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#26 - Hands On Review of NEW Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses Pinball

A Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·34m 10s·analyzed·Oct 21, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

GNR Pinball: Spectacular lights/sound but excessive multiball and scoop-centric design make it fun but not a daily driver.

Summary

A hands-on review of the new Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses pinball machine by a casual player who finds it a fun but flawed experience. The game excels in lights, sound, and theme integration but suffers from excessive multiball, a central scoop design that dominates gameplay, poor playfield flow during multiballs, and a rule set that doesn't match the layout. The reviewer rates it a B- and compares it to a Michael Bay movie—fun in short bursts but exhausting over time.

Key Claims

  • Guns N' Roses is a contender for game of the year but not his personal game of the year.

    high confidence · Speaker explicitly states this within first 5 minutes of review, framing entire discussion.

  • The plunge design is awkward and feeds inconsistently to the right flipper, forcing nudging immediately.

    high confidence · Speaker describes hands-on experience with plunge: 'Everything's always a short plunge and then the ball is constantly just feeding to the right flipper. If you're lucky, if it's set up correctly.'

  • Strategic draining (intentionally losing balls mid-song to clear playfield) became the dominant strategy due to multiball chaos.

    high confidence · Speaker states: 'I found myself my workaround for playing these songs was to legitimately just drain. I would just drain, let the balls clear out, and then I would take my shot whenever it was open.'

  • The scoop is the most important shot in the entire game (starts songs, adds balls, cashes jackpots) yet its central placement creates poor playfield geometry.

    high confidence · Speaker: 'The scoop, in my opinion, is the most important shot in the entire game... And I still, I'm not a fan of scoops in general playing central features in the game.'

  • Right orbit feed to left flipper is broken or poorly designed, causing it to hit the sling and drain repeatedly.

    high confidence · Confirmed across multiple GNRs: 'I've watched several other videos on it and it tends to do the same thing.'

  • The light show sometimes obscures the ball and makes it hard to know what shot to take without reading the backglass screen.

    high confidence · Speaker: 'The light show's going off so much. I'm like, where's the ball at? I don't know... other times the light show was going off so much didn't even know what to shoot until we read the back screen.'

  • Playfield wear already visible on drumsticks and rubbers; potential playfield pulling issues anticipated.

    medium confidence · Speaker: 'I did notice that there was some wear on the drumsticks already. I didn't expect it... I got a feeling that this is going to be coming out pretty quick... playfield pulling issues... it would not shock me one bit.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I think that this pen is kind of like a Michael Bay action movie right I think if you spend a Friday night playing it you going to have a lot of fun... But I don't think it would be a pen, in my opinion, for me. It's not the type of pen to where I can have it at home and I would want to play it every single day.”

    Podcast Host (Reviewer) @ ~35:00 — Core thesis of review—GNR is entertaining in short bursts but exhausting long-term, encapsulating the multiball fatigue.

  • “It feels like demolition derby pinball. That's what it became. It was exactly that. In my opinion, my experience is like demolition derby pinball, just balls crashing into each other.”

    Podcast Host @ ~31:00 — Vivid metaphor for multiball chaos frustration; becomes his shorthand criticism for the game's core design issue.

  • “The scoop, in my opinion, is the most important shot in the entire game because it's where you can start your songs, it's where you can add balls and keep your jackpots going up higher, or it's where you can cash in a jackpot.”

    Podcast Host @ ~24:00 — Identifies central design problem: scoop dominates all strategic decision-making, limiting layout variety.

  • “I would say it's a solid B-. That was my experience on it. And the lights and the theme integration are clearly the star on this pen.”

    Podcast Host @ ~41:00 — Final rating and key insight: theme/lights are strengths, but they can't overcome gameplay issues.

  • “I found myself just extremely frustrated by that and every single song you're basically having to be in multi-ball in order to get your score up you have to do that and there was no way really around just strategically draining there just wasn't.”

    Podcast Host @ ~18:00 — Explains why strategic draining became necessary—rule set forces multiball as only viable scoring path.

  • “For me personally, that's not my game style anyways. I know that that's what this game kind of wants you to do, but I found myself at least 70 to 80% of the time in these songs strategically draining.”

    Podcast Host @ ~17:00 — Reveals mismatch between game design intent and his gameplay preference; suggests design may alienate control-focused players.

