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Episode 174 - Embracer the Lazenby

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Aug 22, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discusses Toy Story 4 gameplay and Spooky Pinball production updates and future plans.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss their recent activities including Tony's college coursework, credit card fraud experience, and a pinball tournament at Pizza West with 25 players. They provide detailed gameplay impressions of Toy Story 4 (with a broken spinner), discuss Spooky Pinball Q&A session revealing 40 pins/week production capacity and plans for simultaneous multi-theme production, and speculate on future game releases including Total Nuclear Annihilation re-runs and America's Most Haunted revivals.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball is currently producing approximately 40 pins per week, which is a new production high for them

    high confidence · Confirmed via Nap Arcade summary of official Spooky Q&A session

  • Spooky Pinball is on schedule to finish Halloween and Ultraman as expected

    high confidence · Direct statement from Spooky Q&A session per Nap Arcade summary

  • Spooky Pinball is planning to produce two different machines at the same time soon

    high confidence · Direct statement from Spooky Q&A session

  • Spooky Pinball plans to be at Pinball Expo this year, which would be their first attendance in years

    high confidence · Direct statement from Spooky Q&A session

  • Toy Story 4 had a broken spinner with a missing copper retaining piece that could not be located during the tournament

    high confidence · Direct experience at Pizza West tournament; Dennis and Tony spent extended time searching for the part

  • Pizza West tournament had 25 participants, described as the largest turnout in recent memory

    high confidence · Confirmed via tournament software according to Dennis

  • America's Most Haunted was locked at 150 units when Spooky was struggling to sell them

    medium confidence · Tony's recollection of AMH production decision; not directly confirmed by Spooky in Q&A

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation second run is likely happening 'pretty soon' after Halloween production finishes

    medium confidence · Spooky Q&A quoted phrase 'pretty soon here' regarding TNA second run; Dennis speculating on timeline

Notable Quotes

  • “Even with it very fast, considering the way Jungle Queen treated me last night, I don't think I would have won anyway.”

    Dennis @ early in podcast — Explains Dennis's decision to pass on tiebreaker despite potential payout

  • “It's the more noob friendly. I think so. It's like you have achievable goals. Like winning your money back is quite achievable even for like Oliver who was there.”

    Dennis @ tournament discussion — Characterizes Pizza West as beginner-friendly tournament environment

  • “Not what you expect when you're spending car prices on a game. Ripping spinners so much that the spinner just comes apart.”

    Dennis @ Toy Story 4 discussion — Expresses frustration with quality issues on expensive new machine

  • “I mean, it's not going into my top ten list, but it was a serviceable pinball machine that is not worth that price.”

    Tony @ Toy Story 4 gameplay review — Overall assessment of Toy Story 4 value proposition

  • “The training wheels are off. There's no reason to go back and do more original concepts, especially that one.”

    Dennis @ Spooky licensing discussion — Argues against Spooky reviving America's Most Haunted when they now have premium licenses

  • “I don't think they're going to sell that many TNAs. So I think they think we'll go back. We already know how to build that, and we're going to be building the new one.”

    Tony @ TNA second run speculation — Theory on why Spooky might run TNA alongside new game production

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyPizza WesteventToy Story 4gameDennispersonTonypersonOliverpersonDylanpersonHalloweengame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball achieving 40 pins/week production capacity, reported as new personal high; expanding to simultaneous dual-game production while maintaining Halloween/Ultraman schedule

    high · Official Spooky Q&A statement per Nap Arcade summary; explicit planning announcement for two simultaneous machines

  • ?

    event_signal: Pizza West tournament drew 25 participants, largest turnout in recent memory for this venue, indicating growing local community engagement and appeal to new/younger players

    high · Tournament software confirmation of 25 players; presence of new teenagers and first-time players like Oliver (age 11)

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Skepticism regarding Total Nuclear Annihilation second run despite Spooky's repeated claims; community question whether company will actually execute after years of delays

    medium · Dennis states 'I've always been really skeptical that they're actually doing this' despite Scott's claims; speculates timing post-Halloween

  • ?

    event_signal: Spooky Pinball plans first Pinball Expo attendance in years, significant for community visibility given proximity of show to manufacturer

    high · Direct statement from Spooky Q&A session

  • $

    market_signal: Toy Story 4 perceived as not worth its $12,000+ price point despite serviceable gameplay; flipper quality remains below Stern standard despite improvements over GNR

    medium · Tony explicitly states 'not worth that price'; Dennis notes flipper feel 'better than GNR but not industry leading'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 21st. This is episode 174. My name is Tony. And my name is Dennis. Tony, it's been a couple of weeks. We actually have a lot of content topics, but I don't know that we're going to necessarily have to spend all that much time on them. We'll find out. And we do have a game that came in. It'll be fast. It'll be faster than the last game. Well, I just meant the podcast as a whole still, I think, from reading the notes, looks like it's going to be a good one. I think. I hope so. But we're in intros, so what's been going on? People want to know. Some people. Some people are like, hey, what's going on? I've actually returned to college. I started taking some classes for some work-related stuff. So when you walk around on campus, do you, like, put your hat backwards and do the whole Steve Buscemi, hey, fellow kids? Nah. No. I just sit there and I walk around with my thumbs hooked through my suspenders as I walk around and go, hi, howdy, howdy, how do?
1:22
No, it's all online courses. So what I really do is I sit in my chair at home and – And do stuff instead of watching TV or playing video games.
1:34
But other than that, I've been playing pretty much all of the exact same games I have. I did pick up a new game. I've only played the tutorials.
1:42
It's called Regiments. It's one of the new Microprose games since Microprose has kind of been resurrected the last year or two. Oh, I didn't know that. and this one is one of those classic, the year is 1989, and the Cold War just went hot. It's all about fighting the Soviets in Eastern Europe in the late 80s. Okay. So just about the time communism actually fell and the Soviet Union actually collapsed. so we'll see how it is it's kind of like the old world and conflict game or the much much more recent war game though it's supposed to be more user friendly and a little bit more arcadey than the war game a little bit less fiddly and I've heard a lot of people say it's more approachable but I've only played the tutorials so far and then it was time to go play pinball yesterday that's right we did play pinball It was the pinballs. We did play pinball yesterday. You had the opportunity to win your money back, possibly. They needed a tiebreaker. I did. And the tournament organizer, for those that don't know, which why would you unless you were at the tournament. Right. Tony was getting his chocolate twist to take home to feed the family. Yes. I get in trouble if I forget those. He's signing his bill, and they go up to him, and they're like, okay, well, you're tied with three other people. and the way the payout structure is going to work is two of you would normally get paid out, but you're tied, so we're going to do a tiebreaker.
Ultraman
game
Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
America's Most Hauntedgame
Scooby-Doogame
Nap Arcadeorganization
David Dennisperson
Straight Down the Middleorganization
Pinball Expoevent
Scottperson
Stern Pinballcompany
  • ?

