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Mando vs Mando

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 10m·analyzed·May 28, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Zen's Mandalorian table praised for gameplay depth but criticized for dull visuals and lack of dynamic lighting.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan analyze Zen Studios' Mandalorian Pinball table in detail, comparing it favorably to classic Williams designs like Twilight Zone while critiquing its visual presentation, lighting design, and difficulty. They discuss the table's challenging gameplay, innovative shot layouts, and effective voiceover work, while noting deficiencies in chrome shine, RGB lighting, and the need for post-release code updates similar to Stern's approach.

Key Claims

  • This is the first time Zen and Stern have simultaneously developed tables for the same licensed IP (Mandalorian) with assets provided by Lucasfilm at the same time

    high confidence · Chris explicitly states this hasn't happened before with previous overlaps like Deadpool and Star Wars

  • Zen's Mandalorian table uses Williams physics, making it more arcade-like and realistic than previous Zen tables

    high confidence · Jared: 'It's also using the Williams physics' and 'It's very much like Twilight Zone in many ways'

  • Pop bumpers on Mandalorian don't appear to score points in the typical way, only function mechanically in certain modes

    medium confidence · Chris notes 'I have not detected scores happening when you hit the pop bumpers, which is a weird thing' but later confirms they're used in child rescue mode

  • The table is significantly difficult—Jared reached chapter 3 after approximately 50 games

    high confidence · Jared: 'in probably about 50 games that I played on this thing, I just got up to chapter three'

  • Zen employed sound-alike voiceover actors rather than original actors, successfully fooling the hosts initially

    high confidence · Chris: 'I thought that they actually got the original voice actors for it' before confirming they were sound-alikes

  • The table layout is heavily inspired by Pat Lawlor's Twilight Zone, featuring similar shot arrangement and four-flipper layout

    high confidence · Chris: 'it feels very Pat Lawlor and like a Twilight Zone table' with specific mechanical parallels discussed

  • Monochrome 16x9 DMD displays are becoming obsolete and Zen should upgrade to color or full LCD like Stern

    medium confidence · Chris: 'I think the days of the 16x9 monochrome DMD are fast becoming over' and suggests color or larger LCD

  • The table features insufficient lighting, chrome shine, and RGB effects compared to classic Williams tables and Stern modern tables

    high confidence · Multiple criticisms about 'dull' chrome, lack of 'bling', no RGB lighting, and poor 'orchestration of light shows'

Notable Quotes

  • “We've had Deadpool from Zen and from Stern, and we've also had Star Wars technically from Zen and one from Stern. So it's not the first time that they've overlapped... But never have we had the opportunity to have them both being developed at the same time, being given assets by Lucasfilm for both of them at the same time.”

    Chris Freebus @ early in episode — Establishes unique competitive/comparative context for analyzing both Mandalorian implementations

  • “It's very much like Twilight Zone in many ways. Not just in sort of the inspiration behind the table, which I think is fair to call it because Zen does like to do that with their tables. They like to pay homage to other designers.”

    Jared Morgan @ midway — Identifies Zen's design philosophy of homaging classic games; key to understanding table layout choices

  • “This table very much encourages you to do one of two things: either hope the dead pass is going to work, or learn to do some live catching.”

    Jared Morgan @ late in episode — Describes demanding skill requirements and aggressive ball physics

  • “It is an absolute quarter muncher. It will be a quarter muncher in the arcades for sure.”

    Chris Freebus @ near end — Predicts strong commercial arcade appeal due to difficulty and repeat-play incentives

  • “I think when you've come from playing the Williams tables, which they don't even have the massive light show, but they've definitely got that attract lighting style. Their orchestration of their light shows is particularly good, and they know the importance of it.”

    Chris Freebus @ late in episode — Critical comparison establishing that Zen underperformed in a core design area (lighting design) relative to historical standards

  • “I do think that I got some super jackpots in Razor Crest Multiball. I think that's where it mostly came from.”

    Jared Morgan @ midway — Identifies high-value shot in game economy and score distribution

  • “Zen has done a phenomenal job on the voiceover casting that they did with this.”

Entities

Chris FreebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyStern PinballcompanyMandalorian Pinball (Zen)gameMandalorian Pinball (Stern)gamePat LawlorpersonTwilight ZonegameWilliamscompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts advocate for Zen to solicit feedback from VR community players and implement refinements similar to Stern's approach of treating all players as beta testers

    medium · Chris: 'Zen takes feedback from the VR folk and maybe does a code update... Use us as kind of your... what Stern does. Everybody that buys the table is now your beta'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Zen and Stern developing simultaneous Mandalorian tables with same-time asset provision from Lucasfilm; unprecedented opportunity for direct competitive comparison of two manufacturers' approaches to same IP

    high · Chris: 'never have we had the opportunity to have them both being developed at the same time, being given assets by Lucasfilm for both of them at the same time'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pop bumper scoring mechanics ambiguous and potentially problematic; mechanics unclear to players despite mechanical functionality in specific modes

    medium · Chris: 'I have not detected scores happening when you hit the pop bumpers, which is a weird thing' but later confirmed they function in child rescue mode

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Visual presentation significantly underperforms compared to Stern and classic Williams; insufficient lighting orchestration, dull chrome, lack of RGB effects and flasher action

    high · Chris: 'This table just doesn't have that [attractive lighting]' and 'There's no bling. There's no shine. They need to put it through the space car wash'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Zen employs intentional homage to classic Williams designers (Pat Lawlor/Twilight Zone) in its digital table layouts, incorporating similar shot structure, four-flipper systems, and playfield geometry