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyGuns N' RosesgameDominic KasichpersonStern PinballcompanyMetallicagameAvengersgameStar WarsgameAttack from Marsgame

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Anticipation that future code updates by recognized rules designers (Josh Sharp, Carl) will address tournament viability.

    medium · Speaker: 'I'm sure we'll probably see it in disc in a couple of years or Josh Sharp will figure out something on it or Carl will figure out something on it.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Strategic draining emerges as dominant optimal strategy; suggests rule set may create poor tournament play dynamics if adopted.

    high · Speaker: 'I found myself at least 70 to 80% of the time in these songs strategically draining... There was no way really around just strategically draining there just wasn't.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Game unlikely to be tournament-viable in current code state; significant rule set redesign needed before competitive adoption.

    high · Speaker: 'When they talk about this game being in tournaments, possibly and all this and that... I feel like the entire rule set has to completely change. So in my opinion, it's not even up for discussion.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Rule set does not match playfield layout; excessive multiball prevents meaningful gameplay flow and forces strategic draining as optimal strategy.

    high · Speaker: 'I'm still not convinced, though, that the rule set is really matching up with the layout... there's enough flow in this game to justify having that many balls.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Central scoop placement creates poor playfield geometry; right orbit feed to left flipper is broken/inadequate across multiple machines.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.103

0:00
All right, welcome back guys to episode 26 of a pinball podcast. Thank you guys once again so much for taking time out of your day to either listen or watch this. I really do appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for the comments, the likes, the dislikes, the email messages, the text, whatever it could be. I just appreciate the interaction. Thank you guys so much. So this entire podcast is just going to be about my hands on time with Guns N' Roses. it's my mini review basically and you know i want to preface this with keep in mind that this is my opinion and my opinion only on my experience on it it is not gospel it doesn't mean your opinion is invalidated all it means is is i'm an idiot with a microphone and a camera that's the only difference all right so moving forward it is october 19th right now and if i'm looking down if you're watching this on video and I'm looking down a lot, it's because I have my play field picture down here on my phone. Unfortunately, as soon as I posted something up on YouTube about putting out a podcast tomorrow, my whole internet just went down completely. So I have no access to notes, pictures, anything. So I'm going off a lot of this just off memory and off my experience there. All right. So I, you know, just to get straight to it and just be completely honest with you guys. And this is going to be the question that'll be asked. Is this a contender for game of the year? Is this going to be game of the year? My personal take on it? Of course, it's going to be a contender for game of the year. Of course. Do I think this is game of the year?
1:39
No, I don't. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And, you know, hopefully this podcast kind of explains my experience on it. And you can, you know, if you listen to it, you can kind of see where I'm coming from on it. But that doesn't mean, though, that this game isn't fun. It doesn't mean that it can't be enjoyable. It doesn't mean that it's still going to be somebody's grail pin. And so I'm trying to figure out which direction I want to go with this. Do I want to talk about my positives first or my negatives, or do I just want to talk through my whole experience on it? So we'll, we'll kind of see, this will kind of vary up. Cause like I said, no notes or anything like that. We're just, we're going in, we're just going in and we'll see where this takes us. So, all right, let's just get the obvious out of the way. The lights and the sound are spectacular, spectacular. It's, it's bar none, the standard for how pinball should be. and you know i think also too at the same time there are there are some drawbacks to the lights and we will get to that but overall it is generally the standard for the direction that pinball should go let me put it that way it's a direction that pinball should go when we talk about light shows we talk about immersion we talk about sounds we talk about all that one of the nuances to this pin that I really loved was the fact that the sound was down low or lower when you started playing. But as you got into a song, it was legitimately like a concert. It got louder and louder. That part I really liked. And, you know, overall, it really, it brought me into the overall feel of the gameplay, right? Or the direction that they were taking it. But I will say too, on the other hand, I tried out all kinds of different songs. I'm not familiar with every single song that Guns N' Roses has ever done. All I know is, is after playing baseball for a few decades, I personally am tired of being Welcome to the Jungle. It's just that they played that song all the time. But obviously, it's popular for a reason. So that being said, there were times to where whenever you got into certain songs, for me, it didn't feel like it matched up with what was going on on the play field.

  • Concert footage uses lip-synced studio music rather than live concert footage, making animations feel inauthentic.

    high confidence · Speaker: 'It was obvious to me that this was not live music... the mouth movements and the movements on stage were not matching up with the song.'