    product_concern: Toy Story 4 spinner broke off during tournament setup with missing copper retaining piece; ball feed issues reported on Road Trip multiball lock shooting straight down middle without ball save

    high · Direct observation at Pizza West tournament; extended search for missing copper part; ball feed issue reported to tournament director

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky indicating strong commitment to licensed games going forward (Halloween, Ultraman, Scooby-Doo planned) with simultaneous dual-theme production strategy; moving away from original IP focus

    high · Q&A statements about two themes with same layout; explicit mention of Scooby-Doo plans; hosts note shift from original concepts to premium licenses

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Spooky Pinball considering revival of America's Most Haunted with improved build quality; hosts skeptical this will happen given locked production number and shift to premium licenses

    medium · Spooky Q&A mentioned interest in revisiting AMH; Tony and Dennis both express doubt in discussions; Tony notes AMH was locked at 150 units when struggling to sell

    • 3:28
    And Tony goes, I don't remember exactly. I think you said I passed. Yeah, I thought – he just goes, I passed. And then I thought, because I'm so helpful, I said – because you argued, well, I've already paid my check, so I pass. And I go, well, but what if it's Campus Queen – not Campus Queen. Sorry, Jungle Queen, the EM that they have there because it's such a fast game. And he just looks at me very condescendingly and goes, I still pass. Like, I've already said I pass. There ain't no mind changing going on here. Even with it very fast, considering the way Jungle Queen treated me last night, I don't think I would have won anyway. Yeah, we had 25 people, according to the tournament software, which for Pizza West, I can't remember the last time we had that many there. There were a lot of people. There were a lot of teenagers. There were. A lot of new people. There was a ton of people.
    4:30
    I can't say anything. I haven't gone to a tournament since April. Between everything going on in life, I've just not had the free time. But you got to this one. And you actually did. I think you tied for 11th. Yeah. So you were in the top half. Hence why there was the tiebreaker. The way Pizza West does it is they pay out the top half, which I think is one of the things that helps make it exciting for newer players. It always was sort of the friendlier tournament. I don't like to say friendly because it implies the people are mean at the other tournament, and that's not the case. It's the more noob friendly. I think so. It's like you have achievable goals. Like winning your money back is quite achievable even for like Oliver who was there. I think it was his first tournament. He was 11 years old. He won his money back in that tiebreaker you refused to do. And he seemed pretty excited about it. He played pretty well too. He played really well. We had to play him a couple of times. Yeah. And we're going to talk about one of those times because we all played Toy Story 4. You, him, and me were actually in a round on that game. But we'll get to that in the pinball section. In terms of my updates, I don't have a lot. I have not gone back to school.
    5:40
    But I haven't been doing much video game playing either, and I don't even have that as an excuse. I've done a little bit. I'm still doing a little bit of Fall Guys.
    5:48
    Overwatch was doing an anniversary event, so I actually fired that back up and just did some arcade mode stuff where I don't talk to anyone because it's toxic. It's never toxic to me because I don't talk to anyone.
    5:59
    And they type a lot less on the console versions. They added text chat, but it's not used like it is on the PC. So you might see some people go, my mercy is terrible. And I'll laugh because it won't be me. And then if it's me, I'll be like, you're so mean and toxic. Reported. That's how I do it. Report. So I actually did take three days off at the end of last week for vacation time because I'm at cap because I haven't done. I used one vacation day since we went to Texas. I'm taking an entire week off at the end of September for the exact same reason because I cap out. Yeah, capped out. So I needed to burn some days. So I wanted to burn three. And yeah, they went fine, except on Friday, like after hours, I went to just log in to my email on my phone just to turn on the notifications again. And at the top was an alert from Bank of America where I have the business credit card that there was suspicious activity. And, yep, it was compromised. There were multiple inappropriate charges on the card. Only fans. And so I spent over an hour on the phone with the credit card company as they bounced me from division to division. Because I'm going to recount this story so people can just stop. People are like, when are they going to get to the pinball? You're just going to have to wait and suffer through this. Just like I had to suffer. But don't worry. I'm not going to make you stay with me for an hour and six minutes on this topic like how I actually lived it. But did they have like banging hold music? No. And the hold music is one of those where it's the same thing on loop. it's 35 seconds long basically yeah yes yes so i call all right so the email sends a number i call it initially i'm on hold i probably am on it for 15 20 minutes i'm starting to look up the number because i'm like this isn't the same number as the customer service number on my card and i'm like is this fraud you know so i hang up and i call the regular number well after i do that my research indicates, yes, this is actually a valid Bank of America number, but it's not one that they list publicly, but it's one of the sub numbers, I guess, from their fraud division. So I call the customer service number that I know is legit. Using their homemade voice system, I say that I want to talk about suspicious activity on my credit card. It says, okay, connecting you to a representative. About 20 minutes later, connects me to a representative. I go, give them the card number and then they they go was this a credit card i said yes because that's what i told the automated system like nope we're we're debit cards we gotta transfer you to credit division so then i'm back on hold for another 20 some minutes then they answer and they're like what's your card number i give it to them and they go oh i'm sorry we're consumer credit you need small business so they transfer me again that's actually a fast transfer i think that was under three minutes. It's because small business is dead. Yes. Small businesses are gone. And so I give them the card number and tell them the situation. They go, oh, okay. Well, you need fraud services, not small business credit. So we got to transfer you again. So then I'm back on hold, I think for another roughly 20 minutes. And then that person finally asked me about all these charges, including some that aren't on the pending list online. I'm like, they're all bad. Because he's like, what about Best Buy? Did you buy some iPhones? I'm like, no, I don't just buy iPhones.
