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Episode 4: Be My Guest

Pinball Party Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 12s·held·Sep 14, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pinball Party Podcast 4: James Bond 007 leak analysis, Pinball Pantry food segment debut, Twilight Zone deep review.

Summary

Jason hosts Episode 4 of the Pinball Party Podcast with guests including a comedic AI robot 'Mef' and his wife Dana, discussing James Bond 007's delayed Stern reveal, introducing a new segment called 'Pinball Pantry' where they taste themed snacks, and featuring an in-depth review of Twilight Zone with guest Sam, a longtime pinball enthusiast who owns an The The Addams Family machine. The episode blends industry news, personal anecdotes, and gameplay analysis while correcting prior factual errors about Stern terminology.

Key Claims

  • James Bond 007 from Stern was set to be revealed yesterday morning in the UK, but the reveal was postponed due to Queen Elizabeth's passing

    high confidence · Jason, host of Pinball Party Podcast, discussing James Bond 007 announcement timing

  • James Bond 007 production/shipping is expected around end of September, early October

    high confidence · Jason discussing production timeline for James Bond 007

  • James Bond 007 is a George Gomez game

    high confidence · Jason analyzing leaked playfield images on Pinside

  • The premium model of James Bond 007 has a wireform spiraling up the back rocket ship, while the pro does not

    high confidence · Jason comparing premium vs pro cabinet images from Pinside

  • The The Addams Family was purchased by Sam in 2005 from Buenos Aires for approximately $2,800

    medium confidence · Sam recounting his pinball purchasing history; Sam notes memory is 'shaky and foggy'

  • Stern Electronics was a company that manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 to 1985

    high confidence · Jason making factual correction citing Wikipedia after listener John Pax correction

  • Twilight Zone and The The Addams Family were designed by Pat Lawlor and share similar design DNA

    high confidence · Sam and Jason discussing Pat Lawlor design philosophy across both games

  • Spooky Pinball launched the Fang Club membership program

    high confidence · Jason mentioning he signed up for Fang Club in March in anticipation of The Nightmare Before Christmas 2.0 announcement

Notable Quotes

  • “They are in fact Stern Pinball. Stern Electronics was a name of a company who manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 to 1985 according to Wikipedia.”

    Jason @ early episode — Public factual correction about Stern company naming conventions, addressing listener feedback

  • “When you're looking at the playfield, there's this ramp on the right that looks also similar to the ramp on the left of Deadpool and very similar to the sword ramp on Lord of the Rings on the right.”

    Jason @ mid-episode — Analysis of George Gomez's signature design patterns visible in James Bond 007 leaked images

  • “I am an owner of the The The Addams Family pinball machine... I am one of the bolt to the floor guys who will only play one game his whole life and be quite happy shooting backhand shots until I die.”

    Sam @ guest interview segment — Characterizes a specific collector archetype deeply committed to mastering a single machine

  • “We're just fucking hauling this thing... a wide body Williams dense wood machine was carried with all four legs on it... a football field. 100 yards.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ Twilight Zone acquisition story — Humorous anecdote illustrating the physical logistics challenges of acquiring vintage wide-body pinball machines

  • “There's a nice flow to it as well as some complexity. So that's kind of why I'm putting the gameplay at a nine.”

    Sam @ Twilight Zone gameplay rating — Expert assessment of Twilight Zone's gameplay balance between accessibility and skill expression

Entities

JasonpersonGeorge GomezpersonPat LawlorpersonSampersonDanaperson[name withheld pending review]personFinal Round Pinball Podcastorganization

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: James Bond 007 from Stern scheduled for UK reveal but postponed out of respect for Queen Elizabeth II's passing

    high · Jason: 'James Bond 007 set to be revealed yesterday morning in the UK. That reveal was since postponed due to Queen Elizabeth's passing.'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Blurry yet partially clear images of James Bond 007 playfield leaked on Pinside before official reveal, showing pro and premium model differences

    high · Jason: 'before we get to see the reveal, sounds like tomorrow again, we'll get better images, probably a video and some actual gameplay, we do have some blurry yet somewhat good images'

  • ?

    product_launch: James Bond 007 expected to ship end of September, early October 2022

    high · Jason: 'the release seems to be still on schedule of the actual production of the game, which it sounds like the end of September, early October is when we'll actually start seeing them'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: George Gomez exhibits consistent playfield design patterns across multiple games (ramp on right, similar configurations on Deadpool and Lord of the Rings)

    high · Jason: 'it's a George Gomez game for me specifically because of the ramp on the right... very similar to the ramp on the left of Deadpool and very similar to the sword ramp on Lord of the Rings'

  • ?

    product_concern: Twilight Zone gameplay balances casual appeal with significant skill ceiling, requiring precision upper playfield shots for advanced play

    high · Sam: 'if you are a more skilled player, it offers some higher level of timing attention... Multiple flipper games can be hard to pull off'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.172

