting and i like that variety with roadshow is uh did the cities change with pop bumper hits like the cities that are within the path that the game's chosen i have no idea are they i've never noticed it maybe it is a predetermined path based on when you start the game i'm not sure yeah i really couldn't tell you that i've never noticed him in the chat today he would be able to tell us yeah because he knows things but um he pays attention to that kind of thing i'm just trying to keep the stupid ball alive um totally yeah so so that was disappointing um the slimer toy looked like it bounced in all directions from what i could tell because you were saying that you thought that it only bounced side to side i think or up and down it apparently on the pro it will move up and down only but on the premium and le's it will move up and down and left to right so i thought it was just on a spring like a big hefty spring sticking out and so it would bounce whichever direction it needed to. It didn't look like it was only moving one direction on this. And like I said, they were playing the pro. Okay. I think maybe there might be some inherent springiness to the mechanism. But on the pro, I think Slimer will actually raise up so you can't hit it and then down when you're supposed to hit it. Okay. And then I think on the premium and LEs, from what I understand, it will move left and right to block shots. And then you have to hit it so it will move out of the way. Okay, so there's a bit of motorization to it. Yeah, it actually does have a motor on the other side. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So it's got a bit of, I think, the idea with the sort of springiness to it is when you hit the ball, it will actually make the ball behave strangely and sort of fly off. So it sort of adds a bit of randomness to the way the ball behaves when it hits that particular toy. Okay.
    28:04
    Yeah. The one other source of complaint for the table, and I'm going to say this. These are minor quibbles. The sound package on this is great. Loved it. The look of the table is great. The flow of the ball looked pretty good. So I'll definitely be interested to see. Yeah, even on the Pro. So I'll definitely be curious to see what it looks like on the LE. But, I mean, it looked like a fun game. The DMD animations were pretty sweet. Like I said, the call-outs were good. The music was fantastic. constantly changing and giving you different tunes and stuff. It sounds like when they were designing the sound package, they could have very easily gone with just the Ghostbusters theme on loop like they did in the Farsight version. Right. No, they pulled music, all different types of music from the movie, as well as, I don't know if they did any of their own, but it was, like I said, there's a variety. It's a good variety. You're going to hear a lot of different stuff. but uh the one other thing that that ever well i shouldn't say everybody um most of it was an argument that i saw on facebook and then that became many many voices but yeah the video mode hey you know how in starship troopers there's that are you psychic and you take a guess at the card oh yeah yeah well in ghostbusters there's that esp moment of do you have esp and it's hey which card am i thinking of right so two cards will flip and you need to guess which card and if you guess correctly then you get the option of do you want to quit now and collect your money or do you want to go for more?
    29:45
    It's a coin flip. There's no skill. It's a complete coin flip. So you can guarantee that if that's a looking forward to like the Stern Pinball app, if they use the same sort of goal wizard structure that's going to be a wizard goal for you to actually fluke your way through that. you know yeah because that's what they do that's the the the uh the guys who set the goals in far side are cruel sometimes they really are i don't know who it is there that does it but yeah they they i think if you don't give them enough coffee one day they turn really mean and they're setting the goals it's just one of those things where it's i don't mind video modes but there should be a bit of skill involved yeah i don't like just dumb random love because it made me since we just recently played starship troopers i was like oh god not that because i hated whenever that thing popped up but it made me even think worse was in cuba wizard there's that stupid that thing that is a what is it worst video mode in the history like it is impossible to play that right they thought godly when they were doing that surely would have thought go oh crap we need to do we need to do a video mode all right let's just make this this thing because it's like we need to release this game because this is like three curtains and it's picked behind one of the curtains and well that's one of them and then there's that infer that that one's not that bad i mean that's really just dumb luck as well because there's no way you can yeah that's another horrible one where you got to catch the ball oh god that thing that is just the worst game ever on a pinball machine i'd rather play that virtual pinball game on magic and then have to play that stupid bloody ball catch thing because it's just the worst it is the worst so anyway it's one of those things where it's like you kind of crossed your fingers that maybe in a future code patch that they'll make it more interesting i don't know um maybe it was it's amusing literally for the first time you see it but then as it kept on popping up on various games and various games uh you could tell that everybody playing was just like and and they weren't even risking it they were like there you go uh i'll take this one i'll take this one that two is good enough i'm done you know let's move on yeah so yeah get the points like if you can get some free points out of it i guess it's good but like that it certainly wouldn't be in tournament though. That wouldn't be a strategy. That would just be like... They said that it could be turned off. The video mode can be turned off. Let's just turn it off. Would you like video mode? No, thank you.