    9:33
    What sort of crazy questions are these? I finally just said, it'll be faster if I just tell you which charges are legitimate. I've been on vacation. Because I've been on vacation. I'm like, the last day, he's like, what about this? I'm like, anything after the 17th is definitely not good. like there are two like i've done two transactions in the last month and there was a flag for me i'd seen a zero dollar uber charge but uber controls a lot of different things and i wondered if one of my subscription services used uber for payment or something because i don't ever use uber like it's a car delivery service to deliver human beings namely me and not in a trafficking way but more like an attack. I realize this doesn't sound good. So anyway, I need, I need people delivered. Please deliver. Yeah. That went over great. So six, five blonde, giant blonde. So anyway, they finally get it done. Card canceled. They're sending me a new one. And while I was on hold though, I'm going through my work emails that came in through vacation. Cause I, I write someone back who wanted a survey done basically. And she replies like this after 8 p.m. She's like, aren't you on leave? I said, well, I was. But there's credit card fraud. So I'm on hold. So I'm doing work emails while I wait because I can't really do much of anything else. She's like, OK, well, I was expecting you to be gone. So I'll email you Monday with my survey ideas because I wasn't ready to take it that far. She's like wanting to know some stuff to present to her governing body. And it's like, nope, we've never done anything like that. But what do you want? Like what? We're going to do a survey. Let me know specifically what you want. Because if it's like how many health departments had people work overtime in the pandemic? Zero. I was like. Nobody did. It might be 100%. I'm going to guess 100%. So if it's going to be that general of a survey, I don't know necessarily that that's very worthwhile. while, but I mean, we can do it. At least there'll be a survey that I can answer in 10 seconds. But if you're wanting like more detail, like how much overtime, you know, think about that and we maybe get you something more meaningful. That's kind of where I was at. I mean, if you want something simple, I'm fine with it because they'll answer it. They love surveys that take under a minute to complete. So much so that I try and make all my surveys that short. Not usually 10 seconds short but they're usually short anyway so that's my credit card uh saga um in more fun news we actually you and david dennis from silver ball chronicles podcast the history pinball podcast joined me on my watch youtube to do a tot yes so for those i think everyone knows but tot is this or that in pinball it was very i don't know i'm sure there are some that do it in video games but But in pinball, that was very popularized by Straight Down the Middle YouTube channel, which doesn't seem to do them anymore. I'm sure on occasion they probably will, but they do hour-long reviews at this point. They don't seem to do the fun things. So anyway, I thought let's try this out on wristwatches because your depth of knowledge doesn't really matter with a tot. And you and David actually have multiple watches, so you guys know watches. So anyway, the feedback has been great on it. And I'll have a link in the show notes if people want to watch the recording. It was a lot of fun. One of the cool things about doing it live on YouTube was, and I wasn't sure if I could get it to work, but it did. It actually worked really well. The David found out what his wife wants for her anniversary. That was great because I feel like we've brought them closer together. We've brought them closer together. Sell a couple, three pinball machines. She doesn't want an in-ground pool, okay? Let's just say that David's Wife's tastes, they do not run in the Casio vein.
    13:25
    In fact, they ran above the price point of anything I looked at. And I had like Rolexes in this mix.
    13:35
    Oh, that was so much fun. Anyway, everyone seemed to enjoy it. But one of the things was we were able to do live polls. So people who were watching while we were airing it were actually able to make their own votes, which I thought was a really cool incorporation. So anyway, so I'm planning to do another one here again.
    13:54
    And the last thing I have in terms of an update is my Sinbad pinball project. It's almost done. I was doing my coil sleeve replacements and flipper bat replacements on it, and I then discovered one of the coil stops was bad. In fact, it was sort of – I'm assuming an operator needed to get it working again because it's like got a nut on the end of it. Like they kind of built their own coil stop. So anyway, so I had to order those. They've come. I've just not put them in yet. And I have a few light bulbs that aren't working – that have changed, that either it's a connection or there's something with the driver board or something. So I need to sort out why some of the lights aren't toggling on. But otherwise, I'm done with it at this point. So that's gone well.
    14:44
    And that's it for me. So let's go ahead and go formally into pinball. And I'd like to open with Toy Story 4 because just before the tournament started, you had messaged me asking if Pizza West or the nearby Nubs Pub had Toy Story 4. I didn't remember which it was. And then I saw it was at Pizza West. It was at Pizza West. So as I mentioned in the intro, you and I played against another player in tournament on the game. I didn't know if you had gotten an opportunity to play it before the tournament. No, because it was broken and we were trying to. Okay. So. I was assisting in the search for the issue.
    15:23
    On the specific one, when they got there, tournament director and some other people got there, and there was something wrong with it, and they got to looking at it, and one of the woody spinner had broken and was actually, the spinner was stuck in one of the scoops when they first got there. So they opened it up and pulled it out, and then it was realized that the little bead of copper that holds the spinner in place was missing. So we spent an extended period of time. Like, they were searching for it when I got there. The wire, the wire that the spinner's threaded through? No, no, no, no, no, no. The wire was still in place. Okay. But where the spinner goes on top of it, there's a piece of copper where it goes around that wire. Then there's a piece of copper that's like soldered in that holds it in the right place and has the weight and has it weighted so it settles down in the right position. Provides the weight for that. That piece was gone. So it's literally like this flat little piece of copper plate. Because we don't want to just scratch up the play field. Right, right. You don't want a $12,000 machine to have this rugged piece of metal just being dragged all over. Right. Or it's copper and there's electrical connections on the bottom. So that could have been bad. So we were there for an extended period of time.
    16:49
    Actually, from the point where I ordered my food and my food arrived while we were still searching for this copper piece.
    16:57
