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Top 5 Pinball Arcade Bally Williams Tables We Want Next in Pinball FX

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 25m·analyzed·Aug 24, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Blockade hosts rank their top 5 Bally/Williams tables they want in Pinball FX.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss their top 5 Bally/Williams pinball tables they want to see ported from Pinball Arcade to Pinball FX. The episode opens with extended off-topic conversation about weather, movies, and IMAX formats before pivoting to pinball. The hosts list 34 tables not yet in FX, eliminate 5 they believe will never be ported (Spanish Eyes, Wild Card, Fireball, Paragon, Gorgar), and work through honorable mentions before diving into their top 5 picks.

Key Claims

  • There are 34 Bally/Williams tables currently in Pinball Arcade that have not been ported to Pinball FX

    high confidence · Chris states 'I can see 34' Bally/Williams tables that are in Pinball Arcade but not in Pinball FX

  • Zen will likely only port tables from 1981 forward, cutting off at System 9/early System 11 era hardware

    medium confidence · Chris: 'if I had to guess, it's only going to be from 1981 forward' and discusses System 9 as the probable cutoff

  • EM (Electromechanical) tables require complete scripting rather than emulation to port to Pinball FX

    high confidence · Chris: 'It's too much effort to try and emulate an EM. Because there is no emulation. You have to script it. Script the entire thing.'

  • Gorgar (1980) is the first pinball table with speech but is not considered a good game

    high confidence · Jared: 'the only significance of Gorgar is the first one with speech, but it's not a good pin. It's really not a good pin at all.'

  • Star Trek: The Next Generation is about to drop in Pinball FX

    high confidence · Chris mentions 'this is coming from the announcement—partly, which we'll talk about later—with Star Trek: The Next Generation about to drop'

Notable Quotes

  • “It's too much effort to try and emulate an EM. Because there is no emulation. You have to script it. Script the entire thing.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~45min mark — Explains technical barrier to porting early EM tables to digital format

  • “I think you can pretty much count on the software system that runs... So, first generation Pinbot and Space Shuttle and that era of Pinball Computer. That's probably where they're going to cut off the conversions, I think.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~40min mark — Speculation on Zen's hardware compatibility threshold for future ports

  • “Medieval Madness's gameplay is phenomenal. That's what elevates it. It doesn't rely on Elvira's sass to actually sell the table, right?”

    Jared Morgan @ ~75min mark — Comparison between Scared Stiff and Medieval Madness regarding game design philosophy

  • “If Zen did it, they'd be silly if they didn't do that. They'd be mad not to.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~80min mark — Regarding potential mechanical enhancements Zen could add to ports

  • “I love it for the speed. You're absolutely right. I love it for the aiming, but it's a fairly one-trick pony. It's literally just a twitch reaction table.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~60min mark — Assessment of F-14 Tomcat's gameplay appeal and limitations

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonPinball FXproductPinball ArcadeproductStar Trek: The Next GenerationgameZen StudioscompanyFarSightcompanyWilliamscompanyBallycompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts conducting wishlist/speculation exercise around Pinball FX port priorities, suggesting ongoing community discussion about platform expansion

    high · Episode premise: ranking top 5 tables from 34 unported games to answer community requests about when specific tables will arrive in FX

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts emphasize gameplay depth and mechanical innovation as more important than cosmetic features or theme/presentation alone when evaluating table quality

    high · Medieval Madness vs. Scared Stiff comparison: 'Medieval Madness's gameplay is phenomenal. That's what elevates it. It doesn't rely on Elvira's sass to actually sell the table'

  • $

    market_signal: 34 classic Bally/Williams tables remain unported to Pinball FX, indicating either licensing, technical, or prioritization constraints limiting port roadmap velocity

    high · Explicit inventory of 34 tables; hosts' analysis of which are unlikely to ever be ported suggests deliberate culling rather than universal coverage planned

  • ?

    product_strategy: Discussion of potential enhanced digital-exclusive features for ported tables (e.g., Earthshaker's motorized earthquake effect, Firepower drop target options) that wouldn't be possible in physical machines

    medium · Hosts discuss possibility of prototype mods and mechanical enhancements Zen could add: 'If Zen did it, they'd be silly if they didn't do that'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Star Trek: The Next Generation announced as upcoming Pinball FX release, signaling continued expansion of classic Williams/Bally catalog to digital platform

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.258

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris rebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world is jared morgan hey everyone how you going uh doing good at the moment.
0:30
I may be being very naive about this, but California is about to get hit with a major storm. Right. It's a tropical storm by the time it hits tomorrow. Right. And we have not been hit by one of these in, I believe, 87 years.
0:51
87 years? Yeah. Right. So I went out today and i drove by our costco and the parking lot was packed there was cars waiting to pull in so it was like everybody's i'm sure doing the mad dash for water and toilet paper again yes i was gonna say those would be the two things i would think about as well if uh if the you know once in an 88 year typhoon you don't really call them no they would be well like i said it's a hurricane until the wind speed doesn't, because it's still going to be over the water the entire time.
1:31
It's just the wind bringing over, yeah. Will it cross the coast? Are they predicting the path will cross the coast? The path is going to go straight through Baja, Mexico. Okay. And then it veers off.
1:46
And so they're predicting, in certain areas, 10 inches of rain. That's a lot of inches. That's a lot of rain. Most of that's going to be going to the desert where there's going to be some good old-fashioned flash flooding happening like no tomorrow.
Pat Lawlor
person
Earthshakergame
Medieval Madnessgame
Scared Stiffgame
Whodunitgame
F-14 Tomcatgame

high · Chris explicitly mentions 'the announcement—partly, which we'll talk about later—with Star Trek: The Next Generation about to drop'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Studios unlikely to port pre-System 9 tables due to emulation vs. scripting limitations; hardware cutoff expected around 1981-1983 era

    medium · Chris: 'I think it's pretty much the software system that runs... Pinball Computer. That's probably where they're going to cut off the conversions'