  • Playing November Rain during a 5-6 ball multiball felt tonally jarring and out of place with the frenetic multiball gameplay.

    high confidence · Speaker with Dominic Kasich: 'We were just laughing... because it was just so out of place. It was very out of place.'

  • The game has potential playfield pulling issues based on visual inspection of how components are set up.

    low confidence · Speaker cautiously observes: 'it's just looking at it and seeing how some things are set up, it's almost like I could tell that there's a hint of it being possible.'

  • “There were times that we could not even see the ball. We couldn't even see the ball. We're busy playing. The light show's going off so much. I'm like, where's the ball at? I like, I don't know.”

    Podcast Host @ ~43:00 — Demonstrates tension between light show spectacle and practical gameplay visibility.

  • “I think that if you're a Guns N' Roses fan, you will enjoy this game. If you're not a Guns N' Roses fan, your mileage may vary.”

    Podcast Host @ ~37:00 — Concluding assessment: game's appeal is theme-dependent, not universal to all pinball players.

  • “I don't think it's a great layout, but I don't think it's a bad layout either. I think that the layout does what it needs to do for this game in order for everything to come together.”

    Podcast Host @ ~33:00 — Nuanced view: layout is adequate but not excellent; serves the theme but constrains gameplay.

  • “I would have to give the edge to Avengers when it comes to gameplay, when it comes to overall flow, when it comes to overall fun factor dealing with code and finding things to do and nuances to do.”

    Podcast Host @ ~48:00 — Direct competitive comparison to another premium licensed game; indicates GNR falls short on gameplay depth despite stronger theme integration.

    • Josh Sharpperson
    Carlperson
    Pinball Arcadeproduct
    A Pinball Podcastorganization

    high · Speaker confirmed same right-orbit issue with Dominic Kasich across two separate GNR machines: 'However, on the other Guns N' Roses that they played, the scoop also fed straight down the middle. On this one, it didn't do that.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Excessive light show choreography creates visibility issues during active play; designers prioritized spectacle over practical ball-tracking during multiball.

    high · Speaker: 'The light show's going off so much... where's the ball at? I don't know... other times the light show was going off so much didn't even know what to shoot until we read the back screen.'

  • $

    market_signal: Game appeals primarily to themed fans rather than gameplay purists; has strong casual/social appeal but limited daily-play appeal.

    high · Speaker: 'I think you can play this game and not even care about the score... you can just play it and just put on a song, just see the lights... That's what pinball should be for casual play.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Concert footage animations suffer from lip-sync issues; studio music used instead of live music, creating authenticity concerns.

    high · Speaker: 'It was obvious to me that this was not live music... the mouth movements and the movements on stage were not matching up with the song.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Disc spinner spins too easily compared to Avengers; potential quality/assembly issue or design choice not yet validated.

    medium · Speaker: 'That sucker felt like it spun really easy, almost too easy... I didn't know if something might have been loose on it or if that was just how it was.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Playfield wear already visible on drumsticks and rubbers after limited play; potential playfield pulling issues suspected based on component setup.

    medium · Speaker: 'I did notice that there was some wear on the drumsticks already... I got a feeling that this is going to be coming out pretty quick... playfield pulling issues... it would not shock me one bit.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: November Rain playing during 5-6 ball multiball highlights tonal mismatch between song selection and frenetic gameplay; suggests code difficulty in matching song to mode intensity.

    high · Speaker with Dominic Kasich: 'We were just laughing during it. And it wasn't like we were laughing because it was just hysterical fun. We were laughing because it was just so out of place.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Player fatigue sets in rapidly; after 10-15 games, reviewer was exhausted by multiball-heavy gameplay despite initial novelty.

    high · Speaker: 'After about 10, 12, 15 games, somewhere right around there, I was good. I was fine with what it was... would be like watching a Michael Bay movie every single day. And I think we can all agree we can just take that in spurts.'