    And we never found it. Yeah, I was going to say, I take it you didn't find it because, well, when I got there, there was someone playing Toy Story. So I didn't get to play Toy Story before the tournament. However, when the tournament was starting, Dylan, the tournament director, was going through things telling us, like, which games still had extra balls on and all that. And then there was a, oh, yeah. And with Toy Story, be on the lookout for, like, a copper wire thing floating around. And if you see it, stop play immediately. We will figure out what to do about the game. like your tournament game, but we need to get that out. It broke off from the spinner. Yeah. And the spinner isn't in the game anymore. No.
    17:39
    And so that was very interesting. So, all right. So noting that, knowing we didn't have a Woody spinner, you and I and Oliver, as I noted, we were a three-person game on it, like round three or four of the tournament, I think. Something like that. Around then, I think. Maybe round two. and so we finally did get a chance to play it minus one spinner and i will note i did go to the tournament director i asked him to give me the spinner so that i could put it back in the game so that i could score some points and he told me no so just bear in mind that i did try and have the full toy story 4 experience but i was refused because of broken i successfully activated super spinners, but it doesn't matter when half the spinners are gone. That's a good point.
    18:28
    Oliver activated that buzz quick multi-ball, and I saw that was worth a lot of points. Yeah, it was. I had a bad habit of not, because he told me to remember to watch the screen for the carnival games. And once I started to make sure I'd try and see that, I could better know what to do. I got most of my points on ball two. I mostly just ramped out, left, right, left, right. But I think I had activated, I think it was a 14x bonus multiplier on ball two. So when I cashed out and drained, it was very lucrative for me.
    19:06
    What were your overall thoughts on the gameplay of it, minus the spinner? I mean, it was fine. I mean, there was no obvious complaints. other than what we've already spoken about, it's pretty much exactly what we thought it was going to be.
    19:25
    The jump shot was a harder hit than I thought it would be. It was fun to hit it. I don't know if you – I did successfully hit the jump shot, and it's cool. Yeah. I like to jump. Yeah. It's a cool shot. Yeah. It was a harder shot to hit than I thought it would be. I bricked it a bunch of times. But, yeah, it was fine. I mean, it's not going into my top ten list, but it was a serviceable pinball machine that is not worth that price.
    19:58
    Yeah. I mean. That would be my, I mean, again, I don't have enough time on it to do a formal, you know, full review. I thought it shot well.
    20:09
    Once I understood kind of what was going on, which I'd seen some streams of it, so I had a vague sense of what I needed to do. The non-jump ramp shots were very easy shots to me. Like the right orbit into the ramp was extremely easy. Oh, yeah. I did have a – obviously the spinner breaking was a bit of an issue. I did have an instance – a ball save resolved it, but the ball went so fast down the left out lane that my kickback didn't save the ball. But it did give me the ball back, so I didn't care about that. The road trip multi lock on the lower left side it fired the ball straight down the middle with no ball save and I guess it supposed to feed to the left flipper I mentioned that to the organizer just because I was whining
    20:57
    And he's like, well, did it rattle? I guess others had had instances where the ball rattles on the release, and that's what screws it up. And I was like, I didn't notice whether or not it rattled. All I noticed is that it went between my flippers and made me sad. But, I mean, what can I say? it's a training wheel game. I took first place without ever having played it. So it was, yeah, I mean, you're right. The ramp shots were incredibly easy.
    21:20
    I didn't have that issue with that multi ball because I didn't activate it. I didn't get any of the multi balls going. I just had that one locked one time and then it gave the ball back because there were already balls in there. Ah, okay. Because, because Oliver was like locking stuff. Yeah. Cause I had it. I had, I'd locked balls in there as well, but I hadn't, I did struggle with the scoop lock. I got it a couple of times, but that was – it kind of reminds me – well, again, it's Lawler. It kind of reminds me of the size of the scoop with the electric chair in Adam's family. Like I was trying to backhand it, and I was – I never found the shot consistently on the backhand. So I never got that multi-ball going. I will say that I went through, I think, the left out lane kickback on ball one. I had fire for me like seven times.
    22:13
    Maybe you had the infinite kickback active because that's one of the wheel awards. It's like if it's ready and then go out the left out lane, it then locks it in and you have a permanent left out lane safe. It was like every time I did anything that went that way, it was just kicked back. So it was like that left out lane was completely safe for me. Yeah, and that's one of the ideal things to activate because obviously that's a huge, huge save. I think I did not have that. I went out the left out. I think I drained out the left out lane once, the right out lane once, and then my second or my final ball where I went straight down the middle out of that, out of the ball release was my unfortunate third. I mean, that was the only game that had bad feed. The Ghostbusters was occasionally, if I'd right orbit, sometimes it must have hit a piece because I had two instances where it would then feed right down the middle. It's probably the copper piece from Toy Story. My Star Trek would – when it starts to do that, it's because one of the stand-ups has drifted into the path, and I have to open it and bend it back because it just gets hit so many times. It bends out of position. So those sort of things happen. But with Ghostbusters, the ball saves at least one of the times saved me too. But I'm rambling on the scope of Toy Story. So yeah, overall, yeah, the layout was fine.
    23:27
    I mean the flippers did feel better to me than like GNR's flippers. So but still not like where I would bearing in mind, I'm used to stern flippers. I was just like they still felt weak, but not. But I mean, I never felt like I couldn't make any of my shots. Right. So they seemed better, but not still not to what you're not an industry leading flipper. Maybe that's a good way to. I think that's a good way to. That's a good way. Unfortunately, though, with the, you know, the broken piece and all that, it's like it's so new. It only got there a week or two ago, I think. So it's like, wow.
    24:05
    Not what you expect when you're spending car prices on a game. Ripping spinners so much that the spinner just comes apart. Well, speaking of spinners, let's spin on down our pinball list to Spooky Pinball. They conducted a question and answer session on their Facebook page. How much spin was in their question and answer?
