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Ep 106: All the Releases at TPF 2023 with George Fisher and Amanda Hamilton

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Mar 30, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

TPF 2023 recap: Foo Fighters acclaimed, diverse releases and manufacturers, supply constraints limit availability.

Summary

LoserKid Pinball Podcast Episode 106 features hosts discussing pinball games released and announced at Texas Pinball Festival 2023. Guests George Fisher and Amanda Hamilton share detailed impressions of major releases including Foo Fighters (highly praised), Scooby-Doo (mixed reception), Ninja Eclipse prototype (early-stage criticism), Final Resistance (praised as excellent Multimorphic P3 title), and Bond 60 (solid but expensive). Discussion covers manufacturer diversity, community growth, secondary market dynamics, and production capacity constraints affecting game availability.

Key Claims

  • Foo Fighters received universal praise with no negative feedback reported over the entire show weekend

    high confidence · Amanda Hamilton stating 'I never saw it not have at least a group of two or you group up if you're playing multiple players' and 'I never heard a bad thing about Foo Fighters all weekend long'

  • Rush, which won Game of the Year, was not displayed at Texas Pinball Festival 2023 despite designer John Borg being present

    high confidence · Amanda Hamilton: 'There was no Rush at the Texas Pinball Festival... you had John Borg there. So why not bring Rush?'

  • Texas Pinball Festival 2023 had significantly more diversity in attendees including more women, children, and diverse demographics compared to previous years

    high confidence · George Fisher: 'There were a lot of women there. There were a lot of kids, a ton of kids... So many diverse groups of people compared to previous shows'

  • Ninja Eclipse prototype was shown at an extremely early development stage, estimated 30-35% complete

    high confidence · Amanda Hamilton asking 'what percentage do you think it felt was done?' George Fisher responding 'Thirty, thirty five'

  • Final Resistance (Multimorphic P3 game by Matt Danesi) shoots three balls in under one second from the ship mechanism

    high confidence · Matt Scott: 'Matt Scott Denisey said they shoot three balls under a second'

  • Scooby-Doo has excessive horseshoe targets on the playfield, creating many 'safe shots' rather than high-risk/high-reward shots

    high confidence · Amanda Hamilton: 'there's a lot of horseshoes... A lot of safe shots... that's the problem'

  • Bond 60 is priced around $8,000-$10,000, with only 300 units allocated to the U.S. market out of 500 total worldwide

    high confidence · Matt Scott: 'it's a really fun game... there's only going to be like 300 in the U.S.... It is basically an $8,000 to $9,000 game'

  • Turner Pinball acquired assets and licenses from defunct Deep Root Pinball and is attempting to resurrect the game catalog

Notable Quotes

  • “if George Gomez and Keith Owen made perfect pinball machines like Deadpool and Godzilla and those two games had a baby it would be Foo Fighters”

    Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — High praise for Foo Fighters design philosophy combining two acclaimed designers' approaches

  • “I sat in line three times to play Scooby-Doo and never got the opportunity to play it”

    George Fisher @ N/A — Illustrates crowd management and line control issues at the festival

  • “I went through ball one and at that point it's time... Ball three, I just flat out drained it because I was bored of the game”

    Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — Explicit negative gameplay verdict for Scooby-Doo due to excessive safe shots and lack of engagement

  • “It was a con artist... He took advantage of a, not Turner, Robert Dave Mueller, took advantage of the goodwill in the industry and leveraged people who were desperate for more pinball and basically stole from a lot of people”

    Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — Contextualizes Deep Root Pinball fraud history and Turner Pinball's redemptive acquisition of assets

  • “It felt like a homebrew that a couple people put together and brought it out way before it was ready to be shown”

    George Fisher @ N/A — Critical assessment of Ninja Eclipse prototype's unfinished state and premature public showing

  • “The static playfield... the LCD might be displaying stuff but it was more additive as opposed to a requirement”

    Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — Praises Final Resistance's design choice to avoid visual overload on Multimorphic P3 platform

  • “If you have a Multimorphic P3 you are definitely buying this game”

    Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — Strong endorsement that Final Resistance appeals specifically to P3 owners

  • “Because basically it was a very bad business decision for a lot of people... it was a con artist”

Entities

Texas Pinball Festival 2023eventFoo FightersgameAmanda HamiltonpersonGeorge FisherpersonMatt Scott LarsonpersonJosh RootpersonStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Multiple manufacturers announced new titles at TPF 2023 with Stern, Spooky, Chicago Gaming, and others all launching games simultaneously

    high · Amanda: 'what a heck of a time to go to a show when you have how many games that have just been announced... Every manufacturer, it seems, had a new game'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Scooby-Doo criticized for excessive horseshoe targets creating disproportionate number of safe shots versus high-risk shots

    high · Amanda: 'there's a lot of horseshoes... A lot of safe shots... Attack from Mars is still beloved because the biggest risk is going straight up the middle at the saucer'

  • ?

    community_signal: TPF 2023 showed significant increase in female attendees, children, and diverse demographic participation compared to previous years

    high · George: 'There were a lot of women there. There were a lot of kids, a ton of kids... So many diverse groups of people compared to previous shows. So I thought that was very, very cool'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Rush game not brought to TPF 2023 because manufacturer cannot keep inventory in stock due to high demand; selling out faster than production can supply

    high · Amanda: 'My theory is they can't keep them in stock. They're selling so well, they just can't keep them in stock'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Ninja Eclipse prototype by Turner Pinball exhibited at TPF 2023 at extremely early development stage (30-35% complete) with underpowered flippers and minimal software

    high · Amanda: 'It felt like a homebrew... It definitely a prototype... The flippers couldn't make it up the ramps... percentage wise, it seems very, very early'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.251

0:00
Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, Episode 106. I am your host, Amanda Hamilton, here with my co-host, George Fisher. Hey everybody.
0:18
And tonight we have two very special guests. We have Scott Larson and Josh Root, both from Utah area, here to discuss pinball. Oh yeah. Hi guys. Hey, how you doing? so I know you guys are new to this hobby and we wanted to invite you on to kind of see how you've been doing with it and how you've been enjoying your first games what what I really want to know is I heard there was like a festival this weekend but Josh and I couldn't attend like is it a big deal kind of a big deal kind of a big deal okay all right but first Josh let's talk about our sponsors who's sponsoring loser kid pinball podcast so it's the hardest try to keep a straight face that we've ever done so the sponsor of the kid pinball podcast is flipping out pinball you might not be able to get a hold of zach this week he's on a family vacation but when he gets back on monday bombard him with all the messages because you want godfather foo fighters final resistance ninja eclipse pulp fiction scooby-doo galactic tank force and queen which he can get all of except for i think final resistance i actually messaged him today i i messaged him today and put in an order for the rush pinball topper and the Shooter Rod. Ooh. That topper's pretty. That topper's really pretty. That topper is really pretty. Pretty expensive. But yes, it is very pretty. I have a Mando topper, so I'm not going to share any sympathy with you. Oh, wow. So for all your pinball needs, hit up Zach Nicole Mini. That's Flippin' Out Pinball. I always recommend going to their Facebook page because they post the latest games that they have in stock. And they get it out next day. It's like blazing fast shipping. I don't know how they do it. You have it less than 48 hours. I will say that I have a friend who bought, he ended up with two Cactus Canyons, LEs, and he gave me the one from Zach and Nicole. And I have my game and he still does not. Womp womp. So that just tells you how on top of Zach and Nicole are. You know it. so well we were we were jokingly say that saying that people should send us all the information they could for texas pinball festival right that we could live vicariously through them and people took us very dead serious holy crap how many messages did we end up getting scott okay i was actually trying to like take care of kids and stuff and i got probably about 150 messages which was pretty cool and i would say the surprising the most surprising one was a pinball machine driving around with a turret. That pinball machine with the turret was sweet. Yeah, it looked pretty sweet. It was pretty cool. But we wanted to talk to people that were at the festival, and we thought of our two great friends, George and Amanda, and they looked like they partied all weekend long. They had some pretty cool stuff. If you haven't checked out their Facebook pages, that's where all the shenanigans seem to be posted. But George, Amanda, how was it? It was a pretty dang good time. Amanda, what did you think? Probably one of the best shows I've been to. Yeah, it was up there. All right. Well, that's our show. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thanks for having us. Yeah.

high confidence · Amanda Hamilton: 'Turner Pinball's owner basically bought the assets of Deep Root Pinball when they went under'

Amanda Hamilton @ N/A — Direct criticism of Deep Root Pinball founder Robert Dave Mueller's fraud

