Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 8th. It is episode 59, and I am Tony. And I am Dennis. And we welcome you. and we welcome ourselves with our intros. Shall we begin? We shall. All right, excellent, because it's been a busy day, I know. Oh, it's been too busy. This is a great part for intro. Why don't you say why you've been so busy? Because we're actually recording a little bit, just a little bit later than we normally would. Yeah, like four hours later. Yeah, just about, just a few hours. Yeah, well, the big thing is my wife's car had been having some issues, so I drove it to work two weeks ago, and it broke down. And we left it abandoned at work for two weeks. And then we came to get it fixed yesterday. And it had even more problems. And by the time we got it to a point where we could fix what the original problem was, it was already almost 5 o'clock and the next fix was going to take about four hours. So we're like, let's just call it a night. So we spent seven and a half hours yesterday working on the car. And then we started again this morning and we spent another five hours working on it today. And yay, her car's fixed. You know, when I play Mad Max, it takes like three seconds to upgrade my car. Yeah, I know. It's amazing. You might need to get yourself a black finger. I might need to get a black finger. I might need to do or not do all the mechanic work myself, like hire that out. But that's expensive. It can be, depending on how many hours of work it is. Yeah, I just took mine in just for an oxygen sensor swap out because at this point, I don't do a lot anymore outside of maintenance, like oil changes and stuff. It's like, okay, well, the part was half the price and the labor was the other half. And it's like, I wonder how long it would have taken me to change out the rear oxygen sensor. I don't want to. I don't want to. Yeah, you probably don't want to know. Because some of those oxygen sensors take like a minute and a half to fix. Yes. And I would just rage. Because you pay the manual amount. Yeah. Because I know I had a car that had an oxygen sensor go out. And I pulled out the book and I looked at it. And it was like, wait a minute. It's that part right there that I don't have to take anything off of to do. I can literally just unscrew it and screw the new one in and hook everything up. They wanted to charge like $200 for it. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. Put the man down. Well, yeah, because everyone was asking, well, where's Tony at the pinball tournament yesterday? Yep. Because you weren't able to make it. I was hoping we'd get her done, but like I said, we didn't even get to start. It was so terrible. We didn't get to start on what our original goal to fix was. One thing after another. That's okay. It was bonding time. I spent the last two days with my dad working on a car. That's good. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, the fact that I was working on a car. Well, yeah. It's more, I guess, it's probably speculating, you know, a bit more enjoyable when my dad and I just go out to pick up a pinball machine instead. Yeah. Because then you're not under the car. Right. Because at this point, I always have to be under the car for anything. Right. There's also much less swearing and throwing of items. Well, my – Well, sometimes. Yeah. Well, you know, last weekend was I had to do a toilet swap. And I wrangled my dad in to help me with that so we could lift it off. Because apparently I put in a cleaner. It seemed to dissolve out the rubber. It's clean. Yeah, it was super clean. These pipes are clean. So I bought the new kit. I didn't come with the right size gasket, so that was my initial problem. But I even noticed the lines where the tank mounts onto the toilet itself. Those lines turned out to be cracks all the way through. So now that there was no sediment in there anymore, and probably expanding those cracks when I tightened on the new bolts, it then started to sweat water every few seconds. And so I was like, okay, let's buy a new toilet day. That was at 9.30 p.m. So it was not – Home Depot is open until 10, but we were not doing a toilet. It only took about an hour to actually pull the old one and put the new one in. And I go and replace the ring. You're not supposed to clean the toilet by just dumping straight in your attic into the tank, right? It said dump all three packets in if extra dirty. And I was like, yeah, okay, sure. Because it's in the clean water section. It's just hard – it's just minerals. So minerals and rubber. My hands were stained all week from that black rubber just going in, because the flapper was black rubber, the rings were black rubber, the gasket was black rubber, and it would all just disintegrate in my hands. Like safety glass shattering. Wow. That was the sound that was in my brain when it happened. So that was last weekend. And then this week was 403 Club. So I went. It took a little longer. I usually get wiped out pretty quick, and that was pretty much the case. Just I had to buy the first round, and then I was sent to losers, and then I won in losers. And everything was 2-0. I didn't take anyone to 3. And then I won in losers. Yeah, well. I was ready to go home. I was. My grub on. Overwatch League was on, and the match was coming up. I've got to talk about that because no one wants to hear about that. And, oh, there's a new podcast, I think. I'm not sure, but I'm going to plug it. It's Pinball News and Pinball Magazine have teamed up, the editors of those two publications, and they seem to be doing a news recap podcast that, assuming it moves forward, will be a monthly. So they'll basically go out once a month and say, here's everything relevant to pinball that's happened in the last month. so they had a two plus hour episode going mostly over TPF but all the news coming out so I have a link in the show notes if anyone wants to check that out I know there's also another podcast that came out that is oriented it's from the perspective of a spouse who her husband is into pinball and now yes there's a podcast talking about what it's like to be married to someone who's in the hobby I haven't listened to it so I don't have a link in the show notes to it but I know it's out there so if people can dig that up if it is of interest. I'll have to play that for the wife. Yeah, she might become, I think it's Mrs. Penn's podcast, I think is what it's called. So, yeah, she might like it. I don't know. I can't give an opinion on it yet. And finally, before we actually go into the main stuff, I wanted to note a question I saw that came into our Discord, which go to eclecticgamers.com if you want to join the Discord. I got links to all the, everything, the Discord, the Instagram, We read all that stuff off a lot here, but if you ever want a direct link, that's the site to go to. And it works because I just re-upped it. Yes, it does. I tested it before I named it. I was like, let me make sure it's re-upped. It was going to expire tomorrow. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's when my phone plan was expiring. How interesting. So this one from CallMeStream was the handle on Discord. But in Ready Player One, many people use pop culture avatars inside the Oasis. What would you choose for your avatar in the Oasis? I thought that would be a good one to talk about here at the end of the intros. I've already had this discussion. You have? Mm-hmm. Okay, because I thought, oh, I had not really contemplated it. So you already know. I already know. I would have a Mountain Dorf who looked like he'd been absorbed by the board. Full-on cybernetic, half-machine, half-man Dorf wielding a big old hammer and laser rifle. There you go. Is there a reason behind it? because it would be awesome. Because it would be awesome. Okay. Hmm. When I play D&D, even though my main character that I've been playing lately is a half-orc barbarian, the majority of my D&D time is almost always as a dwarf. That's my preferred play style, is a dwarf character. and I mean just it seriously be the whole sci-fi magic like like Gimli and Star Trek type thing going on yeah I'd be full on yeah no doubt at all it makes a lot of sense I would be the most sympathetic character from Lord of the Rings that would be Saruman the White because like you I usually play in D&E I'm thinking D&E style. So I usually play some sort of spellcaster. Don't tend to lean wizard style. You tend to heal. Yeah, I do. But Christopher Lee look in Saruman, it works pretty well. But I'm thinking more narratively. I always thought the character was far... It's a far more complicated character than what is presented in the films. Oh, very much so. But, of course, I'm not saying I would roleplay him. I'm just saying that there was a lot... he's got a sad story. So he needs someone to rep him a little bit better than he repped himself. So yeah, that'd be how I would lean. But of course, I'm going out from a fantasy skew. If I start thinking in other oasis terms and I start thinking in a sci-fi setting, I would hate to do that. I want to be something else. Probably with pew-pew lasers. Maybe a little bit of Tales from the Blood Dragon going on with a, I need a little HUD thing, like from The Last Starfighter. You remember the general has a little red thing? Die! Yes. You're not supposed to be rebooting that. I know. I saw some of the stuff online. They tweeted out some, what do you want to call them, like storyboard type shots. Yep. So it's been a long time since I've seen that movie. It holds up. Good. Kind of. Kind of. Wow. We take what we can get at this day and age. So speaking about what we get