    • 2:05
    Right, in the desert. Yeah, in the desert. So, I mean, I think the two places where this is really going to affect is our desert because of the way our mountains split.
    2:15
    Wind is going to go up one side, which is the desert. The next day, it's going to come on the other side of the mountains, which is what's going to dump on us.
    2:24
    But, yeah, the desert people, they're obviously very much going to have to deal with washed-out roads and everything because they're on the basin.
    2:32
    And then, obviously, along our coast, yeah, they're going to have to worry about flooding and stuff like that just because, you know, it's the coast. Low-lying areas. But around here, I'm like, I'm not worried. I'm just like... I think you might see some rain. Oh, we'll see some rain.
    2:52
    But I've never seen our area deal with any kind of flooding. Yeah. I'd imagine there's not many waterways near your place.
    3:02
    Not of that nature. And everything, I mean, our drainage system works pretty dang well. Maybe there's going to be an intersection that's flooded.
    3:12
    I know that in Los Angeles proper, there are certain freeways that are prone to flooding. So, I mean, that is certainly a possibility to slow down the old commute. But, yeah, we're much too hilly to worry about. I don't know. Like I said, I might be being completely naive about this, but I'm also the guy that, you know, if I'm in bed and an earthquake happens, I literally go, is this bad enough to get out of bed? Nah. And I just throw the sheets over my head.
    3:42
    Right. Like, nah, it's not shaky enough. No, no, no. we're very blase about the natural disasters in california yeah right you know i mean you know the thing is we deal with fires every year that's just and mudslides that's just that's a season for us so yeah that's your that's your flavor of natural disaster yes yeah well i mean down here we get we get tropical lows all the time in brisbane um probably not so much this year i don't think because we're entering to La Nina cycle down here so it's going to get drier which you know we're overdue for because it's been wet for a while let's be serious down here so yeah it's going to be an interesting probably extended drought I think over the next couple of well maybe 6 or 10 years with less rainfall because I don't think it's going to swing back around to El Nino know again for a little bit that's what they're predicting anyhow the the bureau of meteorology is anyhow so the the crazy number that i read was that in las vegas because that's how far this the rainstorm is going to then flip it's going to well so it's a very large area yeah yeah it's going to hit arizona and and las vegas big time uh but las vegas particular in a given year they normally get four inches of rain okay they're expecting just on sunday and monday to get four inches of rain right so they're yearly total in one in two days yeah but this is fine there's not going to be you know what the thing that i'm actually most interested in because we are we had an insanely wet winter we had these you know atmospheric rivers drench us and it filled up a lot of our basins a lot of our uh reservoirs that had been dangerously low um lake really oh that's great to hear oh yeah the the images of some of the lakes had gotten so low they discovered towns that had been flooded um i saw there was one there was one reservoir that was so low they've had to like move the pontoon down oh yeah further and further each year So is that now all underwater? And you can see, I call it the tan line of the lake.
    6:08
    We're talking like 20, 30 feet tan line. Yeah, the tan line's up there. Yeah, but now those have all filled up. Well, there are certain lakes that are perpetually low because they're the ones that everything drains from, right? That's just how they're set up. and they're now predicting with just what this storm is dumping that it could potentially finally fill those up, which would be amazing to see happen.
    6:40
    That would be a very good situation of water security for California, that's for sure. Yeah, I mean, it sucks about the flooding, but we need the water.
    6:52
    Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, you can't have full dams and reservoirs without a little bit of flooding, unfortunately. We know this for a fact here in Australia.
    7:03
    It's, yeah, it is inevitable and it sucks, but yeah, you need the supply. Yeah. So, anyway, that's fun in my neck of the woods.
    7:14
    We'll see how much I can do it on Monday when I'm working at the park. Oh, yeah, well, it's going to be pretty wet. You'll have to have all your wet weather gear on. yeah but the suck part is it's still going to be 80 degrees oh so it's going to be hot and you're going to have to wear raincoats and yeah I don't like that no humid's gross I'm probably not going to be wearing a jacket and I'll just walk around with an umbrella and hope that it doesn't blow away in the wind and suffer that way I think you're preparing yourself for what will be a suck time next week let's be serious it's going to suck and yeah you're not going to have a great time but it's short lived probably and by the end of it you'll have full reservoirs and you won't have the humidity anymore so you'll be fine over on the movie front so I did it to myself I had no intention of going and seeing Barbie I was like I'll wait for that to come on streaming I didn't feel the need to go there not that I'm saying it's going to be a bad movie because by any vile reports it's a really good movie but it just was not one that I'm like I gotta get to the theater for that's not necessarily a movie going requirement no but then I was all about oh I'm going to go see Oppenheimer and I want to go see it in IMAX and then the fact that it was in a 70mm film IMAX and there's only 19 of those theaters or no 20 maybe there's like 22 of those in the world of which 17 are in the united states yeah we've got one one here in australia it's down in sydney and that is it um and then i'm sure you've seen the same thing that i saw it's literally sold out every showing until it's out of imax yeah so you know they could basically extend the season probably indefinitely and they'd still get people going to see it. Yeah. And the only problem is they've already guaranteed the booking to other movies that are coming out. Right. Because there's more and more movies using the 70mm format, aren't they?
    9:29
    No. That's the funny part. So when I talk about IMAX, you know, we're talking true IMAX, the six-story tall IMAX.
    9:39
    With the proper IMAX projector that takes up a couple of rooms. Right, right, right. and then there's the Lime-Axe right well which is like it's a big screen but it's not six stories tall it's not the same aspect ratio but they're still branded as IMAX they're still branded as IMAX yeah alright okay yeah but like other people that don't have the IMAX branding they just call it large format yeah large format you know so it does expand you know if it's a 240 ratio movie, it does expand to a 1.9 ratio. It gives you more picture on top and bottom. Stuff like that.
    10:19
    So you're not essentially letterboxing it. No. You're going full. But the difference between that and real IMAX, real IMAX you're on a wall of seats, basically. And it takes up your peripheral vision. You have to move your head to see everything. And it's an up-down moving your head experience too.
    10:43
    I mean, it really... The last time I saw something of this was when it was The Dark Knight. And it was mind-blowing on the eyes. It really was just like... I always said it was like... It'd go pop into that... You know, multi-aspect ratios. But it would pop into that. And it was like a cool breeze hit my eyes. And then my eyes just went, oh, isn't that lovely? right interesting so anyway I was like oh yeah I'm going to go see IMAX in a 70mm film yeah that's not happening and then I was like well I guess because you literally can't get a seat yeah yeah you know well and the nearest theater to me is it's a half an hour 45 minute drive for a 3 hour movie so now you're talking about you know it's a 5 hour chunk of your day that you're going to have to block out yeah that's like a day trip yeah I just didn't have the time now the nearest IMAX to me is like 20, 25 minutes from me. So even still, four hour chunk of the day. And so because of that, I keep on like, oh, I can't do this. I can't do it. I can't. As of this weekend, it's not in Limex anymore because Gran Turismo took it over. I'm like, well, maybe I'll just be waiting for Hoppenheimer to come on the home screen now.
    12:01
    Yeah. Which is kind of sad. I think you don't really have a choice. Yeah. You know, by this point, I'm just kind of like, well, I can probably deal.
    12:11
    Yeah, I think probably if you were umming and ahhing that long about it, you actually didn't really want to go and see it on IMAX anyhow.
    12:18