    • 3:56
    And there would be some times, like there was one time in particular, and I talked about this before, that just watching it on somebody else's stream is kind of jarring. In person, it was even more jarring. And that's when I was in like a five or six ball multi-ball. I forget. There was a lot of balls going around. But November rain was playing. And we were just, you know, I was there with a buddy, with Dominic Kasich of St. Louis, and who is a top-tier player, Power 100 player, excellent pinball player as well. And we were just laughing during it. And it wasn't like we were laughing because it was just hysterical fun. We were laughing because it was just so out of place. It was very out of place. And that just kind of was kind of my experience overall on it, that there were some parts on this game that was just great, spectacular. It was thrilling. And then other parts on it was just a total head-scratcher. And that's just kind of an example of where I'm going to be going with this. And if I sound like I'm rambling my thoughts, again, no notes, top of the head, and we'll just go. So we'll start off from the very, very beginning, the plunge.
    5:08
    I personally don't understand why there's a plunge like this on this type of game. I don't understand. I'm sure others have talked about it. I personally, I have not listened to anybody else's take on this game. The only podcast I've listened to recently was the pinball show with Dennis and Zach. And that was probably like two weeks ago now. And I haven't listened to anything else. But, you know, this plunge, it just doesn't make any sense to me. Just because you don't, you can't full plunge, obviously. Everything's always a short plunge. and then the ball is constantly just feeding to the right flipper. If you're lucky, if it's set up correctly. If it's not set up correctly, then you're taking a chance that that ball might just go straight down the middle or might go to the tip of your right flipper. You're definitely going to have to nudge to get a ball on a flipper. That's a little awkward starting out. I'm not going to lie. It's a little different, but obviously designer choice, that's what they wanted to do. And so after that, it became apparent that obviously you're, and I'm not going to go over the whole rule set or anything like that, but it became apparent that there was a lot of what seemed like filler multi balls, which the idea is, is that they're easily achievable and that those also can help you. I'm assuming progress towards a song and increase your scoring once you're in a song. That's kind of the gist that we got. We went in there completely cold, not really knowing the rules, not making an attempt to really know the rules. We wanted to see how much of this was intuitive.
    6:41
    And so that's the gist that we started to get. And what we eventually worked towards with our general strategy was just going left ramp all day long until we got to our six locks. And then it automatically started a song. That's typically what was happening. Now, the scoring by doing that was sometimes good, sometimes bad. And there was one particular time in which I literally played through a full entire song, played through the whole thing, and my score was less than, I want to say, 800,000 on my cash-in jackpot, and I was hitting all the shots that needed to be hit.
    7:19
    And there was another time that Dom was playing in which he got through maybe halfway through the song and his jackpot was easily over six million easily and we got to where we decided that we weren't really going to try or at least i did i wasn't going to try to cash in jackpots i want to see how high i could take these jackpots because the way that i understood that it worked was that whenever you were in a song you would do basically what the game was telling you to do now the drawback for me the light show was so much that i honestly couldn't really tell what was going on. It wasn't very intuitive, for me at least, to know what to shoot right off the bat. Now, obviously, on the back screen that's on the playfield, there was a screen that told you exactly what to shoot at. And then once you saw the colors, you could kind of see it on the playfield. But even then, there got to be so much chaos that sometimes it was very difficult to hit all the balls all around once you start adding balls and not cashing in your jackpot. in that middle scoop. And once all the multiballs started up it just it became for me it became frustrating Very fast And I found myself my workaround for playing these songs was to legitimately just drain. I would just drain, let the balls clear out, and then I would take my shot whenever it was open. I'd go ahead and take my shot. I would not flail around. That's, I mean, personally, that's not my game style anyways. I know that that's what this game kind of wants you to do, but I found myself at least 70 to 80% of the time in these songs strategically draining. I didn't find any reason to play multiple balls besides I just kept adding a ball. If there was a ball save going, I would let it clear out, and I'd go ahead and take my shots from there. And that helped me progress along. But for me personally, that wasn't very fun. For me personally, it's not fun strategically draining the majority of the time. And then on top of that, whenever I did drain, it was basically a guarantee that there was no way to really control the plunge after that. Because it's a short plunge, it is automatically feeding back into the middle of the play field towards your flippers. So you don't even get a chance to get this ball cleared out towards a pop bumper, towards a loop around, towards whatever. It's immediately, every single time you are in a song, you constantly have balls that are in the way. Now, for a casual player, probably