Let's go ahead and get on into the pinball segment Let's get it on And let's open with the news that was announced Probably 45 minutes after we stopped recording the last episode And that is Stern Pinball's next title is Iron Maiden I full on head desked when it came out When that news dropped Because it was just like, come on, really? You couldn't have dropped this an hour ago? Apparently not Apparently they couldn't drop it at TPF either Yeah. It's not like it was a surprise. We've all known it. We knew it at TPF. We knew it before TPF. They were, I mean, it wasn't exactly subtle with Titanium Man. Titanium Man. Which, though, as an original theme, could be pretty cool. We'd have to see. It depends. What Titanium Man are you doing? I don't have any idea. That's why I had to say, you know, it had potential. I was going to say, because I'm pretty sure, I'd have to look it up. I'm pretty sure Titanium Man is a Marvel villain. Oh, well, Marvel and its zealous villains are of no interest to me, but it would make sense for Stern to do it because they have an established relationship with Marvel. That's true. The show notes will have a link to this week in Pinball's summary of the Iron Maiden details, but I'd like to go through it. Well, let's address the mini-controversy first, because I figure we might as well, even though no one really is going to care at this point about it. and that is the announcement got a lot of collector pushback, probably because it was a pretty lame announcement. Well, I think it was because of a mix. There were three things, and I've seen people – the reason why I want to address this is I've seen some people who got really defensive about the announcement online, and I don't know why they were so defensive. They weren't all behind it. I don't know if it's because they're friends with the people who came up with the idea or they were at the event itself or what. But let me, from an outside perspective, I caught it afterwards, so it didn't affect me. But there were three things that happened. One was that the announcement didn't show any of the gameplay. Okay. I don't think that was in any way surprising. No. That's completely consistent with how Stern has done these sort of teaser-style announcements before. In fact, I thought they had even indicated there wouldn't be any gameplay or anything shown. Yeah, no, I mean, they've definitely done that before. Because I remember with Guardians, the very first time we saw gameplay was on Deadflip. Right. So it's like, okay, well, I get why people won't care about an announcement if there isn't even a photo of the game. But y'all should have seen that one coming. So I thought, you know, that one, yeah, I think that's being a little bit silly. Second thing was that in order, if you wanted to see it, if you wanted to see the announcement, quote unquote, live, you had to watch a pinball tournament. Okay, I have a little more sympathy because watching competitive pinball doesn't always work very well. And it doesn't work for a huge segment of people who hate competitive pinball. And trying to tie these releases to competitive pinball that closely, okay, I guess I can see why people would get upset. But on the flip side, you didn't have to watch it live. You could have just watched the announcement two minutes later on Facebook. So, again, I don't see – that was their own fault if you want to sit there. You know what would have been cool? I'm just going to float this out there. You float. Now, it would have been cool if they'd done with this like was in that old Nintendo movie with Fred Savage. The Wizard. The Wizard, where suddenly they rolled out. and for the final game of the tournament it was Super Mario 3 which nobody had ever even seen but for the final game of the tournament Iron Maiden, nobody's ever played it good luck that would have been interesting that would have been mad props for that see that would have been awesome it would have even though it's on like triple beta it's like on alpha code I know I've kind of cited in favor of the announcement on these first two of the three points but understand that the announcement was in no way awesome it was No, it wasn't. The teaser was lame. I mean, it was some music, and it was the name, and it somehow still took 30 seconds to show. It was weird. No, the third thing was the person who was in seeing the event apparently was quite intoxicated, and it was an embarrassment. And you know what? Probably would have been good. I'm just saying, Stern, that you probably should have gone out and issued an apology for paying someone to behave in that fashion. No kidding. That was a disgrace to pinball. So, yeah, you got to own that one. I mean, I understand. I've seen plenty of drunk people playing pinball, but you shouldn't be emceeing it drunk. That's a different level. You're working there. You're actively working. You want to look like amateur hour? There you go. That's a 101. That's a 101 step. Right. Go ahead and get someone who's falling off the wagon. Great. So anyway, so that was when we were recording. A few days later was when there was the surprise dead flip stream. And it was like, here we go. We're going to show gameplay. There was just, unfortunately, it was done at 3.30 central time. so unless you were on the east coast chances are you were working in America at least you were working when the stream was going on and because of reasons I'm not sure of the reasons but there were reasons Jack Danger who runs Deadflip was not allowed to archive the footage so no one can go back and watch it so up until just a few days ago where some other people have started to clip things no one really got to go back and revisit it which is unfortunate because it was a really good stream. Well, actually, I was able to watch the first 30 minutes before I left work, and then I caught – Don't tell your boss. Well, my – yes, let's not tell my boss because he wouldn't care. But I can't even play along. He's like, no, he wouldn't care. He was two minutes watching March Madness, too. Oh, probably. He was out of town at yet another meeting. Yeah, okay, sure, whatever. I'm the one who stays in town and works. Why is it all the meetings we send you to are in Hawaii and Bermuda? What does that have to do with Kansas? You know, actually, he refused. That's an interesting one because there are national conventions that will go there. He actually refuses to go to the ones that are in exotic locations because he thinks it looks bad to use taxpayer money to go to. So even if it's going to be a good conference, he won't go to Hawaii. And he encourages the board to reject sending board members as well. Don't let that be fooled, though. If it's DC, it's all the time, all the time. It's expensive out there, too. Anyway, that's beside the point. So I caught that part, which is where Keith Elwin, this is his first game. He's the one who designed Iron Maiden. It's very much reminiscent of his Archer layout, which was a homebrew game he was working on before he worked for Stern. He walked through all the rules, how all the shots work, what his design philosophy is. He didn't just do the play field. He's not the programmer, but he designed the rules. And once I got home, I was able to catch a little bit of the actual gameplay footage because they were just walking through everything originally. So anyway, there are photos and such up at This Week in Pinball. But I wanted to go over a few of the features because, you know, last episode was when I made my Empire Strikes Back remark on why I had in that Critics' Choice thing out of TPF said, I didn't agree with the majority of y'all who were backing this, oh, it's going to be all about all the manufacturers this year. And I thought the highlight to me was going to be that this is the year where Stern turns on the Death Star and starts blowing up manufacturers because fear will keep the local builders in line. And this, I think, was a good case in point. Four flippers, even on the Pro. What was the last Stern Pro game that had four flippers? I have no idea. I don't know if there was one. It may predate the Pro Premium LE model. What was the last one that had three on it? Metallica, I guess. I think it's Metallica. Metallica or Star Trek. I think Metallica is newer. I mean, multiple flipper, like Aerosmith's third flipper, that's Premium LE. The four flippers on Game of Thrones, LE Premium. It says, so, I mean, right there, it's like, okay, you're even putting four flippers on the Pro. The LE has eight. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I don't know. I don't know. It does not. I'll go through the features real quick. Here's what they all have. They've got 12 Iron Maiden songs. I'm not an Iron Maiden fan. I don't know Iron Maiden music, so I'm not going to go over that. The four flippers I mentioned, the two spinners, this is on all models, two spinners, you'd think that wouldn't be that much of a noteworthy thing. But again, after that Star Trek Metallica period, they started taking the spinners off the Pro. That was one of the complaints about Guardians of the Galaxy, because the software, when you'd go into the mystery hole, would light super spinner, but there was no spinner to super. So it was a super duper spinner of fail. They finally programmed that out. So two spinners on all models, three banks of drop targets on all models, metal and wire form ramps on all models. I like that a lot. That's another big change. That is nice. Because even going back to Metallica and Star Trek, they had plastic ramps on the pro units. A captive ball on all models and a sort of a bullseye target that's sort of in the center, kind of where you might normally associate a bash toy. And this is a feature that Keith has played around. That was like the highlight feature from his Archer layout. It's almost like a very target, but instead of how hard you hit it and how far back it goes to give you points, the more centered it is, it's like three switches, three rings, the more valuable it is, the more centered you are. So that's what's on all of them. The, from what they've said, and I have not seen any images yet of the art packages or anything regarding the premiums and the LEs. The premium is supposed to be an Egyptian-themed art package for the translight in the cabinet, and the LE artwork is supposed to be some sort of battlefield theme. The premium and LE versions are going to have a physical motorized sarcophagus ball lock. So what's going to happen is it's going to have a lift ramp, kind of like the Bicycle Girl ramp on The Walking Dead. But there a ball lock mechanism that will be available under that instead of the virtual lock which we probably have There be a motorized guardian that will reveal the Pharaoh tomb entrance So that'll be, there'll be another toy there. There'll be a controlled middle Pharaoh laser cut metal ramp. And that will also raise to reveal the scoop, which represents the underworld shot. They'll have a Newton ball, which will be to serve as a sensor. I think there's a stand-up on the Pro model to do that feature, a stand-up target. Egyptian temple plastics, it'll be multi-layered. If you've noticed ever on Sharky's Shootout, the plastics, there are plastics on top of plastics. They're going to do that on the Premiums and LEs. They'll layer plastics to give more depth. And two custom Eddie toys. They'll be sculptures. Eddie is their mascot, the mummy. So that's on the Premium LE. And then the LE version will come with a shaker. Stern had stopped putting shakers in all their LEs. Their pin glass, that HD glass, the non-reflective glass. Yep, the super glass. Yep, a better speaker system, brushed foil cabinet artwork, mirrored back glass, powder coat, side armor, and a custom shooter rod with Eddie as the shooter. And the LE run is 500 units. So that's it in a nutshell. I know you didn't get a chance to see the gameplay. What are your thoughts either from the photos you've seen or just running through these features? Based upon everything, I mean, has there been a price? Have they made a price change or are they still running with their normal prices on these? Well, that's an interesting question. the I think because I don't I don't always remember what the retail price is on everything that gets listed the and the reason why I'm hedging right now is I want to think that the issue was the price is basically basically the same as has been other other games but they've lowered the MSRP so what I've heard is that the MSRP is lower now but the actual take-home price didn't go down because of that. So, yeah. Right. So, the MSRP is $6,000. Sorry, $59.99 for the Pro. And so, the street price is expected to be about $55 to $5,600. I thought you could get Star Wars Pro for about $54, so that would be about a $100 increase. The premium is $7,600. I'm not going to do that $99 stuff. So, that's expected to be about $7,300 if you were to call a distributor. And the limited edition was $9,000, which those don't go down much. That was expected to be about $8,800 if you were to have – if you didn't get one already, they're gone. Yeah. No one seems to be able to find a distributor that still has stock available. So, okay. So much like how it seems like, practically speaking, maybe another $100, which seems to be roughly what's happening every year at this point or every game at this point, I'm not sure. Because the thing was, yeah, I wanted to think Aerosmith might have been about $5,300. Star Wars I thought was about $5,400. I thought Guardians was the same. And so, yeah, so about $55,000, $55,000, $56,000. So in line with what they've been doing price-wise, though the MSRP didn't go up. But the actual pay price is going to be pretty much the same. Yeah, yeah. About what you'd expect. I always assume with Stern that when it's a new year, they're going to tack $100 to $200 on because they've been doing it forever. When I got Star Trek, my take-home price was $48 with shipping two doors. Okay, so pricing in line. They didn't jack the price up. They didn't jack the price up. They've got all these features, the metal ramps, this and that. I think this is basically them going, hold my beer, and throwing everything at the wall and just saying this is what the big dog does. Yeah, I think this will end up, well, I think the LE sales fairly much speak for themselves. I think this will be a home run for Stern. I mean, what I've seen of the play field and the little bits of anything I've seen, it looks good. But, and the play field looks nice. Like I said, I'm not a big Iron Maiden guy. The theme does nothing for me. But even there, the art even on the pro looks nice. Sure. So, I mean, it's nothing, it's not, again, it's not magic, but that's just, that's a personal opinion thing. If you're an Iron Maiden fan, it's going to be the greatest thing ever. I'm not. So, but I think going with the metal ramps instead of the plastics and going with the spinners and everything else, yeah, I think they're stepping up to the plate and taking the big swing. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that the biggest negative, the only negative, is that it's Iron Maiden. And that might be a problem for some people who would otherwise want the game. Yeah. I've, of course, been seeing people who are so interested in this layout that it's a new designer. A new designer who is a very good player. Right. And when explaining his rules showed how he had things that were designed for really good players to take advantage of, but also had a design philosophy in that vein of a Kiefer or a Lyman Sheets where you wanted to make things accessible as well. So when he was walking through it, one of Keith Elwin's big focus points was, hey, on my game, the way I've done it, every shot is always valuable. Everything moves you towards something. There's never a time where you're like, I don't want to hit that right ramp. I don't want to hit that left orbit. You always will have value hitting anything. If you're hitting shots, you're rewarded. And I think it might have been on Coast to Coast, or it may have been when he was with, actually, I think it was when he was on Slam Tilt. He mentioned something about how he didn't like games where, like, I think this has eight or nine modes. You know, he mentioned something about how he didn't like games with 18 modes where you could only shoot particular certain shots. Yeah, an example. He said, I don't like Star Trek. He doesn't like the rules. Personally, I like the rules of Star Trek. But I get where he's coming from and the complexity and depth of that. And as you know, because you've played Star Trek many times, when you're in a particular mode or when you're not in a mode, if you're not hitting the lit shots, you're getting nothing. You can hit that orbit as many times as you want. You get nothing. And if you're not in a mode, you get nothing no matter what. You get nothing. Nothing's more devastating on Star Trek than going into a multiball without being in a mission. Oh, it's terrible. Because it's a waste. It's a total waste. But so he he doesn't agree with that approach. And he wants this style where things are always moving forward. And some things are more lucrative. Like if you do an alley pass or commonly referred to a shat scene and it goes backwards out up an inline, he's got a target on the left that if it goes high enough and hits that target, it will know based off the sequence of switch hits that you shat. So you get bonus. You get a letter spotted or something. You get a reward. It's only accessible if you do it that way. and another feature where one of his flippers if you hold it up to give yourself a gentle feed it reduces the points of some other aspect because it's harder to flip on the fly and hit your shot so you get rewarded if you do that instead of cradling or right or holding things in position to make make them nice and gentle so and all that comes out of his experience of playing pinball and at a high level so so i think that's really exciting uh obviously art package it's zombie Yeti, so of course he hit it out of the park. I guess some people were worried whether or not he would capture the Iron Maiden style, because they have their own artists to do their own style. I've not heard a single person say that he had a miss. And so that works. It's obviously really full-featured, even as a pro, so that really works. And from the Deadflip stream, I think Keith said they're over 80%, 90% on code. I mean, the games are starting to ship now, and he expected it either, if not at code 1.0, to be at like 0.98, I believe. Wow. So it's going to be code complete, too. Yeah, that's impressive. Near code complete. So all that combined, I think, especially because this is a rookie team. All the design rules, the programmer, this is not Stern's veterans. This is like, here, you guys are the newbies. Go and do your newbie stuff. well, they I think it will be very, very successful. I think the fact that the LEs sold out where it took a while for Star Wars' LEs to sell out. I believe they did, but it took a while. Guardians LEs, I do not believe are sold out. That this sold out before anyone got to see the art package. It's impressive. Yes. And part of that is they didn't do a ridiculous 800 run count, but part