you're listening to the head-to-head pinball podcast find us on facebook Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Can you believe it? This is episode 100 and my name's Martin and with me... Joe. Joe, how are you? I'm tired. I'm very tired. I know, you've been up playing pinball all night. I know. And look, this is possibly a little bit awkward, but I kind of need to introduce you to my ex. I'm sorry about that. Jesus. Really? It's only been like our sixth date. It's me, Ryan C. And who the fuck is Joe? Have you... I thought this was episode 100. I thought this was episode like 70, 78. That's when I left you, Marty. Have you been seeing other people, have you? I said it was going to be awkward. I thought this was just a break, Marty. Yeah. You've been replaced. but it's never been replaced. As long as you don't have herpes, Marty, I'll take you back. Sorry. That cannot be guaranteed, I'm afraid. So here we go, everybody. Episode 100. Of course we had to have Ryan back. And Joe, it's a threesome. Let's just, you know... Oh my. I don't know who's in the middle. Who's in the middle? Marty or who's in the middle? Top and bottom? Oh. Oh, wow. You know, it's off to a great start. So, well done, guys. Let's talk some pinball. Let's talk some pinball news. So, we'll start with a very, very simple one. Guns N' Roses pinball machine's coming. Yep, we all knew. Spoiler alert. This time it's unofficially officially confirmed? Is that how you say it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Slash himself has said that it's coming. Yeah, which I think he already did anyway in some previous interview, It was a little bit vague, but now it was really obvious. Like, yes, a nuclear war machine, it's going to be awesome, and it comes out, I think, by December? December. Yeah. And we believe it's going to be Jersey Jack, and Jersey Jack has said that there will be another reveal of theirs this year. I think they should just not do it and make more pirates. I think that's what they should do. Hmm. Right? If Stern can release kind of Revolt games five years later and they sell okay, then I think Pirates can wait a little bit longer. You know, it hasn't been that long that it's been off the line, so. Well, I was talking to Carl about it, and he made a good point that when they, if you think back to when they actually announced it, and they must have probably had the license a little bit before then, it's almost been three years. And then plus the fact that Disney is trying – is replacing Depp, so they might not be so thrilled about licensing the current franchise anymore. So it's a little sketchy. How much Johnny Depp is on there? I mean, I think the only reference to Johnny Depp is his face above the fringes, right? There's no call-outs. You only see the back of his head. I doubt they care. Yeah, that's what I said. but I mean, I don't know, maybe he gets a cut from everything that's Pirates of the Caribbean related, regardless of how involved he is in that right here. Yeah, it depends on sort of what deal he's got with the studio, whether he's getting a percentage cut on all of it and merchandising. Hopefully they fit it in there somewhere. It's all of a guess, but yeah, G&R will be great because I mean, the Data Reefs Pinwall machine, it's one of the most highly valued Data Reefs out there not not necessarily based off how good the game is right like software wise but um yeah it's a it's a popular brand it's it's held its value and um can you imagine how good like all the sounds in all the jgp games are amazing and um this is the first time they'll be able to use those speakers for you know loud music that's already like the the hard work is almost already done for them right yeah i guess it's really interesting as well because you know when and it was it was great that you mentioned pirates because you know when pirates was first announced everyone sort of went well you've already done a pirates machine do you need to do another one and i guess they proved that you could because you know obviously the the jersey jack machine has just had high praise again we're now for the second time we're going to do a remake of an old machine by a different company um are we looking forward to another guns and roses yeah i think definitely because it's i mean if it's like it's a little different for this one like the other one was still was modern pinball compared to like i guess a little more modern pinball versus the old guns and roses machine is pretty dated at this point and there's really not too much music in that game and most of the best copies of them have that new soundboard in it where they've actually put the real songs in there. So I think that I'm looking forward to, I think it should be a great of all the rock bands that have been released recently. This is by far the one I'm more, I'm most into versus, you know, Iron Maiden or Aerosmith or anything. I would, I would say the same. I'm not into rock, but out of everything, I think Guns N' Roses is something that I, well, maybe Kiss. I enjoy the Kiss because it's very easy to listen to. But you know, Sweet Child of Mine, November Rain, Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, Knock on Heaven's Door. They've got so many songs that... So let's see what they get access to, because as we've seen in the last couple of years of Pimble, great themes have been coming out, but the greater the theme, it's almost like the more set up they are to disappoint people. The bigger the fold, yeah. Yeah, Star Wars and this and that, and everyone just wants everything. Music pins have been the one caveat to that, right? I mean, they've really been the machines that have gotten everything or most of what I assume that they wanted. It's kind of like because they don't have a story, right? They don't have to follow a movie or a TV show. It's basically just like Metallica. What's the storyline of Metallica or Kiss? It doesn't hold any wizard mode journey that you have to go on. So it's almost like an unlicensed theme in that point, right? Yeah, and they can get directly to the band, and the band themselves have direct control over their music. So if the band is interested and want to do it, then they're going to give them whatever they want versus when you're dealing with Star Wars or whatever, you're not talking to the actual actors or anything. It's all through a company who's just there to make money, whereas the bands, they just want a cool product. So far, we haven't seen it. When you're asking LucasArts, you're pretty much on your knees saying, please, you know, let us please approve this freaking top-up. Yeah, please. Can we just get this fucking thing out? Yeah, it sounds like, you know, Slash is heavily involved. So, Eric Meunier, hopefully, you know, there's going to be that debate, obviously, over, you know, should it be a wide body or a standard body? Jersey Jack have kind of officially come out there and saying it's up to the developer. I'd love to see a narrow body just to kind of compare it to pirates i think they've they've had enough wide buddies for a little while i think yeah but i pirates really doesn't shoot at all like a wide body i mean i i spent like hours and upon hours of it at pintastic last last uh weekend and man that that is the best shooting wide body i've ever played do you always feel like shooting all the shots though like do you like that i know the left the left orbit thing like to start the there's a dead dead man tell no tales multiball like it's not an attractive shot though right it's important it's important by the software but like where it is on the flipper and all the way to the left do you feel like shooting that? well I mean if you're doing that I think that they nerfed that strategy in the copy I played but I was playing it to play the whole game so I mean every all of those major multi balls all have completely different shots so that's just like one of the five or six there are so you know The other one is shoot all the red arrows around the playfield. Another one is shoot the ship and destroy the ship. Another one is go in the chest. Another one is hit the upper orbit. So, I mean, the modes are all relatively random all over the playfield. So you do end up shooting almost all the game. Do you think, though, like someone like Pat Lawler, I think he's pretty much proved that you don't necessarily need a wide body to have all these great shots. you can have a great kind of layout. And, you know, Keith Elwin with Iron Maiden, like there's a lot of shots on that play field, and it's all done in a standard body. So obviously in a wide body like Pirates, you have to sacrifice something. You know, if that upper play field wasn't there, I know it's a big selling point as a gimmick, but do you really think the game suffers if that was somehow smaller or not there? I mean, I don't know. That toy is really awesome and really fun to shoot on. I mean, I don't know. It's hard to know. I would imagine that if you took that and squished it down, you'd certainly lose quite a few shots, and then you lose the upper orbit. I mean, yeah. I'm sure I can't really say whether or not it would still be as good, but in its current package, I think it's really good. It's certainly for a wide body. So I'd also say that the original Guns N' Roses, which was a wide body, is actually a good playing wide body as well. And I'm not a big fan of wide body machines. Certainly all the super pins that came out from Bally Williams, I was really not a fan of those at all. I know you sort of said that the code is suffering from data race, but a lot of them were back then. I think that's a sign of the times. But as far as shooting, I think, again, probably because you didn't have extraordinarily angled shots on the side that you were going for. They were just really pretty much targets there. But the orbits, the loops, which are obviously in wider spots than normal, they shoot really well. That machine shoots really well for a wide body. And then you've got to think, well, the legacy of the original machine, are they paying homage to it or are they going, ah, screw you, Data James Rees, we're just going to do our own thing and it's going to be a narrow body. So I just don't know which angle they're going to go. Is that a repeatable loop on GNR, or is it like a loop shot that ends somewhere, hits a target, and comes back? Yeah, I think it's repeatable, but I mean, you never shoot that. I think it is too. You literally shoot it only once after you've gotten two double jackpots or Paradise City jackpots. Then you have to hit that super, and half the time it rattles around. I mean, you really only shoot three shots in that game. It's ramp, ramp, backhand. Backhand that mode hole to get the bands on stretch. And it's also got the inner loop as well. So right orbit all the way down to the left, to the upper left flipper. And then I think rattle around is probably the best thing to say because I find it very difficult to continually loop that inner loop. That's quite a bit of a clunky shot as well. Let's move on to the next awesome story, Marty. So we sort of alluded to it recently that Dutch Pinball had some announcement. And we sort of suspected it was to do with the court