    24:28
    I didn't watch it, so I can't tell you. What I did. The aggressive questions that they had to dodge away from. No, they would never. They would never dodge. Nap Arcade actually has a pretty good summary of the Q&A session on his site. So I have a link in our show notes so you can just go and read it because that's what I did. Here are the. Completely stealing Nap's work. Thank you, Nap. That's what I do. Thank you. Thank you, Nap.
    24:54
    So highlights. they indicated during the stream that they're on schedule to finish Halloween and Ultraman as expected I'm sure those people who've already sold their machines are going to be glad to finally I guess so and I guess as part of that they noted that they're currently their output is approximately 40 pins a week at this point which I believe is a new high record for them that's good I think that's a plus they did say the quote from Knapp was, quote, pretty soon here, end quote, about when is total nuclear annihilation second run going to happen. So they are continuing to suggest. I've always been really skeptical that they're actually doing this. I know Scott says that they are, but I've always been like, the time to have done this was so long ago. But it sounds like they're tripling down on, no, this is happening. And this indication makes it feel like maybe right after Halloween. My guess is with everything going on with jobs and everything, they want to keep the line busy between Halloween, Ultraman and whatever comes next. Yeah, I just and that's that makes sense to me. And that's why I thought in the past they would do it that way with.
    26:14
    Now, when it's day one, we sell out of everything because we have better and better licenses than we used to. I mean, like Rick and Morty was a great license for them, regardless of the quality of the game. The same for Halloween.
    26:28
    And the same when Scooby-Doo comes out. Scooby-Dooby-Doo. So they did say also that they are planning to produce two different machines at the same time soon. And I wanted to pause here to ask you, as we just talked about TNA, do you think that when they say two different machines at the same time, that they are meaning they're going to do the 2.0 or 1.5, whatever you want to call it, TNA run, and then their new game at the same time, or two new games at the same time. I think they'll do two new games at the same time.
    27:02
    And when I first saw this, I says they're planning to produce two different machines at the same time soon. I assumed it was the same way they do in Halloween Ultraman, where it's the same layout with two different games, or with two different themes.
    27:15
    And the thing is, but they already do that, right? Like Halloween and Ultraman they're doing at the same time. I thought they were doing them at the same time. Right, but I just think they're going to continue to do – it worked so well with Halloween and Ultraman. They're going to do it again. They did say in the Q&A that they are planning to do two themes with the same layout again. Yeah. So that they – Because they're going to do Scooby-Doo and Scoob even though it's been canceled. You don't think it's going to be Evil Dead as the second one? Nah. Why not? Why? I disagree. I think that it is going to be TNA plus this new run because why not? I don't think they're going to sell that many TNAs. So I think they think we'll go back. We already know how to build that, and we're going to be building the new one. So for a while, we're going to do two games at once, and then we'll start doing the lower run of whatever is going along with Scooby-Doo. That's what I think. That's a total guess. Yeah. Just because I think they're trying to distinguish between doing the same layout because they've been doing that already. Right. I can see that argument. And there may be another game in the wings that I don't know about. Totally possible. They might have another Domino's sitting out there. We're not even remembering. We're just guessing.
    28:33
    Spooky did say they plan to be at Pinball Expo this year. For those that have ever followed Spooky and Expo before, Spooky hasn't been at Expo in a long time. I mean, years. And if you don't know anything about it, it's really weird because Expo is so close to them compared to other shows. They show up at TPF. TPF is not a short drive for Spooky. And they have to drive because they bring games. Right. So they're going to be at Expo. And they also noted that they would like to revisit doing another run with their improved build quality skills that they've learned on America's Most Haunted. so I was going to say what are your thoughts overall on the Q&A thing America's Most Honored I don't think that happens I think you're walking a weird I don't know if they ever promised and Charlie wasn't on the Q&A it was with Spooky Luke and Bug my understanding is that AMH was locked at 150 that's how they ended up selling it out when they were struggling to sell them I don't know you risk pissing people off if you go back to the well on something you gave a number on. TNA was always known that they could rerun it again at any quantity they wanted. No one went in buying TNA going, it's only going to be 550 units. We all who got it know they have the full right to do it again. That wasn't the case for most of their other stuff. So I just don't see why they – I get why you might wish you could do it. I can see where they – if they did do it, if they did go back to it, there would be adjustments beyond just better for spooky build quality.
    30:19
    Making some art adjustments and stuff so it's not the same game. I don't know if that's enough of a change. I think the company will do whatever the crap the company wants so the people can get bent. They're not going to care. they'll do like I said I don't think the people being mad is anything they're even going to consider I don't see why I've given my thoughts on TNA which was a very for them a very successful game for the time and to a lot of people remains granted it's a Scott developed game it's not a Spooky developed game but all the games Spooky's built there are plenty of people that feel TNA is the best playing one of all of them.
    31:06
    I don't know why you'd go back to the well on a non-license like America's Most Haunted. Like, there's no... Having played America's Most Haunted several times, I don't know why you'd go back to the well to America's Most Haunted anyway. I don't think it's their worst game at all. No. But there's no reason to go back to it. Like, you're doing licenses now. You're not... The training wheels are off. There's no reason to go back and do more original concepts, especially that one. There's just not. I can see where the thought is, is like with Stern's vaulting of games. But America's Most Haunted is not a game that would deserve a vault. This would be like Stern going, oh, yeah, we're vaulting Rescue 911.
    31:50
    Especially since they never built that one. It would be very weird. World Poker Tour. People love World Poker Tour. I love World Poker Tour. And it just needs a new translate. But it would totally need a heart change. It just needs a new translator. It'll be fine. But, you know, something like that. Actually, crap, I kind of want a World Poker Tour vault. That's actually not a terrible idea.