won't care about that. I would have to assume they would not care about that. For somebody that's just flipping and just going, they just wouldn't care. I don't think that they would. Somebody that likes to play more under control, you're going to see some frustration out of it, I think. My experience was is I was frustrated. And maybe that's just because I'm just terrible, just flailing away, playing different multiballs. I can't control it. I'm not that type of player on the fly. I'm on the fly until I don't need to be. In this game, it feels like you constantly have to be on the fly. And for me, that's just not an enjoyable experience. Because again, as I was playing this layout, it felt like that the layout in general was okay. If I'm in single ball, I felt like it was okay. And again, I just got to where I was just hitting left ramp the whole time. And by doing that, we were still putting up scores easily three to five million if we wanted to, if we were cashing out. It wasn't really that difficult. But at the same time, there were some other instances to where if we went ahead and just played songs without doing that, it would be maybe 200 to 500,000 points. So obviously there's something to it rule set wise with that. but I found myself just extremely frustrated by that and every single song you're basically having to be in multi-ball in order to get your score up you have to do that and there was no way really around just strategically draining there just wasn't and so I found that part very frustrating for me it wasn't rewarding but when I was in single ball play I could find different parts of the play field that you know were satisfying shots the center spinner was more satisfying than what I anticipated although I still don't like the fact that it just feeds directly into the pops whenever I was in single ball again the gameplay itself was not fast for me it wasn't fast it never felt like I was out of control it never really felt like I was in danger the pen just played like it was bouncy. There's rubbers put in different parts of the game that are interesting design choices. Or, you know, for one example, on the left-hand side, the two in lanes there, there's actually a rubber in the middle post right there. So that caused a lot of interesting bounces within that area. But other than that, you know, the other parts that, that was interesting slash frustrating, basically, was whenever you got to the upper play field, there didn't really feel like there was really much to do. It was you're either hitting it towards the left side to where it would feed back around to the left flipper, or you're hitting it into the guitar neck for your locks. Or if you don't hit it at all, it's going to fall in a little hole, and then it's going to feed that loop. Well, that loop, every single time, was feeding it towards the right outlay to where you had to make a move nearly every single time.
    13:09
    And I don't know yet if that's a design choice or if that's a setup issue. I don't know yet, so I can't really comment on that. I do know that the player I was playing with noted that they'd played on two separate GNRs and it did the same thing on both. However, on the other Guns N' Roses that they played, the scoop also fed straight down the middle. On this one, it didn't do that. We could safely let it hit off the left flipper and just go over to the right.
    13:37
    Now, the scoop in general, I'm not going to lie, I wasn't a big fan when I saw it, and I'm still not a big fan after playing it. The fact is that that scoop ends up being the most important shot in the entire game. I mean, let's face facts. The scoop, in my opinion, is the most important shot in the entire game because it's where you can start your songs, It's where you can add balls and keep your jackpots going up higher, or it's where you can cash in a jackpot. So therefore, de facto, it becomes the most important shot in the game, in my opinion.
    14:15
    And I still, I'm not a fan of scoops in general playing central features in the game. I'm not a big fan of that. I think that they need to be there more for, I don't know, maybe a complementary part of the play field. But I've just never really been a fan of scoops. On Metallica, it's okay. I understand the function of the scoop, but at least it's off to the side. And it becomes important, obviously, when you're playing certain modes with the crank it up and everything. But whenever there's a scoop smack dab in the middle, we found ourselves, Anytime that we were taking a bailout shot or anything like that, the ball would often go into the scoop and would stop gameplay. Or other times it was just dinking off the scoop and just kind of floating back down to the flippers. And that's really going to be most people's experience on this game, I believe. Just because of the way that the geometry plays out on this game, you're going to be spending a lot of time in the lower half of the play field. And you're going to be spending a lot of time in the lower half of the play field while in multi-ball. and while you're in multiball, you're gonna spend the large majority of your time flipping away. So all that really does is just create a bunch of chaos in front of you constantly, constantly.
    15:35
    Like I said, this is why I ended up adopting the strategy of just strategically, can't pronounce my words right now, just draining on purpose to let balls clear out so I could get clear shots at the spinner, at the ramps, at the orbits. so I could do all that. Now, in terms of overall game flow and combos, again, I'm still not seeing it. There's a couple of different ways. I mean, I've hit left ramp, right ramp, and then hit an orbit shot, but after that, I mean, it was about it. Even whenever we hit the right orbit and it came around, oftentimes it hit the top of that post, you know, where the sling is, and it would just go out. Like I never had a good feed from the right orbit to the left flipper. It never fed good once.