of it is just how well this looks. A lot of people want to own the first design of Elwynn, all that stuff. So, I think it's pretty exciting. I don't really care to... I mean, I'll be happy to see what the premiums look like, just in terms of the gameplay differences, but from the way it's been described, I think this is going to be in that vein of, you're not going to feel like you got cheated out of gameplay features by going pro. It's not going to be like Game of Thrones, where they feel like two totally different games. And Stern, that's been something where there's an inconsistency like Game of Thrones feels very very different Metallica doesn't feel very different I don't think Aerosmith feels all that different even though the upper play field lacks a flipper but you could say maybe maybe Guardians does I don't know because I've only played the pro but yeah I just it really Walking Dead is a good example of one where the premium plays quite a bit different so yeah overall though I think this is a A good move. It's helping my prediction be true that Stern. Yeah. Well, right. Yeah. That Stern's learning from all the criticism. And I know a lot of people feel like they don't learn fast enough. And that's a fair enough complaint. But, I mean, if the rest of the releases this year are as good as this. Right. This is going to be a great year. It's going to be an amazing year. I mean, it's going to be an amazing year for pinball. Period. but if everything's turned puts out at this level, it's going to be amazing. I mean, this is Stern full on just sacking up and walking forward and saying, I am the king for a reason. Yeah. And, uh, it's, I know a lot of people have questioned why, why did they not show this at TPF? And I have no idea. I have, I don't know. Based upon what I've seen, based upon what I've read, based upon everything else, they would have owned TPF if they don't show this at TPF. my assumption is they don't care about owning TPF. I think you're right. I think they don't view TPF as where they make their sales. Could be. And as we've discussed in prior episodes, it's not like we can think of a time where Stern ever did a reveal at TPF. So it's not like this groundbreaking thing. It's not like Stern has their big, I mean, they're there with Marco, but it's not like Stern has some big giant. No, it's like they might push out new code that will be unveiled then. Right. You know, little things like that. I mean, yeah, they make sure their games are there, but... But they don't treat it like the end-all, be-all major event that it's pretty much becoming. At least for some of the... I mean, I'm trying to think. I mean, Jersey Jack seems to typically do their reveals at Expo, not at TPF. Then you get with the program and know what the new Expo is. Obviously, Spooky really favors doing it at TPF, But Spooky is at the point where I think we're going to maybe see one announcement a year. And so it's a good show. If you're going to do it show-based and they're a boutique, I think that makes a lot of sense for them. Well, do you think saying that, do you think Jersey Jack is about to move beyond a one announcement a year stage? No, I do not. Okay. It would be nice, but the fact that Pirates still isn't shipping yet makes me wonder if they're slipping. I'm not throwing out there to the level of Hobbit or Wizard of Oz sort of stuff but it seemed like the timeline for Dialed In well it was greatly improved Hobbit was worse than Wizard of Oz was in terms of delays but it's Expo was quite a while ago they're still going around with the prototypes and it's like I don't know just a few things I've been hearing has been there are delays in play. I don't know what the delays, I don't know what part of it is causing a delay. I don't know what the issue is. Their playtesters are probably still trying to choose a character. That could be. That could be. Or they're in the upper playfield and still haven't gotten the ball to fall off of it yet. That's a common issue as well. No, it's definitely an issue that Jersey has always had and that they need to see about fixing. Yeah, I mean... I thought after Dialed In, I thought maybe they had things knocked together because Dialed In was such a beautiful series and so quickly. But then this. Yeah, and it's not something rotten in the state of Denmark levels of concern. But, for example, there are also Hobbit owners who are still frustrated because the code isn't finished on Hobbit, apparently. I guess it's easy to know if you've got the 45 minutes to play the game to figure that out. But I guess one of the final, like the final Wizard mode or something still hasn't been released. And I know there's been frustrations because Dialed In was getting more code updates while Hobbit was sitting. It's the better game. I agree. And it was probably driven in part because Dialed In had more active sales at the time. though I still think when we see the final tallies, if Jersey Jack were to ever tell us, I wouldn't be surprised to see that Dialed In will be their least sold game. I think so. But too many people buy purely off theme. Yeah, it's just too important. It's too important. But anyway, yeah, so this, yeah, big win for Stern, obviously. All preliminary indications show that to be true, and I think we'll see one on location here in the near future. now we briefly just now mentioned pinball expo it's back kinda that's right no songs out of you it's back kinda okay this is confusing this is really confusing so i'm going to try and summarize it real quick but then there's a link in the show notes to the article from pinball news that covers all of this. What we last reported was Pinball Expo, that the traditional Pinball Expo was gone. In its place was going to be two events. One was going to be called Pinballpalooza, and that was the event that Rob was going to put, Rob and Mike, there are two people, there's Rob and Mike, and they're partners in Pinball Expo, the old Pinball Expo. Rob felt changes were needed and changes included Mike couldn't be involved anymore. Mike and Rob had disagreements over who owned the rights to Pinball Expo. So Rob was going to do Pinballpalooza and he was going to do it a month earlier in another nearby city. Rob, or no, sorry, that was Rob. Mike was going to keep the Pinball Expo dates and location, but he wasn't going to call it Pinball Expo. He didn't announce what it was going to be called, but since they were arguing over who owned the name, no one was going to call anything Pinball Expo. Okay. It's now been indicated that Rob has secured the name Pinball Expo and all of its liabilities. He has all of its rights and all of its liabilities. So that means he has the Expo obligations, including this year and next year is my understanding. There's two years left on the contract at the Westin, which is the facility at these particular dates that were already chosen. So now Rob has to put a show on at that date and that time. He can call it Expo, though. So Expo is now back on the calendar at exactly the same place at exactly the same time with exactly the same name that we thought was going to happen last year. With half the control crew. Right. Well, Rob's already announced certain replacements coming in to help bring in the games and to help run the vendor hall. Mike, I'm confused on what's going on with Mike. He's been on Pennside. He's been vocal. And he has been complaining quite a bit that he was misled, that he thought he was still going to be able to have the Weston space. And it's weird. This whole thing is weird. So before we go into the weirdness, I want to say it's unclear to me if Mike is planning to run a rival event now because he does not have the contractual obligation to put anything in place. When Pinballpalooza was announced, Mike made it sound like on Pinside that he had to run an event in place of Expo during Expo's date and time at that hotel because he was stuck with the obligation. Even if he couldn't use the Pinball Expo name, he had to fulfill the contract. He signed the contract, so he was stuck with the contract, or something along those lines. Right. So, as near as I can tell, he wants to do another, he still wants to do a pinball event. And apparently, he had been in discussion with the people who do the Midwest Gaming Classic, which is sort of a nearby event that happens, to see about doing another Midwest gaming classic over in the Illinois side of things. But I don't think anything from him is happening this year. That's my sense, but I'm not certain because I can't tell. I can't imagine throwing something together this fast anyway. Yeah, and that's what a lot of people were concerned about, the idea of Pinballpalooza. Could the area support two shows? He only has six months to put it together, and it would have to happen in September rather than October. The whole pinballpalooza, all that, got liberated. He doesn't have to hold that event. Here's the thing. I think that area can definitely hold or handle two shows. What it can't handle is two shows four weeks apart. It can handle two shows six months apart easily. I mean, there's a big enough draw. It's central enough in the U.S. You'll get a fair number of people. so if there was a spring and fall show I think they'd be okay I think one of the shows would still be smaller they'd probably both be smaller they'd both take hits but I think it would be much more likely to handle than going well we just went to Chicago for pinball palooza and we gotta go back to Chicago for expo in three weeks yeah I think that's a good point and I agree with the airport nearby and everything. There's not really a reason