    32:34
    If they could just find some way of randomizing, even just a bit, the modes. Obviously, fine. Keep your wizard at the wizard. I don't care. Give us some kind of a pyramid up so that the first mode starting yeah a ladder but like a almost like a epl ladder that allows you to like sort of like go up in a different sort of way right a tree yeah like a like a yeah tree your way up yeah that would be good because yeah if operators are going to dial this thing in pretty tight which they probably will because i want it to earn money um you're not going to be able to see very much of it no on the subject of video modes um that because i've got the the indiana jones the Indiana Jones over the road. Like I'm just loving the video modes and that all over again. It is just, it's got the funnest video modes like that mine cart escape video mode. It's so simple in the way you're supposed to do it. Just left and right on the flippers. But when you get to that third tunnel, after you come down the big slope and it's, it's speeding along at light speed. I, I just have not been able to finish it since I've been over there. It's I had, I have finished it once and it was a fluke. You just got to twitch reflex it. it's great.
    33:50
    And then there's the Raven bar video mode where you've got to like move the gun along and cap those, the bad guys and the, the gun sound effect that they've got in there when you actually shoot the guys as really chunky and really good. You really feel satisfied when you're nailing these dudes with it. And I love them. The video modes in there are really good. And that's what they need to think about when they're making video modes. It will take more effort, but if you're going to do a video mode, don't do like a 50-50. That's just no good. Yeah.
    34:23
    Yeah, don't like the coin flip. Yeah, so like I said, I'll be curious to see what the LE looks like. But so far, it looks like a winner machine. I really enjoyed seeing what they showed. So I was happy to tune in for once to one of those things because normally, I don't get the appeal of watching pinball.
    34:47
    No, I like to play it more. I mean, it's good if you need to familiarize yourself before a tournament and go, oh, so this is how you play it. I would watch for an hour somebody playing. I would have it on in the background and then sort of tune in and tune out when something cool is happening. But I wouldn't sit there intently and watch the screen and go, oh, look at that flasher. Oh, look at that shot. Oh, I couldn't think of anything worse. Boy, he sure does know how to make it go at 78 degrees, doesn't he? Wow. Oh, geez. Yeah, that's an impressive flip there, dude. Yeah. Maybe we're just missing something, but yeah.
    35:23
    You know, it falls into the generation that my son is a part of where they'd rather watch somebody play a video game than actually play the video game.
    35:34
    Yeah, I don't get it. But there's one thing I haven't seen, and that is there doesn't seem to be any video modes in Rescue 9-11, which is currently in beta at the moment. So I wonder if we might have a chat about what that game is all about because it's not really that common, 9-11. The only time I've seen one is when it was fresh out of the box back in 93 or whenever it was released. I can honestly say I've never seen one. Yeah. The big feature on this table is the helicopter. So it's based on a big fixed arm and it's quite cool how they've actually done it in that when you activate the rescue 9-11 mode, which you activate a fair bit in this game, it actually swings around as it sort of goes in this sort of half arc, and it'll swing around and sort of fly towards you, and you've got to actually press the flipper buttons to raise this little pedestal that the ball sits on. Okay. So it will actually meet the helicopter just at the right time and then swing away. and I've got to admit this will just be a tuning issue at the moment because we already are on the first phase of the beta but the helicopter is just rocketing over to that position so fast that the ROM emulation isn't allowing you to raise the ball at the right time. It's completely out of sync.
    37:01
    So that will require a little bit of tuning, which I'm sure they will do. I think they're like the usual sort of things where you get in the first round beta. there's a few graphical issues and stuff like that, but nothing that won't be solved by the time it goes out.
    37:15
    Gameplay-wise, though, it's a strange game. It is a classic God Leave, shoot the strobing shot sort of game, but it's got... Really, the helicopter is the trick.
    37:32
    Yeah. That's about it, really. Yeah, it's just the helicopter. Shoot the helicopter. and for those who haven't played it before you it tells you on the dmd you have to drop it in you've got to drop the ball from the helicopter into this hole but unless you know where the hole is it's maybe not that intuitive that the hole is actually this cut out in the pop bumper area it's just a little hole cut out cut out in the plastic that you've got to basically drop the ball into i don't quite understand how it actually detects it because there is no switch in there that detects that the ball is dropped i guess it must go well if you haven't dropped the ball um somewhere on the play field and it hasn't contacted a switch then therefore it's a good shot because there's a there's a switch when the the helicopter goes all the way back it drops the ball into a um a concealed rail and it just rolls down so there must be a switch or something inside there that detects whether it's gone full circle and you haven't dropped the ball but it's really that's where i'd conduct an experiment if i owned one which is i'd catch the ball before it dropped into anything and then see if it scored differently yeah yeah i haven't really noticed a difference when you drop the ball in there it tells you to do it and there a flasher right near the hole that says oh drop the ball Like it just flashing away Sometimes it flashes sometimes it doesn So I think this game will look pretty good on DX11 It's got a lot of flashes in it, and there's a lot of, yeah, red and blue, obviously, because it's Rescue 9-11. Based off the show, basically, the CBS show. Does William Shatner narrate?