0:00
Well, well, well, episode four. Maybe a little adult language. Other than that, we got a lot to do. Let's get to it. It's the first time I'm not going to be alone. We got a couple guests, kind of maybe a third. But hey, it's a great time to get ready to go. We've got a lot to talk about today. Hey, it's the first time I'm not going to be alone. We got a couple guests, kind of maybe a third, but hey, we don't have any time to waste on how's your day going? Good. How's your day? How was work? Don't have time for that. We're gonna talk a little bit about James Bond, 007. Heard of it from Stern. We are gonna try something from the pinball pantry. We are going to talk about a game called Twilight Zone. and give my thoughts on that. And then of course a lot of random little things here or there but again no time to waste. Let's get to it. Well it's a pleasure as always to have you back here at the pinball party. This is episode 4. My name is Jason, your host. We talk all things pinball from rumors, speculation, news, personal opinions, reviews of games and other fun things along the way. Before we get going into some of the planned content, let me just make a couple corrections. One of my good buddies, John reached out after listening to one of the podcasts and totally called me out in a good way on a correction. Episode 1, Stern Star Trek review, I was referencing their weapons and I called them proton torpedoes. Idiot! They're photon torpedoes. He asked, surmised accurately, your head has been in Ghostbusters too much lately, not proton packs, photon torpedoes. Well, let's, I guess when I get to the Ghostbusters review, who knows, 14 episodes from now, something like that, I will call them photon torpedoes. John Pax Thanks John, good call. As a Star Trek fan he knew I should know what I'm talking about. And I didn't. Now I do. Number two in the corrections list I referenced Stern Pinball as Stern Electronics Incorrect. They are in fact Stern Pinball. Stern Electronics was a name of a company who manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 to 1985. according to Wikipedia. Stern Pinball Incorporated is the Stern we know and love today, making all the great games such as Godzilla, Iron Maiden, Black Knight Sword of Rage, and your newest, James Bond 007. Corrections out of the way, let's just assume I know what I'm talking about from here on out. This I do know what I'm talking about for sure because it involves me personally. There is another pinball podcast called Final Round Pinball Podcast. The greatest pinball podcast of all time. That's not what I'm here to debate. We all know that's a fact. They were gracious enough to give me a call out last week. So Jason from Wisconsin has started a new podcast. It's called the Pinball Party and he gave us kind of a shout out. Here it is. I listened to Final Round, one of my favorites of all time. Fuck those guys, they suck, but please keep making more shows. I feel like we are the inspiration for his podcast because basically we didn't put out a show, so he sent us notes saying, well fuck it, I'm going to do one anyway. My Mondays to Thursdays are ruined because there aren't enough podcasts, so I'm going to fill the void. So he's on the second podcast now, give it a chance, Pinball Party. Jason, there you go, you son of a bitch. You got your plug. And because of their six trillion listeners, that callout generated me 10.5 billion additional listens, monetizing my podcast as I do, I quickly became a millionaire. Within two days I took $20 million from Final Round's, shoutout, Final Round podcast on the Pinball I took those millions and I purchased a robot. And not just any robot, because I have so much money I said I want this robot to be a combination of Jeff Teolis and Marty Robbins from an intellectual and personality standpoint. They said okay, yes sir, thank you for the millions of dollars, we'll have that ready for you. I wait graciously, I think it was 24 hours for these robots to be ready. Un foreigners be Totrino, I'll take what I can get beggars can't be choosers. Thank you for the robot. Let's go. I Get the robot home. I turn him on I'm like, ah, what what do I name you? Okay Well a good combination of Jeff and Marty is obviously mef. So I would like to bring on my first guest Mef the robot funded by the final round pinball podcast shout out. Hey mef. How you doing? Hello you Anka I'm doing well, but my fly is down. Okay, well I guess they got that accurate. Did they maintain Jeff and Marty's love of pinball? Are you a huge fan of pinball? Yes, of course, but not as much as I like hockey and kangaroos, mate. Right. I guess is that it? I also know a lot of boot stand-up comedy. What the fuck? I think they just took like the podcast and put it into an AI. and AI generator and... Knapp. Made of twat. Kind of like deep fade. Fuck fuck. Well, I guess if what you were programmed was a love of pinball and I guess comedy and kangaroos and hockey, is there anything that you want to talk about? Cannot compute, mate. Yeah, right. Sorry. They said your intelligence would be a bit low.
Pinball Party Podcast
organization
Stern Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
James Bond 007game
Twilight Zonegame
The Addams Familygame
Pinsideorganization
The Nightmare Before Christmas 2.0game
Fang Clubproduct
[name withheld pending review]product
Pinball Pantryproduct
Voodoo Mountain Dewproduct
Deadpoolgame
Lord of the Ringsgame
  • ?

    collector_signal: Acquiring vintage wide-body pinball machines requires significant physical labor and preparation (dollies, straps, transport planning)

    high · Jason and Sam recount carrying 1000-lb Twilight Zone wide-body 100+ yards on uneven terrain without proper equipment

  • ?

    machine_intel: James Bond 007 premium model features motorized jetpack mechanic with James Bond figure; pro model uses static 2D plastic alternative

    high · Jason: 'premium has this kind of floating James Bond figure on a jetpack... In the pro, it looks like instead of a moving jetpacker, it's just a stand up 2D plastic'

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball Party Podcast introduces Pinball Pantry segment pairing themed food/drink tastings with pinball discussion

    high · Jason: 'this was your idea... we try random stuff that I find that's kind of interesting or has some sort of theme to pinball or just weird shit in general'

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple pinball podcasts now active; Final Round Pinball Podcast acknowledges new Pinball Party Podcast as response to content gap between episode releases

    high · Final Round Podcast callout: 'My Mondays to Thursdays are ruined because there aren't enough podcasts, so I'm going to fill the void'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Twilight Zone and Addams Family are recognized as sibling games from same era, both designed by Pat Lawlor, representing foundational classics for modern collectors

    high · Jason: 'I knew Adams Family, also knew Twilight Zone is kind of like the brother and sister... same era'