Turner Pinball
company
Chicago Gaming Companycompany
Flip N Out Pinballcompany
Zach Sharpeperson
Scooby-Doogame
Ninja Eclipsegame
Final Resistancegame
Bond 60game
Pulp Fictiongame
Rushgame
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Robert Dave Muellerperson
Matt Danesiperson
John Borgperson
TNAgame
Pinball Palacevenue
  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive sentiment toward multiple manufacturers competing alongside Stern; recognition of boutique manufacturers like Chicago Gaming and Multimorphic expanding options

    high · Discussion of Stern, Spooky, Chicago Gaming, Multimorphic all having strong releases; Pulp Fiction positioned as cheaper alternative to higher-priced games

  • ?

    design_innovation: Final Resistance praised for innovative use of static playfield with additive LCD animations rather than requiring constant screen attention; solves P3 design problem

    high · Amanda: 'The static layout on it is exactly what I think the Multimorphic P3 needed... The LCD might be displaying stuff but it was more additive as opposed to a requirement'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Turner Pinball acquiring Deep Root Pinball assets after Robert Dave Mueller's fraud, attempting to resurrect game catalog and rebuild community trust

    high · Amanda: 'Turner Pinball's owner basically bought the assets of Deep Root Pinball when they went under... Turner Pinball has the rights and assets to a majority, if not all of the Deep Root Pinball catalog'

  • $

    market_signal: Bond 60 positioned as limited collectible (300 units U.S. market only) with premium pricing; discussion of scarcity-driven purchase decisions in secondary market

    high · Matt Scott: 'if you want to buy it, you should buy it now because there's only going to be like 300 in the U.S.... do you pull the trigger on that?'

  • ?

    product_concern: Games with easy difficulty settings and Golden Cue opportunities creating excessive line wait times; players spending 2+ hours on single machines

    high · Amanda: 'don't go for a Golden Cue when you're playing a game that's set up super easy... you're taking two hours to play Elvira's House of Horrors'

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF 2023 served as major announcement venue with multiple new game reveals and manufacturer showcases driving industry buzz

    high · Setup and structure of entire podcast episode around game reviews from TPF 2023; discussion of manufacturers bringing prototypes and new releases to show

  • ?

    collector_signal: Discussion of game scarcity, limited production runs (500 total for Bond, 300 U.S. allocation), and strategic purchasing decisions based on availability forecasts

    high · Matt Scott speculation about Bond 60 becoming collectible like Stranger Things based on limited availability and lack of alternative options