case they had against ARA, which was the contract manufacturer they originally went to and then didn't pay them or whatever it was. And so the court case has happened and the judgment was in the favor of ARA. There's a big, big long email about it. If you look on Pinside or it's out there, everyone sort of. And I was warned by both people on this podcast not to read it out. So I won't. Because it's a long thing. But effectively, what they've said is that now that they've had it been in favor of ARA, at least that's the decision. And now they have to work with ARA. Dutch Pinball have met with ARA and they now believe that they've got a way forward. They've had to pay for whatever's been produced so far and then they've got to work out some way forward. um so i i think there's hope i don't still know whether you're going to get your machine though that's just me i still don't think that that's a certainty it pretty much says in the in the email that they they can't just there's a way forward now but they can't just pay for it they need to kind of like concurrently sell new machines to pay for the old machines so how that's going to come out is probably it's still good news compared to you know all the crap before but i don't think there's a a clean way forward without people getting pissed off because there's still an order and there's only i think 40 machines made and i think they've probably still got 100 plus people that need machines so how many machines they need to sell to make the other machines and at what price and will the demand still be there once this thing starts rolling off the line that's the big Yeah. I mean, I hope so. I mean, it's, I think it's going to be one of those things that people probably have forgotten about the game at this point. And then once they start getting some out there and people start seeing them again, and then they get to play it, and hopefully the new ones are just as good as the old ones, then I think that the demand would be there because, I mean, it is an amazing playing game. But people also only want what they can't get. That's the whole Stern-Alley model, right? Sell just enough to satisfy demand. So once these things start getting produced and there's a possibly unlimited run and they're at every bar in town, do collectors still want them? I don't know. We'll see. true but at least hopefully maybe at that point then they'll be out of whatever hole they are in and maybe they can move on and survive or sell or something i mean as long as as long as the game gets out there i think that that's the most important thing well okay so one of the statements in the email was you know um i understand this is not the most ideal solution for i think early adopters but otherwise dutch pinball would most certainly go bankrupt which would have inevitably have resulted in nobody getting a game. So, I mean, you know, we've been talking about this for a long time, and it's one of those really weird situations where you've almost got to hand over the keys to your company to continue, and maybe, you know, Barry and Yart were like, well, what's the point of doing this if we now just get a salary, we don't actually own the company, we lose control, we lose direction of it um so i think it this way they've gone well at least it's a way forward and the other thing that the sad bit of news that came out of this email as well so um we'd known a while ago that um yup had battled cancer and had gotten through it and it was all fine and now it's back and i don't know whether it's worse or better but it's back and as a result he's had to leave the the company as well so it's now really barry and i think now you look at barry's probably sitting there going well really i've only got one way forward if we want to have these machines out and that's the only way to do it so there you go well we don't know the background dealings you know no one really has all the documents and access to everything but But it's almost a pity that it's gotten to this where it seems, and as I said, we don't know because we don't have access to everything, but it seems like it might have just been this big ego thing, right, where the company, two companies are battling out against each other and they've gone the route of going to court and they can still drag it out. But one person and one side has finally kind of, you know, their ego has been bruised enough and they realize that, okay, well, we have to go this way now. Whereas if they did that before or raised the price or something, then people could have been enjoying their big Lebowskis three years ago. But as I said, I don't know the exact details of what went on and will probably never know. But I would be so freaking frustrated and over it. Like, would you still want the machine? Well, that was the question I was going to ask because I've played it. Joe, you've played it. I don't think you've played it, Ryan. No, I've played it. I've played it heaps. at Expo and at TPF, but yeah, I like the game, but I didn't have all my money in it, right? Like, if, you know, we made a joke about, like, ex-girlfriends and, you know, ex-boyfriends, ex-lovers and that stuff. Do you know what I mean? Like, would you want to be with someone who fucked you over for three years' money? Like... Well, definitely if you paid for it. I mean, yeah, I don't care. I mean, I don't think personally I'd be able to look at the machine. I've bought machines before in the past of people interstate and they weren't as described and i would get i would make them pay for the issues to be fixed right which was never hundreds of dollars it would be like 70 bucks it was the principal and then i'd fix it and then i'd sell the machine because i all the machine to me is an argument between me and that person you didn't you didn't really get a connection yeah oh some old news we're stirring up old news this is why we broke up Yeah. You still don't have that connection with that Iron Maiden, huh? Well, I don't. So that's just almost like a full stop on this discussion about Dutch Pinball and Big Lebowski. My sort of question was, does it matter anymore? Do people really still care that much about the Big Lebowski to be really championing the production of these machines? We will see. I hope there's just enough demand to fulfill everyone's back order. and then good luck for them producing anything in the future. It's going to have to be some really big IP because no one's going to buy any original title off them and no one's going to give a shit unless it's Back to the Future or something, which they don't have. Yeah. I can see how people would be pissed off at it, but like you mentioned, I would at least want my game and then I'd want to sell it. And then I'll turn of the page. But I mean, it's still, everyone was so excited about that game, and then there just weren't any of them. And I have to imagine that once they're out there again, and they start popping up, the excitement will come back. You know, they're never going to get the goodwill that they had, or the momentum they had, but I mean, it probably won't be enough to salvage going forward, unless they, like you mentioned, somehow get this IP, the next IP, that's just and everyone's going to lose their mind over, but, I mean, it'll be enough to save this game, I think. It's an interesting concept, because me and Marty, we've talked about it before, right, where how good are some of these games? Like, Adam's Family and Twilight Zone sold just, you know, so many copies, and people still like them, right? Whereas games like Cactus Canyon, the reason people think it's good is because it's rare, right? Can people get over the fact that, like, if they produce 20,000 Big Bang bars, would anyone care about it? Or is it just the fact that there's only 191 around that people care? I don't think so, because I don't think that game is very good. Well, but people are still in awe when they play it. And, you know, sure, if you ask a tournament player, they'll say, yeah, it's average. But, you know, the average person, you know, they want to play it, and they would buy it if it was 8,000 US or something. so yeah i think that's driven a lot more by the collector side than it is the player side because it's yeah which you know they they you know they talk about you know kingpin and all these other various just super rare games they're just like oh my god it's the greatest thing because the people who own them are the ones screaming on top of the balance that's what i'm saying you have no idea how amazing this game is yeah well the rest of us are going yeah i don't i doubt it but we're not gonna play it so is big lebowski actually that good you know as i said i think it is i think it's really good yeah i haven't played enough i think it's good but i i don't i can't i don't trust my own head to know if it's the fact that i know i'm not gonna play this when i leave the u.s or or if it's actually good you know it was the best non it was the best shooting non-stern game at the time and everyone had said that this is this look if you you know if you if you told people this was a Williams or a ballet game and nobody would disagree with you that that's how it shoots and everyone talked about how it was just like a game straight out of the 90s when the heyday of people. So it's... I mean, I never get to play a Final Code one, but I mean it's shot nice and I think that it'll... I hope it'll come back because all I know, I know there's one person in New Robert Englunds that has one. Outside of that, I haven't even, like, I don't think even Papa has one, so I haven't seen one in multiple years. Yep. All right. Just fucking make the thing in your fuckers. Anyway. Zyte. Moving on. So, we, you would have heard Joe tips the top 100, Ryan, and a couple of weeks ago, we did a big, long, it's quite funny, big, long deep dive, rules-wise, and how you play, of Game of Thrones. What a waste of time. Well, we don't know whether it is going to be a waste of time. But, Joe, if they did new code for Game of Thrones, which we've just heard they are, what would you want to see? Like, what do you think needs to be changed for Game of Thrones? Well, I kind of know some of the stuff. I mean, they're balancing it out, so the house is going to be more balanced. They're not nerfing Martel, but they're boosting the other houses so that they're more useful. They're fixing the bad super jackpot bug. And outside of that, I'm not really sure. I'd like to see more theme in the game. I'd like to see more, you know, maybe deeper modes that were more involved than, you know, as simple as some of them are. Like Sockle. Yeah. Yeah. Or even Martel, which is just three orbits. Yeah, which, you know, I mean, it's funny because Zac Stark is the simplest probably, but I mean, technically, that's probably the deepest mode in the game because of the fact that, you know, at least they're going through 20 characters or something like that. Whereas Martel, it's like two animations and that's it. Greyjoy, it's like two animations and that's it. You know, Lannister doesn't really have that. The modes themselves are super simple, especially for the assets that they got for them and the sound for them. So I don't know. It'd be