  • $

    market_signal: Addams Family wide-body available for ~$2,800 in 2005; current secondary market value significantly higher (Sam notes 'just unbolt it' for ~$10K profit potential)

    high · Sam: 'I got it in the range of around 2800 dollars back then' (2005); Jason: 'if you want to make a quick ten grand, just unbolt it'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball's Fang Club membership creates pre-announcement FOMO for upcoming releases; Jason critical of pricing strategy for The Nightmare Before Christmas 2.0

    medium · Jason: 'I signed up for the Fang Club membership in March in anticipation for the announcement of The Nightmare Before Christmas 2.0, which I'm disappointed with the price'

    • 7:00
    Beyond pinball, hockey and kangaroos, what else goes through your mind? What are you on about? Is there anything else that you're thinking about right now? I dream about mermaids and stand-up comedy. All right, so, so no, okay. Shut the fuck up, mate. Jesus, dude. All right, all right, all right. I think we're good. Cannot compute. All right, where's your off button, man? God, Jesus. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. The the work in uh... i don't think he's ready for casting quite yet uh... maybe we'll check in with him again in the future anyway let's get on to james bond double oh seven from stern Just like anything this day and age after something is announced things are leaked on the Internet. James Bond 007 set to be revealed yesterday morning in the UK that reveal was since postponed due to Queen Elizabeth's passing. I'm passing my condolences to those across the pond and stateside. Even though the delay of announcement was out of respect for the morning going on, more so over there I should say, the release seems to be still on schedule of the actual production of the game, which it sounds like the end of September early October is when we'll actually start seeing them either on site or in people's and before we get to see the reveal, it sounds like tomorrow again, of better images, probably a video and some actual gameplay, we do have some blurry yet somewhat good images to speculate on. Now, I'm not the biggest James Bond fan, nor am I a super speculator that obsesses over every little wire form and vuck and what does exactly that mean, oh I know it's this and the drop target because of that. No, I look at pictures and if it does something for me, I'm going to show you some of the images that you can find on pinside.com. I'll link the link in the show notes directly to an image pool of where you can see these. Some of them are the premium model and some are the pro. There's still, again, speculation of the price and is there a super LE model behind the LE. We do know that it is a George Gomez game. I'm not sure who the coder is, but I think I might have an idea looking at some of this. Don't know what the sound is, but you can very much tell first and foremost, it's a George Gomez game for me specifically because of the ramp on the right. When you're looking at the playfield, there's this ramp on the right that looks also similar to the ramp on the left of Deadpool and very similar to the sword ramp on Lord of the Rings on the right. It's not the same. There's a diverter. bm지 앳� tyre którychballs más dignos, 아 coke콩�Overodox 55568 acne閩 directive 나도다 이건也是� cigarette A-ino, 크�ありがとう If you can't skip the b管号 без 기줄이.라고Dav5 art tested inラ인핑 장 personnel가ices 사� Version YES quindiuy Advanced 아이 toppedòng 케� judicial하님 피 기억할� chopping 확인하지 evolve 사 containing jobs 여기� 골드chuckles� remem 다운 avoiding with public Latest Before we get more into the playfield, the cabinet art, now the premium, which you can first tell right from looking at the machine that where the rocket ship is in the back, the premium has a wire form kind of spiraling up it. The pro does not. The premium cabinet art looks to have movie posters scattered throughout it with kind of a bluish teal background, which, eh, it's fine. It's kind of like a movie theater background and makes sense. It's a movie The Pro is yellow! There aren't a ton more shots of the Pro cabinet so that's all I know is it's yellow and there's a few faces on it. But cabinet aside, who cares? Playfield, what does it matter? Well, it looks like as for mentioned the premium has a very different, I'm guessing a lock mechanism on this rocket ship on the left, upper left of the playfield. This is rocket ship where on the the Pro there's this rocket ship sticking out with a bunch of foam. I'm bombersitiéprose Daisy TK.. arranged for video clips, montagefree, dud dash, The Premium has this kind of floating James Bond figure on a jetpack similar to the Slimer on Ghostbusters. It looks like he's floating up there and then something happens and it'll trigger him to do something. There's speculation because of this thing in the center that looks like maybe a magnet.
    12:09
    This elevated, well it's a stand-up target, maybe a magnet, that maybe another ball lock is because he's a on a jetpack he can grab the ball and drop it there which would be cool. In the pro, it looks like instead of a moving jetpacker, it's just a stand up 2D plastic in the back. Or maybe that mech isn't even there. Well, yeah, there's no arm that goes back into the playfield. So two differences there. Who knows how much it'll affect gameplay? Knowing Gomez in the past, at least from my experience, well, Lord of the Rings aside, which there's basically no difference between the regular and the LE as far as in fact, there's less consideration of the
    13:16
    LEP film enfrent管 voilà…… 14 hot times for15 maximize before successful 인데요 25.14 continuing to beré knowledge будто!, ЭтоLo all product, теперь это cلمа… at This would lend me to think it would be Dwight coding it but he did Mando recently and with Star Wars that guy loves his multipliers I mean the amount of multipliers you can get on Star Wars alone is astronomical And I guess with Gomez on Deadpool there is a very strong multiplier component as well. However, that one is much harder to get, I guess, consistently with the snick shot.
    14:35
    You know, I kind of want to leave it there to just leave a little bit more to be desired. I can only look at these pictures and I urge you to do the same. There's some cabinet shots. There's a guy with his hand in there, you know, messing with a mech. There's some lights on. I want to see the reveal from Stern. I want to hear the sounds. I want to see the gameplay before I make any sort of decision because this doesn't tell me anything. Does it tell me that it's as empty as Star Wars Pro? It tells me that it is not, in fact, as empty as a Star Wars Pro. So that passes the first test. Second, does it look like there's Can I see? S' resolve menor mmm X or Mary X xe berson gio. I can see. I need to I see what's going on… but you don't have to see it please яться and market toma so much benefit he needs me but the file I'm looking forward to the reveal.