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.212

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everybody how you going uh you know what jared i'm feeling a bit of deja vu yeah i don't know why that could be but could possibly be because we've already done this episode we've had what we call a rehearsal of this episode not an intentional one no but as it turns out it was a rehearsal so this one's going to be better right hopefully we'll see how it goes anyhow literally literally folks uh you Normally, I don't do any setting changes, and I never do setting changes once everything's working. And, you know, I didn't bother checking our recording after we recorded this past weekend. And I go and I set the premiere up for YouTube, and I'm all there ready for doing live comments. Everybody else is. And boom, the logo fires up. Hear that just fine. Everything's great. And then crickets. No audio from me or Jared recorded at all. the lips are moving but no one's talking my wife goes well why don't you just do like a commentary over the top of it and i was like you know what that could be funny doing like you know lip sync theater but yeah um that might be more work than necessary yeah so yeah we're gonna we're going to we're gonna jump right into what this whole episode about is about which is basically zen's mandalorian pinball but as a bonus we're also going to take a look at stern's mandalorian pinball because we've never had the opportunity to see two tables released virtually at the same time from the two companies you know we've had deadpool you know from zen and from mandel or from stern and we've also had star wars technically uh from 19 of them from you know from zen and uh one from Stern. So it's not the first time that they've overlapped. Two companies have released themes around a certain product. Right. But never have we had the opportunity to have them both being developed at the same time, being given assets by Lucasfilm for both of them at the same time, and being able to see really where the comparisons are.
2:38
Yeah. It's kind of cool. So this will be an interesting episode. It certainly was the first time. Let's see how it plays out this time. Right? It was a good one. You guys really missed out. It's a shame you couldn't have heard it. Yeah, it was great. You should have been there. Yeah, you know. You should have been there. All right, let's dive right in. And we were going to... I'm just going to show you the play field, just so you recognize what it is we're talking about. There's Mandalorian Pinball in all its glory.

Chris Freebus @ midway — Positive acknowledgment of voice production quality as a standout element

  • “I think if Zen adopted that approach with their rulemaking and their table design, it would actually start to really make people sit up and notice the fact that these aren't just like digital table[s]”

    Chris Freebus @ very end — Calls for Zen to adopt Stern's post-launch code update model to improve community reception and table longevity

    • Lucasfilmcompany
    Pinball FXproduct
    F-14 Tomcatgame
    Swords of Furygame
    GoldenEyegame
    Firegame
    Playdate Pinball Podcastorganization

    high · Chris: 'it feels very Pat Lawlor and like a Twilight Zone table' and 'Zen does like to do that with their tables. They like to pay homage to other designers'

  • $

    market_signal: Mandalorian table positioned for strong arcade location performance due to high difficulty, repeat-play incentive, and 'quarter muncher' design characteristics

    high · Chris: 'It is an absolute quarter muncher. It will be a quarter muncher in the arcades for sure' and 'It really does... draw you in for one more game'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen's voiceover production used sound-alike actors instead of original licensed talent; successfully deceived experienced players initially

    high · Chris: 'I thought that they actually got the original voice actors for it' before confirming sound-alikes; 'they sound really good'

  • ?

    product_concern: Digital pinball tables lack post-launch code update culture that Stern has established; Zen should adopt similar refinement approach to stay competitive

    medium · Chris: 'people expect code updates now... I think if Zen adopted that approach... it would actually start to really make people sit up and notice'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Monochrome 16x9 DMD displays are technologically obsolete and should be upgraded to color or full LCD; aliasing issues preventing dot-matrix rendering on Mandalorian's DMD

    high · Chris: 'I think the days of the 16x9 monochrome DMD are fast becoming over' and notes aliasing prevents dot rendering on current build

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen's Mandalorian incorporates Williams physics engine rather than its proprietary approach, improving realism and arcade authenticity

    high · Jared: 'It's also using the Williams physics' making it 'very much like Twilight Zone in many ways'