cool if they added more to those modes, and maybe at this point, since the series is over, maybe HBO will play ball better. Because it has to be something – they would not be making a stream for this if it was simply house balancing. There has to be some major change. I think the major change is they're going to rerun a couple of them. So they, you know, here you go. Here's the demand for, you know, with new codes. You don't have to buy someone else's one that's sitting on the pin side marketplace. You can buy ours. But I really don't think there's going to be more animations or more call outs that were already approved by HBO. They're not going to go back to HBO and pay lawyers licensing fees to answer emails and go through things again just to do another run. I don't think they've ever done that, right? Like, maybe Guardians of the Galaxy was an outlier because of how bare-bones that was. Spider-Man, I guess, was the only other one. Yeah. Well, that's why we... Is this going to be a vault? Are we actually going to label it a vault? Because we are a vault. Oh, my God. Can you imagine if the code... If there was new art, sorry, that would be so freaking good. I doubt it, though. I doubt it. I don't know. But that's the whole thing. like we I think we are due a vault um you know could it be Game of Thrones I gotta say the funny thing about this is it like it wasn announced like it wasn on the stern of the Union Nobody knew this Game of Thrones code was coming What was the first thing that everybody thought when this was announced Ghostbusters! Ghostbusters! Yeah, the winning comment was my friend Ian. His first thing was like, I think they misspelled Ghostbusters. I was like, you win. That's the best comment so far. I just love Dwight's face in that picture, that promo picture, because, you know, we had the Sooner the Union, I think it was last month, and they said, you know, Ghostbusters, yep, still happening. We've allocated more resources, which I guess was just a little, like it's like an anti-trigger. Like don't get triggered because what we're about to say is Dwight hasn't been working on Ghostbusters. He's been working on Game of Thrones, but someone else is. And they had to have written that a month ago so that everyone can, or a week ago, whenever it was, that everyone can kind of chill out when this comes out. Otherwise, it would have been crazy pitchforks, right? Oh, for sure. It doesn't even matter. I mean, they can be like the Ghostbusters people. I mean, anyway, they'll be pissed off for as long as it takes, and when it eventually comes, they'll be happy. I know. It's just one of those ongoing things. There has to be one thing that people are unsettled about, and until you cross that off the list, it's always going to be there, right? and then, I don't know, when Game of Thrones not sorry, Game of Thrones, when Ghostbusters gets handled, what's the next one? I don't know. Oh, everyone's going to be back on the Star Wars side. Well, no one really cares about that, though. But there's got to be some grime. I hope that they just don't release Ghostbusters till the end of the year, because I enjoy listening and watching the comics. It's very amusing. It's a meme. It's gone to meme status. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what is the next game that they're going to play. I know the lineman wants to go back and mess with ACDC more, so I'm sure that could happen at some point. Yeah, well, he's got his machine that he's working on at the moment to come out. And he's still doing Batman code. Well, apparently. So there's going to be a stream on Deadflip. So if you are listening to this on Monday, it'll be sometime Monday in the world, probably Tuesday morning in Australia. I've still got access to all the emails, Marty, and you can kind of tell when people are listening to the podcast based on when they're entering the competition. And there's people, obviously, that listen to the podcast immediately as soon as it comes out, but then there's just like a steady stream of people. So hello to everyone listening to it three days later. How are famous friends? Was it good? Was it bad? Yeah, cool. Let us know. Let's take the whole thing. I was actually just watching the podcaster panel at Pentastic. Jeez. Say that five times in a row. And it was really what they were saying. Some people have only got 15 to 20 minutes a day to their commute. So to get through a two to two and a half hour podcast, it's going to take a good six, seven days. Did you enjoy the very healthy dose of Teolos in that? Yes. Jesus. It was good. It was awesome. So there you go. So watch that. Okay. Okay, so we did a couple of polls, I guess you would call them. The first one really was the Bally Williams Battle Royale, right? And, you know, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago where we had ranked based from, you know, the top 32 machines, then went to 16, 8, then 4, then 2. and every day people got to vote and the bracket went down. I've got to say, I've got to say from the outset, I'm just so bleh about it. You're disappointed that it worked out exactly how it should have worked out, Marty, is that what you're saying? No, it worked out exactly how you could have painted it and knew that everyone was going to vote. I disagreed with a lot of the choices in there, yeah i it was really it's interesting i guess it's the way the bracket comes down where there's some machines where i go oh i freaking oh i love that machine um you know like oh world cup soccer i love it but is it better than theater of magic it's the hardest thing it's like what what do you rate it on it is you you joe yeah you play tournaments all the time so you're rating it just on not being able to hit the left loop over and over again there's there's less exploits in what is it then i mean it matters what i mean if you're picking theme i much prefer theater of magic i think as a thematic package theater magic is better toys sound it's limited on like almost flow it beats it on almost anything all it doesn't beat it on is score balancing and um being a good tournament game so it's very hard to to judge games replayability you know i yeah i I mean, it's the same thing like Toten. I just watched Toten going through the brackets and just being like, really? Really? Like, Toten's beating... I forgot the first couple of people it beat. I was like, are you serious? Why do people like that game? Because we never got that Aladdin. It beat Revenge from Mars. We never got that Aladdin pinball machine, that's why. Yeah, like, clearly people... So round one, it was against Revenge from Mars. What's the better game? I think Revenge is a better game. oh well it it was pretty much a landslide it only got 19 votes um revenge from us and tales of arabian nights got 88 so that was a landslide but then you've got you know tales of the arabian nights versus cactus canyon yeah i mean because you know i still take cactus too yeah but then and then tales of baby nights versus attack from mars oh that should be us i didn't After the second round, I kept on going on Facebook and seeing that it was over. And I'm like, well, I didn't get to participate in that one. And they say it's over. Well, I hopefully attack from our slaughtered totem. If that was closed... Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. 72 to 22. So, look, the way that the bracket is done, effectively, it's... The more... The higher rated game on Pinside just got through every single round. There wasn't a single anomaly. Yeah, which sucks. It was just like, I mean, there are multiple games in there that are just like real diamonds in the rough that are great games. They're not highly rated. And it's just like... Maybe the more interesting thing would have been instead of, you know, putting up on Facebook and Pinsider, wherever you post it, is like just post it on like tilt forums only. Like, what's a better competitive game? And then, you know, post it on, I don't know, some art forum or something. Which one has the best art? I don't know. It should have just been, like, the top three minus the top four. Like, just be like, we get it. These are the best games ever made, and you're going to sit there and scream that until people will just leave the room. But if you took the top four out and then you could rank the rest of them, it would be a much more interesting thing. But it just became an exercise of, all right, Medieval Madness goes until it can't anymore. Attack from Mars goes until it can't anymore. And then Twilight Zone goes until it meets one of those two, and then it dies. And then it's the same thing with Monster Bash. What is the point of this exercise? Well, there's a reason for it, because Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars are the two best games there are there. And you can argue until you're blue in the face that another game is better than it, but how many people are you going to convince? So the point of us doing the Battle Royale, we did this originally with Stern, and we did it out of a conversation that we had that said, you know, a lot of the ratings that you see on Pinside are historical ratings. And it was like, well, let's think about right now, point in time, has that changed? And with Stern machines, it did somewhat. in fact the final result was a bit of an upset so again it was just sort of saying the same thing is what people have said with their ratings their thousands of ratings over time is it still, if you could just say forget the past, today what's my current vote going to be and really what it's sort of saying is sadly and boringly that it's still what people think and we've still got the last round which is effectively Medieval Madness vs. Attack from Arse now, they'll probably be 50-50. It probably doesn't matter who wins. Medieval's going to win then. I say Medieval's going to win by 60% or something. A lot of people say they're pretty much the same machine anyway. But here's the other thing as well that we know this anyway. So Medieval Madness has had a remake. Attack from Mars has had a remake. Monster Bash has had a remake. There's your top three out of four. Twilight Zone? That's the fourth. I don't think Twilight Zone is going to happen. Out of those games, it's the licensed game. And they really haven't... I mean, I guess you could say Monster Bash is kind of licensed, but it's not, like, a license like Twilight Zone. So, I don't know. I mean, until they show that they're willing to, or they're going to have to pay for a license like that, I don't... I'll believe it when I see it, because I think that's why you're hearing the rumors that they're going to jump to Cactus, or they're going to jump to the trilogy of doing Theater of Magic or Circus Voltaire because none of them have licenses. I mean, Twilight Zone probably could use a remake because if they could actually make a well-working, well-made Twilight Zone where all of them are so all over the place nowadays and, again, the prices are ridiculous. And it's a relatively... I wouldn't say it's a high-maintenance machine, but it's a regular maintenance machine. Ryan, you've got one. What do you think? Which game, sorry? Are we talking about? Twilight Zone. I've sold that. I