    15:44
    Well, if talking about spooky the first couple episodes wasn't enough, let's talk about them very briefly again.
    15:50
    I mentioned that I signed up for the Fang Club membership in March in anticipation for the announcement of TNA 2.0, which I'm disappointed with the price. I've talked about that enough. However, yesterday I received my Fang Club welcome kit. and once again, thank you Spooky for yourörung naar All right, before we talk about Twilightzone, a game you've probably never heard of, I want to bring in my first, oh, I guess mef counts, my second guest who had a great idea for this show. Let's find out who it is. I hope I don't gag, I hope I don't choke, I hope I don't puke in the pinball pantry. Well, so I guess this was your idea. I know, I'm paying for it now. Well, welcome to the first edition of the Pinball Pantry and with me is my lovely wife Dana. Hi, hi guys. So I guess tell everyone what your idea was last week and that we're going to do. Um, so I don't remember the original idea because I think you just took a random thought of mine and ran with it. You came home and said, I'm gonna bring you weird shit and you're gonna try it on your podcast. Yeah. Well, right. So we went through names of Dana's bad ideas to Dana's dumpster dive. And then Dana's diner was the one going up till today, but I think it's going to be pinball pantry. So your idea was like, Interesting carmine venge Mexican mini, asynchronous big For Thriving Kaoli�, the
    18:22
    After taking our Baby to Blue treffen, And here turn it back down upon kelly horizontate no Oh, no, I think balls work just fine. So before we get to the first The first item on the menu, tell people how you have any relation to pinball. If any. Like before it was forced on me? That's a good place to start. How was it forced on you? Well, you just bring home different pinball machines like every week and then sell them to the point where our bank thinks that we're mobsters. Wald99 A Terra pills Guo Nieuwscheiduli, WPPR Hey, what's up? I'm going to show you a little bit of this. This is the L.E. This is the one or the one behind us. The L.E. Do you notice a big difference? Didn't you have the same one a few times? Yeah. That was all pro and this is the L.E. which has the extra lights and all that stuff. Okay. Do you like? Does one do any better? Are they the same to you? This one's prettier. I think. Yeah? Well, hey. Okay. Got that going, I guess. Any others come to mind out of all the ones that? I guess. Italyka. All right, any others that stood out or the rest just like you don't. I don't know if this is a bad opinion. What was that one? The older one you had that one sucked the older one. I that's, that's the one I'm actually gonna review today. Okay, Twilight Zone. Okay, well, you don't need to review it. I'll review it right now. Okay, sucks. Okay. And it's rigged. And the ball just goes right down the middle and you lose right away. That's the The review. Ah, perfect. Zero out of five balls. Zero out of five balls. Okay, well, so you're saying these things that I try in the pinball pantry, or we try together, because I said, if we're going to do your idea, you're joining me. Yeah. So we're each going to try this stuff. Why don't you tell everyone what the first item on the menu is? Because I'm a sucker for everything Halloween. I happened across this Voodoo Mountain Dew, the limited edition 2022 version. What does it say? Dor takes ישleecepskaar to kamuata aula berña lenie. Yuya Lizunamo,gi holdje siwania ni pi. inexora raptura pakalikaή satya webhara henari You drink fizzy water. I drink sparkling water. Yuck. Okay. This is a regular recipe. 2022 Mountain Dew Voodoo. And none of us have tried it. We're going to share a can because because we're so in love. Yeah, we can we can share germs. We like to share germs. Yeah. So we're gonna one can two people. Do you want to go? You should go first. Okay, you should go first. You're supposed to rate it or guess the flavor? Well this one's a little different because they're not all going to be a mystery flavor. This one, I'd say we'll use your rating System of balls out of five as in buy it again? Would we recommend someone to whatever out of five balls. Guessing the flavor is just a side hustle or a mini game of this. Here we go.
    22:19
    Is it? Since you were saying last year, the mystery flavor was like candy corn. I remember it was last year or the year before. One of them was. Disgusting. Zero balls. And I haven't had a sugar soda in 10 years, so even just the sugar has given me... Okay, I need another sip. I've got the top notes, but the aftertaste is throwing me. I think I know the mystery flavor or what I think it is. Do you want to go first? I was going to say it tastes like those sprees. I was going to say sprees! Sprees, yeah. But the aftertaste is fucked. Well, yeah, all of these aftertaste is terrible. No, there's something else going on. I think it's sprees. It has that really fruity like as soon as you have a spree. It's sprees. It has to be sprees. Let's market, market sprees, dude. So before it comes out on the Internet or whoever else. Sip Alright, well I'm gonna stick with Spreeze just cause you know their first reaction is usually the most accurate. I'm gonna go with Spreeze. Okay, I'm gonna say Sour Patch Kids. Alright, well if someone wants a rating of Balls on this one, uh, I don't know, how many balls would I give this? I guess the scale being five out of five balls, if we're in the soda world, a five out of five balls would be like a classic Mountain Dew or to a lot of people just a Coca-Cola or maybe a Diet Coke for all the moms or me.
    24:18
    www.ppftv.com.au ClosedZNN, chats Hadiキン,기를고 Rong purpahlt Junior sacar np-men Spear of Glaredrace decades-oldstedabuaptianettyodayps noget 300 forgiveness четы hurts bs guys you are youtubers you just dry the We are Marie Syndrome, excellent book Rights, explainingsanyonarpers.com tent from the storage it makes sense don saint it's like this
    26:01