    39:18
    No, he doesn't. So he used to narrate that show in Rescue 9-11. Yeah. Ah, the shats. Nice. No, there's none of that. But there's five modes that... Actually, there's more than five modes. There's a fair few modes in this game for Godly because normally Godly is a bit light on with modes, but I think you've got to get about eight or nine modes before you can get access to the wizard mode, which is pretty uninspiring.
    39:47
    But, you know, it's keeping in tradition of Godly games, which are generally pretty uninspiring. Sorry about that, Godly.
    39:59
    I don't think Godly cares because they're kind of not in business anymore. No, there's probably a reason for that. You may.
    40:08
    But, yeah, it's going to be an interesting addition to the collection, I think. And you can get some pretty big scores in it if you get your timing right with the jackpots and stuff like that. So, yeah, it's worth having a bit of a go when it comes out and, yeah, having a play. It's funny, on Twitter, Stern has been doing, I guess it's their 30th anniversary or something of that nature. So they've been doing kind of a history recap.
    40:37
    And they'll mention a table on a particular day, say, hey, it came out on this date. What do you remember about it? but they were running through all of the data East and Sega tables. I've been mentioning some of them and,
    40:52
    and it's just kind of, it's kind of interesting looking at what they're saying about it. Cause I didn't realize that Stern, I thought that they just bought the license of data East and Sega. I didn't realize that it was all the same, you know, company. Yeah. So Stern Electronics moved into Data East Which then moved into Stern again Moved into Sega To Sega because they bought the rights for Sega So it's the same factory But they just changed Names Which makes sense to me now because I never was happy with the build quality on Data East And I was never happy with the build quality on Sega And it's like Same Manufacturing If you look at the way that they were built, the name change between Sega and Data East didn't change the feature set on the games. It was pretty much a ramp, a feature, maybe two ramps, a pop, an up kicker, and a feature. And that was pretty much the layout of Data East and Sega tables.
    41:59
    So it was just kind of interesting seeing what their version of history is and then just kind of going, really? this is what you want okay i guess that was what was big about that table sure okay yeah there was always one key feature on the table and that was it yeah yeah but yeah it's funny i think uh they're getting better now like with these the later revisions of their tables i think they've done a lot of good work on uh on some of these i mean for as much hate that people have kind of thrown Sterns away, I think they've kind of gotten to the tipping point the other direction where it's like well, yeah, they're kind of the only game in town. I mean yes, Jersey Jack is around, but in the time it takes Jersey Jack to put out one table, Sterns put out five. Yeah, exactly. You know, and... They've got the manufacturing back playing down and they know how to just pump out tables. I did see... I saw some pictures of America's Most Haunted, and I kind of went, really? I saw a picture of the new Rob Zombie table, and again, I just kind of went,
    43:11
    it's very sparse. It is a little bit sparsely populated, but I think with the spooky tables, they're more about shots and less about toys. It probably appeals to a certain player, that's for sure. To me, I just kind of... It's really well, apparently. Like, it's really, really... For those people who actually own one and have it in their house, it's hard as nails to play. Like, it's really tough to progress in a game. They've made it deliberately challenging because they know it's for the home market. And the way that you interact with all the things in the play field is quite interesting. Even though there's a few things on there, The way you have to actually complete modes is you have to shoot around everywhere. Like, it's not just bang this thing like five times and complete the mode. Like, you've got to shoot this door and then shoot that ramp, and then you have a limited time to get back up to that shot again. Otherwise, you have to restart the thing again. So it makes you a really good player playing the games. Like I said, that's fine for some people. For me, I'm a habit trail whore. Oh, yeah. You just want to shoot the habit ramp. I want to see habit trails and ramps everywhere.