cashed out. Yeah, but when you had it, I referred to it not as a high-maintenance machine, but a regular maintenance machine. I don't know. Mine was in very good condition when I got it. It was very kind of like low plays compared to other games, and I never really had big issues with it. I knew it would make good money if I put it on site, but I know how many things can go wrong with it, so I kind of... There's no next gen. Yeah. It's always broken. Well, I've got, I mean, if we want to do this in 10 minutes, like a quick turbo round, I've just printed it out quickly and got them all in front of me on a piece of paper. We can do it based off, but what do you want to base it off, though? Because, you know, it's going to be you versus Joe, and I'll break the tiebreaker. Do you want to do just tournament games? Go. Tournament? Okay, Middle of Madness versus Bram Stoke Dracula. Oh, well, I mean, what's interesting there? This is based strictly on tournaments? Well, it's up to you guys. If you want to do it on tournaments, then we can do it on tournaments. Just make it different than what, you know. Yeah, I get it. Well, again, there's a couple of angles because I think Medieval Madness is really boring to watch in a tournament. Yeah, it is. Whereas Dracula, when everyone's going for the mega stack to the mega jackpot, that's really, like, exciting. And obviously, we saw it at the World Championships. The payoff of that is fantastic to watch. To play in a tournament, I'd much rather Medieval Madness because it's easier to play. Yeah, but in a tournament setting, I think that Dracula wins that matchup. Matty? Yeah, I would agree. Medieval Madness eliminated already. Already? Just because it's... Okay, so it's important... No, everyone's going to write it and go, oh, Martin's so biased. He hates Medieval Madness. It's not that I hate Medieval Madness. Yeah, all right. World Cup Soccer and Theatre of Magic. We go World Cup Soccer, right? Right, right? yep okay yep funhouse and doctor who doctor who funhouse i've never seen doctor who i know it's just hulu but i've never seen anyone on the on the doctor who that i have been able to repeat more than i don't know maybe six or seven shots because the feed just wasn't as as clean i know certain doctor who's a setup where i like richard rose i saw him get like just you know 120 something loops um on his little championship yeah it's really boring um but i'm gonna choose doctor who because whatever yeah i mean doctor who has three viable strategies but the problem is that you tend to only one tends to surface yeah yeah all right uh judge dread or star trek next gen next next gen with the new code i burn both of them Don't like either of them in a tournament, but I would prefer Star Trek Nation in a tournament because Judge Dredd's got the big flip. Indiana Jones or High Speed 2 Getaway? In a tournament, High Speed. Easy for me. Yeah. Yeah, Indiana Jones is pretty bad in tournaments. Johnny Mnemonic or Creature from the Back Lagoon? Surely Johnny Mnemonic. Well, actually... With a Nerf spinner, then I'd probably lean Johnny because Creature gets pretty... I mean, Creature has that one big crazy payoff if you can get like a 4X, whatever it is, super jackpot, which you could almost equate to the same. Yeah, to move your car. Yeah. But to set up that thing in Johnny Mnemonic, I still haven't been able to do it. I've had it here for like two months or something. It's pretty hard to get Super Spinner, wailing it all day long, and then you can only do it once, right? You can't sit there and do it over and over again, unless you go around the bend. Yeah, but I've done it a couple of times and put up like 15 billion. Have you ever tried to do it and failed and not gotten first on a match play game? Oh, definitely. But most of the Johnnies that are in tournaments that I've played have a nerfed spinner, whether it's been greased up so it doesn't spin that way or it's been bent so it doesn't spin very well. I don't think I've actually played a Johnny where it had a fully functional spinner as stock so I guess I can't really answer that so what are you going for? I'm going to go for Creature Johnny I'm going to choose Johnny Keanu Reeves man he's hot right now he is hot right now Circus Voltaire or Indy 500 I would prefer see I'm going the opposite I would say Indy Mainly because I find Indy more controllable in a tournament setting than Circus Voltaire. Just the bottom flipper area, I just find very frustrating. But Indy's a one-trip pony. It's literally turbo loops, multiball, do it until you can't do it anymore. Versus Circus Voltaire, which is just like what? Hit the ringmaster. Try and start a corner ball with the second ringmaster. That's all it is. When it's set up hard, if you get to that, you've pretty much won. Well, you can go juggler. you can go strike an arc you can go high wire well you can, the last time it was used the last time it was used at Papa people were going ring or going juggler so I mean no matter how it's set you're doing that on Indie I prefer playing Indie 500 but I'm going to choose Circus Voltaire because overall I think it's a bad game alright Congo or Monster Bash Monster Bash for me in a tournament because I have some symbiotic relationship with Monster Bash in competitions. It favors me so well. Joe? Yeah, I'm a Congo. I find playing Congo in competition is more interesting than Monster Bash, which just devolves into either... It tends to be... Are people hitting the spinner or are people hitting... Yeah. And it's just like... Yeah. Whereas Congo, you have to play the entire game to get good points. What do high-level players do in Congo, though? I mean, you can pretty much just hit the gorilla shot over and over again, right? Because that gives you locks and diamonds and, you know, it gives you pretty good stuff, right? No, well, you're actually not supposed to do the second gray until you've played your first multiball. I'm saying it's kind of a safe shot and a safe fee, so do people just spam that, or do they go for the other collecting diamonds to get two multiballs? No, I mean, generally your first thing is hit four or five shots, get your map, get that, hit a couple of diamonds, get your first lock, then you either do diamond or you do gray, and then for your third lock you do whichever one you didn't do. And then after that, then you can go for your second gray, which doesn't screw you over for your multiballs. But, I mean, it still has Amy, which is a pretty big scoring opportunity, Jungle Jackpot, which is a big scoring opportunity. Good gorilla! And then, of course, the ever-amazing Skillfire. Ah, that's cool. And Zinj. That's a great call. Okay, Congo it is. You convinced me. Alright, let's go a bit quicker. Attack from Mars or Whirlwind? Attack from Mars, obviously. Skate Stiff or Roadshow? Ooh. I'd go Skate Stiff. It's going to get eliminated by Attack from Mars. It doesn't even matter. yeah i mean i i guess i would tend to go scared stiff just because roach i i really haven't really played a road show that works right cactus canyon or pinbot cactus canyon because pinbot's one shot right sure yeah unless it's pinbot yeah the new pinbot then sure but it's not so yeah or rfm well totan i like revenge better but in a tournament setting yeah because what do you do on a Totem and Revenge? All you're doing is hitting the thing and going for multiple players. No, I understand, but I'm sort of thinking about how you're actually playing it. And Revenge, for the most part, most of the ones that I've played, they're pretty wrecked. And also because it's so dark and you can't see the back, it becomes a frustrating game where you flip and hope that it hits something. So, for Totem, I feel like I'm in more control of the game. Yeah, I mean, yeah I guess from that point of view probably but honestly I don't even know if Toten gets used in tournaments now does Pimberg use Toten? I don't know so is it a tie? Toten versus RFM? do I have to choose? yeah I'll I'll pick RFM just to make you choose I don't really care because it's going to get limited by AFM later on so it's going to go up against Cactus though I'll make it interesting I'll do RFM Adams and No Good Gophers oh Adams Adams, yeah, because Guilfrey's is a hot garbage. It's just an easy one. Shadow or Safecracker? The Shadow knows. Okay. Whitewater or Champub? Whitewater. I would say Whitewater because going for the five times play field into multiball is just such an exciting thing to try and do. It is annoying, though, that one person can kind of get it over someone else. Anyway, Twilight Zone versus Fishtails. I get to say Fishtails. Because Twilight Zone is so terrible in tournaments. Because? I think they both suffer from the same thing. Because you've got these rules and you just do the one thing. Yeah, well, at least with Fishtails you have two options, mostly. I mean, Twilight Zone always devolves into Powerball Mania, and that's it. unless it's set to unless it has four or three balls in the power then it just becomes whoever got it gets it wins but I mean it's I never see people do anything else I've never seen anyone go for modes on that thing it's like the polar opposite of Adam's family like it just turns into this hit ramps if I've got either of those machines and I've got to choose I will pick Twilight Zone over Fishtails every time yeah me too I hate Fishtails so much that's because I don't I actually really like playing well fish towels is like if you want to do monster fish you sit there and you set it up but then you've got the pressure of making that shot and it's a countdown right whereas if you do stuff in twilight zone there really isn't that you have to make the shot but if you miss five times you can still make it whereas if you miss in monster fish it was like all for nothing right yeah I guess that's what I enjoy about fish towels whereas Twilight Zone is just, it just becomes, most of the time it just comes down to just like weird shit happens and then you lose the ball because it did this, came out of the pop bumpers right down the middle. It's like, or at least Fishtails, when I lose the ball, it's my fault. Whereas Twilight Zone, I feel like there's so much randomness going on in there that it can just be, you know, you're throwing it up the middle, you miss, and then it's like off of this, off of this, greed target, right, boom, down. Like, okay. Yeah. I think they've both got randomness that can be really frustrating. But for me, the reason why I would pick Twilight Zone, not almost any other machine over Fishtails, is because of the lightning flippers. And I know that you need to get used to them, you need to play better. But when you feel like you're going to be able to do a slap save and you don't, and you go, oh shit, that's right, fucking lightning flippers again, it just frustrates me. So it's a tie? Yeah. I can see both sides. I choose Twilight Zone because I like it more, just in general. Okay, next round. This is going to take longer than 10 minutes. Dracula versus World Cup Soccer. World Cup Soccer. I don't know. Ooh, that's a tough one. I guess I'd probably go Dracula? Because I think there's more nuance to it with bats and rats and the three different multi-balls