why you couldn't have two shows if they were on opposite times of the year. I'm trying to factor in vendors willing to get vendor space and take people willing to bring their games. It's a fairly populated area. It wouldn't have to necessarily be the same people bringing everything every time. The issue that's coming up right now, though, is the drama of the fallout, because this obviously has been very, very messy. Mike clearly did not want to be cut out of Expo. And the way it's going online is there are factions that have formed up. Was this decided through arbitration? Is that what it was? Well, they both had lawyers involved. Right. And that's why I'm confused. Mike's statements do not seem consistent to me. And that's where and I don't know if it's just that he's confused or if this is like a sympathy ploy or what. But and let me obviously it's like I don't know, Rob, and I don't know, Mike. What I know is that when I saw people complaining about Expo, they blamed Mike, that he was the guy who was going around yelling at vendors and making volunteers not want to go back. there's a different perspective that comes out especially through Pinside where there are a lot of Mike supporters who feel he got railroaded by Rob Mike was a big contributor Mike did all the really hard work and Rob just wants to go off and do his own thing thinking it's all going to be easy and let Mike take all the blame for everything, just because Mike loses his temper sometimes. What I have a problem with, because I've never been there, so I've never experienced, Mike's never been mean to me. Rob's never been nice to me. The issue is I'm having – I don't understand Mike's statement that he got – he's going on saying he got tricked, that he was assured by Rob that he would get to keep the expo dates and the Westin location in October. But they both have lawyers involved. What is this? I don't – this makes no sense. It sounds like arbitration. He, well, and they apparently hammered something out, but in a way, Rob got everything. Right. So I'm assuming there was a payment of some sort. He got the rights to the name. He got the rights to all the other assets it controls, and he got stuck with all the liabilities. And Mike's going on to Pennside, and he's complaining essentially that he didn't know he would lose the liability. He's not calling it a liability, but he'd lose the liability about having that Weston date. That's his date. He was assured by Rob he would get to keep that. Well, did he not read what he signed? That's what doesn't make any sense to me. I have no idea if Rob promised him anything or not, but if Mike had a lawyer involved, his lawyer should have clearly spelled out to him, this is what you're getting. Nothing. You're getting out of it. That's what this deal is. And I just don't believe a lawyer didn't tell him that. So he either didn't. I used to think like you, but I've seen enough stuff with lawyers lately. Well, I've seen some poor lawyering myself. So, you know, but the bottom line is he's throwing it all back on Rob. So even though it looks, you know, you read this pinball news article and you think, okay, well, it's settled. Right. Rob's not going on Pinside saying anything that I have seen yet. But Mike is going there, stirring the pot, complaining about how he got treated. And now instead of this, oh, well, I didn't want to stop working with Rob. Now it's, well, now Rob tricked me and I've been cheated out of my Weston dates. And some people aren't going to go because of that, because they're siding with Mike. And that's their right. I just think. Yeah. Anything that happened had to have involved signed papers. If you don't read the signed papers, then. And he – no one's saying that the papers weren't signed or anything. It's just – and then there are issues with Rob saying something one place, but another place it sounds different. So what's going on? There's – again, Rob hasn't been weighing in, but someone said, well, Rob has banned Mike from showing up to Expo. He's not even allowed to come as an attendee, and that's not been refuted. So that's turned people off as well, like, wow, talk about bitter. Why don't you hold a grudge some? After winning. After winning. Yeah, right. So you've got things like that, too, which I don't know if they're true or not. They could very well be. So the thing is, as long as it looks solved, but as long as this drama festers, the only thing it will do is hurt attendance. Right. And we might still end up back in the place where we were, which is a dead Expo. Now, do you care if Expo dies? No. Nor do I. You have to cover this because it's news. There are a lot of shows out there And I know Expo has always been considered One of the big ones with lots of announcements And this and that But I'll tell you right now It's not even near the top of the Ones I've considered going to There's other ones that are Higher in my interest level to go to Yeah And it's not like it's a long way away I mean it's Chicago from Kansas City It's not that long of a drive Several of the others I want to go to are in the same distance category I've just Expo's never had that kind of pull for me That it does for a lot of people It's just I think for a lot of people It's tradition And they just think it makes sense And it does make sense that you'd have an event near where Most of the manufacturers are I mean most of them are all based near there Yeah But you know what This is pinball We used to have Bally Williams and it went away We used to have Gottlieb and it went away Pinball Expo can go away too, and we can be okay with that. There was a time where it was like the only show. Right. That time has passed. So if people want to be bitter and take sides on this, I mean, I really don't care. I don't care if this event succeeds or fails because I don't think it's that important to the hobby whether it succeeds or fails. It's just an event. so and as we know, as we noted and why some people were really annoyed about things about Iron Maiden not being there and such, the issue with Texas Pinball Festival is, for all intents and purposes, it has eclipsed Expo for events, it is, I mean it had the P3 Cosmic Kart Racing announcement, it had the Kingpin demonstration I can't say it's an announcement because I can't announce it ahead of time, but you know that prototype build there, and then of course Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle was there So Stern used it to unleash a couple new code updates On two of their currently produced games It's Expo now I mean The Deep Root guys were walking around there At the event You had Gomez was there Steve Ritchie was there Lyman Sheets was there Mark Ritchie was there I mean it's the new Expo So that's why I wouldn't worry Folks don't worry too much about this Unless it's like Unless you really love Expo Sure, I mean, it's your close event. I'm not saying don't care, but don't think that this is some serious blow to the hobby. There are plenty of other shows that will pick up the slack. Well, right, and here's the thing. Even if somehow Expo dies, I would be amazed if there wasn't some new show in the Chicago area within a couple of years. Yeah, I think it's almost inevitable. The critical mass, it's like a black hole there because there's so much manufacturing that's nearby. I mean, Spooky's just over in Wisconsin. You've got a lot of the people doing the design on the Jersey Jack side are in that area. Obviously, Stern is in that area. It's just got so much critical mass. Part suppliers like Pinball Life are there. It's, yeah, something will happen. Don't fret. Don't fret. But in the meantime, that's sort of the news going on with Pinball Expo. That's really all I had for news in the category of pinball. so I think we should transition a little bit to this very odd event called the Trash Talker Invitational Podcaster Bloodbath and I don't even know why we're reporting on this but we will well I know why we because we got invited we got an invitation but it wasn't an invitation to compete it was an invitation to apply to complete I don't get invited to apply you just invite me if you want me. You know, this is, I'm the one with the microphone. This is how it works. But, hey, alright. So I thought, oh, interesting. They've got some hubris going on. Let's look into this further. So it's just a side event. It's like a side tournament that's going to be happening during ReplayFX. Unfortunately, neither Tony nor myself are going to ReplayFX this year. So, this whole thing is essentially moot. But because I thought it was a spot of fun, I went ahead and I drafted up a dis-application. A roast. Well, yeah, I used it, I phrased it in the structure of a roast. But basically I was just submitting a notice that we would not be applying. We would not be applying through the invitation to compete because we were not available. but I went ahead and took that opportunity unless they want to fly us out there that could change maybe I still couldn't get off work I hear replay effects is really really cool I don't know if I would be annoyed though going to replay effects if I couldn't do Penberg I think I would just be angry so I don't want to be angry I couldn't get the time off work anyway that was the whole thing I couldn't get that time off work this year because we discussed it Right, we did. We talked about it rather than Texas. So anyway, so yes, they had a list of who they, the invite could go to other entities, but they had in the application, they had a list of podcasts that had been sent the invitation. So we were in there, as were a number of other podcasts. So when I wrote