    44:25
    Yeah. so uh i also saw i saw a picture of full throttle which i don't think i've ever seen it you know lit up and and that looked pretty cool um they just introduced at the texas pinball show what their alien head looks like first yeah it's huge awesome that looked fantastic it even has saliva dripping from the teeth like man that looked really good and apparently the video mode uh uh Not the video, but the DMD animations and stuff look absolutely amazing. Yeah, I'm waiting for the... One of the guys in our league is actually working on that table. And he hasn't been able to release what the video looks like yet. He's waiting for an official release before he can. So I'm keeping an eye on his feed because I was like, I want to see what that looks like. Yeah. And then I just saw P3 just released video of what their table is. Now they're the ones that the play field is an led screen and everything sits on modular. Yeah. It's modular and sits on top. And I don't know what I think about it. I mean, again, to certain players, it might be interesting and stuff. The one thing that I did notice though, is man, does it look fast?
    45:46
    And I don't know if it's just the play field surface being that that's what's making the ball just haul butt or, or what, but it looked really fast. it probably does have something to do with the playfield because instead of being like an automotive clear coat it's basically glass which scares me to death because I don't know having a steel ball bearing bounce around on that air balls I can tell you that much there better be some good mylar on top of that thing because it's going to need it something so yeah there's all sorts of stuff popping up that's why I kind of I keep on following all these different pinball manufacturers on Twitter just so that I can see some of this. See the cool shiny. Yeah, see the cool shiny. Exactly. Good way of putting it.
    46:33
    Hey, we're going to get out of here pretty quick, but I do want to mention Table of the Week this week. Jared, I'm going to make it your choice. You get to pick between these two. It's either going to be Fishtails or Jackpot.
    46:47
    Fishtails. Fishtails is our Table of the Week. It'll be our fourth table for this month. yes the tournament is this saturday the day before easter yeah i'm i'm expecting huge numbers um and i'm gonna have to work that out i don't know we might actually be up the coast for easter um so i'm gonna have to like somehow take my tablet up with me and my controller and try and fit in the game you know what you should probably do maybe make the posting times a little bit flexible over that weekend. It's going to be very easy. Leave it open for the whole thing and just let people enter it in when they can. Yeah, so that'll be Saturday the 26th. I really wished I had looked at this month. There's only four Saturdays in the month in this particular month, so there was no room for error. Yeah.
    47:46
    So yeah, I think we will open things up a little bit more and try and do it. This is going to be our second to last tournament. I know. It's unbelievable. We've made it through the current season of 1-4, right?
    48:01
    So, yeah, it's crazy. Crazy to think we're there already. Yeah, so second to last tournament. And what that means is, as we've mentioned before, if you are interested in running your own tournament, but with our full backing and you have some ideas and want to take over for a month, please contact us. Uh, you can talk again at blockade on Twitter. Uh, if you want to email us, it's blah, blockade at Gmail.
    48:31
    Um, you know, let us know, go onto the forum, throw your, throw your hat into the ring. Uh, because it's been coming up quick that, uh, it's going to be up to you guys to do some stuff. Otherwise I think, uh, well, I don't know. I still haven't up the month and tables of the week will slowly. fade into... They're not going to fade away, but they may not be nearly as interesting.
    48:54
    That's right. Or we may be going... Again, I keep on toying with the idea of wanting to do at least one Zen tournament of the month. I think we should. Yeah. Yeah. I think that'd be really cool.
    49:07
    But I know there's people that don't. That's right. On the subject of wrapping things up, The one thing I said last month that if anybody was interested in getting shirts in Australia in a bulk lot order, let me know. No one let me know. Didn't have any responses from people asking me about getting shirts. Just wondering, have you had a look at the campaigns recently? Has anyone else got shirts in recent weeks? No.
    49:39
    I just checked today. so we'll give out that address again which is represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirts that gets you to our site where you can buy shirts we have them in I believe six different colors yes from all different sizes all there it's whatever size you want to pick I think from anywhere from extra small to turbo XL and they are $19.
    50:11
    Yep. Plus shipping and handling. Get on them. Keep showing the love for the podcast and represent. Yes. You know?
    50:25
    Yeah, I should mention also, since next week is Easter weekend, we will not be recording our podcast next week. So, boo-hoo, you'll have to wait two weeks to hear a new podcast, but we will be back. Never fear or fear either or it'll happen.
    50:42
    That's right. So with that note, I want to say thank you everybody for listening. He has been Jared Morgan. I have been Chris Rebus. This has been the Blockade Podcast. We'll see you all next time. See you later. WizardAmusement.com The West Coast leader in classic pinball. Makers of custom pinball shooter rods to buyer specifications. swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools even if you don't own the table looks great as a pimple memento to admire prices start at 39 but mention blockade podcast and receive 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on itunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to. We can't prove unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some InBall.