    • 3:07
    When we say all its glory, it's, for Zen, a very nice layout. It's clean. You're able to see the shots. Zen did a wonderful thing by actually putting insert lights for all the chapters. They put insert lights. And granted, it's hard to see them right now because the image that they've provided via their website doesn't have anything lit up. No. So it's a little bit sort of lifeless. A little dank and dark and lifeless, which is kind of a bummer because when you're in it playing it, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like a lot of your Zen tables. Yeah. Because things are moving and dancing around, and that makes things visually interesting. Something that I kind of pointed out that it was like, well, yeah, where are the lights? How come it's not doing pretty things? And as Jared pointed out... Yeah, it's sort of... Well, we were talking about a track mode and how important a track mode is on something like ZEN, on Stern's products. you know they are designed to entice you in um to the products to get you to put your dollar in it but i made the point that well you're already in the game you don't really need to be enticed you're sort of there so is it worth spending time engineering a light show and you know the funny thing is that that when you're actually in the cabinet overview like when you're in vr and you're selecting a table and you're switching between tables they actually have kind of implemented an attract mode in that where the lights are blinking off in a certain sequence it looks like it's very scripted and very programmed sure um but and not like a not like a stern table does where it cycles all the the light trees and certain patterns and everything like it does in a track mode but this seems to be very much a canned light show that's overlaid over the cabinet um so they kind of have an attract mode at that point to try and bring into like what what table should I select? Right. But when you're actually in the game and it's loaded, there is none because you've kind of already made your choice, haven't you? We have, and it's something that we even mentioned with Zen Star Wars VR that one of the things that's kind of disappointing is that the ambient room light doesn't change. And because of that, it makes the light show on the table a little bit harder to even see in all of its glory. So it's just one of those... It does make it a little bit harder to appreciate, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. Because it's like, you need that darker room. In FX2, because the rooms changed in the way they looked when you switched between tables, you actually did have a bit more atmosphere in that particular package. Whereas here we're maintaining the fan cave. Yeah, the fan cave is essentially the consistent experience across all the tables. But I would like the fan cave to be like, Alexa, turn lights to Mandalorian, and then the lights affect that way. That would be cool, actually. By the way, this is a side pitch. Hey, Zen, just an idea for an add-on to this VR package with the fan cave. Can we get a Star Wars-themed clock that can be put on the wall so that I don't have to exit the program to find out what time it is or take off the headset to find out what time it is that I'm... I just want to look in my fan cave and go, oh, yeah, it's that time. Okay. That actually would be really cool, to synchronize an in-game clock with your actual time. Yes. I know for me, it's easy for me, because on the controller, I just press the Oculus button, it brings up the Oculus overlay, and it has the time on it. I don't want to have to bring up the overlay. If I'm in the fan cave, I'm in the fan cave. Just give me a start. I don't want to go out of VR. That's all. That's all I'm asking for. It's not too much, is it? I don't think so. Okay, let's back to the action. Let's go over what is going on in this table here. As you can see, it's a wide body. How do we know it's a wide body? Because it's got three lanes over here. It's not a super wide body, but it's your typical Zen wide body going on. I made the point where it was like, well, you know, Adam's family technically had two return lanes on the left-hand side as well, and it was narrow. But, yeah, this definitely, like when you're switching between the tables, this does have a little bit more girth to it, doesn't it? It's not Jedi girth, but it's... No, that Jedi is like a super mega Gottlieb, super wide body, that one. Yeah, I love it. Jedi's a freaking porn star. All right, so let's go left to right on our table. We have this shot right here, which basically is a little mini ramp that goes up here and into a funnel action, a pool, if you will. A bowl. A which? A bowl, yes. This is the forge, the foundry, the forge, all the flames are above here. If you shoot a shot right up into this, that is for your flamethrower mode. You shoot enough shots that gives you fuel for your flamethrower. We'll talk about the flamethrower mode in just a bit. Right underneath that is a little, another kind of ramp action. basically the ball goes up here and then around and then there's three drop holes a la uh space shuttle a shuttle yeah um that drops down into a pop bumper cluster uh so you got three holes here for that then you have this ramp here this is your main you're going to be hitting this ramp a lot this is your mission mode ramp essentially uh shooting up here sends it up into this habitrail that then puts it back into the forge, hit this enough times, that's what's going to trigger one of the chapters, or the chapter starts for... And that ramp is a U-turn ramp as well.
    8:58
    So it's blocked by the big forge thing at the top, but it's actually a U-turn ramp or an in-woman ramp that will actually invert your bull's path back over. Yeah. Yeah, so it's neat. Then going up next here, you have this little lane here with a target at the back. that's your bullseye target uh and the ball goes up here and that's where your some pop bumper action is uh interesting to note i have not detected scores happening when you hit the pop bumpers which is it's weird thing and i haven't had a chance since we last recorded i haven't had a chance to go and play that and test it but so it's almost as if your pop bumpers are just merely scrambling the ball um which there's that makes no sense because everything on the pinball table scores something. Yeah. It has to. Well, it is used for, in your first mission, it is used to, you have to hit the pop bumpers 15 times, I believe, in order to rescue the child. So it is actually used, but not in the typical ways from what I can tell. Anyway, directly behind this right pop bumper is a lane that the ball can dribble out of. So the ball can either dribble out over here on the left, Or it can dribble out right down the center here through the spinner. And the fun thing is, is where it drains.
    10:21
    Whee! It comes right and it'll just hit the tip of the flippers. Both of these just hit the tip of the flippers. It's scary. You're like, do I let it dead pass? Or do I flip and hit? I don't know. Yep. And you do so at your own peril. It is risky city. It is. I'm wondering about that lane. Because I think they might have realized that it stays in the pop bumpers too long. so they need to give it another exit path because there's no scoring in that lane. It's just like a path out of the potpump. Yes.
    10:51
    In front of that potpumper, you have these three stand-up targets. You hit these X amount of times and two of these will lower and this is where a ball lock is. It's the world's hardest ball lock for some reason. It is. Literally impossible to get. You have to lock up two balls in there to get child multiball going on in which case this little vent here the child pops up out of.
    11:15
    This vent is actually used for other characters also to pop, like a Stormtrooper pops out of that vent at one point also. Yeah, depending on what mode you're in. It's a character vent. Character vent.
    11:27