    • 3:29
    Easy peasy. Yeah. It was awesome. I mean, what a heck of a time to go to a show when you have how many games that have just been announced. You have updated code on so many of them. Every manufacturer, it seems, had a new game. And they had them in mass, except for GTF. You know, that one was starting around. So, yeah. And surprisingly, I'm going to point out this little nugget of information. The game that won game of the year, they did not bring the game.
    4:03
    No, they did not. There was no rush at the Texas Pinball Festival. I mean, part of me is like, OK, I totally understand because you're selling them so fast. But really, like you couldn't hold two or three. Just bring them. Keep in mind, though, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of those games were on loan from Marco Amusements as well. So they had a lot of Foo Fighters, all three levels, the Pro, the Premium, and the LE. They had a lot of the George Gomez version of James Bond. They had a couple of Godzillas.
    4:39
    And Elvira. And Elvira, which was kind of weird. Like, why bring an Elvira if you're not going to bring a Turtle? or... Yeah, I thought they were doing it right now, weren't they? They are, but you think about it too. Normally, they'll bring the games for the designers that are there, and you had John Borg there.
    4:57
    So why not bring Rush? It's up for a Twippy. Why not bring it? But it was still a heck of a good time.
    5:05
    My theory is they can't keep them in stock. They're selling so well, they just can't keep them in stock.
    5:12
    It's a good game. It's a really good game. So I've got to know, because this is an amazing list. Like I spouted off on the flipping out thing. Foo Fighters out of the gate was the first one announced. I want to know, we're just going to go through these one by one. What did you guys think of Foo Fighters?
    5:32
    Get the pro. Yep, get the pro. Really? Oh my gosh, yes. Get the pro. And for those who are not familiar with me, I am an elitist. Get the pro. It shoots so good. it's if George Gomez and Keith Owen made perfect pinball machines like Deadpool and Godzilla and those two games had a baby it would be Foo Fighters the shots are great the artwork is amazing it's at his best the music for what we could hear I mean it's Foo Fighters just absolute phenomenal game and the code on it let's let's not even get me started on the code because that's an up-and-coming code you know we know that ray day's involved in it as well so it's just going to get better because he is phenomenal on his own he's a pretty good player too i don't know if you know i've heard he's okay i don't know i mean i saw him walking around a lot i didn't see him playing at all so that's to be determined i heard travis mary's better man wow okay so what did you think George?
    6:37
    Loved it. I mean, between that and probably Galactic Tank Force were the two games I played, and Foo Fighters because I was really enjoying myself. I spent most of my time on the Premium, went back and played the Pro. I don't have, I feel like, good reasons why, but I'm happy I went Premium as opposed to Pro. On Foo Fighters? On Foo Fighters, sorry. And the Foo Fighters, the Pro flows just as well. But the magnets underneath the 3D sculpture as it throws the ball around in response to actually hitting it is kind of cool. The extra lighting down there, the actual 3D alien is awesome. And in the same way that Jurassic Park, just that weird little spinning helicopter is a form of kinetic satisfaction, which is so enjoyable. the dead bounce not dead bounce the dead save I can't remember what it's called anymore but the little thing under the left flipper is fantastic like you kind of got to dial it in sometimes it doesn't make it up all the way to the other side but wow is it awesome and man did I mess up so many times Amanda be nice family friendly I'm behaving and this is why Scott wants the video so bad I wasn't even paying attention to what I said, obviously. Yeah, pretty sure she turned red with her glowing mic there. It's funny because I've not heard so much division amongst a pro and a premium model. I've talked to people that it's premium all day, and I've talked to other people that just swear by the pro. So it seems you're getting a good game regardless of what game you're going in. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm still in on a premium because I'm a premium guy. I like now it's burned me before because, uh, turtles is better pro. And so that you're allowed to be wrong on that one. Okay. Well, my, my glider like broke within the first two weeks. And so I don't even think I played a functional game. I was going to add that caveat. If the glider is functional, the premium, I think is a, is a more enjoyable play, but you just need really small hands. Cause getting that glider put back together is going to, you test your patience. If you gave up swearing for Lent, don't attempt to do that until after Easter. Right. Wait, I thought Lent was before Easter. Lent goes until Easter. It goes from Good Friday. Yeah. So yeah, you just, you don't want to start the swearing on that one and it will make you say bad things okay owie fingers okay so what uh what did you like most about the premium then george uh the the the dead save um was was awesome okay you're like that that's yeah that's really cool yeah the dead save is really cool um outside of that i'm trying to think of what were the other big features because there's the upper left play field that looks that remind you a little bit of like Simpsons pinball party. Yes, absolutely. Very similar to Simpsons pinball party.
    9:58
    It's fun. There's a couple different shots there. There's a lot of flow. I guess I just liked it. Like I kept going back and forth and then I'm like, I'm going to go have fun now and I'll jump on the premium. Okay.
    10:12
    So you're telling me regardless of what I go as, I'm in on a pro right now, but I'm still on the fence if I should go premium. You're in on a good game. it's great. What I'm hearing is everyone loved Foo Fighters. I didn't hear a bad thing about Foo Fighters all weekend long. I never saw it not have at least a group of two or you group up if you're playing multiple players on a game and I think that there was at least two groups in front of me every time I got my minimum. Most of the time you were four to five groups deep.
    10:44
    You two went last year as well. How packed Was it this year versus last year? Because last year it felt pretty snug.
    10:53
    George, what was your thought on that? Because I felt like it was more packed this year. But when I brought that up to somebody else, I said, no, it was just the way it was laid out.
    11:02
    It felt more packed to me. It felt like there was more people, like I was waiting in more lines. But there was reason for lines to exist, I guess, this year as opposed to last year. I just feel like I wasn't as excited about some of the releases last year. Well, there weren't many. Yeah, the two or three releases over the whole year. What was it? Weird Al, Halloween,
    11:28
    was there any other one? Rush. And Bond, but that was after. Rush had been out at least two months by then. Yeah, Rush had been out. Godzilla had come out September before, so that was still going to be the sweetheart of the show. Alien. They had the Alien LV there last year. That's right. That is true, yes. And they had Funhaus 2.0.
    11:50
    I think that was at Expo. That was at Expo. No, they had one there across from the Aliens there. Oh, they did. That's right. They had the Funhaus and they had a Big Lebowski sitting across from it. Really? Yeah. I didn't even see the Big Lebowski. I know I have a picture of George playing, I think, Funhaus. from last year. See, I thought that was Expo, but if that was TPF, okay.
    12:17
    Sure, why not? Yeah, sure. Do you know where your kids are? Yeah. It was there. But yeah, what I thought was really cool was this show, out of all of them that I've been to, which granted, this is number four for me, so it's not like I'm an expert by any means. This one I felt had more diversity in who was attending. There were a lot of women there. There were a lot of kids, a ton of kids. I love seeing the kids walking around with their little step stools. It's my favorite. There were so many kids there and they were walking up a plane. They weren't sitting there with like a phone in their hand. Just so many diverse groups of people compared to previous shows. So I thought that was very, very cool and a huge win for pinball as a community as well. That's huge. Okay. So, so Foo Fighters, you're giving a thumbs up. Yes. Okay. Thumbs up. Scale of one to ten.
    13:12
    Seven. Okay. That's still solid. George, you going to give it a solid B plus? Now, it is early, but just based on layout.
    13:27
    And I know a lot of people really like Godzilla. And I was so on the fence, and I ended up getting rid of Godzilla. I liked just play field wise playing this more than Godzilla, but they really nailed the upper flipper and all of the shots. So the, the loop shot, the ramp shot, uh, being able to hit the captive ball. Like I, I really, really love the warp ramp on Star Trek and, and even, uh, turtles behind me when you can, when you can actually nail those shots. And this was very satisfying. So I, I really appreciated that. So I would, I want to, I'd hesitate in saying a nine, but a solid eight at this point. Okay. That's still really respectable. That's pretty good out of the gate. Okay. So we're going to jump around a little bit because I don't want to go with all the major releases. Okay. So next up, Scooby-Doo.
    14:22
    How is this not a major release? Well, okay. I'm actually saying there's Stern and there's J.J.P. who were the big ones. And then I would say Pulp Fiction is in there too. And then I would say some less mainstream releases. The boutiques. The boutiques, yes. They put the boo in boutique over at Scooby. The fancies. Yeah, I'm going to let George take this one. Okay. Actually, I really can't. I sat in line three times to play Scooby-Doo and never got the opportunity to play it. Because you gave up because the line, because they never got off. The line didn't move. Yeah. This is my biggest pet peeve in shows. Okay, don't go for a GC when you're playing a game that's set up super easy. Like, okay, we're all impressed and you're taking two hours to play Elvira or Scooby-Doo or whatever. But, you know, it just set like a mental timer. Five minutes. Okay, I'm moving on. I got my experience. Next up. So I agree with you on that one, Scott. But this is my catch-all because I did play Scooby-Doo. Okay. I did not go for a GC. I tried to dream because realistically I got bored playing it the artwork is beautiful it's very interesting what they did with it I was not impressed by the shots, there's a lot of horseshoes when you look at the play field and you see all the horseshoes it doesn't really put into perspective how many horseshoes there are on it because they love Swords of Fury, Lion Man is it similar to that many horseshoes or are there more? I think there's more. Wow. It felt like more. So a lot of safe shots. Oh, yeah. And that's the problem. Like pinball, you have to have at least a couple shots that you have to hit, but they are high-risk shots. I mean, that's the reason why, like, Attack from Mars is still a beloved game because the biggest risk is going straight up the middle at the saucer. But you can go straight down the middle, too. Yep. it um the diverter the bookcase diverter was an interesting feature on it but I found that more often than not I didn't know where the ball was going unless it was going through like there's no diverters for those horseshoes they're coming out the same spot every time and I guess I'm so used to other manufacturers that I wasn't expecting that but I got through ball one and at that point in time you know my hands are kind of cramping from playing so long and then In ball two, I took like three shots and drained it. Ball three, I just flat out drained it because I was bored of the game. And this sounds so mean. I'm so sorry, Spooky. I'm not trying to like crap on you.