    32:17
    You'd have to call it something different, though. Yeah, I don't know. I think the World Poker Tour still exists, and I'm sure at this point the license is cheap again.
    32:26
    Yeah, no, if they wanted to. But they're so busy having successful. Like when you're behind on getting people their Godzillas, why would you do it? And that's the same thing here. I mean they noted also that their next game is going to have a new record for the number of sculpts included.
    32:43
    Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle holds their current record for custom sculpts. So just as a tidbit. But again, if they've got Scooby-Doo and then whatever the second layout – excuse me, theme is for the same layout, Again, I don't know why you go back to – not to be – I'm not trying to be mean, but I don't know why you go back to nothing burgers like America's Most Haunted when regardless of how good Scooby is, you know it's going to sell out day one. That's the thing where there's all this talk about. One of the things I want to touch on before we move to this was when we mentioned the idea of the two themes same layout that they said they plan to do again. Some of the fans of Spooky don't like that they said that because, in their opinion, the problem with Halloween and Ultraman is because you have to program for both games, that that's part of the reason why those games have suffered. Do you agree with that?
    33:47
    I don't think that's why those games have suffered. I think those games have suffered because they're poorly designed and aren't fun. I concur. I don't. The rules, and it's been, I mean, we haven't played either of them since the Texas Pinball Festival, but as near as I could tell when I played them at the show, the rules were basically the same. So what's the diff other than the art and the animation assets? The rules are the rules.
    34:17
    I don't think there's – I mean maybe they have – you can only – I guess you could be fairly aggressive and change up the rules a lot even with the same layout. But I don't – I never got that impression. Like the Hedge multiball had its equivalent version in Ultraman and all that. I don't think they were that different. So I don't agree. I don't think having Ultraman being the same layout had anything to do with the PowerPoint animation quality on Halloween. I just don't. If those are the – where there are the people having to do the customization like the animation assets, as long as you have different people doing those, you will be able to avoid the problem even doing the same layout. Right, and at that point, it just becomes a matter of how many workers do you have on those projects. So anyway, interesting.
    35:10
    Moving on, some of these other ones we're going to fly through pretty quick, but Chicago Gaming Company. So as you know, Tony, as many of our listeners know, there has been a long, long delay on the Cactus Canyon remake limited edition and the SE Plus because of the toppers. They haven't been able to build the toppers. Well, CGC representative has come out and did say that they are close on finally being able to have the long-awaited toppers. And at this point from when that statement was made, it's roughly five weeks out, about five to six, five weeks out for them, according to CGC, to be ready to finally ship those toppers. So we're talking another month and a half or so, almost two months. So that's going to be bringing them right up to a year from the initial release and taking of orders. Yeah, because that gets pretty close to Expo. I mean, we're within a month of it. So, yeah, I mean, at least they're finally given a date. So there's that. HomePin. We talked about them not that long ago. This is Spinal Tap Pinball. This is HomePin Pinball. They did have an announcement that they had loaded up two games for PenFest, which is in Australia, Newcastle. That happens in September. So that's all proceeding as anticipated. So that game will be there. So Australians will get a chance to try Spinal Tap out. They can try Spinal Tap from Humpin. From Humpin. Yeah, Humpin.
    36:42
    Next item, Deep Root. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a moment. Deep Root's out of business. Why would we be talking about them? Well, the reason is I checked the pin side thread on the Deep Root discussions and famed investigative Deep Root specialist Blueberry Johnson had been interviewed on the backhand pinball Twitch channel about Deep Root. And during that interview, my understanding is he discussed an unknown what was a hereto unknown to the public Deep Root title. I only just saw this, so I did not see or check to see if there was a VOD of the Twitch discussion. However, after that interview, Blueberry Johnson on Pennside did share a couple of promotional images from that unrealized theme, Men in Black, Alien Crisis. Now, I've given you a little picture in the show notes, in our internal show notes, Tony. I do have a link in our external show notes for our listeners to be able to go and see the post with the images. I've given you the main image and this image is a dude that you can't make out his face is obscured in shadow holding a men in black gun and there are aliens and he's in the men in black suit now you may not know this Tony because I didn't know this but I do my research that image is straight up from now in the lower left corner of the image it says Deep Root Pinball but that image itself is from a video game because there was a Men in Black Alien Crisis video game. I didn't remember this, but I searched it because I was like, okay, so they're doing a not movie Men in Black, but the way the art for this promo stuff, it made me think this already existed. And it does. It exists from the DVD cover. So for those of you who are like me and didn't know about this, Alien Crisis was a 2012 video game. It's an on-rails third-person game. Activision published it, but it's from a company called Fun Labs.
    38:50
    You probably don't know the name Fun Labs, but you know their games because they're known for making a bunch of those Cabela's games. They're a Romanian developer.
    39:00
    So anyway, this game, as I know, 2012, came out on the Wii, PS3, and the Xbox 360. the game the on rails game was partially based on the the men in black three i think i'd have to go back and check but i think the pug dog voice actor did the voicing for the for that game i could see why deep root would choose this simply because it has the phrase men in black on it and if you're licensing off of the video game oh it's got to be cheap this game was universally hated based off of the games rating Tony it makes no sense to choose this GameSpot rated this game 2.5 out of 10 and the only other rating I saw was from Eurogamer 2 out of 10 not 7 out of 10 Tony not 5 out of 10 and we've talked about the gradeflation that happens in video games 2 and 2.5 are horrific thick. My guess... What's your guess? Why would you take a 2 out of 10 game?
    40:08