and how you stack them versus... Okay. World Cup Soccer. Soccer's pretty linear. I'm going to go for Dracula as well simply because... And I don't know it as much as the... You know, someone that knows it back to front, but I know World Cup Soccer enough to know that yeah, I don't like it that much in tournaments. Okay, Doctor Who versus Star Trek Next Gen. There's a lot of turds getting through. I like Next Gen. As long as it has the ROM that takes out the video mode, I like Next Gen. Okay, Next Gen it is. High Speed 2 versus Johnny Mnemonic. I just don't know Johnny Mnemonic that well, so I would always have to say Getaway. I'd say Johnny Mnemonic because High Speed 2 just has so many issues in competition with various bugs. What did you choose, Marty? It's more fun playing Giants and Monarch. Getaway. It's so hard. I have to choose between these two games. In a tournament. I'll choose High Speed 2 in a magical world that it doesn't have. You play a game with no bugs because it's just exciting getting that Super Shack 5. Oh yeah, okay. Alright, I'll choose that. Second of all, Tier vs. Congo. For me, if I had to pick between those two, like it was my choice, I'd probably pick Congo over Circus Voltaire. Again, because I find it more controllable. Yeah, I mean... Oh, they're such polar opposite games. I probably go Circus because I like that game better. And I think that in turn, there's more options in Circus Voltaire in competition than I think Congo. Ah, this is so hard. It's like a 50-50. I'll choose Kongo again. But that's not fair, because Kongo's then possibly going to make it to the final four, which is... It's not a top four thing game, and neither is Circus Voltaire. Okay. It's not going to get much better. Well, it's up against High Speed 2. All right. Attack from Mars versus Scared Stiff. Attack from Mars, clearly, right? Attack. Yeah, it's Cactus versus RFM. I guess I'd go RFM, because at this point now, it's like the Cactus tournament issues with the bugs. well not the bones but the incomplete incomplete rules Adams versus the Shadow Shadow I'm so sick of the Adams family at this point I mean everybody knows how much I dislike Adams but I'm yet to find my rhythm with it doesn't matter Marnie because he already chose Shadow and I'm choosing Shadow so I'm sorry I fucking love Shadow so much okay man Shadow has multiple distinct strategies that you can go on versus Atoms has two. Whitewater versus Twilight Zone. I prefer playing Whitewater as a game, but I win a lot more on Twilight Zone. Yeah, I guess I'd have to go Twilight Zone because it's not as like Whitewater's pretty boring to play okay down to the final eight are these really the best eight tournament games from the Bailing era they definitely are it's official um Dracula versus uh Star Trek Next Gen Dracula okay High Speed 2 versus Congo High Speed Congo none of these games deserve to be in the top four Surely there a better game What your reason Give me a reason why I don't know. High Speed 2 is not as an interesting game to play as Congo is, and you don't use as much as the Blitzfield. Yeah, and it doesn't have satisfying shots like Congo has. You play more of the game in Congo than you do in High Speed, and it's just more of an interesting journey. Convinced. Convinced. Okay. Attack from Mars versus Revenge from Mars. Oh my gosh. How did that happen? Oh my god. What could that be? Yeah, Attack from Mars. Okay. Shadow versus Twilight Zone. I'd take Shadow. I would pick... Twilight Zone's too wonderful. I would pick Shadow. I would pick Shadow because I think Shadow for me is a bit more predictable than Twilight. In the final four, we have Dracula versus Kongo. Dracula. Yeah, I think I'd go with Dracula. alright and Attack from Mars versus The Shadow it should have been him in the final two Attack from Mars I mean I don't know I think I enjoy playing The Shadow better than Attack from Mars and Shadows and I was also just thinking like again if it was a strategic pick between those two I know everybody can play Attack from Mars but not everybody can play Shadow so I might even have an advantage over that And again, there's more options in Shadow. You can Vengeance, you can Multiball, you can play Modes, or you can do Shadow Loops. Or you can do Battlefield, which, you know, Attack from Mars really has two options, two viable options. But they, I mean, with Attack from Mars, pretty much all of them, like every Attack from Mars that I've played plays similar enough, and nothing you can do to the game. Not the remakes. What I'm saying is nothing makes it too easy and kind of unbalanced, where I've played some shadows where the inner loop is so easy that I don't like the game anymore, whereas the shadow that I have, no one can... No, yours is terrible. Yeah, well, it's just too fast. My game is too fast, right? So when it's a weaker upper flipper and you can do these slow loops, it ruins the game for me. Yeah, but I also think the other big thing is that if you're playing Attack from Mars in tournaments, you tend to pick a strategy. You either go multiball all day or you go annihilation all day. In Shadow, it's not like that. You go vengeance or you play a multiball and then you switch over to modes or then you switch over to con. It's a journey versus just pounding against the wall until you break through. Whereas at least you're going different places with Shadow. There's multiple options. If you look at your score and you're down X, you do other things. If you're down X on Attack from Mars, you continue doing whatever the fuck you've been doing the entire time. You could go for some new shots up the middle and try and survive. Yeah. If the visor is down. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd go for the visor way more than... That's what's keeping me back from being a top 50 player, Marty. I'd go for the visor way too much, yeah. Yeah. So what's the choice? Oh, wow. I think we both get it. Okay. Awesome. All right. Bram Stoker's Dracula vs. the Shadow in the final. Are they really the two greatest games of all time? I gotta go Shadow just because it has more options. I like having strategic options where, at least in Dracula, you have a pretty well-defined path, how you get there, in what order it differentiates, but it also has a you do the thing, or if the other person does the thing, you're fucked. Some people are so good at the shadow, they can just do orbit loop, orbit loop, orbit loop. Like, that's their thing. Or they can just vengeance ramp out all day long, right? There still are things in shadow. It just depends on how good you are and if you can pull it off, right? True, but, like, at least there's other – you can overcome it in different strategies, whereas on Dracula, if someone gets the triple and you don't get the triple, you lose. Definitive. Yeah, you're locked out. Well, people have come back to it, though. Yes. All right, so Joe chooses Shadow. Marty? I'm going to choose Dracula. And I'm going to choose Dracula because, again, I would find that I would have an advantage over people, and I think that one really is. I guess what I found with Shadow is that sometimes a less – I know he's got lightning flippers, But I've also found that less, I'll say less experienced people, not necessarily lesser skilled, less experienced people can absolutely dominate on Shadow accidentally. Whereas with Dracula, it does favour the better player. So I would go Dracula. Should we just... I don't see that because, like, what do you like, what can you lock into in Shadow? Well, you go for the easy... There's the sucker multiball that's worth, you know... Yes. Yeah, it's worth nothing because you have to get the inner loop, which is a hard shot and there isn't an easy... Which people who aren't that good aren't going to be able to do that. Exactly. You can luck into Khan. Khan multiball is it, yeah. And particularly if that scoop is not really well adjusted, people can just accidentally bounce it in and bang, they've got Khan and you're freaking trying to shoot it as much as you can and you don't get it. Yeah, because they're not going to get vengeance because they're not going to move the furbis. So it's just kind of... I mean we're not talking about like total noobs like the first thing they're playing the game I mean I think most people know how to move the divers left and right surely if they're playing in a tournament I don't know we can leave this up to a Facebook vote I would choose a shadow but let's you know I don't know are they because no one really usually grades you know the older games on how good they are in a tournament it's just kind of like whatever's available and it's either like it's not acceptable or it's good enough to keep in the tournament so it'd be interesting to see, put it up maybe mid-week as a Facebook vote to see what people think is a better tournament game. There you go. Okay, awesome. Okay, don't know whether we've really answered anything, but there we go. The other thing that we also did a couple of weeks ago, and I forgot to mention it, when we were talking about Steve Ritchie and I was giving my glowing review of Black Knight, we then sort of asked the question, what is Steve Ritchie's best Stern pinball machine. And unfortunately, it's not Terminator 3. That is, wow. Really? 24? People think 24 is just as bad as Terminator 3? Eee. That's disappointing. Yeah, I think it got maybe one or two votes. So, I mean, I should have ordered this better, but I lost the spreadsheet that I sent. But effectively, in reverse order, from bottom to top, You've got Terminator 3 and 24 both got 1% of the vote. Elvis and World Poker Tour got 2% of the vote each. Black Knight got 4%, which obviously it's early days. Yeah, correct. Star Wars, 6% of the vote. Jeez, people hate that plunge. They really don't like that game. I think the next up was Game of Thrones at 10%. I blame the topper. Yeah. Spider-Man got 11%. Okay. It's not bad. ACDC with 28% of the vote. Disappointed in everyone. But with 35% of the vote. What's it? Is it based off everything or his layout? Because Spider-Man and Star Trek are... Yeah. It's not based on anything. It's not based on anything. It's literally based on do you like the machine or not? What's the most popular, super-rich machine in Star Trek? There you go. There you go. All right. well yeah sure anyway that's what time for social media watch funny so well yes it is there's a couple of things that have happened that have caught our eye over the last couple of weeks and here we go you ready ryan social media watch all right so a couple of exciting things really first one was our good friend of the show Keith Elwin hi hashtag keith so he put up a an image that was a picture of um a character that was in Total Recall when Arnie was dressed up as this woman and it was when it malfunctioned and she was saying, two weeks. Two weeks. Was that Arnold Schwarzenegger? I haven't watched it in a while. I thought that was a random person. No, no, no, no, no. That was him actually. It was like this costume that started malfunctioning and it came off and he threw the head at them and said, here's a surprise or something. Anyway, it was a bomb. Anyway, so the point of it was that this clip is