    Oh, lest you didn't see him, the Mando is standing right here. Hanging around there. He's got his own little vent that he likes to come in and out of. I have a question, Jared. I don't know if you've noticed or if you've even gotten far enough. As you earn certain Beskar rewards, or have you noticed him leveling up his armor? No, I haven't actually seen that change. So he actually changes, does he? I don't 100% know. I think he does, because I think he gets a little bit shinier as I play. Oh, that's right, because he's basically in Episode 1 armor there. Yes, yes. And towards the end of Episode 10, he's got a few more plates on. And I bring that up for a reason that we'll get into when we talk Stern. um over here we have the ig11 hiding in a cylindrical uh shoot that zen does love to use they've done it on uh family guy i think south park i think uh they've done it on doom uh basically it becomes a magnetic uh lane here but you've got this little block going on right here well how do you get that down, this is what all your in-lane targets are for. Spell out IG-11. Yeah. That lowers that. Then when you shoot here, the ball gets captured by a magnet. You get a lovely amount of time reading the DMD telling you what is about to happen and that you have to hit the launch button in order to start it, in which case there's a wall that can basically be brought up temporarily. And so as the ball comes around here, you need to time it so that you bring up your wall so the ball can continue its journey and it goes faster and faster. It's basically jump rope mode in Champion Pop. Yeah, it is, totally, but with a different mechanism. Yes. So you've got child multiball right here if you get two ball locks. You've got IG-11 multiball. So once you've done enough spins, IG-11 raises up. By the way, IG-11 is fully animated. He shoots his lasers. He spins around. His arms move. It's really kind of a cool use and placement of the character. It is. So he'll raise up, revealing a hole, shoot balls in there. So far, I've only been able to lock two balls, but I did read in the game instructions that there's the opportunity to lock up to six. I think it's a progressive each time you do IG-11 multiball that it raises how many you can have in play at one time. I guess it makes it more difficult as well, doesn't it, to actually get? Probably, yes. Yes. It's not easy. So child multiball, IG-11 multiball. There's one other multiball that we'll clue you into also. Before we go any farther around, do you see these two lines that go across the playfield?
    14:13
    That would be where... It's cardboard cutouts. Yes. Zen's infamous cardboard cutouts pop up. And for various, like at one point it's a whole bunch of just random characters that pop up from the garrison that you're trying to defeat. At another point, the mudhorn pops up, and you're dealing with that. and I'll also note that right in front of that right here is a ramp that pops up and that ramp is for like say Stormtrooper is standing right here for shooting and hitting the Stormtrooper and launching over the cardboard cutout I think of it like the ramp you see on GoldenEye that just pops out of the playfield or the ramp that's in Empire yeah or the ramp that's in pretty much all of the Pinball 2000 games that are out there. It just gets you off, gets you off the play field. The old hidden ramp trick. It's as if Zen really likes the game Fire from Williams but never wanted to make it.
    15:13
    Okay, so right next to IG-11, you've got this, you see this little side lane, which is impossible to hit from a flipper down here, but it is absolutely possible to hit from this flipper over here. This flipper, you shoot this. This is what gets you your kickbacks.
    15:32
    you have to shoot the ball in there a certain amount of times, and then you get to choose left or right kickback.
    15:37
    I always go with the left kickback, because this is a very, very, very hungry hole. Yeah, because that left is a green monster. It is. This whole table is a green monster. It's the geometry of that.
    15:48
    Yeah. That, that, the, the... Uh-oh. Geometry in the area is to the right, And it's weird the way the ball always wants to go down the lift-out lane there. Yeah. Also, though, underneath this flipper, there is also a hole from which this flipper can shoot. This is basically your Mandalorian hideout. by doing a certain amount of spins that will randomize what your reward is for underneath here and you know that you have a reward rating because the all sorts of little sparkles happen over the top of the flipper there yes, you get sparkles yes, you have over here there's three stand up targets for BES and over here three more for KAR for spelling Beskar and then you have this lane right here we'll show a different angle a little later on but this lane basically comes all the way up and around here but you'll notice there's one two three spots that the ball can be diverted and depending on which way the diversion is going it can either send it back, I think it can send it all the way back down here. Yes, it can. To the return lane. Or it can drop it. There's a little wire form right here. You can drop it right at this flipper. Sometimes there's a magnet here that'll catch. Or you can go here and it'll drop it right down the spinner lane. Or it can come over here and divert all the way to, again, to this side, to your left side in the return lanes or it can go just into the three uh drop holes Yeah So it a bit of a versatile shot that one It doesn't really seem to have much rhyme or reason when you shoot it, what one actually activates, does it? And there's not really any indicator. It's not like there's a light indicator telling you which one is active either. So it's a little bit tricky.
    17:58
    Sort of feels a little bit like F-14 Tomcat, doesn't it? except that one does actually, it sort of tells you where the ball's going to drop, kind of. Yeah. And a little bit like Swords of Fury as well. Yeah. That's got a similar diverter, so, yeah. And then, last but not least, we have this far right lane here. You shoot that, and it's basically one of those inverted horseshoes that, boom, plops the ball right here on the Razor Crest magnetic playfield. Yes, this is virtual flippers. You have all these stand-up targets. when you're just doing a skill shot, when you first launch the ball and it pops here, you just need to knock down the R and the C, and that opens up the lane behind here. You then shoot in there, and that gives you the skill shot. When you're in the game proper and you do that, you need to light up all of Razorcrest, and then these two targets will drop down. You do the exact same thing. That's how you lock the ball.
    18:54
    You can lock it. First one you do is two-ball, multi-ball, and I think after that you can do three-ball, multi-ball, I think. Anyway, but this is your third multi-ball of the game, Razorcrest multi-ball. And how that functions is the Razorcrest here will then come, it'll have the balls captured, it'll come over here, fly over, float around the middle of the playfield, and open up its cargo bay and drop the balls. It'll leave its cargo bay down, in which case you need to launch the ball up into the cargo bay. that gives you a jackpot and then it'll come back over here drop one of the balls onto the playfield and if you can send it up through that rnc hole again that's your super jackpot so in a nutshell there it is there is your table there's your shots there's your shots and it is a fun table to shoot around on there is no doubt about that um it's very twilight zone I was just going to say, I don't mind this table at all because it feels very Pat Lawler and like a Twilight Zone table. And, of course, why does it feel like... It's almost like reverse Twilight Zone, actually. In a way. So, again, if we're thinking Twilight Zone, well, what are the dead giveaways? Well, we have this power play field, basically. Yep, the power field. Rather than being a pyramid shape, though, it's more of a rectangle. And also you have the... Again, this would be on the town square shot on Twilight Zone. That's the camera. The camera, yeah, the camera. So underneath that, I guess you would call this the piano shot, except for there is nothing behind for it to go through. It's not like it drops in. Yeah. But just the mere fact of having the four flippers the way they are, having that shot underneath the flipper, having the power mode, that very much feels Twilight Zone-ish. And there's one other aspect that feels Twilight Zone-ish, and we'll cover that in a