    Otherwise you would have booked day one. Yeah, I mean, the only reason why I was thinking about it was because I was like, look, I know Nolan's films, they play better on a very big screen. There's no doubt about it. But the subject matter I wasn't excited about. No, it's pretty bleak. yeah um let's be serious so on the flip side i will definitely go see dune 2 in true imax like booking your seats now for it i'm going to that one i'm going to absolutely make every effort to go have that happen um so so you know for for me here in brisbane well you know there's no such viewing experience available um the one thing that is interesting though is there's a cinema i think it's down the gold coast it's one of the chain cinemas um called event cinemas here they have a new cinema technology where the screens wrap around three sides of the room yeah i've heard hit and miss about that yeah so that's the that's what their new big thing is to try and get people back into the cinema again this like wraparound thing um and apparently they've got like they did it and they've got booked like films that actually support that as a format coming through um so you know they were citing you know top gun maverick as one of them, I think, used it in the aircraft scenes.
    13:55
    And really, it's kind of like just three screens on your desk. Now, have you gone and done it? Well, no, because they only just released it here. Okay. So something that I heard, and I've not seen it myself,
    14:12
    but when... Because it's not the entire movie using the three screens. It's some scenes. It's select scenes. So when it's not using the three screens, you know how you see those videos where it's from somebody's phone, but because they want to fill up the 16x9, they show like a blurry colored image on either side? Oh, yeah. I've heard that's what it does when it's not in that moment. Because they don't want the screens to be black. They want there to always be some kind of light spectacle. And so my understanding is it can be quite distracting. And then the other problem that happens is that sometimes the screens aren't 100% synced up.
    14:59
    Oh, that's rubbish then. And what that brings me around to reminder of is, have you ever heard of Cinerama?
    15:08
    Cinerama Dome? So Cinerama was an old movie format back in the 50s. Oh, okay. And it's super widescreen.
    15:21
    It's like a 2.9 aspect ratio. It's insane. And movies that were filmed, like Ben-Hur was done in this.
    15:33
    There was a few movies that were filmed in this ultra-wide format. And literally at the Cinerama Dome, where this was a big thing, which is a curved screen, they had three film projectors in order to project this. but back then it was really an issue of, man, your projectionist better be on point because, and the projections themselves weren't. They didn't know how to cue things up properly. Well, yeah, so there's the cueing, but then there's also, if there's any vibration at all, your side screens are kind of, you know, vibrating. Yeah, so since then, they came up with projectors that could do the entire image out of one film strip, and so that solved it. But there weren't that many. I mean, I think the number of movies that were made in Cinescope were literally maybe a dozen, if that. It was a fad. Again, to try and get people to go back into the cinema again. Well, it was the television had just come out.
    16:33
    Oh, yep. So up until that point, movies were in the four by three aspect ratio. Oh, really? Yeah. And then TV comes out and they went, well, we got to battle that. We've got to do something about this. And so they went ultra wide.
    16:52
    And then TV went 16 by 9. Well, yeah, 50 years later. Or 40 years later. 50 years later. But it took some time. Yeah.
    17:03
    Anyway, there's your dose of movie talk, folks. Hope you enjoyed it. There you go. We did it. We don't do it often. But, yeah, there we are. It's in the bag. So what do you say? why don't we talk about a little pinball here. We're going to talk about some new offerings that are coming out at the end of the show. We'll do that.
    17:26
    But for right now, I thought it would be interesting. There are, I want to say 33, I think is the magic number,
    17:37
    tables that, hold on, I actually have my list here. Let me bring this up real quick, and I can see 34. 34 Williams Valley tables that are currently in the Pinball Arcade that have not made their way yet to Pinball FX.
    18:01
    And I've seen some people kind of, you know, hey, when are we going to get this? When are we going to get this? I love that it's in, you know, Pinball Arcade, but we don't have it here. And this is coming from the announcement, partly, which we'll talk about later, with Star Trek Next Generation about to drop.
    18:22
    So that got me thinking. Well, what would Jared and I want to pick first? Or our top five that we want from that list to come on over to pinball effects first? it's sort of a speculation because we really don't know what's coming up next um no we don't from this list um so it's more of a wish list than speculation but um you know we'll see where the conversation leads whether we dive into the speculation or not um yeah but so we're gonna do our top five but we also have some honorable mentions because to let's be honest it was really hard to pick only five because of the 34 tables that are on this list there's some heavy hitters in there right right so we're also going to do some honorable mentions and uh uh real briefly just give a shout out to why we're putting a honorable mention and then we'll actually do a discussion on what our top five are and why we picked as such so first things first though let's bring up this list of uh all the tables you know what sucks jared well finding pngs of these images and you'll notice the ones that are in white box are the ones that i could not find a png image of the logo i i feel your pain yes because when when i have to do the title cards for all the um twitch stream snips i do i i have this problem luckily and this is largely thanks to the the amazing um vpx community who um are way ahead of us with this sort of thing they have they've spent a lot of time really doing a great job at getting some of these belly williams logos well i will say The logos that you see that are in a white background, those came from VPX.
    20:18
    Yep. Everything else didn't. There's other ones. Because they don't have them in a PNG format. They just, hey, we have a white background anyway, so who cares?
    20:27
    Although it should be easy. Like, if I spent some time, it would not be hard to extract from the white background and create it as a true PNG clear background image. But I didn't have time today. so for our friends that are yeah so for our friends that are audio only you're not staring at this screen of 34 titles so I'll just read them off to you here is what has not made its way yet to the pinball effects that's in pinball arcade Bonsai Run Black Knight 2000 Cactus Canyon Centaur Cyclone Diner Doctor Who Bram Stoker Dracula Earthshaker 8 Ball Deluxe Elvira and the Party Monsters F Tomcat Fathom Fireball Firepower Firepower 2 Gorgar High Speed Indianapolis 500 Jackbot Judge Dredd No Fear Paragon Pinbot Scared Stiff Sorcerer Space Shuttle Spanish Eyes Terminator 2 Judgment Day Taxi Wild Card Whodunit and Xeon
    21:48
    So Jared, how many of those did you actually go? What was that table? yeah yeah a few do i remember that like you know spanish eyes and uh what was the other one the wild card i went what the 2e no wild cards at em isn't it uh-huh yeah so it's spanish eyes yep um fireball is an em also fireball oh yes technically the one with the zipper flippers is an EM. Correct. It's just at the tail end of EM, I think. Just at the tail end. Yes. So interestingly enough, I kind of, from this entire list, I'm just going to throw this out here.
    22:35
    Tables that are never going to come to Pinball FX. Spanish Eyes. Wild Card. Fireball. I'm going to put in Paragon and Gorgar. I don't think they'll ever see the light of day in Pinball FX. Gorgar is I yeah the only significance of Gorgar is the first one with speech but it's not a good pin it's really not a good pin at all and Paragon unfortunately falls into yes it's those six Bally wide bodies their solid state yes but for all intents and purposes they're EMs they're slow players yeah you know so Paragon future spa uh space invaders space invaders um embryon what are the last two jared i don't know i i i can't recall them off the top of my head i can't recall the uh the last two but anyway i don't think those are seeing the light of day um if i had to guess it's only going to be from 1981 forward.
    23:46
    And yes, Gorgar falls. It's going to be... No, I think Gorgar is 80. Yeah. So I think it's pretty much the... I think you can pretty much count on the software system that runs... So first generation Pinbot and Space Shuttle and that era of Pinball Controller. That's probably where they're going to cut off the conversions, I think. Is that System 9? System... Or is it... Yeah. Or is it... I can't remember. It's been so long since I've known the systems that were on these.
    24:22
    Yeah, I think it's something like System 9. It's the system before System 11. Yeah. And often those tables are actually lumped into System 11 as a moniker, but really they're not. No. They're a different hardware system.
    24:39
    But yeah, I think you're right. I don't think we're going to see the really early solid states without alpha numerics, or at least sort of pseudo-alpha numerics, which is what Space Station has. It's got the segment displays. Yeah. So, anyway, that's my picks for what you'll never have. Of those, if any were to actually happen, I think Fireball would have the best chance.
    25:03