    Well Hulkundsato spatio first true radioactive friends swear you need something Sam, Pinball, Work, and honestly, one of the true friends I've actually met through work. I remember we were assigned in back when we both worked in support all these years ago. We work at a software company. We were assigned to each other and we were just talking about who knows what and it came on to the subject of a maim. Arcade cabinet I was I had just finished Building building he was asking a lot of questions actually good questions like he seemed kind of knowledgeable in that area and you know that the Conversation led to a point that he actually owns Adams family Pinball and I was like oh shit really like okay, so I knew right away Okay, if this person owns a pinball machine I can skip all the or you actually a pinball person or you just mean you know that I'm okay yes so we went right into just talking about our love of pinball the history and all that both growing up in the same area we had a lot of shared history in that and the first time I had a friend come with me to buy a game was Sam and I figured what better way to review this game than with my good buddy Sam welcome to the show Sam thanks for joining me thanks for having me yeah I've Of course. Well, before we get into our adventure of getting this game, give me your like history on when did you get into pinball? Have you always been to pinball? What's that like? As aforementioned, I am an owner of the Adams family pinball machine. I actually got that game, I believe in 2005, shipped from Buenos Aires, Argentina, purchased on eBay and picked up at the Minneapolis airport freight shipping. All in all, it saved me a I'm one of the bolttothefloorguys who will only play one game his whole life and be quite happy shooting bear kicks until I die. So wait when you bought it, do you remember how much it was? Back then I got it for I have to find the receipt but it was under three grand They going going stateside about three grand that time Jeez The internet can probably prove me right or wrong on my shaky and foggy memory But I believe I got it in the range God. Back then. Well yeah, I guess as someone who's bolting, if you want to make a quick ten grand, just unbolt it. Yeah, exactly. I will be homeless without on a skateboard. That'll be the last possession. I part ways with. I started with pinball like as a kid. My uncle had a bunch of machines like 50s and you knew her. I had a grandfather that had machines. He had this game called eight ball deluxe. And it was quite good. Kind of some of the first digital displays in it had this little drop shot eight ball, eight ball corner pocket. So I played that all the time as a kid. Growing up, Jason, born in the end of the 70s in the 90s that's kind of like a heyday of pinball a Eau Claire establishment not mentioned mini putter is where I spent all of my time. Fish tails. A bunch of other things. They had Funhouse mostly. Okay. And I spent a lot of my youth playing those games simply out of kind of like a competitive frugal thing we'd always go to the I was a kid who played in arcades and people would spend five bucks, ten bucks and I would just kind of like the concept that I could put in 50 cents and spend two hours playing if I was good enough. Right. And so that led to kind of learning all the rules of games, learning the best way to beat games and just trying to like break down a game. So Funhouse was the first game I did with that where I just owned the scoreboard on that and could just play forever. I'm a fan of the movie, and I kind of set out as an adult to be that's the one I would purchase. Oh, and I should throw in, I also had fishtails in my house as a kid. My parents bought that, and so I played the life out of fishtails as well. Did it have the working like topper? Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody in our house would know that I was having a good game because the fish just goes insane. You get monster fish, you kind of like complete the stringer and like when you really get into wizard mode of that game the fish basically just like loudly smacks back and forth like the whole time because you're just triggering it. So great game. Yeah and I guess some the reason to have you on this other than I'm just not talk to myself all the time is I was I remember it was I guess my third fourth game then was well Twilight zone and I knew you know any of us to like Adam's family also knew Twilight zone is kind of like the brother and sister the same game you know well very very similar they were all in the same location same era but there was this guy in Minneapolis it ended up being there's one of those like slow texters it was for sale you send him a message and they wait like three days to get back to you they dry text like just say like yes no punctuation no capital letters and in the end it was just getting like a sketchy vibe from this guy that's point one two was there's a wide body and i didn't think i could fit in my car so i remember texting you or talking you at work like i hey can you go with me and pick this thing up because i'm getting a weird vibe from this guy i don't know if i could fit it he's giving me no answers on if we have to carry this out does he adopt like whatever I remember asking you to go and that's do you still have that minivan that we that we used? Oh yeah. Yeah. The Odyssey, a 2005 Honda Odyssey acquired when I had twins. Yeah. We call we call it Vando as a riff on Mando. Okay. The Vando's alive and well. It's about to cross 200,000 miles. Beautiful. And has moved Adam's family many a time. I remember we go there, we drive up and like same thing he wouldn't send me a text for like you know you're like hey I'm on my way here's my ETA and they wait like an hour to send you back a text like K. Like cool man what the hell. And I remember pulling up and you know it was a really nice house. He's like park in the back. So we went to the back but there was no like back it was just like what do you mean the back? It's like oh it's The Sp ineffective pinball erklith Text questions Text Lords offense Point Technology D slogan Technology 就到 Around utilize Stream Around Actual concerning Around Stream Around Donate Actual He wasn't having that. He was not having that. Yeah. Alright, so we're parked across this field. How are we, do you have a dolly? No. Okay. So I guess we're just fucking mulling this thing. Yeah. Alright. And that wide body Bally Williams densewood machine was carried with all four legs on it. I don't know how many yards. I'd say a football field. 100 yards. Yeah, I can pull up some of these details. Please do. It's a very unprepared, corporate guy who is just kind of trying to offload his toys. Yeah. And he tells us to park in this