    17:06
    It just didn't do it for me. I've talked to other people who are like, Scooby's the best game ever and it looks great. And I'm like, that is so cool. I'm so happy for you. It's not for me. Okay. Well, hey, not every game is for everybody, right? Yeah. so the the next i would say boutique release let's talk about ninja eclipse okay can you even consider this a boutique release it is a prototype project a project release yeah okay so is this um so amanda give us the history on ninja eclipse oh my goodness so ninja eclipse by turner pinball is a prototype game that is part of the new, I'm hesitant to say new lineup through Turner Pinball. Turner Pinball's owner basically bought the assets of Deep Root when they went under. And now that he owns the assets, the games are somewhat coming back. There's the running joke that, you know, Raza will be resurrected one way or another. When you do a promo video and you've got three Raws in the background. I mean, it was interesting. Well, I mean, you've got like three bits of what were made then. You know, that game, we all, you know, for those who aren't familiar with the history of Deep Root, I encourage you to look it up and realize that that's not the standard in the pinball world. It was a very, very dark day for us as hobbyists because basically it was a very bad business decision by a lot of people. It was a con artist. I'm sorry. It was a con artist. It was basically a con. Yeah. And so you can't spin it any other way. He took advantage of a, not Turner, Robert Mueller, took advantage of the goodwill in the industry and leveraged people who were desperate for more pinball and basically stole a lot of money.
    19:04
    Yes. So there's that in a nutshell. So Turner Pinball has the rights and assets to a majority, if not all of the Deep Root catalog and licensure and is trying to resurrect it. So this game, I played it once. It's definitely a prototype. It felt like a home pen to me. It felt like a homebrew. It looks a little bit like a homebrew. It kind of gives me the Jetsons vibe. Yep. So, yeah. George, did you get to play it? Mm-hmm. What do you think?
    19:38
    The flippers couldn't make it up the ramps. Okay, but now that can happen at a lot of shows because there's so much power draw. I'm sure that's an issue that they'll fix. The software is, the animations are very pretty, but they're not really integrated into the game. So you're playing, there's some motion on the screen, but it's not really doing anything. the layout because the flippers were so underpowered was for me at least at that time really difficult to get a feel for how the game shot um yeah it it felt like it felt like a homebrew that uh a couple people put together and uh and brought it out what way before it was ready to to to be shown yeah so was this layout did they ever mention was this layout actually one of the previous layouts or is this something that they've built from scratch?
    20:34
    I believe this is a reused layout but I couldn't promise that on a stack of idols. I don't know what layout it was reused. It's either a reused one or a previously unreleased one. Correct. Yeah. It had a cool ramp feature. Like there one part on the upper left side I could never hit it because once again I couldn ever make it That the shot from the upper flipper it looks like From the upper flipper It kind of gives me that big sweeping shot It looks a little bit like a pop-a-doop shot, I guess. It kind of does, just sweeping ramps. As of yet, Turn Road Pinball has a long way to go if they want to compete in the market. Sounds like I'm curious to see what they'll bring to the next show. OK. And what refinements they make. Sure. So if this was a homebrew, what percentage do you think it felt was done? Thirty, thirty five. OK. I mean, I don't know. George, George, what do you think?
    21:42
    Man, software is is one of those things that requires kind of a team. If you're going to try and pump something out quickly. I mean, if you look at Queen, let's say, and then we got to see it at Expo and they and that was after a year of just working on the software and knowing now that they're further, but the software is still not there. I percentage wise, it seems very, very low. But that's just because it seems like the software is non-existent at this point. It was almost like a beta test.
    22:12
    OK, well, that's the other point I was going to bring up, because we always complain, right? We're always like, why do we pretty much see Foo Fighters when it's ready to ship? There's a lot of complaints that we should know the theme beforehand and maybe even know kind of the layout so that way we can get an idea. But it kills some things. It totally devalues the buzz. That's what I'm wondering about this. You think it was a smart idea for them to bring Ninja Eclipse. It's probably not even called Ninja Eclipse. That's probably just the name they slapped on it. Maybe it is. I don't know. It's probably back to the future, actually.
    22:47
    Do you think it was a right decision to bring it in such an early stage and show it off? Do you remember when Haggis brought Keltz and it was the Whitewood before there was really any software and you got an opportunity to flip it? It was very different because it was, I feel like, an Australian manufacturer and it was before there were so many manufacturers. I feel like it just it felt like one of those I'm kind of excited for this this person who went from nowhere to come out to the to the to the US and present a Whitewood. I don't really care that it doesn't have a lot of software in it. I was just I was just happy that there was someone else jumping in and I really hope things worked out well for them. Like I was I was much more positive about that. And I see this as being very similar. they're just jumping into a flooded market and I feel like they have a lot of negativity surrounding them because they're in a situation with Deep Root. Yeah, I agree.
    23:41
    Okay. So overall on a scale of 1 to 10, I guess it's hard to even... TBD. Yeah, I don't think it's fair to judge this one when it was in such an infantile state. So cautiously optimistic. How about that? I mean, you guys know me. I'll play anything twice. except for Scooby apparently I'll play it again on location somewhere okay so the next one I'm trying to build up to the bigger releases so Final Resistance so this is Scott Denise's foray into the P3 system awesome absolutely phenomenal okay really why I don't hear nothing but good I heard it's brutal but it's like fair it's still fun but it's not like it's not like houdini right where they were saying the shots are tight but findable no oh my god the shots were fantastic yes that game it lends itself well to the p3 platform because of the functionality of having the screen and the laser grid on it but realistically i think that game would have been fine as a traditional pinball machine as well. I do think that's unique too, that they decided to go with a static image of a pinball play field on the screen. There's elements that aren't necessarily static. There were some more dynamic elements on it. Not a lot, but there were some. But you could definitely tell it was an EVC game. The sound on it is it's Scott. I don't know what else to say. It's Scott. It was really good. George has a big smile on his face. like yeah i think george liked it i i loved it i i thought it was great um it is like going from tna to then then rick and morty if if he was going to make tna the sequel this is it has the same brutal kind of feel things being shot right back at you um but with more shots so it's a very efficient use of the layout once the the machine that they have at the top right actually shooting out those balls it it's so fast it is just like bam bam like you get hit hard with multi-ball um the static layout on it is exactly what i think the p3 needed it's so easy to get distracted when everything on the play field is animated and you're trying to pay attention not only to the ball but also uh the animations that are happening and hitting things but the lcd might be displaying stuff like it just took all of that away and gave you animations but it was it was more um it was additive as opposed to a requirement so a static play field you can just play the game but it's really cool because um bombs might go off and there's a little explosion or something reacts so the whole background changes green in preparation for just like an awesome introduction to the to the multi-ball so think like a blackwater multi-ball on on game of thrones where it goes green and it starts flashing and suddenly because maybe because that light show is blinded by the white exactly it's it's it's that but way more coordinated and it's it's it's gorgeous so it is it is it's brutal the the sound was fantastic it is i think for me everything i would have expected from a from a scott denisi take especially sitting in the same kind of cyberpunk universe um it was it was gorgeous so you're it sounds like you're saying this could be a game that would encourage people to buy a p3 and if you have a p3 you are definitely buying this game i'm upset that we no longer have a p3 to purchase this module and why why don't you have a p3 anymore amanda um is this is this public knowledge i don't know that it's public knowledge i mean i'm not hiding it am i outing Am I outing you right now? No, you're not outing us. We had the opportunity. We were on location at Pinball Palace, who, by the way, congratulations, place number two in best locations in the world on the Twippy. So we were up there talking to them, and they've been waiting on their P3 for a while. We all know that there's delays in shipping on everything right now. Yeah. And they happen to have, we were playing James Bond, and they happen to have a new in-box, Ellie, sitting in the back that they were looking to sell.
    28:16
    You got a 60th for a Weird Al? No, no, no, no. No, that'd be sweet, though. No, that one I definitely would have done, too. But no, we ended up with a Thunderball as an even exchange for a Weird Al, which was kind of cool because we still can go up there and play it anytime we want to. So now it's the best of both worlds. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to pivot a little bit because I am going to ask a little bit of a theoretical question. I just want to – sorry. I want to just one little – Okay. Go ahead. When George was saying it spits out the balls fast at you, the spaceship, Scott Denisey said they got three balls in under a second. That's how fast it's coming out of that ship. Yeah. We can vouch for that. Yeah. Just to let you know. How many of them drain? It's like gunfire. Actually, it's not – they're not shooting straight down the middle. If you're aware of it, you can save them. it's not like the gene simmons uh like yeah reject yeah no but i mean you have that game does not allow you to get distracted okay and it's tna was the same way and i think too you know george you and i both have a mutual love and respect for tna as a game that's i know one of my favorites i think that's one of yours as well so this was very very wonderful to walk up to and play sorry when you said the gene simmons ball reject yeah you're talking about is that kiss yeah because i was I was thinking of the workout person, but I think maybe I have their name. Oh, Richard Simmons. You're thinking of Richard Simmons. That's a different ball reject. The sweat into the oldies. Yeah, the two, the booty shorts, the two tight shorts doing the jazzercise. Imagine him like kicking out his butt and knocking your ball into the outlet. That's literally what I did. We need a Richard Simmons pinball machine. That was part of hard body. Yeah. That would definitely be a hard body. Yeah, we definitely need that. well and that's i'm glad that it's so fast because one of the complaints about a p3 is everything's in the the final third right and so it's it's hard besides except for that those shields that come up like in when you're playing word out and the germ song comes on and you're playing in just the bottom two third um other than that those shots kind of feel safe because they're so far back and scott has taken that and shrunk the play field because of these the shots he's put in there And he didn't use the upper flippers.