moment. thoughts on the table what are your thoughts on the table jared uh yeah i really do like it i think it shoots very well um it's it's definitely challenging um it is a drain monster uh it wants your balls down the outline as quick as possible in fact i think it's probably the the most um arcade-like table that Zen's created to date from its hunger perspective and it's to get it down the middle that's actually good it's also using the Williams physics yeah and that makes it quite realistic it's very much like Twilight Zone in many ways not just in sort of the inspiration behind the table which I think is fair to call it because Zen does like to do that with their tables they like to play pay homage to other designers um layouts i mean i'll just give you an example of of how mean this table is uh slingshots boing boing boing boing out lane out lane yeah if every single time if your ball hits this post here assume it's going to go out the out lane unless you do a nudge there is no lucky bounce and it going it's not a 50 50 it's like an 85 15 percent of which way it's going to go on either of these posts um will die yes let's say the ball is uh you know coming down here and it's coming at your left uh flipper and you decide ah i'm going to catch that bad boy or actually i should say if it's coming down this and you say i'm gonna flip my i'm gonna I'm going to get that. I'm going to trap it. Right? It's going to go, I'm going to trap it. It'll go boink, right out the outline. Yeah. It'll say, yeah, nah. No, you're not. So this table very much encourages you to do one of two things. Either hope the dead pass is going to work, or learn to do some live catching.
    22:51
    Yeah. It's pretty important on this table, isn't it? It is. And because you've got Williams Physics, you can actually do it. You can. Yeah. Um, so that's kind of, uh, yeah, it's, it's nasty in that way. Uh, something, another reason why we say it's nasty. Jared, how many, uh, chapters have you gotten through? Oh, I just, in probably about 50 games that I played on this thing, I, I just got up to chapter three, um, the other day and I did it. I thought, you know what? I actually managed to get past, uh, episode one, episode two, which are the two mandatory ones you have to do. And then I had the choice to select. and I thought, oh, what one should I do? Well, I've not seen any of them yet, so let's do number three, I guess. So I did. And it was a Stormtrooper mode I didn't finish.
    23:40
    Yeah, I don't believe I've gotten past that one either. I may have. For some, somehow I've got a pretty decent score. Like, I'm like number eight at 133 million. That's a good score. I think I put up 83 the other day and I was pretty happy with that but it literally happened the first couple of times I played and so I didn't know how difficult it was so I wasn't paying attention so I really don't know how far I got in the table I do think that I got some super jackpots in Razorcrest Multiwell I think that's where it mostly came from I think you might have got some points there but one or two oops not that one let's try a different screen let's try that one there we go fingers alright fingers one of the things that what makes this so difficult just in the first two modes the first mode all of a sudden you'll get three pop-ups here and three pop-ups here of characters and when you hit them BAM they just rocket back down and go for center dance they're crucial it's not like you knock them down it's a bit of a hard introduction yeah it's not like you knock them down and then you can access the back. You're not doing some Arkanoid action. No, as soon as you hit them, boom, they pop right back up until you've reached a certain point in the narrator doing the story. And let's just talk about that for a second here. Yeah. Folks, Zen has done a phenomenal job on the voiceover casting that they did with this. So they have their own voiceover for Mandalorian, which is a pretty easy thing to duplicate because it's all been put through a filter anyway. yeah and then the call it the narrator of the of the table that tells you what is story-wise happening they basically cast a sound alike for in the forge uh the the the mandalorian uh blacksmith yes so she talks a lot she does she has quite a bit of uh content to get across yes and they sound really good I was fooled I thought that they actually got the original voice actors for it I did too so until she gets done telling her part of the story that needs to these just stand up so it's a double edged sword it's annoying because you don't get rewarded for actually knocking them down but there are some big points to be added I was going to say, they actually have some good points available on those targets if you don't drain. Yeah. But you've got to keep your finger on the tilt joystick when you're playing this game. And most of these modes have two parts, basically. So once you, like in this first one, once you knock down the six targets, that then becomes time to go collect the child, how you collect the child. or at that point they don't know it's the child it's the package, the asset, whatever well, all of a sudden that's where you have this lane lit and this lane lit so that you can send up into the drop holes to drop and start hitting pop bumpers because you need to hit like 15 pops in order to win the points and the points are on a countdown so it's a little bit of a hurry up mode and if you don't collect in time you just get a measly 1 million points and then it just is like okay mission done and then you go to your next mission it's almost like each mission is on rails from the perspective that you've got to do as many hits as you can while the narrator is describing the story at least in the first couple of rounds it may be different in the other ones and by the way merely draining the ball does not end the mission when you lose the ball it carries over that mission still waiting for you yep you still got more draining to be done yes so again that's why this table is it's a bit nasty it's a bit mean um but it has but it has that uh oh just one more time i can do better just one it really does it just draws you in for one more game it is a absolute it will be a quarter it will be a quarter muncher in the arcades for sure absolutely yeah yeah yeah so it's it's a good amount of fun and uh despite it kicking our butts um it's it's just got a lot going for it and i think that those of you that uh aren't on vr and are obviously going to be waiting for this to come to pinball effects uh you're going to have a great time with it um yeah it's got a lot of legs yes on it um given that it's so difficult we cannot say that about star wars collectibles but we can't say that about this that'll be another episode that one yeah um let's talk about real quickly some of the i don't know if we want to do factors that uh zen did right or some of the factors that then maybe kind of miffed on uh yeah let's let's i think we've given enough praise for the table i think we need to balance that with a little bit of constructive criticism at this point, given we played it a fair bit. Yeah.
    29:16
    I think it's one of those things... I brought this up when we first recorded it. I'll bring it up again, because it is actually an important thing.
    29:26
    I think the days of the 16x9 monochrome DMD are fast becoming over. I think that Zen really did now focus on it, at a minimum, changing that 16x9 monochrome to at least color. Yes. Or going down the path of Stern and actually doing a larger, fully featured LCD display. So a 16x9 LCD screen that does full video, doesn't need to be digitized or dot-matrixed.
    30:01
    And you'll notice right here, there ain't no dots. There's no dots. And the reason because there's no dots is most likely because the aliasing issues they're having in the build at the moment. If that had dots on it and the aliasing there, you would literally not be able to read the screen. It would be that bad.
    30:19
    I'm going to point out something that I think that they need to work on here. Razorcrest. That's, what is it, hiding in the desert? Where's the chrome? There's no bling. There's no shine.
    30:33