    34:39
    just total nowhere, little grass dirt road off his property that is easily 100 yards from his actual home. And this is because his home has like hills and all this stuff. And like we can't carry it up PINNIZ P velocidade, Dragon авenge,
    34:59
    FNAC Ferrari zarzina, Louis-May Anton Ross Dancingチ galerajis, Hinsetx, VKy 아주, llok & snake M pegato Healthy Korea Kong ie dow keto ften Arej 67 millimeters mk i la hi wha The awkwardness of the wide body, the awkwardness of having the legs on it over uneven terrain. So like the lawn isn't smooth. So like you catch a leg and you have to like lift it up very high. So it was kind of like a weird like shoulder deadlift kind of that you had to do the whole way. It was... So you got like a thousand pounds, those divided by two, each have 500 pounds on the tippy tops of our fingers. And we're waddling this thing because once you lift it, you have like three inches of clearance to just waddle. and correct me if I'm wrong but I think his son or his friends were kind of like, I don't know, playing some sort of game football or something and kind of like running around us like having a good time and we're just sitting there like carrying this thousand pound beast. Oh, yes. Yeah. Get the fuck out of here kids. We're dying here. Leaf Delpho, Leaf Delpho, I think that's also in kind of classic human fashion when we realized you should come prepared with rap and dollies and ties. Which we did not. No. No. No. This is a true pleb mission. Just showing up in a minivan, parking in the back and just kind of caveman grunting it out of the house. We have no choice at that point like we came to get it. We got to leave with this thing. We got to the van. My fingers hurt like shit. Thank you for all the help. That was awesome. And you know, again, foreshadowing. I didn't keep that game long. So was it worth it? I don't know. Maybe but let's talk about the actual game.
    36:52
    I know this is a classic to everyone including myself and probably to you. It may be not be, you know, if it came out today, would it, you know, would it hold up? I don't know. We'll talk about it. But I'll have you start on each because you're my guest of honor. Rating out of 10, 0 to 10. Give your thoughts on it and feel free to add any detail that you want. Let's start with theme. What does the theme do for you? What would you Twilightzone? Is that an IP you care about? You give a shit about? What do you think? Definitely not IP I care about. I was aware of it when it came out in the 90s. Like a black and white show. We're back in the day when they had this thing called Nick at Night for Nickelodeon and they would kind of run Twilightzone way late.
    37:44
    So I had some awareness of the theme. I didn't really care about the theme. I'm going to go back to a previous episode game designers. I knew Pat Lawler had done Adam's family. Right. And so that was kind of a an interest point for Twilight Zone was that it was very similar. I would say there's a lot of kind of similarities between the two games. I don't think he tried to like reinvent the wheel from his most successful game. Yeah. But theme wise, you know, I definitely I agree with you that that IP has fallen off. So like you would have less and less relevance. But the premise itself, I think makes for a fun game that you're kind of in like a parallel realms. The machine can be crazy. I think regardless of you knew what the twilight zone, the theme would translate to anybody who didn't know what it was. I can't say that for every kind of like theme based thing. Like if you didn't know a band or like some of these other things that might not go as well as I'm playing kind of like a spooky, you know, kind of like mystery place. So, you know, theme, I might give it like an eight, like just because it translates well to pinball, but I don't think it's one of the best themed games. Just because it's obscure. Yeah, I would agree with especially your last point of regardless of the IP, let's say it does. It's very clear that this game is something like expect the unexpected. It's spooky. It's a little metaphysical, you know, The Like you mentioned the Pat Lawler There's a lot of similar things like the magnets in the Powerball and they both have the very much It's kind of a spooky theme where Adams family adds a little comedy to it Twilight Zone takes itself a little more serious and You know not to I guess copy the gas, but I would also say ate the I Had awareness of it black and white Nick at night all that kind of stuff and the theme was not necessarily like similar For me and James Bond. It's not like oh Oh, I absolutely love it, but it's like, all right, I respect it enough. I can, you know, it seems to pass the sniff test, so it's got to be good for a reason. And, you know, that was the first time probably the pinball machine actually made me think positive of Twilight Zone because before that it was just the what's his name? The announcer is just synonymous with the show. I think taking the actual the IP aside, when someone thinks of pinball that is from our age ish, give or take 10 years, they're thinking of Adam's family. Twilight Zone, and then you have some of the auxiliary I think those two are almost everyone's thinking of those and then you have Attack from Mars, Funhouse as you mentioned Tales of Arabian Nights all those kind of float around as auxiliary but alright let's go right into gameplay as you started to mention about Pat Lawler and some of you know the way the the theme actually lends itself well to the gameplay what would you say is your score on gameplay overall which would include you know the way it feels when you shoot it the actual shots all that This is a highly rated game. I would probably put it at a nine. Some of the things I really like about it. Multiple flipper games can be hard to pull off. If you have flippers in the upper playfield, sometimes they just prove more chaotic or they're a sucker to make you get a drain shot. The flippers in Twilight zone have very specific shots to hit. That if you can get good at those upper playfield shots, kind of like the piano player shot, you can really kind of take your game to the next level. So as far as the gameplay wise, if you are a more skilled player, it offers some higher level of, you know, timing attention, when multi balls going on knowing when to kind of like flipping to the piano instead of like flipping the bottom flippers. There's a nice flow to it