    16:24
    And I don't, again, I don't think that that's a setup thing. I think that that's just a geometry thing on that because I've watched several other videos on it and it tends to do the same thing.
    16:37
    Again, it could be, you know, it could be how that lane guide up there is set up. I don't know. But I suspect that the majority of pens will kind of do what happened to me.
    16:47
    Now, and I know that right now, like I said, my thoughts are a little jumbled without my notes, and I know it kind of sounds like, well, we're being super negative and all that, but here's what I will say. I think that this pen is kind of like a Michael Bay action movie right I think if you spend a Friday night playing it you going to have a lot of fun If you're drinking a beer with friends, you're going to have fun. But I don't think it would be a pen, in my opinion, for me. It's not the type of pen to where I can have it at home and I would want to play it every single day. I would get I mean I'm not gonna lie guys after about 10 games I was already tired of it I just was and it was just because of the amount of multi-balling it wasn't that I was tired of it because it was just too much awesomeness thrown in my face I was just tired of it because it felt like I was having to play defense a lot during times to where I did not want to play defensive pinball whenever a song is blaring or rock songs blaring. Like I wanted to go on the offense and you can't really do that if balls are just crashing into each other. Because again, it's just, it's like demolition derby pinball. That's what it became. It was exactly that. In my opinion, my experience is like demolition derby pinball, just balls crashing into each other. Sometimes you'll hit a shot, then you'll clear three or four shots and then you'll be able to collect on the scoop. Now, one of the songs that I played, somehow, one shot ended the song. Don't know how that happened. I don't even remember which song it is, but it did happen. Another time, I went ahead and played out the full song just to see what would happen, and my jackpot that was built up to like six or seven million was just gone. It was gone, and I went into some type, I guess it was a mini wizard mode, to where it said Chinese democracy on the play field, and And it was some type of like hit the red, white, and blue shots. So I think it was a mini wizard mode. But the wizard mode itself, assuming that that's what this was, there wasn't much scoring to it. And I was hitting shots. And that was frustrating. But, yeah, I understand the nuance that you want to cash out a jackpot before the song ends. But it was a little frustrating to play an entire song out and you're hitting all your shots. and you're playing decent and the reward for it is that your jackpot is completely gone and you're playing in another mini wizard mode that is worth less, considerably less than your jackpot. But that's on me. That's the rule set. So now I know in the future whenever I play it. The other thing that was a little bit jarring as well, it was funny because there'd be some songs that you would start up and in the middle of it, you might have maybe one to two million points, somewhere like that, and then all of a sudden you have a jackpot cash out. Like Dom, he had one that was built up over 12 million. So we're talking a jackpot cash out that is six times the value of his current score.
    20:02
    And it's just, I don't know, it's different. It's different. I can't think, and I'm sure there are games out there like that, but I can't think of games in particular to where the cash out score is that much different. Obviously on Attack from Mars, you have your big cash out whenever you're in total annihilation. I'm sure there's some other ones I'm not thinking of off the top of my head, but I will say with my experience on Guns and Roses, it's, you know, that's a little different as well. And I don't know, I personally, I don't know if that's a score balance issue. I don't know if that's just what's meant to happen. And I just, I don't know enough to make an opinion, a firm opinion on it. I just think it's just, it's kind of odd, but kind of funny and hilarious at the same time to know that you could just cash out a massive jackpot whenever your score is abysmal at that time. And I guess that's, you know, that comes into the risk reward is what it boils down to.
    21:00
    Other parts to it, you know, when you look at the play field itself, you know, I'm not a huge fan of the artwork, but the lights on it, like I said, it's awesome when you're just looking at it. The lights are awesome. The actual things on the play field, it's very interesting to me. The little details that they did, I mean, it's cool. Let's just call it what it is. It's really cool. The drumsticks are cool. The guitar spinner, pick spinners, those are really cool. The catwalks, I mean, that's a nice touch. The guitar neck for the locks, a lot of it, really nice touches. Really nice touches. But when you get down to it, you know, I try to look at the geometry of the game, and I think about how I'm going to enjoy this. And I've played enough pinball over the years and played enough different eras to where I can look at a pin and I can know pretty quick whether or not I'm going to enjoy this type of layout and whether or not I'm going to absolutely love it or if I'm going to be like, eh, about it. With this layout, I was kind of on the fence about it. And like I said, I don't think it's a great layout, but I don't think it's a bad layout either. I think that the layout does what it needs to do for this game in order for everything to come together. I'm still not convinced, though, that the rule set is really matching up with the layout in general just because it doesn't feel like that there's enough flow in this game to justify having that many balls, especially when you just got to hit it around. And like I said, the vast majority of the time is, you know, the multi-balls are spent in the lower half of the play field just, you know, hitting around on each other. But that's what it is. I mean, that's the decisions that were made.