    But, again... At least it's got stuff going on. Because it's got stuff going on. That's exactly the only reason why I say that. But I don't see... It's too much effort to try and emulate an EM. Because there is no emulation. You have to script it. Script the entire thing. You know. Yep. The first I did it, they were very good at scripting.
    25:30
    But yeah, Zen, I don't think that's a priority for them. No. At all. All right. So taking those off the table.
    25:40
    Now we're at 29 tables. Don't worry, I didn't pick any of them. So this doesn't affect the result whatsoever. I knew you didn't. Let's go into our honorable mentions. And look at this. Hey, I'm going to make it so that we can actually monitor what's going on here. All right. I'm going to pick my first honorable mention. And that one, believe it or not, Earthshaker.
    26:09
    Wait, what did I do? Typing. Oh, okay. It just wants to do that. Interesting. All right. It makes it a number. Yeah. It makes it a numbered list. Earth shaker. No, this is shocking to me because I love Pat Lawler tables.
    26:25
    It's the first of his disaster tables. But you know what? It's not a top five. It's just a cool to have. So that's why I put that. All right, Jared, what's your first honorable mention? All right. My first honorable mention, and this is from, I guess, top to bottom, I guess. It might surprise you, actually. It's actually whodunit.
    26:51
    Whodunit. All right. What is it that you were like, yes, I want that? So it's of the DMDs. I think it's a quirky table.
    27:09
    It doesn't really have the depth of ruleset that some of the other ones on the top five list have, but it's still fun enough that you want to play it and experience it, particularly if you have not experienced it in real life before. Okay.
    27:26
    Let's move on then to my second honorable mention. And for this one, it is... F-14 Tomcat. The Yagov. Yes.
    27:41
    It's a really fast table, and I love it for that, but it's not a table that has a lot going on as far as I'm concerned.
    27:52
    So I love it for the speed. You're absolutely right. I love it for the aiming, but it's a fairly one-trick pony. It's literally just a twitch reaction table.
    28:03
    It is. I mean, the Yagoff mode is fun for the first one time that you hit it. And after that, it's sort of like, okay, yeah, I can see what you're doing there.
    28:15
    The only real benefit that that table did is actually introduce proper end of stroke switches on pinball. It made them very relevant because that kickback destroyed flippers. But yeah, you're right. It is a fun, fast game, but it is very much of that era. Yeah.
    28:36
    And it's pretty much, if you think about it, it's a mirror image of the mechanism that you see on Swords of Fury with the little diverter lanes that divert the ball in. So, yeah, you're right. It's a good place to put it in the honorables, I think. Yeah. All right. Let's have Jared's next pick then.
    28:55
    All right. So my top five honorable and second position is Bonsai Run. The reason why I put Bonsai Run in an honorable is that, yes, it's unique. Yes, the upper play field is fun to use, but it's a one-trick pony. Yes. It's that upper play field, and that's literally where you try and spend your time and don't spend much time on it. So I've played this. I've had the fortune of playing it extensively over at one of the arcades that has one on site. and yeah it's it's nice to experience it every time you go there but you're not going to stay on it for hours the i thought about putting it in the honor roll mention and the only reason why i didn't was because i don't want to have to switch screens i want it to be in cab format with both playfields visible at the same time that is literally challenge that's literally my thing that is what because that's the novelty of it but i also want to be playing it on a vertical screen because that's going to make a lot of sense so um you want to essentially see that ball go from lower playfield up to the top and see it go from your vertical screen up the horizontal screen absolutely yeah um yep so that's kind of why i didn't put on the honorable mention um but bonsai run definitely has a soft spot in my heart because it's one of the first pinball machines i know for a fact that i played um right like it's in your memory as i know which i know what arcade i was at where it was yes it's etched in my memory um yeah so it does hold a special place in my heart for that reason but yeah um all right moving on to uh my pick then number three number three not starting to reference that this one scared stiff ah interesting yeah i'm look scared stiff is a it's a fun table i like the call outs but it's kind of easy and it's a grinder um you spend a long long long time on that table to get anywhere uh so i like the aesthetics i don't necessarily like the gameplay um yeah you know I don't know anyway that's why I put that there yep so for my third place Scared Stiff is it really? you're literally in third position the same game it is like it is it's a modern DMD with a System of Living rule set yeah that's what I class Scared Stiff as and the only feature of it is the innuendo which is very important but it's it is you know once you've heard it you've heard it and then it just comes back to the play field yeah i mean it's it's as comical as medieval madness but medieval madness is gameplay is phenomenal that's right and that's what elevates it doesn't rely on alvarez sass to actually sell the table right yeah right yeah um So, yeah, that's why I put that there. All right, moving on to number four. Number four.
    32:34
    Let's see. It is Jackbot. All right, Jackbot. I'm, look, I, truth be told, of the three Pinbot tables, I personally like Bride of Pinbot.
    32:52
    I know it's a one-trick pony. I just happen to like the trick and it makes me sweat going for that billion shot it just drives me it's a shot I can nail every single time up until that moment and then I'm like and then that center ramp is this wide and then it goes this wide I think Jackbot is definitely the code update that was needed to Pinbot to make it interesting. But I really don't find the shot selection on Pinbot all that interesting.
    33:35
    Yeah. But Jackbot's very playable. So that's why it's there. It's just not compelling enough to be a top five.
    33:50
    Yeah. I felt it deserved the honorable mention, but it's not like it's... I would never put it top five.
    33:58
    Okay. Yeah, that's all. So my one in this position was Earthshaker. Just because. For the same reasons you mentioned. It's an interesting game, but it's fun. but you know i'd say i'd be more in favor in uh if they actually did all of the prototype mods for that would be cool oh yeah the the rising earthquake center for sure yeah i mean doesn't change anything to do with the the gameplay but it just would be really cool to see that as a visual extra i think that would be a nice little nod to the designers that made that a visual extra in the table well i mean i mean and that's one of the things that farsight actually did do because The only reason we got pulled was because they were worried about maintenance issues.
    34:50
    It had nothing to do with expense. It was purely, this is going to be a nightmare for our operators.
    34:57
    So if you're going digital, why not have it in there? Yeah, absolutely. And for sure, if Zen did it, they'd be silly if they didn't do that. They'd be mad not to. with all the other enhancements that they've done why wouldn't you ever that's an absolute gimme that's a total gimme with nice rocky animations going as the thing settles into the ground and actually give it some shake not just roll it up and down like that really go all in on the Earthshaker thing there I would even do the same thing if they did Firepower give the option of stand up targets or the drop target yeah the drop targets on firepower are that mechanical drop target which kind of suck um it's that that era it wasn't just and it drops it was bent which triggered something that made it go um which actually slowed the game down oh so they're like almost motorized yeah or soft drop targets are they they lower so it's like it's a motor because typical drop targets the way they're reset it's one big bar that goes and raises everything back up and these yeah these were on a motorized bank that would raise them back up oh so it was the motorized bank that would reset them not a solenoid why would they have chosen to do that would have been so much more don't know but that's why it never weird that that system i think was only used on one other pinball machine before Williams went, yeah, this is dumb. We're not doing that. That's why they specifically pulled it from Firepower, though, was that it slowed the game down and was overly mechanical. Just like, not necessary. Yeah, not necessary at all. That's silly. Alright, my final when it comes to honorable mentions judge dread another one that had uh that i'd want the prototype version just because i want dead world spinning um an easy an easy ask for fast like to put in not fast like to zen to put in now here's the funny thing about judge dread i really don't remember that much about it okay that might be clouding your judgment here it because i do yeah um it's one of those i think it's a table that i like in theory um but i never actually really sat down with