    They need to put it through the space car wash. What did I just do? Ship wash. I just hit a button. You did. Let's go back to that. There we go. The other thing that I want to point out is there's not much light on the table.
    30:50
    And that's kind of a shame because when we look at the stern table, you'll understand what I'm saying. Just having a little light here, a little light here on the sides, what is that? And this is all basically typical incandescent lighting. We're not getting RGB lighting going on. We're not getting really much flasher action either. There's no real bright light sources on this table. It sort of feels a bit bland. And I think when you've come from playing the Williams tables, which they don't even have the massive light show, but they've definitely got that attract lighting style.
    31:28
    Their orchestration of their light shows is particularly good, and they know the importance of it. Yeah. Because it's an attractant for the table. And this table just doesn't have that. And so that's kind of a bummer. It's something, again, that I wish that they could have blinged this up again. I mean, even if you just look at the chrome, all the chrome is kind of dull. It is dull. There's just no shine on the table. Again, we could be talking about a performance issue here. We could be. So hopefully by the time it comes to pinball effects, maybe that gets addressed. Maybe there's a bit of a texture bump or a resolution bump in some of the assets, and we get a little bit more bling. That's one of those things that would be nice. And I hope also that Zen takes feedback from the VR folk and maybe does a code update when it comes time for Pinball FX.
    32:26
    Use us as kind of your, you know, what Stern does. Everybody that buys the table is now your beta. That's right. Let's see what shots get spammed and if there's any rules that need to be kind of slightly adjusted or tweaked.
    32:42
    Yep, absolutely. To approach these tables as you would a real pinball table, the code updates, people expect code updates now, and they expect rule changes.
    32:52
    I think the way Stern does it and the way they've set expectations now is nice. They've got like a base set of rules, and then those rules get refined, not necessarily changed dramatically, but just refined. and I think if Zen adopted that approach with their rulemaking and their table design, it would actually start to really make people sit up and notice the fact that these aren't just like digital tables. These are growing living things that actually do evolve over time.
    33:22
    Something else I want to point out that's kind of a negative. Okay, so you'll notice this view here. There's three of these views basically. There's being all the way at the left, all the way at the right, and dead center. You'll wind up doing the dead center whether you like it or not because once you light Philip Mando's fuel tank enough, you go into this immersion mode to fire your flamethrower. And the flamethrower is actually kind of cool in terms of what it does. Oh, it's cool. because basically you have a reticule out here, a target reticule, and that kind of just goes in an arc back and forth that you control with the flippers. And as the ball comes, you move the reticule in that direction, the flamethrower shoots that, and the ball flies away, and it's basically, it feels very much magnetic, how this is being used. Oh, it's very magnetic in its feel. And so it's wonderful from the point of being that it feels still very mechanical. This table does not feel like, it doesn't do any of the worst Zen fantasy tendencies. Like, you know, magic ramps appearing out of nowhere sort of stuff. Right, right. Everything feels like it's mechanical. Everything is grounded in mechanics. It's grounded in mechanics. Mechanical physics it feels. Yeah, I agree. The bad news, though, is I don't know a point to the flamethrower mode. There's no... I don't know a point either. There's no super points to be gathered from it. There's no specific target to be hitting. You just shoot the ball around until you run out of fuel or drain, and then you go back to regular play. So this would be the kind of thing that I'm hoping that either that mode is just a simple trainer for a mode later on in one of the chapters that matters. It's almost like an introduction of the mechanism, right? Yeah, kind of. It feels like that at the moment. It sort of feels like, hey, this is a thing that you can do in this table Maybe there is a mode later on where you go like But then the fact that I can just continue to refill my tank and do the mode again well again what the point
    35:25
    This is something that Deep apparently wanted to introduce. He likes to introduce new things to the tables, and this was a new thing that he wanted to introduce. So how it is, I don't mind at all, and I like the mode. It's kind of a, in a way, it's a video mode.
    35:47
    Yeah. But it's using the table. I just wish there was a point to it. Yeah, me too. It would be nice if there was some sort of reason behind it. Yeah.
    35:58
    So that's kind of one more negative that I have regarding this. But it's kind of minor. But beyond that, we like the table a lot. It's good. It's very good. We do. But now let's go and have a look at the competition. Let's look at the competition. Okay. You guys ready to put on your sunglasses?
    36:22
    That's color, folks. Yeah, that is color. That's color. That is just a rainbow vomit of color. Now, granted, this is Stern turning every single light on. Yeah.
    36:37
    But that's gorgeous looking. And just some highlights. How vibrant does it look in comparison? It just entices you to walk up and play the thing. Now, Stern went the route of having a giant child figure. The bad news is the child doesn't do anything in terms of he doesn't move, he doesn't blink, he doesn't turn his head. His head doesn't even turn. No. Nothing. So that's kind of bad. Hey, look, shiny Razorcrest. Good. Look at the shininess. Bad news is how small the Razorcrest is, and you will show a shot of that in a little bit. But artwork, both tables decided to go with a nice hand-drawn feel.
    37:17
    Stern's is a little more comic book, whereas Zen's is a little more realistic. But neither of them went the Photoshop route, so I'm really happy about that.
    37:28
    Again, though, just everything about this is just bright and shiny. And part of that, too, again, you'll notice Stern still very much uses the typical insert lighting. and it's dual faceted yeah yeah and that's something that uh zen does not do um
    37:47
    let's see oh there's a good picture of the rotating play field that uh stern has is on the premiums yeah premiums yep um and it's interesting in the pro what they've done is they've varied the flipper strength up there so you get the same feeling as if the play field is raising and lowering and tilting, but it's just the flipper strength that changes. That's interesting. Yeah, it actually makes it harder to actually shoot those shots, which I think is a really good balancing act with the pro audience. Here's a whole lot of shiny metal.
    38:22
    Plenty of chrome in this game. Yep, got a lot of chrome. Even the pro has a reasonable amount of chrome in it as well, which is unusual for pro machines. A magnet that is not on the pro version, but is on the premium LE. A little signature action and some back glass and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Et cetera. So there you go. There's kind of that view, though. And again, all the lights are on in this one, but nice and shiny. So what are we going to do, though, instead? We're going to do this kind of a comparison.
    38:56
    Ooh, look at that. Let's do some side-by-sides. Now, you'll notice that I have two of the Zen up here. reason being and you'll notice this well one of them has the razor crest one of them doesn't and so i want to highlight that just so that we can see uh what it looks like when what that portion of rampage looks like let me get over here so you can get a little better picture um of what's going on there in terms of you see how there's a diverter right here yep that'll snap it back down to um to your right flipper so there's really there's actually four diverters that affect the path of the ball on that ramp which is actually huge um so yeah you've got a lot of different pathways off that ramp which makes me think it's actually quite an important ramp to shoot in the game i'm just not quite sure as we said under what conditions right now the other thing i'll point out is you'll notice right here i have a captured ball that is a different color. And this is from the second mission. And basically, if you're familiar with the show, you battle the Mudhorn because the Jawas want the egg. And so you need to get this egg because the Jawas have destroyed your Razorcrest. That's why the Razorcrest is not there. So now you're shooting about with the egg.