    22:48
    And so, you know, just thinking about it more and more, Like I said, after about 10, 12, 15 games, somewhere right around there, I was good. I was fine with what it was. And it left me thinking, just looking at the game in general, trying to find any issues in terms of play field, in terms of wear, anything like that. I did notice, I did notice that there was some wear on the drumsticks already. I didn't expect it. I did notice that on the rubbers, it seemed like that the rubbers have a chance to fray fairly quick. The disc, I think that there's going to be several issues with the disc. That sucker felt like it spun really easy, almost too easy. It makes me, like, I didn't know if something might have been loose on it or if that was just how it was. But it did feel a lot easier to make it spin as compared to how Avengers plays, right? the other part though I noticed and I got a feeling that this is going to be coming out pretty quick as of right now I've not heard anything about this from anybody else but it would not shock me one bit if there's play field pulling issues it would not shock me one bit and it might be coming out here pretty soon I don't know I hope not it's just looking at it and seeing how some things are set up, it's almost like I could tell that there's a hint of it being possible.
    24:17
    So I don't know. Hopefully, hopefully not. Hopefully my eyes are deceiving me. I didn't really look that close. It just seems like the possibility is there. But, you know, overall, I think it's fair to say that obviously if you're a Guns N' Roses fan, I think it's fair to say you'll like this game. And I know that there's some people out there, it's like, well, no crap. Of course you will. But hey, no, no, because Star Wars, I guarantee there's a lot of Star Wars fans who don't like that game. Guarantee there's a lot of Avengers fans who don't like the Gomez Avengers. Just the way it is. So I think it's a fair assessment to say about this game that if you're a Guns N' Roses fan, you will enjoy this game. If you're not a Guns N' Roses fan, your mileage may vary. One of the other things I noticed, and I meant to talk about this earlier. One of the other things that I noticed and the animations were really cool. Really cool. What I did not like, personally, I didn't like the concert footage along with the music being played. It was obvious to me that this was not live music. So even watching the screen, it just felt like I was just watching obvious, you know, it was obviously lip syncing that was occurring. And it not that in the concert that they were doing that It just the way that this had to be put together without using the live portions and using the studio portions So I don know maybe it might not have been as weird if they were doing a music video and they were just showing the music videos. I mean, I personally would have liked that along with some concert footage, but I don't know. It just, for me, it seemed off. It just, it seemed off. I would have much rather had it be live. I wish it could have been, obviously, there was probably limitations on that and probably the reason why they had to use studio music as opposed to live music and then they had to kind of sync those things up together you could tell it was synced together because there were some parts that obviously the the mouth movements and the movements on stage were not matching up with the song i i mean i noticed that it didn't happen all the time don't get me wrong i'm not like oh this is a total disaster i'm just saying some spots it was noticeable and i'm sure that will be fine-tuned in the future i'm sure it will be i think that this code this code in general and everything it's still you know it's i won't say it's got a long ways to go it's got a little ways to go in my opinion it just it feels like that it feels like this code was meant to be much more shallow than what it is you know what i mean It just feels like there's some bloat to it, like stuff was added on afterwards, and it just, I don't know how to describe it. It's just my instinct playing it. And at the same time, the light show in general, like I said, excellent, but there was times that we could not even see the ball. We couldn't even see the ball. We're busy playing. The light show's going off so much. I'm like, where's the ball at? I'm like, I don't know. Other times, it's a little bit more muted, and then we could see it just fine. Everything's fine. other times the light show was going off so much didn't even know what to shoot until we read the back screen and then it said okay look for these lights and then we found those lights because there was a couple instances those lights would fade in and out so if you're playing a multi-ball and the light faded out then you're like okay the shot's not there i'm gonna look this way you're like okay the shot's not there i'm gonna look back this way oh the shot's there now and Now I'm going to go. It's the way it felt. And that was a little bit frustrating. It was a little bit frustrating, but I think that that's the give and take just because that's the way that this light show was meant to be. It was meant to be highly choreographed. It was meant to be a concert. And in that sense, it passes in spades. It passes in spades. And that is my overall