that we were declining the invitation to apply, I roasted all the other podcasts that were in the list. now I was hesitant to do this because as you know Tony we have a very nice show where we're very nice to people and we were nice to pinball machines until your latest poll we're nice good loving people yes but in the spirit of trash talking I thought that it was important to decline the ridiculous application process in the spirit to which it was submitted so I roasted all the other shows that were in the list and that was my nice roast. Tony got my copy because I needed him to sign off and say, okay, are you okay with this going on? Am I going to put my name on something? And I even put in a comment as a disclaimer saying, this is a joke. And someone called me out like, how can you trash talk and put in a disclaimer? I was like, you can't. You can't really do that. But it's the internet. I didn't know what else to do. We still had someone who thought we were being really serious and mean. we were being unserious and mean it's different I guess you could have done the whole slash s at the end and people picked it up on it no one would have gotten it no I actually had a version you did not see Tony it was deeply profane I had like a r plus rated do you still have it no no because I it was just I drafted it I drafted the first version I thought this isn't mean enough so I changed it so that it was just laden with profanity and sexual acts and all sorts. It sounds wonderful. Actually, I thought it was much funnier, but I thought well, while our show is safe for work and we don't commit to keeping any of the other social media that way, I just didn't think I should do it on Facebook because normally you keep the Facebook pretty clean. Yeah, we do a pretty good job about keeping everything. People, you don't understand. You don't understand how hard it is to be so nice and quiet and demure and not swear. Yes, demure. That's what everyone thinks of when they hear us, demure. It is a challenge. So anyway, but the response was pretty good in terms of the other podcasters that were referenced, who saw it at least, all seemed to get it, get the joke. So that was nice. And the committee that was doing it did say that if we go to replay effects in 2019, we're in. They took that as an acceptable application, essentially. Our decline was an application that was accepted. So anyway, so that's all I wanted to say on that. Tony, the worst of the fall, our last pinball segment, our big pinball segment. your abomination of a contest. My thing of hatred. My biggest fear going into this contest especially when we were talking about it on the last episode because even then we had problems picking out. We're voting for the worst one. The worst one lands was that we would have a big issue. We didn't. No. No. No. People got this. People get it. You get this. You get me. You really, really get me. And your response rate when I last looked was higher than some of the other ones I'd set up. So I guess people enjoy hate. I'm disappointed in pretty much all of you. We're a hate-filled organism. Apparently. That's what it is. We thrive. I mean, love is good, but hate makes you strong. And there was someone who, and they didn't write it on the show, they wrote to me directly, and they thought it was funny how I was so reluctant to support this hate-based poll, and then I ragged so hard on so many games. Like, once the decision's made, folks, I commit. That's my job. That's my job as a co-host of the show, is I need to commit. You guys, even if I think it's a mistake, once the decision's made, you need to make it as successful as possible. So I'm going to bag on these because a lot of these are trash games. I'm just not going to mask my feelings. So, Tony, I guess you should probably summarize this on what the results were from round one before we go into the round two match-ups. Round one results. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun. See, I made that sort of epic. Yeah, that was nice. That was real nice. All right, round one results starting out. Revenge from Mars versus Popeye. Popeye wins. Yeah, Popeye. You are definitely the worst of those two. I agree. Obviously, Guns N' Roses. won over Medieval Madness. Though somehow, I'm thinking trolls, somehow 10.9% of voters said Medieval Madness was worse than Guns N' Roses. I'm assuming trolls, but yeah. Yeah. And I apparently skipped through my notes, so we'll step back to the second one of the day. It was actually Roadshow versus World Cup Soccer. Oh yeah, this one we were not in agreement on. We did not agree on this one at all. And you won, you dirty. It's the science of it. It's a road show. It was close. It was 55.6% to 44.4%. So, I mean, that's close. It is closer than I thought it would be. But road show won. And then, let's see, we already did Guns N' Roses Medieval Madness. Monster Bash and Pinball Magic. Pinball Magic won with 91%. Yeah. No surprise. No. No surprise. Oh, here's another one we described. I'm not seeing the same notes. That's why I get to be preemptive. Yeah, I know. We disagree on this one, too. Godzilla and the X-Files. X-Files won. By a lot? By, yeah. By a lot. Because Godzilla's actually a good player. I liked X-Files, though. Okay. But, yeah, no, it was 80%. X-Files got 80%. So it wasn't even close. It was pretty blowout. Freddy and Nightmare on Elm Street beat Junkyard which is definitely what should have happened there Rescue 911 beat Mary Shelley's Frankenstein I didn't vote in that favor but I'm not too surprised yeah and also not a surprise Twister beat Stargate yes now one that did surprise me a lot Shaq Attack beat Starship Troopers. That did not surprise me. I did not vote on that one. I didn't because I've never played Shaq Attack. I had not either. However, I actually saw, I think it was when we, on one of the shares that we did to get the vote out there to the Kansas City Pinball Group on Facebook, someone posted on there going, Shaq Attack may win this whole contest. So apparently, now I did actually, I spoke to him at the 403 Club about that, And he said, he's never played it either, but it has a really bad reputation. So while we weren't familiar with it, apparently that reputation lives on in the Internet. Because, I mean, I've played Starship Troopers. It is not a good game in any way, shape, or form. But it's a complete blowout. It was an 88.6% win for Shack Attack. So Shack Attack was really, really bad. I guess so. Flipper Football, big win over Dirty Harry. Strikes and Spares had a big win over, well, not nearly as big of a win, but still a pretty good-sized win over Batman. Yeah, that's a good amount. That's a good amount. The Big Hurt, 93%. I think that's probably, I have not played Big Hurt, so I didn't vote on this one, but that may be more that just Demolition Mancina is a really good game. Probably. It could be. I can see it. Barbed Wire beat No Fear, which it should have. I mean, if it was anything else, I would have been in total and complete shock. Apollo 13 beat Johnny Mnemonic. Yeah. No surprise. Nope. There's nothing surprising there. Mario Andretti. Is it Mario or Mario? I always say Mario, but I don't know. Whichever. Andretti beat Independence Day by a fair amount, 67%. It's not bad. I don't know those games, so I didn't weigh in on that. Fast Break beat Safecracker. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised either because that's how I thought it would go. It was relatively close, though. It was close. It was 58 to 41. Let's see. We got lost in space, beat, break shot. We expected that. Yeah, that's no surprise. Now, this was my surprise. Royal Rumble beat Cactus Canyon. I'm not surprised. I just think it's wrong. Yeah. I think, right. I'm not surprised. No, I'm not. I'm just disappointed. There are a lot of people who think that Cactus Canyon is a great game. They are wrong. But it's driven by a mix of Williams elitism coupled with rarity, coupled with having familiarity with Cactus Canyon continue. Right. So all those things mixed together. And a lot of people haven't played WWF. I hadn't. I've owned and played pinball since 2012, and I didn't play WWF until less than a month ago. And it was good. It was good. But I'm not surprised. Yeah. I just disagree. South Park beat the Flintstones. Yeah, deserved. Yeah, deserved. Tommy beat Theater of Magic by a lot. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Again, I disagree. Yeah. Star Wars Trilogy beat Congo Yeah, no doubt Oh yeah, easy Space Jam beat Attack from Mars Now here's the problem People voted for Attack from Mars Not very many Still Not very many I'm assuming either trolls or there were a couple people who didn't understand the point It could be There are enough votes that it's too hard to know Yeah But when it's less than 5% Yeah, I know It's just It makes me sad It hurts my soul. It hurts my soul so bad. Jackpot. Beat Totem. Not surprised. No. Lost World Jurassic Park. Beat Champion Pub. Not surprised. Lost my place. Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. There's one you missed. The GoldenEye and Maverick matchup. Just before. Oh, I did miss GoldenEye and Maverick. Way back there. GoldenEye, definitely. Wait, no. I made a mistake. I bolded the wrong one for you. I bolded the winners when I had some time to make it easier for him through the notes, and then I bolded the wrong one. Yep, yep. Maverick. Maverick beat GoldenEye. Yes, and that is not surprising, and that is the right answer. That's not how I voted, but it's not surprising. I know it's not. and then the next one you're ready for is a matchup of the 26th Airborne and Viper Knight Driving Viper Knight Driving won I don't think it is either I just I never played Airborne so I don't know how bad it is but I do know how bad Viper Knight Driving is so I'm not surprised by it Star Wars Episode 1 beat Baywatch now by how much because you refused to acknowledge how awesome Baywatch was I did refuse to acknowledge how awesome Baywatch was. It was 84.8% to 15.2%. That's right. I mean, it was a complete blowout. That's how awesome Baywatch is. That was not, that Star Wars Episode I is an abysmal game, because it's not an abysmal game. It's boring, and it's a little unbalanced. But Baywatch, with the shark fin flipper and the tower, it's just that good. It's just that good. And the jiggle on the DMD. It's just that good. It's just that good. Now, and absolutely no surprise to me, Indy 500, one of the worst games ever created, beat The Shadow. And while it wasn't super close, it was closer than I thought it would be. I really thought Shadow would be like 10 or less Really I figured 20 or less But yeah it was 69 to 30 It was way closer than I thought it had any right to be. I was just so surprised. Harley Davidson beat Scared Steph. Makes sense. By a huge margin. Not unexpected there. Corvette beat Circus Voltaire. I'm not surprised. I don't agree, but I'm surprised. I don't either. But I know some other players who also think that Circus actually is a pretty good playing game. I don't agree with it, but... It's an argument. It's an argument. It's a common argument. And let's see. Water World beat No Good Gophers. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, everything about Water World was terrible. I've not played the game. I have no idea. Did I play the game? I might have played the game. It was at a TPF in 2017. And I played it. I might have played it there. It's got the big boat, the shaz, or whatever it's called, where you have to attack. But No Good Gophers is a good game. I don't think that is a good game at all. Really? No. I mean, I'm not saying it's a favorite. It's not on my list. I was thinking about it yesterday at 403 Club, and I got mad enough at it. I actually said that Teed Off was better to someone, and they did not agree with me at all. Obviously, did you get hit? No, no, no one would dare. Because Teed Off's terrible. No one would dare strike me. write me down and I will become more powerful here's the thing Titoff's rules are worse he's got some seriously unbalanced stuff going on going on with it however I think the layout's better so it's sort of like a choose your own adventure both paths lead to your death so it's not much of a book but anyway and our final thing world challenge soccer beat whodunit by a lot yeah I'm not surprised So, here's our round two matchup. All right, good. It's opinion time. So, it's good. We get to the meat of it. Meat. Nom, nom, nom. Starting up the round two matchups, Popeye Saves the Earth versus Roadshow. Oh, come on. Don't even play this. Hey, you let me. I can draw this out if I need to. And I need to because these are both not very good games. You bought that Popeye. That was for sale in the area, didn't you? No, I didn't even know. I set up all searches to filter out crap, so I don't see things like Popeye. It was linked to you on Facebook. I know it was. You went and bought it. That's what you were busy with. It's probably blocked. Actually, all right. So here's the thing. Popeye is easily the worst of these two games. Yes. I know I really, really, really bagged on both of them last episode for good reason. However, I can see the ball on Roadshow. I can see the ball. And when I'm playing pinball, I need to see the ball. So Lawler understood that. He's like, you know what? Even if I put twice the plastic faces on this game, twice the number of flippers it needs on this game, and put in a double path map to travel across the country with one path being greatly point superior to the other, thus ruining the idea of any choice in this game, I'm going to still let you see the ball. Whereas on Popeye, it was like Osler just had to deal with a python and it's like, oh my gosh, python is crazy now. He's gone full on crazy. So they spent all this time making this elaborate art with this boat for your play field, and they forgot that it was a pinball game. So Popeye gets my vote easily. Yeah, mine too. Okay. But that's no surprise. I like rope shit. I know you do. It's Friday! All right. Number two is Guns N' Roses versus Pinball Magic. I'm going to vote Pinball Magic. I think it's just too linear. I think it's too linear, and I don't think it's very fun to shoot. I'm going to say something terrible here. I don't understand the whole pinball and magic themes. Really? Well, I think it's the idea that you can make the ball disappear or levitate or be held. I guess. It's the idea that magnets and scoops and subways and stuff lend itself to making you think about magic. Some games have done it well. I freely admit some games have done it well, but some games do it terribly. I mean, I'm just assuming that. Yeah, no, pinball magic is definitely. The third matchup is going to be VX Files versus Freddy. I'm not going to vote on this because as I noted last time I don't have any experience with Freddy I've played Freddy once or twice as I recall it was at least once at TPF last year so I will go with Freddy ok you mentioned earlier that you liked X-Files I like X-Files Rescue 911 and Twister is next in the list I'm going to vote Twister I just think it's boring It's so boring. It's like, yeah, we want to kind of be whirlwind, even though the theme's kind of whirlwind, but we're not whirlwind. Cow. Yeah, I mean, I like the movie, but Rescue 911, I think, it's a relatively clever game. It should have been more for as long as Premiere spent on it, but it's based off the show, the Rescue 911 show. It works for what it is. These are not great. I don't think either are great games, but yeah, no, Twister. I'm going to abstain here because I haven't played Rift 9-1-1. That I can recall. Now, I do have an interesting Twister story. Yes. Alright, is this going to be as good as the Lost in Space story last time? No. Oh. Okay. I originally saw Twister in the theaters. So did I. I saw Twister in the theaters with my then-girlfriend at the time. And they had to stop halfway through so we could go to the shelters because the tornado sirens went off. Ah, interesting. We were at the West Glen. Okay. The old West Glen Theater over there. I think it's like a fitness place now. But, yeah. No, it's just... That's my humorous Twister story. I don't have a humorous Twister story The Yes I do like that movie I enjoyed the crud out of that movie It was funny Going up in Tornado Alley It resonates more with us than it probably did with other people But it was like Bill Paxton He was such a good bit character On so many things he finally got his own vehicle That was featuring him And I thought it worked fine Didn't work well for his career He had to go back to just doing supporting that's what it is next up is Shaq Attack versus Flipper Football abstaining because I haven't played either I'm abstaining Strikes and Spares versus Big Hurt abstaining I have this fear that we're going to get down to the final round the final round, the last two for the worst game, yeah I'm abstaining as it gets further along what I'll do is most of these should have footage up on YouTube I'll watch footage. Start hunting that down with footage. Yeah. I've seen footage on some of the games that I've been willing to abstain so far, but we'll have to weigh in at some point just because it's too boring to keep saying abstain. Yeah. Next is Barbed Wire versus Apollo 13. Barbed Wire. Oh, yeah. No kidding. I'm sorry. Even though the one we played was misadjusted, even if it wasn't misadjusted, there's no way that game was fun. Yeah, Apollo 13 has its own frustrations, but even as bad as I think Apollo 13 shoots, it shoots better than barbed wire. Yeah. Mario Andretti versus NBA Fastbreak. I'll abstain because I've not played Andretti. I'm going to abstain, but I do think Fastbreak will not win. No, yeah. No. I'm sure people will. The only reason Fastbreak is here is because Safecracker is a really good game. Yeah. Lost in Space versus Royal Rumble Lost in Space it is so terrible do you have a story about how you saw Lost in Space I told it last time are you sure I thought I did I was just saying if I could get you to say it again confuse everyone see if it got any there's more pain this time no there's not going to be more pain now Now, when Lost in Space makes it through this round and continues on. Right. I think it will. There'll probably be a story next time because the new Lost in Space TV series hits Netflix on the 14th, I think. Hmm. Or it's either the 14th or the 24th. It doesn't matter. Lost in Space is going to be in this thing for a while. Okay. So, but I'm going to try and watch the new Lost in Space TV show. Is this still a TV show if it's on Netflix, if it's a series? Yeah, call it a show. That's fine. Okay. So, South Park versus the Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard. Oh, South Park. Oh, it's so South Park. Yeah. It's not even a fight. South Park will probably put up a really good fight in this whole thing. Yeah. Well, it depends who it gets put up against, of course, but yeah. Star Wars Trilogy and GoldenEye now this is a boo-boo on my part because I copied down from the bold so that's Maverick Star Wars Trilogy vs. Maverick Star Wars yeah no it doesn't matter Star Wars is worse than either of those games and I will have to make sure I copied over your voting poll for the round two votes which will