and played a lot so that's why i put it as fifth because it just kept on jumping out to me as a title that i was like oh yeah i'd like that next but then i was like but do i really want it i don't know and i couldn't make up my mind so i just threw it in as number five you made an honorable yeah yeah all right for my fifth one i put down cactus canyon but with a caveat uh i i would want the latest code for it um so without the latest code it wouldn't even make your honorable mention no wouldn't even make the honorable mention in in that case i would swap it out for t2 T2 only because of that era of pinball machine there's not a lot going on with it it's a great layout, it's fun to shoot but as far as rules go it's shallow as a puddle you find on the street so I think it's safe to say that T2 is not making your top 5 absolutely not making my top 5 so it's not making my top 5 either and honestly I put F-14 Tomcat in place of T2 because there's a lot of aspects of the two that are similar in terms of speed but I like what F-14 does better because you're right it's a shallow game I think a lot of the bill of materials went on licensing on that table if we're looking back because belly williams of that era they were producing tables to a price um probably more so than stern is now they're quite happy to charge extra if they need to spend more on licensing but yeah belly williams of that era go no no this is the price and therefore we have to cut some things out this play field like it introduces the cannon mechanic which is cool but and it's fun to shoot the ramps are good if you start getting a pattern in place but there's there's not a lot going on in the table. No. And truth be told, I think the T3 table that Stern did is a better table. Oh, yeah, it's got, well, it's got more shots, more ramps, and the RPG mechanism in the back box is really cool. So, yeah, I like the T3 table much better. All right, so that moves us into our top five. Jared, we're going to start with our number fives and go to number one, just so you know what order we're doing this. And I'm going to let you have the honor of going first here. Okay, so my top five Williams is Bram Stoker's Dracula. Number five, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
    40:20
    A solid choice. What about yours? Oh, you don't want me to go? No, we'll discuss what your fifth one is there and why the decision process. Okay, so Bram Stoker's Dracula. Tell me about it. What is it that is like, that is a top five table. So it's got that really cool Miss Multimall in it, and it doesn't get old for me. Like that feature, like once you experience it, you want to experience it again. It's a really cool feature. I mean, there's a reason why Zen has put it into multiple of their tables.
    40:56
    That's right, because it's awesome as an effect. So it's got that. it's got the the thing that i really love about it it doesn't really have any modes to speak of but the the ability to triple stack that multiball once you get it and you've experienced the triple stack multiball and and dracula screaming 30 million at you over and over again there's nothing quite like it in pinball it is great so that's why it's in the top five i i agree that it it's a rewarding table and it's a hard table. It is.
    41:36
    I did not make my top five. Interesting. What was your top five in that position? Well, so... The funny thing is I thought about putting Dracula in but I just kept on coming up with other tables instead for whatever. I guess it just never made a huge impression on me and maybe that's because I never played it or I know I have actually played it in the arcade but very little so that might be a factor there alright so for my number five Diner so I know you all are like what? Diner? Are you kidding me?
    42:22
    I went with Diner because it's the better version of Taxi. Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. Taxi didn't make my list at all. Right.
    42:36
    But I feel like Taxi is such a classic, and I've put in a lot of time on Diner. I do like Diner. To me, it's one of the better System 11 tables, and I have a soft spot for System 11, period.
    42:52
    Yeah, we know. Yeah And there nothing wrong with that because it a good era of pinball Right So I just really felt that it should be in the top five for all those people that would be like you're going to put taxi in there. I'm like, no, I'm going to put diner in there instead. So it's kind of a not for me, it's for you kind of a pick.
    43:17
    Right. So I'm going to foreshadow this and say there are no System 11s in my top five. I'm not surprised to hear that from you.
    43:27
    I'm not surprised in the least. All right, so what is your number four? Number four, no fear, dangerous sports.
    43:35
    No fear, no fear. So this table is, it's again got the jump ramp feature, which we've seen in Ghost Rider, in Zens. It's literally a direct rip of it, the jump ramp feature. and it's a fun feature if it's hard to dial it in but once you dial it in you get looping on it amazingly fun to shoot um lots of good modes good multi-ball fast game fan layout just shoots really quickly and yeah it's it's it's quite fun it is a very fast combo-y table no doubt about yes you've got to do on the fly shots on it you can't trap and shoot my impression while playing it has always been i'm just shooting for air because there are no targets there's no stand-ups there you it's just ramp ramp ramp ramp ramp um which is shocking because i love ramps um yeah but again no fear never it's an interesting observation and a valid one and i didn't even think about that until you said it the only stand-up targets on it are the ones that you use to relight kick back and that's it yeah yeah so it's a table of shooting air which is let's say it's a fast table no doubt about it um but that's always been my knock against it oh yes that and i'm sorry the brand no fear hey it's it's very much of the era isn't it very much of the era and i didn't like it at that time either um it was kind of like prior to that uh the surf brands you had maui and sons that was the cool kids brand and then you had town and country that was the poser brand um and that's how i always felt about no fear i was just like yeah that's the uh that's the kmart shirt i don't know anyway oh yeah interesting so i'm just saying i might be a little biased against the table purely because of that yep because of your attitude of the brand at the time. Yes, yes. It has nothing to do... It's kind of like my thoughts on Flintstones. It has nothing to do with the table being actually fun to play. It has everything to do with... I don't want another part of that movie.
    45:49
    It was a terrible movie. The table is actually quite fun, and you do need to look past just the terribleness of it. If it could be redone with cartoon theming, I'd be all in. If they could Hanna-Barbera that, that would be amazing. It would be amazing. All right. Number four for me, 8-Ball Deluxe. Oh, okay. I know why that's in your top five. Well, yeah. So it is a machine that I actually own.
    46:23
    And so I actually enjoyed Farsight's version of it. I think I would enjoy Zen's version even more. there's something about pinball and pool theming that works naturally I don't know what it is, maybe balls being struck it carries through the ages, there's been lots of pool themed tables, 8 ball deluxe is a shooter table oh it's target rich you gotta aim, there's drop targets all over the place interestingly enough though, fathom is essentially 8-Ball Deluxe 2.0 with just a little bit extra. But that little bit of extra is not... It falls on the theming for me. So that's why I prefer 8-Ball Deluxe.
    47:14
    Interesting. Yeah. So that's why I kind of threw that in there because it's... I guess my list is less about what I think the best tables that should be coming forward and more about the ones that I'm most curious to see what Zen would do with them. Oh, that's an interesting take on it. Yeah, I guess that's kind of where my head is at on these.
    47:37
    I think to an extent, I did consider what Zen could do with them to an extent. Yeah. But I really focused on what would you see, what would you want to see, and what would you play more in the table? If I was scrolling through the list of Belly Williams tables that are on offer in the app, what would I actually gravitate towards and want to play? And that's what influenced me with my list, which is why my third position is Jackpot.
    48:11
    Excellent. Here we go. If you have to have either Pinbot or Jackpot, you choose Jackpot. You choose Jackpot.
    48:23
    We were very much in agreement on that. It's definitely the risk-reward on this table that made it go into the top five. The casino run mode in that is... It would make or break the leaderboards in Pinball FX, and it's not just random luck. You do actually have to be skillful to do well in it. So I think that would be a really interesting leaderboard leveler. I know when I've played that in tournament settings,
    48:52
    shouting matches happen. like yeah yes people get people get very angry at other people that are playing it in in you know when you're grouping uh based on what they're doing with the scoring and stuff yeah it's yes it is it is not one that you would normally put into tournaments unless you actually had tournament settings installed yeah on it which kind of levels things a little bit um but yeah it's still a bit of a it's a contentious one and i don't really think you see it that much in tournaments. Yeah.