this woman saying two weeks. Two weeks. Jurassic Park in two weeks. Yeah. He posted the same thing I think roughly two weeks before Iron Maiden was announced. And yeah, rumors are his game is next. Within the next two weeks, hopefully. We also know, we guessed right. We also know he is a classic shit-stirrer. Well, he's also on a Him in his stupid hats. He was on a podcast recently, I think the Loser Kid podcast, and he was talking about what he likes in a game and what he doesn't like. It's not in front of me, but from memory it was, I think he said every game he has is going to have an Apple Flipper because he loves Apple Flippers. Apple Flipper, yes. We're probably going to see that in the game. He also brought up Jurassic Park. Did he? Okay. Yeah, he did. He's the one who brought it up. Okay. and he said he brought up the Data East version he said he likes toys that can function as two different things change state change state so what's that in Iron Maiden I guess it's the it's the captive ball the mummy captive ball because it acts kind of like as a bash target but then you can it releases the the plunger thing that stops the ball and then it kind of he mentioned he mentioned the left ramp and the middle ramp how it goes up and down and how sometimes the other one the diverter in the left. Yeah. Yep. So, which I think I like that as well because it just gives you variety of single shots. Yeah. That's why Keith P. Johnson's best game is, you know, Lord of the Rings because it's a fan layout, but pretty much almost all the shots can be diverted into something else, which makes it seem like there's more shots. So, I've got to tell you, one of my favorite ramps that has a diverter on it, believe it or not, is Mustang. that left shot which can either be just a straight orbit shot to the upper end lanes or it can be a middle ramp shot or it can go up to the top of the ramp stupid whirlpool ramp I hate that whirlpool ramp I know no one really necessarily loves the whirlpool but I love the fact that you've got one shot that can do three things or the Flintstones ramps which are pretty cool they can divert to either flipper yeah so he'll probably be doing code as well. Yeah. Well, I mean, like, we're figuring out the code, so pretty exciting times because, yeah, it's a good thing this time versus Iron Maiden, which was kind of like pushing a canoe, you know, the wrong way up a river. Which obviously paid off in the end. If he can do that good out of Iron Maiden, then when he gets a theme like Jurassic Park, like dinosaurs and shit, and I don't know. Cool stuff can happen, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'm hopeful that a year down the road or whatever, when they eventually vault Iron Maiden, that it gets put back to Archer, because they still asked him, what would be your dream theme? And he still said Archer, and he said he'd still love to have an Archer game. So I think that they should... I hope that they Shrek that thing. And make it Archer, too. I don't think Archer is popular enough, right? It's a pretty niche. No. But just humour him. He gave you a hit. Is Primus big enough? I mean, come on. I guess if Steve Ritchie got to do his dream, then I guess maybe in 30 years' time we'll see Archer. Anyway, so hopefully we'll find out. The other thing, and again, these things have only happened very recently. Zombie Yeti gave us a bit of a tease as well. so he said on his Facebook page for Zombie Yeti Studios, did I ever mention how fortunate I feel to be able to work on rad projects, it's never lost on me and I can't wait to share some things but in the meantime, how about a tease of a thing and effectively he's just teased a couple of bits of art and if you have a look at one of the images on the bottom left it clearly looks like Keanu Reeves and the other image has the partial word Wild Stallions which I think is the band that they had in that show so it's a Bill and Ted reference. What we don't know is, is this a pinball machine or is it just some art that he's doing? I mean, obviously under NDAs and he couldn't post, you know, like you're not allowed to do that. That's like he could get fired for that. So obviously it's not a pinball machine yet, surely, unless it's like one of those, you know, those double things where it's, yeah, I don't know. It can't be right. It's too easy. They're making a third movie, so who knows? that's right there is a movie coming out but Keanu Reeves so hot right now right do you know what I actually watched believe it or not last night I watched Matrix Reloaded because we were talking about it and was that the second one it was the second one and I was a big defender of it and I still enjoyed it but now having not watched it like it came out in 2003 now I sort of look at it and go there wasn't really much that actually happened in it so I can understand why people... There was a lot of fighting. Some great fights. Yeah, the visual effects don't hold up very well. The fighting scenes with him and Mr. Smith are quite fake. I can now see how fake it looks. Do you remember when the original Matrix came out and they did that bullet time thing? That was such a new concept. Everyone was just like, that scene alone. You've got to watch the movie for this one scene. And then they just copied in every other movie after that. well yeah and in Reloaded they did it 20 times just to remind you that it's all they got yeah hopefully maybe they'll jump on the John Wick train wouldn't that be a fun game just literally just killing people I don't know I'm the only person who doesn't care about John Wick like I watched the first movie I haven't seen it but I've heard it it's not bad but it's just like I think for me to watch a movie where people are getting killed there needs to be some humour attached to it if it's just literally a badass killing someone. He is the humor. Keanu is the humor. Okay, because he's an internet meme now. I mean, I can't imagine him being the quote-unquote badass guy. I don't know. Maybe he pulls it off, but I imagine there must be some funny moments in there. I've watched probably the first 20 minutes of it, of the first movie, and it's very serious. It takes itself too seriously. Oh, well, it must be working. Well, no, obviously not if it's not going to get me on in 20 minutes. Well, not for you. Us three not liking the movie is clearly a big enough reference point. Yeah, make it. Make it, Stuart. It's a big seller. All right, so moving on to something that I know nothing about, but Ryan told me about this, so you can tell me about Spooks Fan Club. There's a big wall of text in front of me. It's basically, I think, they're saying, I thought this was a joke. I thought this was them taking the piss out of Stern's fan club thing, but obviously it's not. But, yeah, they've got a fan club, what they call a fan club, direct reference to, I guess, Alvaro. Give your own shit, Spooky, come on. Yeah, you can join it and what do you get? You get a T-shirt, which probably costs you $25 anyway, and a keychain and a membership card. And I think basically what they're saying is, in the past, if you bought Attack from Mars, if you bought America's Most Haunted, you got first dibs on buying a Rob Zombie. If you bought a Rob Zombie or a – I keep saying Attack from Mars – America's Most Haunted, you get first dibs on buying – was it TNA? Is that their third game? Or was it something else? Yeah, TNA and then Alice Cooper. and basically there's like this chain that if you haven't bought a spooky game and one of their new game comes out, if you're the first person to call them, you still might be 400th on the list, which kind of isn't fair, right? Like if none of those games speak to you just because you haven't bought one of their games and spent, you know, $6,000, whatever it was, $5,000, $500, whatever. Yeah, you're at the back of the list and at the back of the list, the 400th game off the line at CERN probably takes like a week and a half or something. the 400 game up the line at Spooky takes like a year and a half or more. So what they're doing now... Yeah, that's what happened with Chuck. What they're doing now, I think, is they're doing a reset, I guess, where they're saying that if you're part of the fan club, that's the new way to get early access to a game. Did I read that correctly? I haven't read it in a week. I'm just going off my memory. Probably. Who cares? Yeah, Spooky. Looking forward to the next game, though. I am looking forward to that. yeah well so you're because he also said um that it's going to be freaking amazing and the fact that we actually had the time to develop this and we are building alice cooper until december and we have time to correct polish and clean up a lot of things that we've never had the luxury of time to get right we're going to get this right when it hits i think it's going to be awesome i think it is going to bury tna as our best seller that would have to mean that it is a licensed theme obviously i'm sure that's probably information that's out there i haven't been um keeping up to date there's too many freaking machines out there marty is it possible to care about machines that haven't come out yet when there's so many machines that are out right like but also how can you outsell the previous one when you still take for so long to make them well that's that that's the thing that i mean we asked charlie when he's on the show like you know and i was kind of disappointed in his answer but now i totally get it um like why don't you expand like if you take this long to produce machines why don't you just kind of like you know expand and build more and it's because he always wants to be a certain level of of busy and he doesn't want a situation that is out of control or one one game that sells so much and then they have to hire all these people and the next game doesn't sell so much and then then they're gonna have to fire a bunch of people because they live in the middle of nowhere so they they can't get 10 people and they don't want 10 people so um yeah their growth has to be extremely slow to keep the the whole spooky thing going oh the cool thing is though is that none of the australians i guess have to really well i mean we don't have to wait as long as we the people in the us need to wait because they don't ship one at a time to australia so the person who's in first and the person who's in last in australia still get the same shipment so yeah yeah the same right correct yeah which Just sort of like mid-cycle, I think we sort of get them. So shall we do Joe and Ryan tips for top 100? I don't know any tips. I'm listening to Joe's tips and I'm like, how does he know so much stuff? I can... Okay, how about this? I know. I can give my short amount of tips and then Joe can tell me how I'm wrong and actually give you the correct tips. Yeah, I'll see how I can do it. It's like 1.30 in the morning now. I'll see if I can pull this. It is. I know. You'll do well. Don't you worry. Here we go. You ready? Okay, Google, pick a number between 1 and 100. Coming right up. 36. Star Wars. Oh, Leah. Oh, man. Wait, how long do we have? Okay, I'll give you a very – I'll give you my strategy. I'll give you my strategy. And I just picked up a Star Wars