be in the show notes folks I'll make sure that it actually says Maverick. Maverick. Yeah. Whoa. That's weird. That's probably because I just fixed it. Yeah. My notes are, but they're updating, like, it's like it's updating the Brian Morris code because it's one single letter appears, and then the backspaces are going one at a time. How sad. I typed it so fast. Yeah, I know. That's why it was weird because it was going so much slower than how you typed it. So matchup 12 is next. Space Jam versus Jackpot. I'll stay out of it because I haven't played Space Jam, and I've never watched anything about it. I've never even seen the movie. You've never seen Space Jam? Nope. Nope. I only watch inspirational sports movies, and cartoons are not inspirational. This is going to be just like Supernova. I'm going to have to go find a copy of Space Jam for your birthday. Nope. I thought your birthday was at Christmas. I don't remember. It was bad. It was bad. I blocked it. It was an extra present because it's like, Dennis hated this movie. I'm going to buy it for him because it's in the $5. Yeah, what a nice thing to do. Wow. Wow, that's just really sweet. Space Jam is not a terrible movie. It's not great. Apparently, it made people feel a little weird. But it's not a terrible movie. Is it a terrible pinball machine? I don't know. I mean, it's not like Cool World bad. Oh. I did see Cool World. The Lost World Jurassic Park versus Viper Knight Driving. I'll abstain because I haven't really done anything with Lost World. It's Viper Knight Driving. Okay. I think you'll end up being right, but what that's worth. Star Wars Episode 1 versus Indianapolis 500 I'm going to vote Star Wars I don't really enjoy either of these games but I guess I like India a little bit more see this one's hard yeah Star Wars is just I don't even know what I can't think of anything really redeeming about Star Wars Indy tried to do some clever stuff It's unfortunate that it doesn't play well I don't care Indy 500 I think Star Wars will win But Indy 500 Our listeners know my problems with that game Yes That game That's just what it is I'm willing to vote Out of pure spite Okay. Hey, it's whatever you want to pick the worst. Harley Davidson versus Corvette. A Harley. Harley. So boring. Oh, gosh. I remember when that was on Pinball Arcade and I was like, you put this one in? It's like the most paint-by-numbers pinball machine that ever was in the DMD era. And nothing good about it. It's not like there's anything that is glaringly terrible. It's just unfun because it's like, oh, look, red light multiball. Oh, look, here's that other multiball. Oh, look, here's the toy that will eat the ball. Oh, look, it's a motorcycle. Num, num, num. Whatever. It's just not good. It's just not good. Corvette is better. Yep, yep. I'm going to vote Harley-David myself. So our final one, Waterworld versus World Challenge Soccer. I'm not going to vote because, as I noted, I've not played World Challenge Soccer. This one's interesting because they're both Gottliebs and we're going to end up with a lot of Gottliebs As you'd expect I'm going to predict that World Challenge Soccer will win the vote If anything It's just a lot fewer people Have played it So we'll see So that's What we're looking at That is our worst of the fall Our negativity poll That's right. And we're done with the pinball segment this time. Yay! So now... We got some video game update stuff to talk about. Here's the thing. What thing? I've learned this recently. Apparently, video games are terrible for you. Are they? They're horrible. Why? They make you crazy. Oh. I don't know. That's what people keep saying. I'm going to be flat out honest. I've barely played any video games. I have not played pinball since Texas. I've barely played any video games That wasn't Overwatch Or something else that I've played in the past I've played nothing new And What have you been doing in Overwatch? Have you played Brigitte? I have played Brigitte She's the new hero folks I like her She's a support, she has a little teeny shield And she has a flail and she flails around with it Yeah I've played her some Now most of my time has been polishing my Moira play Okay So I've been spending Almost all of my time on Moira She's very important for death ball cops Yeah or Dixie Reinhardt Or Winston I'm trying to get better with Winston This is Winston I have bad dive timing I have bad dive timing I do have bad dive timing I'm working on it For some reason I managed to Fail to jump out In time I almost always die Oh, yeah, a fraggy does that, a professional player, fraggy. He never gets out. That's why he's the worst Winston in the league. Right. Yeah, no, Winston, I actually kind of like Winston a bit, mostly because generally at my level, and I'm usually playing gold or silver tier opponents, they don't tend to use Winston. But I don't usually play tanks. Right. Right. Well, my preference is I play more support or Junkrat or Soldier. I can play DPS characters. It's just I rarely do in anything other than like random hero. Right. Because you rarely get the chance. And that's what I mostly, I've been playing the last couple weeks. I have been playing Overwatch. It's mostly been Mystery Hero or a little bit of competitive. Usually I will play Mystery Hero to get the weekly loot crates from the arcade mode to get new skins and stuff. Mr. Hero is always an option there so I'm usually Mr. Hero for that I play Mr. Hero unless Mayhem's available and then I bounce between Mr. Hero and Mayhem when Mayhem makes me angry I usually play with Mike who's been on the show before we do not do Mayhem but if No Limits is an option we will do No Limits and then sometimes I've done a little bit of competitive it's not gone well it's been a mess I've lost like 200 SR rankings just because some of it's probably me and some of it is just – it just seems like I keep getting on a team where someone wants to be Sombra and they just hide the whole time or someone – you were only one tank or – it's like it's a comp disadvantage. Right. Or on the few instances where the comp has been balanced, what we call 2x2x2, where you've got two support, two tanks, and two damage, which is normally a good approach, at least to start with. There'll be, like, no hit scan and there's a Pharah or something like that. And nobody will change the hit scan? No, no one will change. Of course not. No. Everyone's like, no, no, we're not doing that. So that's been my Overwatch stuff. I've been doing more time on Mad Max. Yeah. Because I'm wanting to finish it, but I needed to do a lot of the side mission stuff because I needed the scrap to upgrade the car or to get access to certain tools or add-ons I wanted. I'm stuck right now with, I don't know if you've won the game or not. Currently, I'm at Gastown, and I'm supposed to be doing this race where I have to destroy this truck, and it is tilting me off the planet. That's where I am as well. Because every time I try, he seems to get to somehow, even though he's a huge truck, he gets to go faster than me. And they just keep sending in infinite other cars. And yeah, I have infinite ammo, but I can't repair. I've got a bomb on my car, so I've got to do it all in seven minutes. And I keep quitting out and changing my build, like giving up armor so I can go faster, which helps. Except now I can only take like four hits and then I'm gone. Yeah, I seem to recall I tilted out. Yeah. That's why I hadn't played it in a while. Or when I did play it, I was playing, you know, it's like, I'm just going to wander around the desert. Yeah. So I only got to that today, but I probably spent an hour and 90 minutes on it. And I was just like, I'm done. I'm going to go read a book. So that's what I did. But that's all I have for video games. I do have, I know it's not last episode, the episode before I talked about that they finally announced that Battletech was launching in April. Yes. They did release a new trailer That included the date And that is April 23rd I actually saw a sponsored ad from them On Facebook about it They are everywhere That's because They did that deal with Paradox Interactive So Paradox is handling All their stuff They've been doing a lot of They've been streaming a lot of Skirmish stuff online For their multiplayer play on like Twitch and stuff Okay And they've been doing, they just did an hour-long video podcast. Okay, yeah, an hour-long video podcast. Yeah, an hour-long video podcast that was just them basically going over the mech bay and modifying mechs and modifying lances and this and that for skirmish. They haven't really touched any of the single-player stuff for that. That's all stuff that'll hit. They haven't gotten into any of the story stuff or anything. I'm looking forward to that, as everybody knows I'm looking forward to that. I'm lucky not the week that it comes out, but the following week, because I go on call, I have to take some time off because of how we handle on-call time. Right, right. So I'm probably going to just live in that game for that day. It will give you stuff to report. Yeah. Excellent. Okay. Well, we made it, I believe, to the end of the show. It should be. All right. We didn't, like I said, not done any video games, not done anything. I've mainly been working on cars and around the house. Well, you can find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. You can also email the show, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We're on Twitter, which never gets checked, and Instagram, which is checked fairly often, at eclectic underscore gamer. and we'll talk to you guys in two weeks. Until then, see you later. Two weeks.