    49:27
    Alright, so I guess it's my turn for number three. Number three for me... Indianapolis 500. Oh, Indy 500, eh?
    49:41
    Yes, yes, yes. This table is insanely fun to play. I know that in Pinball Arcade I spent a buttload of time playing it. I don't know what it is it has that just one more time factor in spades it's not a one shot table and there's strategy that can be used in it I just think it's a really really fun interesting shooting flowy table yep I don't even know who designed it do you know off the top of your head who designed it no I couldn't tell you but whoever did they did a really good job at realizing the theme on this one yeah yeah um and this is one of those that again i really think that zen would do a number on uh with the oh yeah um it's also got the um the feature of the like off-center car like that vibrates the whole table but it's actually a vibrator motor that's visible to you as a player which is a bit of a unique thing um and um hot wheels by american pinball knocked that off 100 oh did they really yeah they absolutely did um and blatantly paid homage to that table for sure in their design uh but yeah it's the table that because i used to like playing victory also in pinball arcade it was a few got leads that I liked but Victory oh boy did it need a code I think we did an episode about it one time where we just went if we could recode this it would be amazing and a lot of the ideas that I had from it came directly from Indianapolis 500 yeah that was a fun table a fun got lead yeah that one all right let's go to your runner up all right so in second place uh judge dread uh the reason is now see i thought you were gonna you were hating on it earlier no no no i was being coy because you were in my top five and because it is second place because it's got really interesting modes in it. They force you to shoot around and explore the play field a lot. You've got the secondary left and right buttons that allow you to select which modes you go for, which does play into the safe or risk strategy of when you're playing in tournaments in this one. Well, crap, because Farsight's claiming they can't do second buttons.
    52:35
    Pinball FX is claiming they can't. Yeah, so the launch button would just need to cycle like one way, basically, which is just not acceptable to me, but anyhow.
    52:45
    But, so there's that element. There's the, and most importantly, it came in because of Super Game. Oh, yeah, Super Game. Because you get Super Game, Six Ball, Multi Ball. It's a game within a game. and they've already got a pattern for doing Super Game or extra mode games that they put into Safecracker where you can select it on the DMD, which I think is a really neat integration. Yeah.
    53:18
    So yeah, that's like a Super Game. That's another Super Pin as well. So it would sit quite nicely with Star Trek The Next Generation as well. Right. So yeah, that's why it's number two for me. All right. My number two.
    53:38
    Centaur. I mean, you've heard us talk about this. No, that's not where I wanted that one. No, it's going to probably do that to me. Anyway. All right.
    53:50
    Worried about formatting. Centaur. It doesn't matter. Right? It doesn't. Yeah. I love the aesthetics of this table. I just really do. um getting the orbs in and then juggling that ball to make sure that you always have a multi-ball going is very satisfying um very challenging um and it just has a lot of interesting shots uh it's got your edge of flipper shots it's got your you know vertical drop or horizontal vertical row drop targets um yeah stacked drops you've got to aim and knock things in the proper order in order to light your orbs um and and then the visuals on it are just beautiful to me uh again i just yeah really think that i want to see very badly what zen could do visually on it they could really go to town with it yeah like yeah they could yeah make basically the the the motorbike centaur dude come to life yeah uh and it would look amazing uh so yeah it would be i i would agree you know the other thing as well it's got the the lane saves that you've got as well with the thing so you know that's a really cool feature as well it is and yeah it's a it's a shooter's paradise that table as well lots of really fun things to shoot for yeah and i have spent a lot of time on this in real life uh and yeah it holds up it's it's just a fantastic like if you play a centaur that is nicely maintained it's it's a beaut so i think the thing coming out from haggis uh those are going to be some lucky people um they're going to enjoy the yeah out of that so oh heck yeah and you know even like you know on the haggis side of things with that 2.0 code of Centaur as well, that's going to be a treat for sure.
    55:58
    So yeah. So I would love to see that game in there, in the top five as well. No question about it. It's amazing.
    56:07
    So yeah, for sure. Which brings us to number one. And my number one, Indy 500. so yeah for this exactly the same reasons as you said it's a great shooting table uh it yeah it's fun as heck so what you're saying is we've already discussed it so there's no need to go further yeah enough said no further comments no further comments yeah um my number one you're gonna laugh at this jared cactus canyon oh really yep okay we couldn't be on opposite with no conditions um so i love this table even in its unfinished state i love the uh the gun shootout um it's it's still better than what uh uh zen did with um wild west wild west whatever that is it's not because it's grand west is it yeah yeah um it's better there uh i love the multi-ball in it i love the humor in it um so there's there's all that i just find myself playing it no matter what um i played it again a ton in pinball arcade if they do the 2.0 code if they did cactus canyon continued it's bonkers brilliant um playing drunk multi-ball doing uh the new codes and and actually having you go through all of the bounties um to get to bionic bart um it's visually a very interesting table um i've said it if if i could have afforded uh what chicago coin company did I would have gotten that you would have actually bought one you and Box say I really really like it I think it's a spectacular table I think I got a poor taste of it from Farsight's implementation of the mine because it was just the ball was not blocked with the mine and it should have been I think you could just shoot it over and over again even if it was down or up it literally made no difference so I think that made the table get a bit tired for me but yeah you're right I do love randomly placed drop targets on the table like you know just ones that pop out of nowhere and surprise you it's why I like the trolls on medieval madness and stuff like that things to bash are just fun and yes that's why I want it to be at least in either an honourable or a Williams list because it is, it's got some fun elements to it but I think it would really benefit from a code update for me. 100% there's no doubt about that. Yeah. The thing is that the code update the continued code update just adds just a little bit of extra polish to it. It doesn't really add a lot of extra game code to it. Like yeah. You know but it would just complete it right. Yeah.
    59:27
    All right. So those are what we most want from brought over from Pinball Arcade. I mean, honestly, I would take anything. I'll take every Williams table, but those are the ones I would like to see first.
    59:43
    And, I mean, I'm looking at the list right there, and, I mean, I don't have a problem with Jared's list.
    59:51
    And I don't actually really have any hard objections against Chris's either. Yeah, I think if I was to drop one from yours, it's whodunit. It never did anything for me.
    60:04
    Yeah, I think if I was to remove one from yours... I'm guessing Diner. I think... No, I actually... I don't mind Diner. It would be F14 Tomcat for me. F14, okay, yeah. Yeah. Diner's a fun table. It's got nice drop targets in it. It's got some good ball handling in it. So yeah, it's fun. It's a fun table. So then we got to thinking. Well, let's say that Zen had carte blanche to just bring in any table from any manufacturer. And here we go. It's our most wanted non-Williams tables.
    60:43
    So in the pretend world of, hey, if we could just have our wish, what would you bring in? And I suspect my list is going to be vastly different from Jared's list because of the simple fact that Jared is fairly up-to-date on new pinball machines, and I am not.
    61:06
    So my list is rather dated, so I imagine that Jared's is going to be much more up-to-date. But I'm still curious to see where we go with this. so I think I will start us off in this. Yeah, you start us off. And you know what? Let's go reverse order again. I think that's more fun.
    61:27
    Mine is... So, starting from five, yeah? So, Alien. Oh, yeah. The Pinball Brothers Alien. Yeah, I did get to play... Well, I didn't play... I didn't play the Pinball Brothers version. I played the other version.
    61:45
    Oh, right, the one... Yeah, right. What is it? Highway Pinball. Highway Pinball, yeah. It is... a table that needs to be played in the dark.
    62:02