    30:33
    Nice. Yeah. Yes. Okay, Scott, give us your theoretical. You're starting. Okay. So I'm taking a little pause from all of the major releases because I will update you on what I did over the weekend. So my neighbor down the street just picked up a Bond 60.
    30:57
    Oh, wow. Yeah. So he picked up a Bond 60 and I went and played it. Now, okay, do I think that it's a close to $20,000 in parts game? Yeah, no. However, it's a really fun game.
    31:16
    And it's kind of making me think of like if you want to buy it, you may should buy it now because there's only going to be like 300 in the U.S. and I'm theorizing that this is going to be a little bit like a Stranger Things LE, because it's not like there's even another option.
    31:40
    So do you buy it now with the anticipation of, okay, this is it? There's 500 total, but 300 are going to be in the U.S.
    31:50
    I don't know. It seems kind of crazy because it is basically an $8,000 to $9,000 game, maybe 10 if you want to do the the the the scoring reels is that enough to push you over to say hey for an exclusive game that not too many people have do you pull the trigger on that okay i'm throwing it to the forum go i want to challenge the one statement you have about you there there's nothing else uh this is this is it and pulp fiction okay half the price i would just like to point out reach out to zach and nicole at flipping out pinball oh no trust me i i have right now they are trying to dump so not trying to dump but they do have i believe 360th they're trying to move they're trying to move some inventory to open up for a lot of other stuff Yes. And there's a lot of other stuff to open up for. So, yeah, Zach at flip the letter in out.
    32:51
    No, trust me. I before Zach went on vacation, I actually covertly messaged him and like so theoretically.
    33:00
    So I don't know. I'm I'm I'm I'm really close to saying, yeah, go ahead, because I don't think it's going to lose value. You know what you could do with that 20K, though? Go to TPF. I could, but my wife went to Taylor Swift and it's, yeah. And so, you know what? She went with her sisters and her mom. So, you know, okay. I mean, George and I went and had fun. Yes, we did. Yeah. And I, I had to take care of feral creatures over the weekend. I mean, it was like mistakes were made. Okay. And we shared pictures just so you realize that you were wrong. Yeah. Thank you for not sending me pictures of wild pitch. Cause I think my family, You're not allowed to take pictures in there. Significant amounts of questions.
    33:44
    To agree with you, Scott, for a second, though, that game does look fantastic. It's fun. I was really hoping it would be a TPF. The layout, everything looks awesome. And I've had that same internal discussion and monologue. Like, if I get it now when it's dropped down to that, like, 16 to 17 range, do I expect it maybe not to lose too much more money or perhaps over time go up to exactly like you said, Stranger Things. Maybe. It just, I just struggle with it. It's really not, I struggle with the fact that it's just not worth that much. Even if it maintains the price, that is a lot of money for a single- It's a lot of capital. Yeah, it's a lot of capital invested into a single-level game that has a great theme, and it is actually well, like, it is a fun game. It is definitely difficult. But you could also buy a Beatles for about, you know, 50% of the price.
    34:43
    So I don't know. So this is the feedback section. I want people to tell me, to send in the information of why I should or should not buy a Bond 60. And if you are at MGC, there will be one, I am told. All right. Before we move on, I want to take a quick couple minutes to talk to you about a product that was shipped to me by a company called Pinwoofer. Dan Dean is an amazing man, and we've been talking over the last few months about this product that he has created for your pinball machine. It upgrades the sound system. I've been very hesitant on changing out my speakers, but being a sound guy, I've always wanted to have a better sound coming out of my pinball machines. I've liked what CGC has done with their stuff from Attack from Mars and Monster Bash, because I've owned those two games. And Sterns are still good, but they just feel a little light in the sound division. So I got talking with Dan. Dan sent me the Super Spike Kit. So this came with two of the speakers for the back box, the main speaker down at the bottom, a power amp so I can adjust all the bass and the treble, all with the volume from the amp. You also use the volume from your game. and then all the wiring harnesses and everything to hook this bad boy up. And it was amazing. So I was a little nervous because the box came and there was one big box and then four or five small boxes on the inside. I pulled everything out, got the instructions offline, specific to the kit I got for Godzilla Premium, because who doesn't want the sound to be like Godzilla stomping through your living room or your basement when you are destroying that building. So he sent me the sound kit and took me about 15, 20 minutes to install. It really was not bad at all. And even though it looked a little daunting at first, once I dug in, started playing with the stuff, realized this was really fairly easy so long as I kept to the instructions and just did everything to a T. And voila, before I knew it, I had the new sound system in.
    36:50
    Turning it on for the first time, I was a little nervous because I didn't know what to get. they had had some recommendations of how to preset your amp based off of the feedback they've received on that game. So I set it right to their adjustments and the game came to life. Holy crap, it was amazing. Night and day difference. And I just don't know what else to say about this product that I haven't already said. It is amazing. If you're looking for that game-changing sound go with Penwoofer. They're a quality product. There was everything was hold my hand step by step to get this in and I don't like to cut wires. That's one thing that I appreciate about this. It all came with harnesses. It all came with plugins. There was no soldering. I just ran the wires through, plugged them in where they needed to plug in and turned it on. zip-tied so I didn't have any wires hanging down the bottom of the cabinet and the back in the back box and it truly took my premium game and made it an ultra awesome game. If you want to check out more of this product the one that I was specifically talking about like I said you can hit them up at pinwoofer.com so that is p-i-n-w-o-o-f-e-r.com and if you go there you go to their speakers and amplified kits they have it all there you have to look specifically for your game like i said i got the godzilla one which was the pinwoofer spike super kit if you just want to upgrade your speakers they have that option as well in here you can buy just the speakers and really the price was not bad 370 for a full out upgrade to three speakers and a power amplifier and guys the new uh the new rush hopper just came out with 1700. This is not much of an upgrade. This is not much of an expensive upgrade to your machine. And you're going to feel it is going to be more of an immersive experience to you, to your family. When it turns on people instantly eyes draw to it because they can tell there's a difference to the sound. I even have the mind turned down to like a five on the volume and it's still, you can feel just that sound is palpable. It's just, it's amazing. I highly recommend it like i said tell dan dean that i sent you josh rupe with loser kid and see what he can do for you once again pinwoofers.com is definitely where it's at go check it out all right let's move on to uh pulp fiction how's that sound since we're talking single level play i'm gonna let george go on this one so you could have a game that achieves the same single level feel in my opinion has a much better theme and is also a fantastic design and it's not just like a throwback where they put the reel the spinning reel which is cool into a standard stern cabinet like it looks like an lcd we were all confused because we thought it was an lcd because they literally put the reels in the LCD box. And it's not that. This is a full-on solid-state throwback in every single way, but with much deeper rules and awesome art and a great theme. All of it for $9,000? Was it $9,300? With the amazing copper and everything? I don't think it's that expensive. I thought it was $89.99, but I could be wrong. I don't remember. Ryan told us. it was they obviously undersold themselves because they that thing sold out quick they did with cactus canyon remake too i mean you know cactus canyon remake was gone that day yeah yeah no pulp fiction was good it was it was a fun game it was a fun shooter i'm not a huge fan of solid state games so it wasn't really my cup of tea but i i was smiling while i played it i was trying and I was having a good time. That topper is really cool. It's very appropriate.
    41:00
    I can't think of a better topper for that game, but it's not a family-friendly game, so for those of you who are Pulp Fiction fans and you have small children, you're going to be playing it with the sound off if you put it in your house, unless you are not too concerned about what they go to school and repeat.
    41:16
    Unless you're Josh Sharp. Well, you know. He was even using the edited code that a few of them slipped through. They have an adult mode. I didn't get to hear the difference just by the end of the... By the time I finally got to play it, I couldn't hear anything because it was so loud in there. And you'd have to really listen in and I could hear a quote or something like that. But Ryan kept talking about the fact that they were going to put it into adult mode later in the evening. They did. They did okay And I never got the opportunity to get a feel for what the difference was there It was the full Tarantino experience So if you're familiar with Quentin Tarantino movies and you've never seen Pulp Fiction, and you're familiar with Samuel L. Jackson in some of his not Marvel-related movies, it's the full Tarantino experience. Yeah. it seemed like a very thematically appropriate incarnation of a pinball machine if you were to put it in some sort of uh like some sort of like generator of like give me a give me a movie and spit out a machine it seems like that's the exact machine that would be spit out if you asked for pulp fiction absolutely yeah and another thing about pulp fiction whereas scooby-doo had um they had like seven or eight and the groups were maybe two to three groups two groups and you'd have to wait 30 maybe 40 minutes to get to play it was 10 groups deep on four pulp fictions and the lines were actually moving pretty quick but it was still it was still 30 to 40 minutes but but the games were the the the play field is much more brutal so the games went a lot quicker so you ended up getting up to play more often, despite the fact that there was a lot more people trying to play those games. And those lines were 10 deep the entire show. The entire show. There was no point could I ever jump in and quickly play Pulp Fiction. It was a 30 to 40 minute commitment. Yeah. At one point, I think I told Ryan I was just going to start pushing people out of the way and saying that he told me I could. Yeah. It seems to me that like Pulp Fiction, this is how Cactus Canyon seems to me, is