as well as some complexity. So that's kind of why I'm putting the gameplay at a nine. That to actually beat the game, you have to hit good winning shots that trigger things from multiple angles up in the playing field, left flipper, right flipper. There's a number of different timings that you have to get right. So yeah, this one I somewhat struggle with back in the day. When again, that you know, Adam's family area or the playing at Wagner's or whatever smoking six and playing pinball. This was one of the least favorite games to I mean, it was always taken up, always crowded, people always playing it. And, you know, I remember just overhearing stuff about Powerball or, you know, the callouts are just, you know, stuck in my head. You have come to the end of your journey. This is no ordinary gumball machine. But for us when we played most of the time spending Adam Family and Attack from Mars and Amiible Madness Twilight Zone to me was almost you know very enigmatic in that way where I just didn play it enough and when I did it just kicked my ass it drained all the time and the rules I feel different about I talk in a second like gameplay like actual feel like do I like shooting the game There's like two shots. I enjoy In like the the main I guess left ramp if that's even read that really small ramp. I enjoy and
    43:11
    The clock or not the clock the camera shot was out the right flipper or the the third flipper P2S Media 사건,
    43:25
    BK ReBu constant titled No I like a lot more flow and ramps and speed and I like a game to really kick my ass in a different way where this game kicks my ass and just kind of a I can't hit the shots I don't know if I just never took the time to really get the geometry of it for me it's a seven we'll talk in a second about rules but so shots aside what do you think of the overall rules and how this game progresses and and all that you know this one I would say I'm probably gonna like give it a lower rating I would say this is the start of like complex pinball games and what you're saying from your youth lines up with most people's opinions. When you get right up to it, it's not entirely clear how to string together shots to make something happen. It has like multiple ways to trigger some things. That upper thing is called battle the power. That's what it was called. But that can trigger the door. The slot machine can trigger the door. The piano player can trigger the door. So unlike an Adams family where like the electric chair is triggering and the mansion and like maybe occasionally like the swamp or some of these other things it's pretty clear there's a flashing light. Twilight zone it is not very clear how to string together shots until you play it quite a bit so for rules I'm going to give it a six once you get to know them it's good but it takes a lot of explaining to someone for them to actually get what they're supposed to do with the game and I think that's kind of a a downgrade if your rules are so complicated that it takes like a and games to figure it out, you probably don't have great rules. Yeah, and I'm, as much as I dislike the stop and go shots of this game, I actually like that similar to Adam's Family, again because of Pat Lawler, although it was stop and go, each little mode was completely different to where, you know, from the gumball machine to the hitchhiker shot, the camera shot, the powers, everything was different. So for me, I, although I didn't know the deep rules back then and still to this day, I just haven't in the time even when I owned it cuz I just didn't you know the way it feels to me you know the shots just aren't there it holds a special place in my heart but comparing it to modern gay modern-day sterns or games with like almost video game level complexity the rules were very novel and I thought that it was clear that here's the you know the big rectangle in the center here's the modes Regardless of how to start them and how to complete them which most of the call outs back then were pretty accurate and telling you what to do I did understand intuitively replicas of Whitazike onif Matt Roman administrators who was just a meaning for you guys Egypt I'm sorry, what did you give the rules? I didn't write it down. I downgraded it to six. I'll say people that play Adam's Family think the rules are probably better because of how similar it is. If you've never played Adam's Family, filling up the door is not an obvious way to wizard mode. I did. Anyways, six. I historically have played with people that are confused by Twilight Zone, which isn't true for every game. Yep. All right, visuals. I somewhat unfair. I think back in the day, maybe they didn't take art or visuals as seriously as they do these days. But not to get into my thoughts. What do you think as far as the art and the playfield or just the visuals of the game and all that? I would say visuals are somewhat lower. They went really in on toys. So like the gumball machine, like I said, the piano player, some of these other things, that visual aspect is very fun. The kind of like backlash and I think it's a bad idea for us to dy up the length of it. I'm not a fan of the circle of Life and the other stuff was pretty boring. It's just the guy in front of a door, not very creative or enticing compared to other machines. So, because it has a lot of fun toys in it, I do think it attracts the eye somewhat. But I'll probably give this thing a six as well, just because the cabinet is really kind of pretty stock, the back glass and the cabinet. Don't jump out to you. The playing field itself has a lot of draw to it. But that's why I'm kind of going to give it a six. I don't think it like pulls everything together. Okay. I'm not far off. In fact, I'm a little lower. If it weren't for the back glass, which to me is just like an iconic, it's like seeing the symbol of Mountain Dew or Captain Crunch. You're just like, oh, it's Twilight Zone. It's so iconic. Him standing in the door, you kind of have pieces of the game in there. You have the pyramid, the gumball machine, you have all the clock, you have all that in the translite, which is pretty cool. And the more, back then, The more you look at, there's more to see. But I think the playfield is just atrocious. When it comes to art, there's just nothing there. There's that guy by the camera. He's got his thumbs up like, okay, or the hitchhiker, I guess. Right? Is that a hitchhiker? I think that's supposed to be a hitchhiker. Yeah. There's so many toys. That's why I think like the playing field is turning that space for our work. Yeah, I'm going five. And then the only reason it's not lower is because of the backlight. I mean, you know, take just the playfield alone. If I was walking up to this and I knew nothing about it, I'd say it's a two. I'm going to go to five for The Lighting back then other than battling the power which I think was cool. There's some flashes going on when you're doing that whatever All right, how about audio? I'm just gonna say this outright before I get to mine I think we have to take in somewhat the context of the time as far as the quality But as far as like actual audio, what are your thoughts?