    My guess is that they were just doing... taking pre-created assets to do filler assets for whatever they were doing or trying to sell to a licensor.
    40:23
    It could have been something where they threw together something just as a show. It's like, oh yeah, we do something like this. It wouldn't be Exactly. It's just kind of a general idea of what we're going to do here. It's a pinball machine and it says men and black aliens, blah, blah, blah.
    40:38
    Well, OK, I could see that. Having not seen the interview, I don't know how. Well, he wasn't. Blueberry didn't work for Deeper. So we wouldn't have probably unless some of his spies and informants told him about the logic behind it. And I don't think this was never in the presentation deck for the Deep Six. So I don't know how far along this one was. My assumption seeing this was,
    41:05
    pinheads aren't going to know Men in Black Alien Crisis. They'll see Men in Black. With a score like that, nobody's going to know Men in Black Alien Crisis. They're going to see Men in Black, and then what we do that's based off of a video game versus a movie doesn't matter. It'll sell because the license is Men in Black, as far as dumb pinheads are concerned. and maybe if someone coming up with the idea was familiar they might be like oh yeah the game was terrible but we could take the concept of an on rails and lend it to pinball Like making shots is just like making shots in an on For those that haven played an on game usually everything sort of scripted as you move around A lot of those, you know them from arcades a lot of times in the first-person format. This was third, but where you use the laser gun, like the infamous Alien game that we paid like $50 to win at Dave & Buster's. Right. So it's on-rails. You have a gun. the aliens pop up it's scripted you know that stuff could work with set shots on pinball those are your rails right i could see all of that it's just like and honestly if it was like well we don't have to license the movie we could buy the game license from the game people and it was going to cost like a buck 50 i mean come on like lunch money at this point and maybe they were like you know what we can't spend thousands of dollars on a license what can we get for what's in my pocket. You can get Miniball Act Alien Crisis. That's what you can get. What's in my pocket? Holy crap, what a terrible idea. Just based off the game's feedback. I have not played this. And I will not. I'm not going to do it. Take one for the team, Dennis. If you want to give to our Patreon, then I'll go ahead and buy it. We don't have one. When did we get a Patreon? We're getting one now so that if we raise $1,000 through our Patreon, I will play this. Now we've got to figure out Patreon tiers. That's our tier.
    43:00
    Oh, we'd have to be good. We'd have to have multiple tiers. I don't know. You research that. I don't want to think about it. What would be good pinball tiers for the Patreon?
    43:13
    One of them could be, if you're at a certain level, then you're allowed to submit us games to play. Speaking of games to play, Matt Roberts has given us a new game to play. Hey, Matt, didn't see you in the Patreon subscription list, but this was sent via email, which I guess is like our version of Patreon. Hey, I think that was a pretty good segue. Worthy of Paul Blart, Mall Cop. I think I pulled that off really well. All right. So Matt has given us a new game.
    43:42
    He's taken the feedback from the last game, which a lot of the listeners are like, they didn't get it. They didn't like it. This one's different. This one's actually going to have a social media involvement. So look after this episode comes out to our Facebook, which is Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast, because that's where I'll present this. But essentially, these are 10 questions, multiple choice, Tony. We're going to go through them. There's not right or wrong answers.
    44:07
    There's always right or wrong answers. That can be your opinion. And listeners will be able to play along and play along on the social media page. And then the idea is, though, we will go through this. I'll also, when I post this, I'll post all the questions with their answers as a Facebook post. And then as comments to them, I'll post the list of what your answers were. So I have notes to write them down. You've got your notebook. I do. And I'll put mine in as well. And the idea is based off of what we say on these pinball questions, what game or games would best satisfy us? The way Matt has described this is kind of like the sorting hat from Hogwarts is what this is trying to do.
    44:51
    So here's the part. Here's what it says. This is what Matt wrote. Take this quiz. Let the community help you discover your unrealized favorite pinball mashup by answering these questions related to the rules of the game. Just choose the option that describes the kind of pinball you like best. listeners be sure to suggest submit your suggested matchups for tony and dennis on the social media that i described before we are talking about one two or three machines that best match the patchwork of answers you are about to hear then don't forget to include your own answers and you can include those in comments under our facebook post remember pick one response to finish each statement so here we go tony question one i feel like a pinball was a a great player when i a roll the score b score multi-millions c score billions nay a gazillion points so a b or c a who doesn't like to flip it that's the same for me not rolling the score it's easily feels the best. I might score like 15 billion points in a game that's hard to score 15 billion points, but then if I roll an old EM, I just feel like... And the thing is, people don't understand. If you say 15 billion points, unless people are really familiar, they'll be like, I don't know if that's good on Toy Story 4 versus Attack from Mars or not. But everyone knows if you roll it, you flipped it. I flipped it! So we're both option A on that one. Question number two. I would rather have a 5x bonus every ball b 5x shot multiplier for the rest of the ball or c 5x play field once per game twice if i'm lucky that's a little bit that's clever i actually of all of these i think this is my favorite question he's got on here or go ahead and say mine while you think i'll take the 5x play field once per game that will be mine so i'm going to choose option c and the reason is that would be all of the shots and right and while i would get longer i mean i don't know but again it it kind of depends because the game has a lot of beefy bonus oh like again my first place on toy story 4 was thanks to the multiplier on my bonus right that's how i did and and that's where it's but but of my favorite i i like i like it when i have a bonus for the play field, like Walking Dead's 2X. So that's why I'm doing C. I don't think you're wrong because it feels real good when you've got that play field bonus.
    47:29