that that topper really, it's like white water. White water without the topper is just, there's something missing. And if you get this game without the topper, it seems like there's something missing. Absolutely. It's even the style of dancing. Like they're up there and they have their hands forward. And it was just a very unique way of dancing in Pulp Fiction. I'm sure Manu, who teaches dance, could tell you that it's this type of dance but it's just even how they spin it was it's perfect for for the movie that's exactly how i feel like they could have animated things in a topper to give you that same feel of how they danced and walked away with the gold yeah yeah so scale of one to ten i i'm hearing at least seven from you guys i would say i would say seven just because like i said it's not my style of game but i don't think that people who enjoy older style games or solid state games are going to be disappointed i this to me is an eight bordering on a nine again in fact i i bought two games uh i bought foo fighters and i bought pulp fiction and these are the two games i'm so happy i'm i'm walking away with did you get the le i did get the le gotta get that topper yeah you gotta you gotta get the topper 100 yeah so what i'm hearing is is we've got a private party happening in george's here yeah we're going to george's because i want to play it and then i can explain to you guys why mandalorian premium is is uh is uh not valued appropriately i feel like okay i actually so good hey i actually sold mando premium so i could buy cactus canyon okay hey that's a good switch cactus canyon's great right and and that was really a more of a oh so this is also something that was fun over the weekend going over to my friend's house he had bar stools with the games and my kids loved playing pinball on the bar stools. We have bar stools on our games. Okay. Well, I've never had a bar stool at my house and so my kids never played, but my kid, I have an adorable picture of him sitting there like with his knees up to his chest and flipping away. He played Jurassic Park all night and then he said, dad, do we have this game? Yeah, we've had it for five years.
    45:54
    Get some barstools, Scott. Yeah. Oh, okay. So I actually mentioned to him and he gave me a bar. He's like, here, take this barstool. So we actually ended up with a barstool. Nice. So. That is hilarious. Yeah. I will say that, but I, okay. I will say the one game that I thought I really want to see it in person was Pulp Fiction just because it was such a different, it was a throwback to 1970. it was yeah it won't disappoint when you see it in person it is much prettier in person than any pictures or videos can depict it and we agree yeah and like you know like we have said not every theme is for every person this theme is not for my family but it doesn't need to be right yeah you don't need to make every theme for everybody but this certainly if you are a fan of Tarantino seemed like it's a no-brainer. Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely. Yep. Alright, let's move on. We've got two more games. Which would you guys prefer? Godfather? GTF! GTF!
    46:58
    Alright, well, we'll go with GTF and then we'll end on Godfather then. GTF Queen! Because that's how the notes say it.
    47:05
    Yeah, let's just admit that Queen is a dumpster fire and move on. Alright, so GTF. Oh my goodness. With the exclamation point. GTF! Okay, how nerdy, campy fun was it to watch them driving the pinball machine around the show? It was awesome. It was so cool. Ryan nailed it. How bad did you want to climb on top of that as they were driving it around and make tank noises? I would have absolutely done that if they had allowed it. Okay, I want to hear Amanda's tank noise right now. Go.
    47:42
    Pew, pew, pew. I don't have anything good for this. We need Dennis Creasel on here for Take Noises. No, it was such a great way.
    47:54
    Oh, that game was so much fun. Okay. So there were a lot of people who were taken aback because the reveal seemed different. Yeah. I guess I'll put it that way. There was a teaser. It took them a while. And finally, they didn't even show the full game until basically at Texas Pinball Festival. So there's what, like, but however, I will say the game will not live and die on a reveal. Okay. If that's true, then Guns N' Roses would have sold 15,000 machines. Yeah. Agreed. So, so take that aside. How did it play?
    48:37
    I thought it played really well. It reminded me a lot of Attack from Mars. It had the tank in the middle that you were shooting. Very dangerous shot, but satisfying. You're beating the snot out of it.
    48:50
    The shots on it, there were some cool combos. There were some very, very fast shots on it. There were ways to slow the ball down. The shots were obtainable. I'm not a good player, but I felt they were attainable, but they were difficult. You had to find them.
    49:05
    The art package was gorgeous. if you go into it taking that game seriously, you're going to be disappointed because that game is not to be taken seriously. Think of the movie Attack from Mars and then animate it and put it on Disney. And that's kind of what this was. Like the colors and the animation, in my opinion, that's kind of what it reminded me of.
    49:29
    I don't know. It was good. I love the cow abduction. The cow abduction was so fun. It's really good. George what do you think of it so a couple different things the art package is maybe some of the best art to come out in recent memory it's awesome it has dubstep as it's like primary music which I think is just great okay I have no idea what dubstep is so you're gonna have to educate the non-hipster me I don't get it like oh Nero Imagine two robots making out and the noise they're making is dubstep with electronic in there Go check out Skrillex if you get a chance and you just know what dubstep is What was that? Skorillex? Skrillex S-K-I-L-L-R-E-X Is that a band? No, no, S-K-R-I-L-L-E-X R-I-L-L-E-X, there we go oh uh skrillex american dj yeah and uh scary monsters nice sprites is a decent album the other one if like maybe check out the song bangerang that would be a really good introduction my favorite is first of the year okay all right i'm pulling it up for you right now scott okay i can't wait and then i'll just cut it out because we're gonna educate him five minutes later you It would be totally gangster driving around in your F-150 with some dubstep going. Yeah. It would remind me a little bit of Office Space when he's like driving his Corolla and listening to the gangster rap. They don't hate. We were driving around in a Corolla that was our friend. Yeah.
    51:19
    Mike's not allowed to drive anymore, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah. Never again. So amazing art. The sound package. I love. And despite the fact that the launch showed video that was like reminiscent of bad 90s porn, the animations and video in the game were decent. It fit. They were what the release showed. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't. It actually meshed nicely with the game. Okay. All of that. So then it comes down to actually playing it. And despite the fact that like the lighting and the play field was gorgeous. um, for, for, for me, there's, there's not a lot going on in the play field. Now I think the rule set as it comes along could totally change that and force you to hit certain shots. And when you hit those shots, it, it in the same way that, um, I really like the, the, um, uh, pro version of, uh, black Knight sort of rage. Okay. There's not a lot going on there, but it progresses. And you were right on that. If you're, if you're getting a, uh, a black Knight, I prefer the pro it's yeah I know people are like well it doesn't have the upper play field because the classic black knight okay still it's a better better ding it's just yeah if you if you don't care about the past of black knight and don't bring that in the pro I think plays more mean brutal and more fun than the premium or the le yeah so you're you're saying george and I'm sorry to interrupt I just want to clarify so you're saying that the shots are there but the reward for hitting the shots is not yet.
    52:54
    No, sorry. I'm saying I didn't have fun shooting the game. Okay. I liked everything but playing the game, but the rule set could change that and that it might make some of those shots. Like I really wasn't feeling flow because there's this big blocking thing right in the middle. So you're kind of forced to hit either the left ramp or the orbits. Right. Yeah, because that's pretty close up. It is very close up. That's halfway down the play field and then you have this giant... It basically takes a whole wedge out of the game. Yep. But you can shoot behind it. You can get behind it. Okay. You get into pops. Yeah. So I don't want to say it's not...
    53:36
    I'm still keeping a really... An open mind. Because once again, the art, the animations, the sound, all of the other things, it's a huge win. And I just... I couldn't find the magic in actually playing it, but I think it could get there. I'm just waiting, I guess, at this point. If they would have let you drive around on the tank, you would have had a different impression, I think. Very different. That's why he's so salty.
    54:01
    Well, I want to point out one thing, too. So if you want to listen to one of our past episodes, I can't remember if it's like 70 or a little bit before that, but we did an interview with Jack Hager. He is the animator, and he is the artistic design of the animations and stuff for galactic tank force but during the interview he did not no one knew what galactic tank force was going to be right they just wanted to kind of introduce some of the people they brought on board and if you haven't watched insert coin i watched that this last week and jack hager is a predominant figure in that documentary because it's more about the arcade side than the pinball side of williams and it makes sense now looking what jack did he was specializing in live capture video and then putting it in video games so like it's like yeah yeah nba jam and when he got to like direct his first game it was aerosmith's revolution x do any of you remember this game oh absolutely it was okay it's a it's a crazy gun game where you're gunning down everybody and you end up in a theater gunning people down while aerosmith is performing on stage. It would not be released today. You're shooting CDs, not bowls. You're shooting aliens or something. Yeah, you're not shooting Aerosmith, but still, it's an interesting game. But back to my original point, I feel like this is where they went the direction, because that's what Jack did, right? That was his bread and butter back at Williams. That was what he's brought to the table. So I'm thinking in the future, this is going to be a lot of what American Pinball does. just because that's what their animator is. I would say the live action things, it looked like a high school Bill and Ted's presentation where you got your buddies, you got stupid outfits on, and you're really trying to be a bad actor. It seemed like they nailed that. It was, but I think that was more of an intentional action. No, absolutely. This is not accidental comedy. This is intentional. They are trying to be intentionally B-movie. Terrible. Yeah. Well, and I think George had a good point. You said it's hard to compare. You have to play the game, right? Like the video itself at two and a half minutes or whatever, three minutes, and it's mostly just the video assets. The way that it's chopped and everything, it feels like a bad B-movie. and almost like deleted scenes from a bad B movie. That's just the way it felt. But it sounds like it's integrated a lot better than what we're giving credit based off of that three-minute video.
    56:46