    49:28
    Yeah, I mean at the time they were doing as well as they could I would say some of the things The only things that I really like about the audio of this game is that it had a really nice variety and things that would kind of trigger and denote you know like a successful shot like the variety they had that was to me when they started getting into like every shot will have a different audio thing you know Adam's family started to do this like it cousin 80 squeaks some like things like that I looked this up when I was reading about it. I remember this. There was a part of the fast block thing they would do
    50:13
    It's like radio and it would do callbacks to other of Lawler's games Adams family fun house whirlwind or shaker So every once in a while if you hit the right shot you'd hear like Rudy or some of these other things like in it so for that reason I'm gonna you know, I'm probably gonna give it a nine because I'm exactly in the same spot. I'm at a nine. Quality aside, I think that yeah, the uniqueness of the sounds and all the shots is up there with admisfam like an admisfam just thinking, Rational Typeatter Nacional Annie Townscape-expertise integral-to- closet-rage binary-purpose, but accepted 잘� expense-entetry炙럿 wraOME and Thirt StewPće , goo~"N Doctor Jean Blayes Zoou buenas挺 hemanuel, vindiveisdpleenj koonseremos elles 타 belo aka scaesHebelst, World Empire Trusted in The Great War , multigaineredoic in semschhh appetite,
    51:26
    My 천사 ꜈©ă create 됡맍을 짜 fas 꼭 예 dream Age of Fate ⟴rz pork tanta할ор transmitter잼돻 특힘 scenarioASn instructe ishing dxg wings TSa korru genetic 지�raw지계이야 slide햏 brauch은 일반 치 지금 영alglect 사실 findet 부분 맛있았다 in IVLa defleink peda에 짚 bubble scanned đ feasible Some high praise. There's this YouTube video. I'll probably put some clips in here. If you just, I think it's Google or Twilight zone pinball sounds. It's 40 minutes of just all the sounds mashed together in the music and in the Twilight pinball machine. There's a lot more than I think even today that they put thought and love from the audio side into games. I think this is one of the highest points, if not the highest points of the game is the audio quality aside, you know, as far as bit rate, but it was like a full production movie. I'm audio to me back then. Well, if I add up these scores for each of us, you know, we're actually very close, which which means we're we're on the right path. I would say you're at a 38 and I'm at a 37. Multip both these shits by two. You get a 76. I'm at a 74. You know, emotionally, to me, it's a lot higher. And just because of its sentimentality of what it did to pinball and to me, and I don't want to speak for you. But Would you rate the game as a C overall or would you personally think something different? I would say if you didn't know anything you're just walking into a room of ten pinball machines. I Feel like that's probably where it would rank for someone who didn't know anything. Okay, they'd like get confused about it They wouldn't know the IP and some of these other things like, you know for me It's like a at the top because of like nostalgia because of connections I I'm a fan of the old-school, more stop-and-go, shot-to-shot, work-the-game, trigger-event type things. So for me, it's way up there. It's like an A. But I can totally understand that this is me just being a young kid playing the game. And being like, this reminds me of being young. And that someone who's 20 now would shrug their shoulders and be like, oh, okay. The only novelties we didn't talk about was the ceramic ball. That was kind of like a Oh my, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So like that was that would get people over to watch is when that different ball would come out. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I was going to made me feel less about it is it typically never worked anywhere you found it. Yeah. There was always parts broken, including the one I had. Yeah, that was kind of a thing that I would say I would run into game in the wild. And I'm going to put 50 cents in and three of the things aren't going to work and I've wasted my time. So, nostalgia wise, A. Critical rational 21st century opinion, probably a C. Yeah Same I think C is right in all the games. I've owned what I own it again No, how many pinball machines would I have to have to own it item a lot and even then? Probably because the like you said fixing it I mean when I had it I had to fix it immediately and being that old like if it's a mechanic Usually like a switch or something you're fine, but if you're talking board work Get out of here. I don't want to deal with it and yeah, it's a double-edged sword. The more toys you put in, the more things might break. So when it's a well-oiled machine and it's back in the day and I'm smoking Marb Reds, it's a lot higher. But overall, blank slate, I think C is where it belongs. Yeah, agreed. Well, hey, thanks for joining me. There's definitely more we can talk about in the future, but yeah, even if you're not talking on here, you're one of the only people I'm texting on the side when I'm talking about pinball machines. If there's one in the future nationalduino.com I look forward to trying what I know... Wait, I don't look forward to trying what we're trying next week. I'm in fact fearful. So look forward to that. Also look forward to hopefully Sam in the future, super knowledgeable pinball guy. Love to hear his thoughts. And then, of course, we'll continue talking about James Bond. I just finished watching Cobra Kai, so I want to talk about speculating on a Cobra Kai slash Karate Kid pinball machine. Also, yes please can we have it? Again, any questions, comments, and concerns, autonomy 선비mış AZ veo 아 thus있으시다가 않그�visedvs전 문집 acompa?", 스크기스 야 도 삼 SAY는다 도반� notebooks 왜요14.? The give my thoughts on that until next time thank you for joining episode 4 we'll see you in episode 5
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