    The lighting on it is spectacular. It's got some cool mechs on it. Just cool visuals. The only thing it was lacking was the... it had no audio from the movies or dialogue I should say or if it did it was all Chloe O'Maraes they didn't have Ripley I know that much they didn't have Ripley and I think there was a ability to play either Alien or Aliens like there was two codes if I'm not mistaken but it was a loud in your face fun shooting difficult machine and I would love to I only spent 10 minutes on it because it was one of those tables where it was like you've got to move on that the show I was on that gave you a limited shot at it and I never saw it again so I would and of course Alien favorite franchise so I would love to get some more time on it and I think it would be pretty pretty amazing so how about you Jared What is your number five most wanted any manufacturer?
    63:17
    I've taken some liberties here with my number five, and I will say that they are, let's call them conversion kits for existing Bally Williams tables. So I'm talking about Brider Pinbot 2.0. There's actually now a Funhaus 2.0 and a Whirlwind 2.0 out there now. So these are direct replacements.
    63:43
    Like the brand new main board system goes into your back box. It's got like a modern Stern Spike 2 video screen. It's got literally a brand new rule set that gets overlaid over the table. So 2.0 versions of Williams. Literally 2.0 versions. And some of these ones are actually officially licensed by Chicago.
    64:06
    Not Chicago, Planetary Pinball, which has the license. for these sort of things. So they're officially sanctioned licensed versions, which means with the right deals being struck, Xen could potentially get these into the product. Okay I never played any of the 2 versions of any of those I haven either but I know that they would actually add way more dimension to the system 11 format of those those two well tables like the framework that would be laid on top of those tables yeah would make them a lot of fun okay um For number four, my pick is Metallica.
    64:51
    Just a, it's the whole package is fantastic on this thing. The ramps are very reminiscent of Medieval Madness, but they're just a little bit narrower.
    65:05
    Oh, yeah, you've got to shoot them super accurately on it. Yeah, because if you miss it, welcome to a drain.
    65:11
    Yeah, it's Brick City. It's got the four vertical stand-up targets, but I love that. The snake pit, man, I think it'd be vicious. I love the mechs that are on it. The bash toy is way, way too much fun.
    65:27
    Yeah, smacking away at Sparky is good. Yeah, and the sound package, it's the... Granted, I have not played, again.
    65:36
    In terms of music tables, the last music table I played... Okay, I played Beatles, but they had the volume all the way down, so I didn't really hear anything on that.
    65:46
    I want to say Aerosmith or Kiss was probably the last music table. I've never played Iron Maiden. I haven't played Foo Fighters. What about ACDC? You played that? I just am not impressed with the table in general.
    66:05
    I don't know. There's something about the Metallica table that just works, And I think it's because you had the band actually doing the call-outs and everything. It didn't just feel like, hey, we designed a table that has music on it. It really feels like it incorporates every aspect of the band. It's why I really want to play Guns N' Roses from Jersey Jack.
    66:28
    Data East Guns N' Roses is okay, but it gets skunked by modern music tables, so that's not going to make the list.
    66:38
    Yeah. But, yeah, Metallica. Yeah, solid choice for position four. Mine is Jersey Jack's The Hobbit. Yeah, I played this. I actually had hands on this table at one point. Managed to get a really good high score on it, like in the three millions, which on that table, given it's a low scoring Jersey Jack, was no mean feat. I think I was on the thing for like 30 minutes or so like literally the first time walking up to it and managed to get a high score on it so it is there's lots going on in The Hobbit and the theme is really well integrated so if you like The Lord of the Rings it's a pretty neat one to get and yeah it would make my list for sure. What about your? Real quick, my impression was when I played it, it was a bit slow I mean all Jersey Jacks kind of have that feeling well I shouldn't say all of them like Wizard of Oz it just kind of feels floaty slow and I felt the Hobbit felt that same way yeah it's well they're very wide body pins so they're gonna have that feeling to them just naturally but like you said integration of theme is amazing yeah incredible the lighting, the sound package all that it's all top notch alright for my number three speaking of Jersey Jack dial in yes I want my disaster pin from Lawler this is a machine that once I played it being able to hear the audio it made all the difference in the world and it's a very challenging table pretty deep I don't know I just I really enjoyed my time on it yeah I still enjoy playing dialed in where because it is on site and available to me it is it is for a standard body pinball machine like it's not really a wide body this one they have jammed stuff into this every single place like There's not an area of the play field that doesn't have stuff on it, and it is a lot going on with it. Yeah, you're right. Plug your headphones into this one if you come across it in the wild. Bring a wide set of headphones. Plug them in because the music and sound package on it is huge. And it is a table that the call-outs are very helpful.
    69:25
    They are super informative. They give you massive amounts of information. That's why I said the first time I ever played it was in a noisy arcade, and it had the volume down. And I was like, I have no clue what I'm doing with this thing. The next time I played it with the headphones on, and I knew exactly what I was doing. And the call-ons made all the difference in the world. Yeah, a huge difference. Yeah. All right, Jared, your number three.
    69:44
    My number three is Rick and Morty. It is the Spooky Pinballs, Rick and Morty, brutal table. it's not a complex table but if you love Rick and Morty as a show, the theme and integration is just super on point the lighting is incredible on it and yeah, it's a really fun game to shoot, it's got this I really like the portal where you shoot the ball in, it's got a stage ball that literally immediately pops the ball out the other end, so there's no delay it's a really fun game to play one of the steepest ramps I've ever seen in the play field ever which requires you to absolutely nail it you've got to be very accurate with it I can't say I've ever seen it in the wild and I've watched one episode of the show so yeah love it if you know about it yeah like everyone I run into at Netherworld where it's cited gets oh I hate Rick and Morty I said you just don't you haven't found it yet You just need to keep playing it and experience it, and you'll get it when you get it. Yeah, it's fun. All right. A most wanted non-Williams list would be absolutely incomplete without Big Bang Bar.
    71:08
    Capcom. Capcom, again, not the most amazing shooting of tables, but it's a beautiful table to look at. The sound package to it is a lot of fun.
    71:24
    Yeah. And it has the satisfying shots. It's the, ooh, I really want my ball to go up there. And you get up there and you're like, yes! So it's that whitewater effect.
    71:38
    Yeah. That you just get pleasure out of the ball going exactly where you want to go. and that's why I put it there. I think that's why throughout time a lot of people just always request it, partly also because of the rarity of finding it, but it's a cool table that I really enjoy.
    72:02
    Yeah, Big Bang Bar is one that I played a lot when I had VPX installed many years ago. It was just one more time, just one more time, just one more time. over and over and over again. There's something about it. It's not an easy table by any means. No. But it rewards you so much for playing it. And in person, it's gorgeous with the blacklight.
    72:29
    Oh, I've never experienced it with a blacklight. Well, the lighting on it is blacklight. I mean, the paint is blacklight. It is a gorgeous table. Well, never would have realized that because I've only played it digitally. Yeah, that would be amazing. Yeah. All right. how about your number two my number two is stern's infinity war um and surprisingly the pro version not the premium version um pro which is weird um for two reasons right so the the premium version has the dr strange disc that actually lifts up and you have to shoot a into it and then it stages it through an underplay field trough the trough slows the gameplay down and it's actually really quite buggy as well, it doesn't really work that reliably so that's like you actually don't need it, like the virtual locks work just as well and they keep the gameplay really fresh and the spin disc on its own without the elevator in it still works really well, it's got a really good heavy weight to it when you spin it, it doesn't feel like light and fluffy it's really good the other thing on that game which is supposed to be the the other big feature is this big like um top hat u-turn ramp you can never shoot it like your ball will go in there it'll go halfway up go back down unless you really nail it and you shoot it it literally adds not that much to the game so that's another bit of build materials that can go away um and they just replace it with this really neat u-turn like it is a really quick u-turn it feeds it back down to the flipper again, it's actually better. So yeah, the pro version of that game is great. Code in it is great. And it's a really fun game to play. All right. Well, with that, it brings us to our number ones. So my number one most wanted non-Williams, there it goes again, is Lord of the Rings.