for someone else interstate, interstate, so I actually have a Star Wars at my house for the next week or so. And I was trying some different strategies yesterday because I messaged Paul Jones, a friend of the show, Paul Jones, and he said that the strategy that I was using that everyone usually uses is cheap and you should go for other strategies. So I tried the other strategies and I got cheap, shitty scores. So the strategy that I like, right, to block the score is to use R2-D2 because R2-D2 is only one mode away from two wizard modes. Sorry, two modes away, but one in each section. So you choose R2-D2. You light Death Star because it's a hard, shitty shot on a pro and a premium and an ally. And then you backhand the left ramp four or five times until you've qualified Endor. Then you shoot it again to start the mode and you choose Rescue the Princess. It's four shots and then you're in a wizard mode. By the time you get into the wizard mode, I find that 99% of the time TIE Fighter multiball is pretty much ready as well. So as soon as I get into the wizard mode, I bang on the drop targets on the left because as long as you get all the drop targets down, you have your addable. And somewhere in the middle, you'll get a TIE Fighter. So you can keep that shot going. When all this stuff happens, unless you really fuck it up, you should be on a 40 times multiplier because random balls will be flying all over the place and hitting that drop target bank to get up to 20. I can't remember how you get to double multipliers. But I'm pretty sure it's hitting the... I think it's C or E. Yeah, eventually you're going to get that. So then you're on 40x, and then every mode shot in that mode is worth, I think, 200 million or so. And the really cool thing about R2-D2 is that the spread of multipliers, because basically the multipliers are on three shots, and then when it increases, it goes to two, and then to one. but that happens later on in the multiplier stage with r2d2 than other characters um and they last longer as well i think so do that and and you should be up like 1.5 billion or so if you have a good um destroy the death star then you've got one more moe we have to hit eight shots to get into the clouds battle above the clouds whatever it is and if you've done that you've probably won that's my that's my strategy for star wars joe so the only problem with that strategy is that if the game is in tournament mode. Because if the game is in tournament mode, that means it's going to have... It'll only go up to 10x, and how long those multipliers last is greatly reduced. 10x is in, like, including the multiplier? Or just 10x? It'll double to 20. But also, it only gives you, like, 5 seconds or seemingly so before the multipliers start timing out in tournament, because they've tried to really take out the power of the requiredness of the multipliers. That's so stupid, though, because then why are the multipliers in there? Because people that are playing at home for shits and giggles, like, they're not tournament players, and they're not moving the multiplier around. Anyway, keep on going. That's just dumb. It is. That's just to get you... It makes it more... If you really want to keep them there, you have to shoot the risky shots to keep them going. Because I've been playing it recently in tournament, and it's really hard to keep the multiplier going. And as far as I believe about him being two away from wizard modes, I believe that Han is three modes away from three wizard modes. And he has the TIE Fighter available straight away, which means you can get into TIE Fighter really quick. Yeah, he has the picked options. His power is pretty useless because Boba Fett's pretty useless, but that's what I used to play until I found the strategy with Leia. But, I mean, it's it all matters who you're playing because each of them have their own strengths. Leia has a lot of up-front scoring, whereas the two people we've just talked about have a lot of back-end scoring potential, whereas Leia, you'll get a lot of points for scoring your mode shots early on, but then you have pretty much no modes qualified for you, so you're going to have to take the long haul to get to whatever wizard mode you might try and go for. But let see I mean it pretty much it whichever one you pick the basic strategy is just going Leia and hitting going for the mode shots and when you light your mode you pass and then shoot for the other modes until you've lit all the modes which at which point you'll have like four or five hundred million and then you can just go into playing the rest of the game. Isn't it quite risky to hit the Tatooine shot three times and the Death Star shot three times? Like is the risk reward of hitting those? You don't, you pick you pick Tatooine on the first no matter who you're playing you should pick Tatooine on the first no one should ever shoot that shot doesn't that mean you're choosing but you don't get points for it right if you light the missions do you get like the hitting the mode shots as part of it like when you plunge or not really you do get some you don't get like the multiply stuff but if you pick Tatooine you're going to get some points for getting Tatooine but shooting the other shots especially within combos or if you of multipliers lit, it's super substantial. There's been times where I've lit, say, Hoth. I pick Tatooine, I've lit Hoth, I've lit Endor, I drain the ball, I look up, I have 300 million points. I did my strategy yesterday, and I just lit all the modes, and I had 600 million. Obviously, I had some multipliers going on, but then it was said it was after that. It was lost, because I've got my R2D2 strategy that I've been doing 95% of the time yeah so I mean it's there's a lot to do in the game and I mean it's just it just becomes a game of safety and how knowing the copy because each copy plays pretty differently and knowing how you can safely plunge the ball and then after that figuring out can you backhand the right ramp can you backhand the Death Star shot. If you hit half full on, will it go down the middle? It's so random. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's a hard game. It is fun. It's just it can punish you pretty easily. Cool. Star Wars. 10 out of 10. Buy it from your local dispensary. 9 out of 10. Should have a topper. More top of required. Okay, guys, last thing for this week, and that is to announce the winner. And I said the winners of our Pinstadium competition because I'm going to give... Let's go down to fourth place. So the first place winner will win a set of Pinstadiums. Thank you very much, Scott, from Pinstadium for supplying the prize. Second place is going to get a Munsters Translight. You won it at my Munsters launch party. correct so you get a get a monster's trans light third place you'll get a head to head t-shirt you own the why what would I use it for yeah I guess true I've got no I've also got a game of thrones trans light somewhere in my house I won that years ago oh yeah that's your that's your your ifpa profile picture yes correct that was when I won that and so yeah third place we'll get a head to head t-shirt and fourth place will get a packet of critical hit cards. Yep. I've still got some. Nice. So you guys have got, just so we know that this is legit, you should have the list of all the tickets. So I'm going to do the Google Lady and 223 entries we've got. So we're going to do number from 1 to 223 and then Ryle or Joe will read out the name. First? Are you reading out fourth first? Fourth place? Yeah, do it that way. Yeah, let's do fourth place first. Fourth winner. Before you do it, what if someone wins twice? Because there's a lot of repeat names here. Then I get it. Then Joe gets it. I reckon you can win twice. I go for it. We'll see what happens. It favours those people that have put in an injury each week. Here we go. You ready? pick a number between 1 and 223. All right. All right. Very polite. 34. 178. Well, Mike... 178 is Mike T. Cool. Mike T. Mike T. Is there a last name? There is. But we're not going to read out this. Like, you know, we don't want to, you know, give out people's private details just in case. Oh, I wonder if that's who I... Hmm. you win critical hit cards. Okay, here we go again. You get critical hit cards. I will get in touch with you and get your address so I can send them out. Okay, Google, pick a number between 1 and 223. Sure. 194. 68. Bad guesser. Clint W. Well done, Clint. You get a t-shirt. Pick a number between 1 and 223. Sure. This is for second place. One. Munsters Translight. 22. Ooh, low number. 22 is Alison M. Is that Alison we know from... Ah, cool. It certainly is. Great. There you go, fair ground. Well done. He just doesn't want to ship it. I think I'm seeing her next weekend, if you want me to give it to her. Okay, I will. Awesome. Okay, here we go. This is the number one for the set of Pinstadiums, courtesy of Scott from Pinstadium. That is Pinstadium.com. Here we go. Okay, Google, pick a number between 1 and 223. Coming right up. Drum roll. 117. 117 is Howard D. Oh, the juggler. Pinball Howard. and you get a set of pin stadiums. Wow. There you go. That's awesome. So, that was our competition. Thank you, everybody, for writing in. The only other thing, just to add right at the end here, I know Joe needs to go to sleep, but I'm just going to cut more minutes because what do you think was the number one machine that people said could do with a set of pin stadiums? The number one machine. What is a famously dark machine? I probably should know this, but my brain's not working anymore. Oh, man. Wizard of Oz. Really? Oh, yeah. It's got no GI. It doesn't have GI. It's got nothing. It's got light pipes, which means the light is literally under the play field, and they're just trying to reflect it from higher up. I guess I just don't play it enough to remember that. The only other ones that really got multiple votes were Adam's Family got a couple of votes. Guns N' Roses got a couple of votes. so Jack Bart's pretty dirt yeah there's a lot that could do from it there you go we've effectively just subtly plugged to the product one more time so there you go thank you Scott so you know it's now 1.40am in the morning where you are Joe do you think it's time for bed yeah I'm getting my second wind Marty I've been going for another hour what's been up to this week Marty what's been up to let's play climb the top 100 come on I only do this every couple of months I'll let you two kids get your own room and I will you guys can make a I'll hear about it later we are going to finish it now but I just wanted to say thank you Ryan for coming on for the 100th, Joe for being part of the 100th, for the threesome that just happened, just going to wipe myself off now and move on to the rest of my weekend but thanks everybody for listening, thank you for supporting. Thank you for the emails and comments and all the positive stuff that people say about the podcast. We really do appreciate it and here's to another 100. What do you reckon, Joe? Do you want to listen to another 100, Brian? If I listen to 100 more tips, I will know everything about pinball from Joe. That's right. We would have gone through the top 100 by then. That's what I'm