    40:16
    I can swear that the egg is much like, again, Twilight Zone with the ceramic ball. To me, this ball bounces a lot crazier than the steel ball. Jared's not quite sure. It might be a placebo effect of me just thinking and feeling it that way. It could be. I really hope it is because I'd love it to be like that. If it was a deliberate change of weight and physics that would be really cool. If anyone else out there has been playing this and feels the same way, please pop in the comments and let us know that I'm not imagining things. But here you can get an idea of see, we've got all sorts of inserts now lit up. and this is nice i'm i'm so happy to see proper inserts uh and these blink and tell you where to send your shots you're never in a wonder for what to shoot next it's a fairly straightforward table um yeah which is the addition of words the addition of words on these inserts i know they're a pain in the butt for localization but they are super important for being able to play the game well. Yes. So I hope that this is now the new standard with all the games coming out. But how awesome would these be if they were jeweled? Oh, yeah. Just look over here. Just look over at these. I want Zen to use standard lighting. I know they can get away with this because it's a digital table and you can do custom cutouts and it's not a big deal. They don't worry about manufacturing costs. But I prefer this look. Just saying. I'm just wondering if like I think they could make it so the lights had the effect without actually putting the polygons below each of the lights to actually make the facets I think they could have the effect of facets but not have to actually code the polygons below it to actually look faceted which of course would be a huge performance hit we're not going to go over all the shots on the stern because there's a lot of them, we don't know them and any information that we were getting would be basically if you went to Deadflip's Twitch stream and watched. So go watch.
    42:26
    Because it's a really good stream. It is. He's got the designers on, and they go into all the shots you can take, how you do it. So if you ever get a chance to play this on site, you're going to have a much better time playing it if you watch the video. So absolutely check it out. It's pretty good. If you notice, what I'm saying about the art style, See, it's still hand-drawn, but it's a more realistic look as opposed to a more – I mean, just look at the two Mandos. That's a very comic book Mando. That's – you know, we're trying to go for something more gritty and realistic, aren't we? You know, we do have the child on the table here. Yes. Front and center. Whereas here – and I do got to say, with this many inserts, it is kind of like – It's hard to lay out on. it's hard to see things what were you going to say Jared? I was just going to say there is a notable difference of characters on the tables isn't there? yes right here Cara Dune your Gina Carano character it was interesting because if you've paid any attention to what's been going on with Mandalorian you'll know that Disney has fired Gina from the show for a third season and has also put on hold the spinoff show that was going to be featuring her due to some statements that she had put out on Twitter and that she hadn't learned her lesson on how to play nice with corporate.
    43:56
    But what's interesting is that when this layout came out for Stern, everybody noticed that and said, oh, well, yeah, of course they didn't put her on there.
    44:09
    Yeah. But the Zen table was being developed at the same time, and here she is. One of three, well, I mean, I guess four if you count the child here. But yeah, you got Mando, you got her, you got IG-11. Front and center, large as day. So clearly, and these both got approved by Disney. So clearly, Disney didn't have an issue.
    44:30
    And so it's just kind of interesting. It is interesting, isn't it? Also, you'll notice that Zen's table is the first season only. There's eight chapters, so one for each episode. The Stern table isn't that way, and literally your first mission could be something from the second season. Yep, they've got all two seasons on there, so they've really packed them in. So the Zen table is very much story, story, story.
    44:59
    Stern is going to be greatest hits. Hey, isn't this cool? Whee! You know. yeah um select the missions i'm pretty sure that the the potentially the missions you select in the order you select them it might actually play into scoring in the game as well potentially possibly and i'm gonna say stern's gonna have a much deeper rule set and strategies for scoring um and well big part of that is and i find this kind of interesting and this is what i was going to ask about why i asked you about uh mando and his best car um so there's a mode within the stern that they're taking the RGB aspects, which I went, have you guys been paying attention to Zen? Like Skyrim? Because literally there's a point where you go into the hideout and you can spend your best car, then you can select, and when I, spending it on things like ball save, extra ball, lighting the extra ball, advancing missions, I mean, there's 12 different things that you can select. and you're earning Beskar with which to spend it on. I'm like, holy crap, it's total RGB or role-playing RPG. Yeah, RGB, RPG. Yeah, it's total role-playing going on. And that's pretty cool that Stern is going that route because we're getting ever closer, folks. We're getting closer to the point where Stern's probably going to be like, hey um all right jared's gonna take a phone call real quick i'm going to talk i'll be back yes i'm going to talk some things here um hey dan how you going hold on let's let's mute and jared though that would be good yeah so there he goes all right he's he's got his car getting worked on um other aspects that we can talk about with regards to the stern table i'm going to bring this up here. And, oops.
    46:55
    Not what I meant to do. Let's go over here. And we're going to go back over to the top. If you look here, let's look at the scale of things. So on the stern table, you've got giant Grogu. You've got giant Mando head. And itty bitty Razorcrest.
    47:13
    Whereas over on the zen table, you've got the Mando figure. Same scale as the IG-11 figure, which are both smaller than the giant Razorcrest. And so it's kind of visually appealing. It keeps with the tone of everything, as opposed to, again, it's like, I get it. They don't have a lot of space, and they're trying to, you know, they don't have, Stern doesn't have the luxury of being able to have the Razorcrest disappear and be able to move about the playfield and go different directions. So they are confined by things, but it is kind of odd, the sense of scale for where things are going here. I do find it also interesting the fact that they both have these mini playfields, right? So obviously, Zen went the route of the magnetic mini playfield, but sure enough, Stern also has the mini playfield. and that's where it's kind of interesting that there are certain aspects that are it's like what do they both have the same good idea but layout wise you look at the stern is a fan layout whereas the zen table is much more of a shooter layout I don't know what you call this kind of layout but it's not a fan layout it's sort of a start stop layout it's very much a start stop layout yeah it's very much like twilight zone actually Right. So, yeah, they've gone... I mean, fans seem to be the most popular with players because they promote good flow in the shots. But, I don't know, it seems to be a common theme a lot of the time in Stern games. I mean, there are... Some of the games that are out there at the moment, we've got the Avengers. It's quite flow-like. You've got a lot of good shots to take in that one. But then you look at something like Turtles, which, to me, doesn't really have that flow to it. It's a little bit stop-start, sort of. I don't know. So before Jared had to bail on me, I was talking about the RPG elements. So this is where I was asking, because it got pointed out on... Kerry Hardy has a video about me saying the good, the bad, the ugly on the stern. And in general, he thinks they did really well. But he also did bring up, because he's got the Oculus, he did show quickly a brief clip of him playing Zen's Mandalorian.