    Yeah. Yeah, well said. Okay. All right. Okay. Now for the final reveal, we have The Godfather. Okay. So we've been waiting on this. I think Stern has released like eight games since Toy Story came out, and The Godfather is the next release by JJP. We interviewed Eric a few episodes ago, and it was a great interview. It was really interesting hearing his take and his approach, but how did it view in person? I want to point out they've only released technically two games since Toy Story because it was a feat that they've done this in nine months so they did Bond I mean if you want to consider 60th and then Foo Fighters came out pretty much the same time it was Foo Fighters one week and then Godfather okay I just want to point out it's impressive what they've done in the last nine months quicker turnaround So first things first On playing the game There's no easy shots This is not Wonka This is not anything else in my opinion It's not Toy Story This is nothing like what they've ever done before And I loved it I thought the layout was great There's some flow there There's some trapping up and hitting It's a really good mix It's a game that I'm excited to play more So from just the layout perspective, I think I liked it. The other cool thing is on the animation side, I feel like – I think it's Jean-Paul DeWin. Depends on the animations.
    58:36
    I'm going to talk about the – the animations themselves are cool, but it feels very much like Settlers of Catan or a Carcassonne or – it feels like a board game. It feels like a role-playing – that's exactly what I said. It feels like a RPG. Yeah. I dig it. I really enjoy the layout of the LCD and how progression is displayed, what you're supposed to do.
    59:06
    So that coupled with the lighting, it does – like I could never figure out what I was supposed to hit based on the lighting on the play field. It felt like there was too much maybe going on, and I'm sure that will get dialed in over time. but I was pleasantly surprised for something I've still never seen Godfather all the way through I think I've fallen asleep over the past five years the two or three times I've tried to watch it so for a theme I care nothing about I was really happy to have finally played it a few times and I want to play it more You should come to Florida Why is that Amanda? I have a Godfather CE that will be here in a few months So Amanda, you're, you're like rating this game as a four, right? Yeah, definitely. Like three and a half. Three and a half. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I loved Pirates. That was my all time favorite game. It still is. This game has all of the best parts of Pirates with the shots, just kind of that, that same feel, you know, there's a lot going on. You're kind of competing against the people you're playing against. there's pros and cons to which family you choose similar to the characters that they had in pirates but eric has evolved so much you figure this is only his third game you know so when you're comparing him to people like even elwynn has more games out than that he's been doing this for less amount of time so when you look at the evolution of him starting out with pirates which was phenomenal you know with doing um guns and roses which was such a beautiful game and such a great theme integration and then Godfather I think a lot of people agree that this was not the license we wanted this was not something that translated well necessarily to pinball it's a drama I'm like George it takes from all three movies I've never seen all three of them because they're boring and I don't mean that in a harsh way that's not my theme okay it's not your theme that's fine to say yeah not my theme at all I want action I didn't see how it would translate well and then to play it. I got to play it the weekend before TPF on location and really, really enjoyed it. And then I got to talk to Eric. I actually had him on Freeplay Pinball Podcast the day after you guys had him on and talked to him some more and he was giving me some tips and some tricks. And when we saw him at the show, because he was at TPF, just kind of getting a few more of those things, like hands-on lessons on how to play this game. we were getting in line it was another one that always had a line they had a ton of them i think they had 10 i think they had or they had 10 le's and two ce's there and it it was always a line we would get in line we'd play it and then we would get back in line because you just like you figure another thing out now you gotta do it again and i'm not a rules person i'm not a depth of the game person but this one i was able to kind of grasp it pretty quick so oh it was so good i can't wait for it to get here.
    62:11
    And you went all in, CE. Yeah, we went all in. That game is beautiful and that topper adds so much to it. The sculptures in the CE are a little more mature looking than the Ellie. Really? They kind of look characterish. If you look at the two, the sculpture in the Ellie looks more like a caricature. Really? I didn't know that they did different sculptures. They did different sculptures, but the animation and the artwork and just the lighting on it And I mean you have Keith Johnson on code So how are you going to go wrong with that and jean dewin did so much of the animation and then you can take it off of family friendly mode and beat the crap out of some of these guys involved in the design of this game and they're physically taking damage so you know now it's not just i'm yelling at my designer i can actually punch him in the eye so yeah so that was kind of cool too just the way that they integrated it you could tell that he was very proud of it and i love the way that the team was integrated into this game to kind of fill in some areas so yeah we went all in okay so i have two questions that stand out in my mind from since you since you both had hands on the game i want to put a couple things to rest so the first one is everyone complained about the lighting like the it's unicorn puke on top of a very serious game how did it look in person beautiful it's without a doubt beautiful i was really struggling to find out what i was supposed to do in the same way that um like star trek leads you by the nose to with every shot you you need to make and i wasn't there on on godfather and knowing what i was supposed to do at any given time like the lcd was a lot more helpful and and in in that regard and on top of that there's the one shot up the middle which is i would say the only easy shot and even that's not that easy where you start a battle or a fight with the guy with the Tommy gun. Gotcha. And then the second question I have is I felt like a lot of people were comparing this to shots from Godzilla or from L1 designs. Did it feel like that? Did it look like that more in person? I know it's got like 29 different ball path is what they're touting right now. 29 different ball paths because of the diverters.
    64:27
    It, the shots felt L1 as in the fact that the, the high risk shots were high reward shots. And that's his thing. You know, he's going to throw some shots in there that you're going to make 90% of the time. The big old bash toy in the middle. You're going to hit that pretty frequently. Some of the other shots, not so much. They're a little bit higher of a risk. But when you do hit them, it feels really good. And there's a lot of shots and a lot of combos in that game that felt really good when I shot it. I like combos. I love combos so much. I think that's why I love Elwynn games. And Eric pulled that off big time with this. I didn't get any Elwynn vibes when I was playing it. Like this to me felt like its own animal. It had a decent amount of flow. It had some really tough shots. What's surprising is that if you also told me, like if somebody overlaid a design for Godzilla or something and, you know, 50% overlaid right on top,
    65:21
    maybe I wouldn't be surprised, but that definitely never entered my mind without you saying it because that's the first time I heard it. So I wouldn't have compared it to anything by Elwynn. Okay. And something that I find interesting, Christopher Franchi did art on three of these releases. He's been busy. Like, that is a crazy amount to say in the last month, three pinball machines with his art in it. I don't know if that's ever happened. So what was the third one? We had Godfather, we had Galactic Tank Force. And Pulp Fiction. did he do Pulp Fiction? yes he did Pulp Fiction because that is not his normal style of art I thought he did Pulp Fiction on the interview we did Mark Ritchie said it was Scott Gines I want to say well okay you're right you're right Pulp Fiction because they had their own I do remember the story now we because Quentin Tarantino said do you want me to use my guy and Mark's like no we got a guy yeah so okay I'm going to tell Quentin Tarantino, no, I got a guy.
    66:31
    Okay. You know what? If you did the Indiana Jones, the pinball adventure, you can say whatever you want, I guess. No, sorry. When he said that, the first thing I thought was, because all they could hear when he said, I got a guy, I bet they heard ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. So they're like, no, no, we've got a guy. Yeah. We're good. Yeah. We're trying to keep costs down, but now it's a cool game. So put your hands on them. Play it. Okay. So your, your top four, I want you to go in descending order. Like, cause I, I don't want to, I don't want to do all of them because that would seem who came in last place may feel bad, but how would you rank your top four? Godfather, Foo Fighters, Final Resistance, GTF.
    67:16
    Okay. So that's one through four. That's one through four. Okay. And Pulp Fiction didn't make that list, huh? Like I said, It was a beautiful game, and I don't think that the people who are going to purchase it are going to be disappointed. It's just not my style of game. It's not your jam. Not my jam.
    67:32
    Okay, George. I don't know which one's first at this point, but either Foo Fighters or Pulp Fiction are tied for me for first. After that, Final Resistance and then Godfather. Okay. I think that's still pretty solid. So no ninja clips for you, George? Definitely not. not yet TBD that's what I'm saying you don't feel bad necessarily putting a loser because the loser would probably be Ninja Eclipse and I'm not saying that as a bad thing it's just it's incomplete I think the loser would not be Ninja Eclipse I think Ninja Eclipse still has some potential I think that the loser is the last one on the list that I'm looking at right now I don't even know why I'm not even considering that game I don't know why well yeah we played queen already it queen feels like a day to east game from like 1992 it just wasn't that good it's it's and it feels that it feels retro but not in a cool way so when i was at expo i'm not going to name the person but there was a person with me that is, I don't want to say critical, but they're very professional. And they wanted to point out how much the actual design of Queen clashes with the band itself. And the band was very artistic, and they felt like they kind of downplayed that a lot. It felt like a lunchbox. Yeah, it was a lunchbox. And so I'm going to take that, and I'm going to juxtapose it next to Pulp Fiction, because I've heard Pulp Fiction is how you make a theme for a retro game, and it's so on point for a Quentin Tarantino game.
    69:20