    74:38
    One of the things I don't like about the table in person is it looks like they just stuffed action figures on it.
    74:46
    Yeah, it's unfortunately in the era of Stern where they really had to watch their bill of materials. Yeah.
    74:54
    But if Xen got its hand on it, why, then we'd have animated, there'd be a Balrog, there'd be our hobbits running around.
    75:05
    There's just so much that the enhancements would do on that. I can just imagine the green mist coming out of Mordor.
    75:15
    I don't know. I just think it would be really, really excellent digitally. It's also such an insanely deep table that I've never put time into. So give me free play and let me just spend a buttload of time on it. That would be amazing. I would really, really like that. I mean it's funny because essentially Lord of the Rings is the table that marks the new era of Stern that's like what I would say is their page. That's a turning point table It is a turning point table and it's still a table that you gotta believe if they pulled that thing out of the vault and put it out there again they would sell it within a minute they wouldn't sell so yeah that's why I think that's my number one want on there yeah alright your turn yeah hopefully I'm still with you because I had a notification that my internet was gone I've been hearing it the entire time good good good okay well my number one is Jersey Jack's Guns and Roses. Ah. Because I've played it, and it is by far the most tricked out and wild Jersey Jack pinball out there at the moment. So is it everything that the video promised and more?
    76:54
    Yeah. I don't really know what the video had in it. Well, remember we did a show where we broke down the trailer for it, and we're just like, look at that, we're like drooling all over the place. Oh yeah, it is. It lives up to the promo and adds more to it. Like it is, the rules on this thing are just,
    77:12
    like there's so many rules that you can stack and do stuff with and the light show in it is just... Did you get to play the fully tricked out version? Yeah. With the 600 lights or whatever it is? yeah with the lights that run up and down the the cabinet and all that it is something else this thing like uh what's the sound i've never experienced incredible so when your face loud as yeah so when you're actually playing the game just regularly you're shooting around getting to the point where you start one of the like songs in it yeah um it's like a it's well-defined audio it helps you shoot the things but when you go into a song the volume level pumps up two levels and you're just getting blasted out of all the speakers on this game with Guns N' Roses tracks with Fat Axel singing at you and the just the craziness in the playfield on this table is you just have to experience to understand it is yeah it is a wild ride and honestly i think if zen got this i don't actually think they'd need to do any visual enhancements to us whatsoever just put it in as it is and that's enough and the thing is a that if we know that this is a just not possible for them to put in the The licensing on it would be stupid.
    78:49
    It's not only that, but the licensing would be ridiculous. It would make indie blush as far as the licensing went.
    78:59
    But the other thing too is that they just don't have enough light sources to do it. Their current Unreal Engine 4 does not have enough light paths to drive the amount of lights that are in this game. It is just an absolute electric parade, this thing.
    79:22
    Quite an experience. You can see why they're charging here in Australia $22,000 for these. They have that much stuff in it that it's like, yeah, I can see that. I can see that bill of materials. So there's one more glance at our top five most wanted non-Williams. Let me read it off for our friends that are audio only. mine starts with Lord of the Rings then goes Big Bang Bar dialed in Metallica and then Alien Jared's is Guns N' Roses Infinity War Pro Rick and Morty The Hobbit and then the three 2.0 versions of Williams Tables being Funhouse Bride of Pinbot and what was the other one?
    80:01
    Whirlwind just being announced okay there you go yeah so yeah alright we've we're running on the long side Jared So we'll make this a rather quick, um, friendly reminder to everybody out there that, uh, Star Trek next generation releases this week. Um, and Jared, you've had a crack on it. You've had a crack on it already. I didn't load it up yet. Yeah. I've absolutely had a play of the press branch and obviously can't to say too much about it. Can say that you're not going to be disappointed. There you go. That's all we care about. Is it, we're not disappointed. They've done good. Yeah. They've done good, way better than TPA's version. Oh, I like the way better aspect. Yeah. Yeah, way better. Excellent. So, yeah, you're going to love it. Love that. It's a day one purchase.
    80:56
    The other thing is that Zen, right now, currently running, is doing their Zen Classic Arcade Weekend. They've partnered with a bunch of other game studios over on Steam. a lot of the games they partner with are on sale.
    81:13
    They've even put on sale their own, they're calling the Starter Bundle for Pinball FX. That's basically, it's the Pinball FX Universal Pack, the Williams Volume 3 Pack,
    81:30
    which is, I guess I should say what the tables are, huh? That'd be helpful. Yeah. Attack from Mars, Black Rose, and what did I say the other one was? Party Zone and then the universal one is Jaws E.T. and Back to the Future and then for free if you are buying all of these as a pack you get the Secrets and Shadows pack which is Mummy, Sky Pirates and Noir and you can get all of it for the lovely lovely price of $7.48 so not too shabby US dollar box which is cheap Yeah, but they're like, Pinball Arcade Tables are on sale.
    82:16
    What they have left to actually sell. Right. Zacharia Pinball Tables are on sale. Xenotilt, well yeah, Xenotilt just came out. Demon's Tilt on sale. And then yeah, Xenotilt, brand new from the makers of Demon Tilt, just came out. I've not downloaded it yet Jared has and has had a crack at it I have already done a stream on it so if you want to go and check that out on the YouTube it's going to be releasing probably in about 30 minutes from now as in 30 minutes from Sunday when we're recording this because I just said it's released at 10 o'clock my time and it's now 9.35 so yeah you'll be able to see the gameplay of it it'll be out you'll be out, you'll be available on our YouTube channel we're excited about this, I'm going to have to get my hands on it too at some point and then we'll be able to have a further discussion about it so I played it for 60 minutes on stream last night I was able to confidently leave a review for it after 60 minutes which I don't normally do with games, I like to play them for longer than that I didn't need to with Xenotil it's great, get it and get it now while you're getting 10% off it because it's literally like for for me in australia it was 20 bucks yeah it's gonna give me 20 bucks worth of enjoyment for sure adam's done a really good job of this excellent and uh geez adam if you're listening please reach out to us we'd love to have you on the show and talk to you about this because it's really cool and i reckon you got some stories to tell about the design process for this game so come on please all right well that will do it for uh this week i'm sure next time we come back we'll actually I think I'll have a go at Star Trek on the podcast or you know on the yeah we'll do a little let's play of it I'm sure Jared will have streaming of it prior to that but we'll get both of our opinions going on for that so that'll definitely be next time we come back and then if any other news drops we'll of course hop in on that sort of thing that is hopefully that you know if the floods don't take me away.
    84:36
    That's right. If you're not washed away, we'll join up again in a couple of weeks' time. Exactly. And we'll have a little chat about Star Trek The Next Generation. Oh, I thought you were going to say we'd have a chat about the usual things that you like to talk about. Well, yeah, we'll also be chatting about the stuff and things that we all love. All right.
    84:59
    Until next time, folks, for watching and listening. We really, really appreciate it. Please join the Discord and drop us notes about what you would like to do for a future show. I know Jared has thrown some ideas our way. We're going to try and incorporate those into a future show also. So we really enjoy the community discussion and listening to what you guys want us to talk about. So please join in our Discord channel and do exactly that.
    85:27
    Yeah, I've done some more improvements to streams as well so we've got like discord chat feeding into the steam chat so yeah you can actually just use one thing to talk about it's a little bit easier alright so until then folks bye bye