    49:39
    But he showed there was a static image. When I say static, it's just literally a static image of the Mandalorian when you're doing just your basic play. And he's in his basic armor. And so he was like, hey, if I'm doing all of this collecting a best card, how come I can't RPG out my guy and make him... And I went, you need to play Epic Quest.
    50:03
    You absolutely do. So if anybody knows how to slide into Carrie's DMs, do so and be like, dude, you need to download Pinball FX 2 VR and play Epic Quest, and it's going to do exactly the thing that you were hoping happens on Stern with Mando. And that's why I need to pay attention and see if on Zenz that his armor changes as you go through. Unfortunately, again, I haven't gotten far enough, and I don't pay close attention to what I've earned Beskar to see, but I did notice at one point he kind of looked down and kind of padded where, I was like, it does look a little shinier where he wasn't. Again, I don't know. So, again, for those of you that are playing this and know it, let us know if we're spacing out or not.
    50:54
    Other than that, it's going to be, I mean, it's, comparison-wise, without us actually physically playing this, which Jared's probably going to have the opportunity long before I do,
    51:07
    it's not like we can go, oh yeah, this one's way better, or this one's not. I think both companies have done an excellent job based on what we've seen video-wise and based on us having played Zen's Mandalorian.
    51:22
    I think you're right. I just really would like Zen to bling it up a little bit more. Just make it have more shiny. Make it more light. Prettier, colorful. More flashes. More vibrant flashes on there would make a big difference. And I really do think upping the game with the DMDs and also looking at RGB lights for the play field to actually vary the lights that you see, I think that would be quite a good idea as well. And damn it, put a clock in the fan cave. And a clock. Yeah. Quit playing with the clock. Oh, my God. Can you? No, I am serious, though. When I'm in a VR environment like that, that's the only thing that's missing for me. I do. Because especially as you're playing the table, you can still look around the fan cave.
    52:15
    It's not like you're locked into the table. No, you can hold the flipper and look to the side and see all the walls and your posters. Oh, yeah. And the statuary that's up. My God, if I could just have a clock. My kingdom for a clock. Because I don't want to have to take off the VR to look at that. And I don't have a quick access button to pop up like Jared does. The Oculus menu, yeah. Yeah. And what a cool collectible, anyhow. I know they've made plenty of clocks. You know how many Star Wars clocks they've made? So many. The whole analog is ridiculous. Oh, yeah. I mean, how hard would it be to tap into your own PC's clock? Not hard. Not hard at all. At all Especially well no I take it back they don Zen never tapped into the date which they should because on certain Williams tables that know the date or the time because if it hits midnight, midnight madness happens on some of these. Instead, you just have to go with whatever the internal clock is that is currently on there. But that's neither here nor there, because we're talking Mandalorian. and the end result is we really enjoy it, we really like it I think you guys are going to be quite pleased when it comes to pinball effects and it's definitely something to look forward to no doubt about it and it's also something that if this is the direction that Zen continues going with developing using these physics and making everything feel very mechanical and dropping the just utter fantasy aspects of things that's all good yeah that's all good in my books as well i think uh the more rooted in the reality with a few visual tweaks here and there but nothing that can't really be done physically even if the bill of materials would be astronomical you know make it so it's like Like, cardboard cutouts are a good example of that. We're not really a big fan of them. No, I'm not, and it would be... You could do them. Because one of the things that you could do instead of... This is drop targets. You could use just real drop targets. That'd be one thing, but that's kind of boring in the sense of what's going on. But so why not 3D models? You've done it with zombies before on Walking Dead, and you've done it on very... You shoot on Creature from the Black Lagoon. You've got the creature popping up. Make it a bash toy. I mean, that's what we want. You can still react. You can still program it as if it was hitting an actual target like it's doing, but make it visually interesting. Yeah. Make them glowy. Make them, I don't know, just... I think that would actually solve a lot of the problems with the flashiness that we're talking about with this table.
    55:10
    Like, if, you know, I'm sure there's probably performance cost savings in having flat textures that you need to animate, and that's fair enough. But, you know, having something that's like 3D modeled, like you say, Chris, would make a big difference to the feel you get from the table and the integration with the theme as well, I think. It's sort of like you see the thing pop up and you go, hmm, yeah, that's a flat surface. You know, imagine if you were slapping a ball, the model with a ball. How good would it be, right? Yeah, yeah. so anyway those are our basic thoughts on it Jared do you have any other points no I've covered them all yeah there you go folks so jobs done jobs done get yourself an Oculus or go ahead and wait but either way you're going to enjoy this table and we don't think that what Stern did was too terrible either based off of what we're saying it looks pretty good I mean I will flip it if I ever get to play it. Yeah, for sure. So, I don't know. What do you guys think? Tell us. Who do you think did a little better job? Which one is more appealing to you? Yeah. And which are you more likely to get your hands on first? I think I know the answer to that.
    56:31
    So, we're going to call it a rare episode for us where we're only talking about a Zen... One thing. One table. so we'll have to adjust that because in literally two days zen is going to be doing another episode of pinball show which will give us i'm sure other fodder to talk about uh sure what do you just do quick guess jared what do you think the table theme for their second original that they're going to announce is going to be oh it's because rose gave the hint or i think she went pirates like or something like that or what game recently have they released that sort of piratey or nautical theme well dread nautical is definitely nautical themed and would make a whole lot of sense if zen made it based on that seeing as how they've got all the art already yeah that's right that's our prediction we're laying down our prediction before the show actually happens dread nautical for the win because i just don't see what the appeal of generic pirate theme would be when you've already got black rose yeah that's right and you know we've already seen a generic pirate thing with black flaggers um as well so like a dread nautical table would be sweet and it can only bring players into the dread nautical universe like they get a taste of mpinball they might want to check it out And if they do do Dreadnoughtical, then Operantia for sure is going to be another check. Yeah, for sure. All right. Well, that's it for our time. Jared, tell them what they can look forward to next time. Stuff and things. Until then, folks. Bye-bye. See you later.
    58:26
    you