experience with this pen. My overall experience, I would say, if I'm going to rate it, and again, like I said, my thoughts were all over the place, but if I had to truly rate my experience on this pen, I would say it's a solid B-. That was my experience on it. And the lights and the theme integration are clearly the star on this pen. I think the overall amount of multiball, wasn't a fan of that. I understand why it has to be that way. I don't know. I've thought about this for a couple of days now. I don't know how you could really code around that. I have no idea. I, you know, when they talk about this game being in tournaments, possibly and all this and that, I just, I feel like the entire rule set has to completely change. So in my opinion, it's not even up for discussion. I'm sure somebody will figure it out. Eventually. I'm sure we'll probably see it in disc in a couple of years or Josh Sharp will figure out something on it or Carl will figure out something on it. So, But other than that, to me, that's not even up for discussion. The main discussion is, are you going to enjoy this game when you are playing it with friends? And I think absolutely you will.
    29:33
    But will this be the type of game that you can play day in and day out and not get tired of it? If you're a Guns N' Roses fan, highly likely. If you're like me and you're not, it's just, for me, no. For me, no. I honestly, it was so much going on. Like I said, it was fun, but it would be like watching a Michael Bay movie every single day. And I think we can all agree we can just take that in spurts. So I think the pen achieves exactly what it set out to do, though. Overall, it's fun to play. But I don't think if I do draw a comparison to Avengers or just something like that, which we'll have another podcast where we'll explain all that. But if I draw a comparison, I would have to give the edge to Avengers when it comes to gameplay, when it comes to overall flow, when it comes to overall fun factor dealing with code and finding things to do and nuances to do. But when it comes to Guns N' Roses, I think you can play this game and not even care about the score. I really do. I think you can just play it and just put on a song, just see the lights, hit it, hear some sounds, and hopefully not the keyboard sound that sounds like a slot machine. That was kind of strange. But to hear the other songs, the other sounds, the call-outs, which were really cool, call-outs were really cool. You know, to hear all that come together, those parts I think is where it shines. And I could see them going towards coding something like that in to where you just have unlimited ball save and you just put on a song, you put on the light show, you crank it up, and you just go and you just have fun. Rightfully so. That's what pinball should be. pinball should be fun. It shouldn't be boring. And this game, it's not boring. I'll tell you straight up, this game is not boring. Not a Guns N' Roses fan, game's not boring. That being said, not the game for me still, but I applaud them on their effort. It's obviously going to be the game for thousands of people. A lot of people are happy as they should be. And yeah, so that's pretty much all I got to say about it. There's really, there's not much else to really comment on besides, you know, the obvious things. I think, well, we didn't even talk about flipper, flipper power. And yes, the flippers on this were underpowered, which was another frustrating thing as well. Whenever you're playing multi-ball, it makes me really wonder if people's flippers are going to be dying at a higher rate than usual, especially since you can't actually cradle up and you're just chimp flipping the whole time. And it's just, yeah, it's just, it's a little crazy. it's a little crazy but overall like I said we found our strategy to be just strategically drain hit shots where you can add balls where you can rinse and repeat then cash out big jackpot I mean once we were doing that or once we realized that you know we were again we weren't trying to cash out too often but we were seeing jackpots go from anywhere between 6 I think all the way up to 15 at one point was the highest we got to and this was just over less than 15 games total. So we were able to figure it out pretty quick. And I think a lot of people will have fun with this game overall. And I'm excited to see where they go. I am fully excited to see where they go. And we'll talk about how they all came out with this, their marketing.
    32:54
    And we'll also talk about in another episode what's going on exactly with them, with Jersey Jack getting games out to customers because that's a whole other podcast. And we'll talk about this compared to Avengers because I still got to come out with my Avengers review also to where I have considerably more time on. But my review overall on that is basically the same after 20 games anyway. But outside of that, I appreciate you guys listening or watching. Do you agree or disagree? I want to hear. I'm sure that there's plenty of people that disagree. I'm sure for some people this is the pen, this is the grill, and rightfully so. It should enjoy pinball the way that you should. nobody's opinion nobody's opinion in pinball should ever be gospel should it ever be the final thing like play it for yourself go out and play it make your own decision definitely do not base your opinion off what you hear from me this is just simply my opinion my experience and how i enjoy pinball and what i think is enjoyable for me what i enjoy may be different for you that's and that's perfectly fine but other than that though guys hopefully i can get this up at some point. Hopefully my internet comes back up and yeah, we'll get it up pretty soon. All right, guys, I appreciate you guys listening and I will talk to you guys later. Later.