    It's funny because if you put those two next to each other, I think what Queen lacks is better theme integration, and I think that's where Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction really stand out. And I'm not saying that Final Resistance does and whatnot, but it's it's it's hard to get into a theme when it's an original theme unless it's like one that you've come to know and love i'm not saying final resistance can't do that i'm saying like we're gonna have to get time on it to love it right where foo fighters and pulp fiction has that automatic built into it because you've already been growing up with it for years now so my suggestion is to other uh manufacturers because i know you all listen take take those games and learn from the theming and grace on those because that's what we as hobbyists, as the community, as the industry as a whole want to see from a pinball machine. And it's funny because we all complained about single... That's the number one complaint here is like, price does not equate single play field. It doesn't. But the funny part is as soon as Pulp Fiction came out, the LE sold out in less than an hour. They were just gone. and people are clamoring over this game. And granted, it's not... It's probably the closest thing to a Stern Pro that's out there, but still the bottom one's eight, I want to say. And people aren't complaining about the price. If you do the game right, you're not going to be fighting the price. And if you do it wrong, you're always going to be fighting the price.
    70:55
    Not one complaint the entire weekend about the price of Pulp Fiction. Never came up. And I haven't heard that from anyone. even i've got some friends that are very much penny pinchers and it hasn't even been a question they're just like yeah we're in on pulp fiction which is crazy thinking of i you remember when like stern pushed the nine thousand dollar envelope for their le's like that that seems like a millennia ago now well either let's talk beatles like remember when beatles came out and people lost their craft. It was $200 more. The premium was $200 more.
    71:35
    Now we have $1,700 toppers. We have $2,000 toppers. I mean, the Mando topper is two grams. Does it have moving gears? It has a hologram. But I think it goes to prove that price equals your product. If the product is at the right caliber that the people want, the price won't be a problem.
    72:06
    I think that's fair. A poorly integrated theme that shoots decent is not going to have as many people come to it as a very well integrated theme that shoots kind of crappy. Because you're not going to walk back up to them. You don't want to look at it.
    72:19
    Kind of to maybe George's point on Galactic Tank Force. The theme isn't integrated very well, even though it's an original theme it's just the shots aren't there but willing to give more of a try as the coat comes along kind of thing you know exactly yep so whereas queen i think queen shoots fine it's just the theme is just not there like just not meshed like they picked up they they did the layout and they had it as a white wood and they picked out a color scheme and then they got the theme. And they said, okay, we'll just throw it on there and go with it. Make it work. We want gold and black mixed with confetti rainbow. Yes. What's wrong with that?
    73:03
    Well, nothing unless you're queen. It was a light, airy, colorful band. Let's go with the darkest colors we can. Yeah.
    73:13
    Looks great sitting next to an alien. Yeah, that's true. Alien at least got that part right. the theme integration on Alien is fantastic yeah it was awesome there's so many great moments like I am literally getting tense playing Alien as the sound of the sensor is beeping to let you know that something is getting closer the proximity sensor when that's happening I'm kind of freaking out in the game a little bit because as a kid that destroyed me like I had so many nightmares of that sound and then when the dude pokes his head up into the ceiling. Oh my god. It ain't you, man. Yeah. Game over. They cut the lights, man. Why'd they cut the lights? The whole place all goes black and you're just going, oh god. They're coming for me. It's so good.
    74:06
    Yeah. True. I'll have to watch it again. It's so long since I've seen Alien. That's another one that I've only seen bits and pieces of, but we have the game and I get tense. I always get tense trying to find Jonesy. got to rescue jonesy there's alien and aliens which are two different games like two different movies completely alien is a horror movie aliens is a that is a shooter game yeah if i action yeah but you can play both on the alien pinball machine you can choose which one you want to play yeah and there's assets from each so so if you think ed van der veen and team have an option to stay in frisco but upgrade the size of the venue do you think they should take that opportunity next year yes yeah or do you think this was like a one hit we had seven releases in 60 days and this is just what it ended up being i don't know it was pretty busy last year and there weren't a lot of uh a lot of games to talk about i remember the big game was weird owl last time expo was amazing for the for the layout and there wasn't any i feel like really significant releases it was just nice not to be not to have to walk and be so close to everybody the entire time so expo despite three years ago or two years ago it not being laid out well they fix that and they they really started integrating games uh not only games that were brought but games uh actually being sold by by distributors they they they spread everything out and expo really stepped it up and a huge part of that to me is that it's just in a very large space so i it wasn't claustrophobic being in there as opposed to expo tpf this year which was i accidentally touched a lot of people and i'm not it was overwhelming it was but yeah exactly like it's cacophonous it's it's overwhelming there's not a lot of room and it feels like in some places they really had to squeeze the games close together or put them in interesting configurations that made it difficult to even like line up for pulp fiction like the four pulp fiction games like am i which line am i in am i in this one or am i in this one and then and people are talking and chatting between and suddenly it's just yeah i don't know and it was by a main entrance yeah and it was right pulp fiction was literally directly in front of a main entrance So it was like, then you're fighting that. It was featured. Yeah. Well, and it was interesting because you walked through a door and directly in front of you, you had Pulp Fiction. This is, you know, again, this isn't the main entrance, but it was probably the next busiest entrance. So directly in front of you, kind of veering to your left, you had CGC with Pulp Fiction set up in there, you know, four games all with the heads against each other and kind of a star pattern. slight right directly in front of you you have gtf and then hard right you have scooby-doo so here i just piled and then right behind pulp fiction was turner so there's your ninja eclipse so you had all of these releases within an area about the size of i don't know what stern had set up at Expo.
    77:18
    So it was not a big space. Oh, and then there was a van, the Scooby van, the mystery van was there too. So that's extra room. It was a great thing to promote the game, but there's more room.
    77:31
    So were you ever concerned about, like, if a fire marshal walked in, do you think he would have been shutting it down?
    77:38
    I don't necessarily... This is Texas. There are no rules. They didn't even have COVID in Texas. Let's put a wild pitch for a second. They didn't even have COVID.
    77:51
    I do feel, though, that this show, I stepped away from the show more frequently than I have at Expo or at TPF last year because I felt more overwhelmed just by the volume of people. Okay. Gotcha. Okay.
    78:07
    Good to know. All right. Honestly, that was one of my biggest concerns. I'm not going to lie, I had TPF FOMO, right? I was really worried I'd be missing. But it sounds like between the long lines and people shoulder to shoulder in there, I don't know if it would have been as enjoyable. I really enjoyed it last year. I felt like it was the right size. It still felt very packed in there, but I never any – I don't know. It was pretty packed. I felt left out. I kept asking for more pictures. He did. And this year, even though it was packed and the lines were so bad, I still felt this was the best show I've been to. Nice.
    78:52
    Was that because of all the game releases, or was that because of the show itself, though? It's because I got to hang out with George.
    78:58
    Yeah, nice. Ditto, Amanda. Thank you. Any show with George is the best show. Actually, every show I think I've been to, I've had George there. I don't think there's been a show I've been to without George. so you can't go to a show without george i couldn't have done expo without him this year so yeah that's true yeah so yeah i just like going to all the big shows and i love hanging out with people like i have so many great pictures from tpf this year and what's so crazy you asked about how many people were at the show i got i got pinged when i after i posted those pictures from people who we we had been at the show for the same time and never ran into each other like I can't believe you were at the show. I have that like four or five people have hit me up. Couldn't believe that I was at the show the entire time. And I'm like, weren't, weren't hiding. We were walking around and it was picking up people. It was very people-y, very people-y. Yes. Oh man. So much fun. All right. So go again. Yep. All right. We will keep on chit chatting, but we're going to, we're going to shut this down to the public right now. Yeah.
    80:01
    So if you want to get ahold of Amanda Hamilton, where do we find you? You guys can check me out at free play pinball podcast on the face space. You can email me free play pinball podcast at gmail.com, or you can check me out lurking pretty much in all the deep dark corners of the pinball network via, you know, either the, the podcasters or the streamers. I try to check them out every once in a while. Cause they're pretty decent.
    80:28
    And George, if someone wants to find you, where can they find you? you can head to twitch.tv slash don'tpanicflip you can also go to don'tpanicflip.com where we have a bunch of articles on how to stream and just pinball in general outside of that TPN once again with all the fun podcasts and amazing streamers so yeah I think that's pretty much it with don'tpanicflip are you required to bring a towel?
    80:57
    you are absolutely required to bring a towel ok alright the best part about that though is if you get nervous you can hide in the panic room yes absolutely if you want to get a hold of us we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com we are on facebook youtube twitch twitter and instagram all at loser kid pinball uh i appreciate everyone that's been signing up on youtube as of recently that's exploded and really if you want to message us either do it through the gmail because that comes straight to my phone most of the time, which I found out yesterday. That's a long story. Or really hit us up through Messenger on Facebook. That's probably the best way to do it. Josh, when are you going to get that OnlyFans account set up for Loser Kid? That reminds me. If you do want to send us money,
    81:44
    go to swiveloverballswag.com slash Loser Kid Pinball Podcast and buy some shoes, buy a backpack, buy a t-shirt. Heck, buy a Keith Ellin shirt. Yeah. Thanks to Jen Ripper for buying the fabric. You can actually buy fabric if you want to make a dress or a blanket, whatever you want. The shoes are awesome. The shoes are very comfortable. I have the tie-dye pair, and they're amazing. Yes. I have a pair of blues on the way for me as well. I'm getting red, and I'm getting a red backpack. How do they fit, Amanda? Because everyone keeps asking. So I run between a 7 and a 7 1⁄2. So dress shoes, no socks. I wear a 7. And if I'm wearing tennis shoes, I bump it up typically to a 7.5 because that usually means I'm on my feet more. I got a 7.5 in these. I did wear them for a bit at TCF. I tried not to wear them too much just because they were new and I didn't want to risk blisters. I didn't have any issues, though. They fit great.
    82:39
    If you're in between sizes, I would say go a size up. All right. Sounds good. All right. I think that wraps it up for us. Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate that.
    82:53
    Shut up and sit down. …