here for. I'll be more awake for the end. All right, thanks, guys. Have fun. Good luck in the tournament tomorrow, Joe. Hope you win. Thank you. See you. All right. Thanks, guys. Later. Later. You're listening to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. Find us on Facebook. Email us at head2headpinball at gmail.com or go to our website at head2headpinball.com. So welcome to the Head to Head Pinball podcast. This is our first podcast. My name's Martin. I'm co-host and with me... It's Ryan C. Ryan C. How are you, mate? Pretty good, mate. We're here to talk about pinball. We're here to talk about a lot of things pinball. Another big week in pinball, Marty? Yeah, yet another week where we thought we wouldn't have anything to talk about, and we've got a lot to talk about. And probably starting with you this week, did I hear that you went to another pinball comp? I did, Marty, and you weren't there. You abandoned me. I know. Okay. So I would have played Rolling Stones by Stern, I reckon 50 plus times whilst I was there at Papa. And I can now conclusively tell you it is the biggest steaming piece of shit, pinnacle thing that has ever been released. So, the big new news this week. Ryan, we got to see something. Yeah, we're I don't know if it was the first but we've got to see the playfield art. The home pin is of... Playfield. Playfield, yes, of Thunderbirds. So Thunderbirds are go. Sorry, I've got to say the whole thing. Isn't it Thunderbirds are a go? No, definitely not, definitely not. I got told off for that. I'm impressed. I think it's going to be amazing. We are funny, aren't we? Hey, V. So we just got the Family Guy pinball. What do you think of it? I don't like it. Why is that? Because I think the fight jokes are silly. It's a bit too silly for you? Yes. Okay. But you do want to watch a TV show now, don't you? Yes. Well, too bad you're not old enough. And this week we were playing some games on my Xbox in Pinball Arcade, and we came across Elvira. And what did you say when we saw Elvira? Um, Elvira looks like mummy But what's the difference you said? You don't want to say it? Come on Elvira has bigger babies than mummy I woke up, the very first thing I do every morning when I wake up is I look at my phone I know it's a bad habit, but I do. And as per most mornings, there was a message from you. And I looked at the message, and it had a picture, a picture of a face. And I went, why is he sending me an article on the guy from Making a Murderer? That was my initial look. And then I went, oh, that looks familiar. And then I clicked on the link, and then we found out more. mate stop avoiding the fact that this week you went to a strip club it's true right it's true you've got it here in the show notes this week in pinball the marty section so what's going on what happened okay it is true everybody I went to a strip club. Okay. Good? Yeah, it was... Do you know what? The things that I saw come off in this strip club, I have never seen. I got my hands dirty. Oh, I know. You too, now. All right, joke over. So... But... Let's just call it the big news of the week, Brian. Ah, big news. you've got a vice president lead engineer you've got lead game development being john electrical another electrical another electrical a mechanical a mechanical a mechanical and a software so you've got one two three four five six seven eight nine ten people on the team that right there is nine more people than john had already well wasn't it that there was a comment by Steve Ritchie uh designer of star wars um basically along the lines of saying he's sick of licensed themes so his post was in you know in reply to a comment that somebody made and he said nah i'm sick of licenses right now i'm having real fun in capitals doing what i'm doing next so there's is it possible that stern is making an unlicensed pinball machine is it possible i don't know i mean somebody did comment after it saying along the lines of a bit cheeky saying well if you count vikings as a non-licensed theme vikings that's what someone said so we're just now you know spreading the rumor right Black Knight 3000 Black Knight yeah I don't know could you do that could he actually remake well I do actually know someone was actually at I think it might have actually been Texas Pinball Festival and it was a friend of mine Shane who when it was a Q&A with Steve actually said would you be interested in doing a remake of one of your old games like Getaway or Black Knight and his response was well I already did a sequel to High Speed and it was Getaway I already did a sequel to Black Knight, it was Black Knight 2000 I'm too busy doing new games with new themes, I have no desire to remake any of my old games to sing us out I don't know what to expect I like big butt I don't even know the rest of the lyrics you get it wrong my voice is so bad that's enough I now know what ILBB in the show notes means Marty I'm about to sing you out. Yes, go. I haven't practiced this. Yeah. Grab my terryfold flaps. Grab my flappy folds. Grab my terryfolds. What's this from? Grab my foldy flaps. Hey. Touch my foldy flaps. Grab my terryfolds. You make it, I'm going. Grab my foldy folds. This is another Rick and Morty one. Yes. It is. It was like one of the recent episodes. Bye. Bye. All right, we're done. We are done. Are you going to sing us out? No. Oh, how dare you. Unless you sing me out, I will not sing you out anymore. No. No, that's not it. No? You idiot. Already? Okay. Yeah. This is dedicated to you, Marnie. Okay. Don't stop laughing. I can't. I can't believe it started. All right. say say say say the password it's like o s a g a b o say do you remember what that song what was that eurovision now Eurovision. It was Eurovision. So just FYI, before we go, last week when we were editing, we just started sharing our love of Eurovision. Because remember, we don't know each other that well. We only just discovered after 13 weeks of doing this podcast, we both love Eurovision. We're back now, Jack Alfaro. This is DJ Easy. On WB, right now, something new from Slipdog. This one goes out to all the ladies from all the guys. A big bow, wow, wow. Cause we're gonna make a little missy here tonight This is DJ Easy On the stage next to you across your With a Is that actually a song? Getting down and dirty with the pussy on loader Got no people skills but is good with motives That with him by his side and infantilized Sequoia The two of them walk by, people say oh boy-a They ask why I'm bringing a baby into battle That's real irresponsible Them getting them wrapped What's this from? I say give me a break Get off of my back, dammit I didn't learn parenting My daddy was a planet Zadu Hasselfrau, Zadu Hasselfrau How do you know these lyrics? I'm reading them No, I've listened I've listened I've had the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 soundtrack on my phone Since the movie came out And it is the best. And the last song, you will actually like this because you like cheesy Europop trash. You know I do. It's Guardians Inferno. Have you not listened to Guardians Inferno by David Hasselhoff? I'm going to have to. Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true. You're a pal and a confidant. And if you threw a party And invited everyone you knew You would see the biggest gift would be from me And the card attached would say Thank you for being a friend Do you know what that's off? The Golden Cards. Yes, Amy. You got it. Done. Thank you, everybody. That was amazing, Sing Out. thank you it's not in the way that you stay till the end it's not in the way you look all the things that you say that you do all the lies love isn't always on time oh oh oh that's for you Stacey oh you're singing out to the best you're ruining pinball man So everyone can head down to the Silver Ball Saloon in Rochester. Don't you think it's a bit weird that you have a scrotum sack from an animal? Like, just, you carry it around to keep your stuff? It's so weird. Where else am I going to keep the coins? They're going to scratch my cell phone. Does it have... Ah, okay. Does it have the two balls at the end, or is it... No, no, it's just... You've got to go look it up. Just type it up. I have... You can get a single or a double ball pouch. A single or a double? What are you talking about, a single or a double? Some of them look like there's two balls at the end. They cut them in a single. Oh, no, this doesn't. No, there's just no seams in it. Like a... Last Christmas. I fucking hate this song. I gave you my heart, and the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to Dalding because it's special. Oh, I hate that song. Every year, it just starts playing. Well, you know what? You may hate that song, but you may have some consolation that Wham got sued by Barry Manilow for that song, even though it was a charity song. There you go. Merry fucking Christmas. Okay. by Berturna I looked it up it's a death metal song I will sing it but you didn't say you're going to vote for me so if you vote for me ask sorry in the two piece I will sing that song are you going to sing it out Marty well I can you are you going to sing it I can sing it well do you know what time it is what time is it Marty it's Christmas time there's no need to be afraid At Christmas time We let in light And we banish shade Sing along if you know it And in our world Of plenty We can spread a smile of joy Throw your arms around the world At Christmas time I don't know this song Oh my god Only the best charity Christmas song in the world. Dutch Pinball had a shit year. They did. They had a shit year. They released nothing. They just released nothing, except they talked about... Lots of emails and webinars. They had lots of emails, and they had a contract manufacturer that makes machines that folds envelopes. let that fucking sink in right there. Anyway, I hope they do well because I played Dutch. I played... Yes, and we have a friend. We've heard the story. Lucas, my friend, has a thing. Hi, Lucas. I love you. And I want you to get your whatever. What's the machine called? The Deglebowski. Deglebowski. Thank you. What happened else? Magic Girl Stream. We got to play Magic Girl. What a fucking piece of shit that is. Bye. Fucking hell, Marty. I want all that junk piece left in there. How old are you? I'm 19. Hilarious. They make letter folding machines. So cheesy. Geometry. You've got a more manual voice than me, Marty. I just, you know, I just want it to be magical. Just to average Aussie guys, who'd have thought, what a surprise, that these two would hit it off so well. A podcast worth listening, the pinball chat is bristling, the whole world is under their spell. Oh, Muddy and Ryan, not a bromance, more like a romance And given a half chance, under the covers, they'd both be lovers Talking pinball, having a blast Time for the Top 100 Opportunities are squandered Who's gonna win? The stakes are high If pinball's got a spinner, Ryan loves it, he's a winner Muddy loses, cos he reads a flyer They have many pinball guests, Jeff Fiolas, he does jest How about Johnson, Gomez, Ritchie, Sheetal and White Some are coders, Muddy likes Hey Highway, take a hike And Ryan likes a good, real set, obsessed Buddy and Ryan It's not a bromance More like a romance