    I'm going to do the same. I'm going to go with the play field bonus. Okay. Tony's a C also. All right. Question three, Tony. I consider perfectly balanced play to be A, multi-ball after multi-ball after multi-ball. This is the way. B. Two or three multiball options. This is the way. C. One main multiball. This is the way. Or D. Multiball? We don't need no stinking multiball. Parenthetical, this is the way. I'm going to go with a D because multiball is a lot of fun. But if your game is well designed without a multiball, then adding a multi-ball just makes it better. But if you're just relying on multi-balls to make people think that they're doing good and that they're having something special it doesn't mean that your game is actually good and it doesn't make it actually fun to play.
    48:29
    Okay. I will differ. I will go B. I would want two or three main multi-balls. That's my favorite format. I hate multi-ball saturation. I think it's really, really... Now, I get it. Most of the time when there's multiball saturation, there are a lot of lesser multiballs. So, for example, with Godzilla, you have the building multiball and Mechagodzilla. Those are the two main multiballs. But there is tank multiball, which is worth a lot of points. So maybe you want to count it as the main. There's the bridge multiball. I mean, it's got a lot of multiballs. That's not why I like Godzilla. Right. But what I like more, like the Star Trek approach, where it's like, okay, the main multiballs are. There's Enterprise, Vengeance multiball, the easy multiball. and then there's the Klingon multiball, which is the bigger one. And it's approachable. You can strategize around it. I like games to have multiball because there are times where I think strategically it makes sense for you to want to have the safety of the multiballs. What I don't like is, like, 90s era, the way to win this game is you must have multiball. So I do want there to be choice because I don't want multiball to be the crutch of the only way to do victory, but bottom line is I basically want multi-ball to exist at least one in every game. Ideally, I want there to be more than one. And for it to be balanced out because, like you said, if it's where the only points in the game are in the multi-ball or the opposite side of the coin, the multi-ball doesn't matter because there's no points in the multi-ball. In either situation, that ruins everything. They need to be worthwhile. Guns N' Roses is a case in point where it's like you stuck multiballs everywhere, but it's like the songs are everything. So that's the multiball that matters, and all the other ones are like just stuff, noise. It doesn't feel like they were balanced, but what do I know? All right. We finally differed on one. Question four. I expect some extra credit for combo shots. A, when I trace complex geometric shapes with the ball. B. When I thread unique shots together C. When I manage to string anything together or D. When I am playing Galaga instead of pinball So no combos I like C. If I manage to make something work it's good but I can understand where really high end players not me level players would aim for something that is much more difficult but if I can successfully pull it off three or four times in a row that's good for me well it is I mean and that's sort of like with Star Trek if you hit a shot and then you hit a different shot another different shot it's like you get a combo the only thing is I don't feel anything when I do that like I'm glad I got the points but like it's not a goal of mine so I'm going to choose B to actually thread unique shots together I don't want to do this intricate, you know, like, okay, so let me cite Godzilla again. During the, there's like a rage mode where you need to hit the right ramp in a time, and then you need to hit the left ramp, and then you need to hit the inner orbit, and then you need to, or, yeah, the inner orbit, and then you need to hit the loop shot, I think. I think that's, I don't know, I've never completed it. That one's too much. But kind of like the Lawler philosophy of shot, shot, shot, like a three-shot combo. I like that. So it's not just you did two things real fast isn't enough to trigger, but it's like I hit this and then another thing that I had to specifically aim for as opposed to just lobbing it back. Yeah, I don't want to be like you hit a shot and then you hit another shot Steve Ritchie style. I do actually prefer the more Lawler. Okay, it's going to be this shot, this shot, this shot, but that's it. Pretty straightforward. But the combo is specific. Specific but easily understood. So that's why I'm going to do it. Actually, I agree with you. I will move. Oh, you've moved from C to B. You have convinced me that that is because the other is just shooting shots and then it doesn't matter. It's like you get rewarded because you didn't brick. Yeah. Yeah, well, I get rewarded when I didn't brick anyway because I got the points for making them. Right. Is my thought. So that gives – you're right. That definitely gives it more. It's just the weird – as long as it's not the weird shoot this shot, then you have to bank off of this to this upper flipper and get this shot, which activates the third shot, which if you can make will activate the fourth shot, which is where the points are actually hidden and it activates a multiple. Yeah, we don't need no hidden points. All right, question five. We're halfway through. I feel the thrill and excitement of rising action should lead up to A, earning wows or the special, B, activating one quote satisfying wizard mode, C, five or more wizard modes. So what do you want things to build up to? I like See I've never been a huge fan Of the mini wizard modes I like to have one big I like to have different little distinct things That build up to the point where you get to Like one big wizard mode So I think that's the route I'm going to go So you're going to go with B The one wizard mode And I'm actually going to go with C I do like the mini wizard modes You know this one's tough Because having one main wizard mode with like 90s depth makes a lot of sense and i'm good with that and then with the modern games where i like i know i'm not going to see dinosaurs rule the earth so i need baby's first mini wizard so that's what i need i uh but a i actually um because i've played so many like gotley bms where all special is is replay and there are no points i actually feel like nothing when i get a special yeah no very much so i actually don't like a yeah and which is unfortunate because i think Had I been in a different mindset and was playing on location back in the day and that was what your goal was, was to get the replay, I'd have a different opinion. But I don't. That's how it is. I light special all the time on hoops and I'm going to say it's not worth anything. I'm not going for it.
    54:34
    Okay. So we differed on that one. Number six. I can't wait to try out a A, secret skill shot. B, secret combo.
    54:46
    C, secret, quote, cheat. D. Secret flipper code or E. Secret cow level I don't know enough about the cow levels Secret cow level Okay, I'm going to go with A on this one I actually have all these ones I think the one I actually actively try and do the most is to figure out and execute the secret skill shots TNA is where you bounce off the left flipper immediately flip the right flipper off of a plunge and get it into the ball lock. Right. It's like, it's a million points, or you died. Yeah, it's one or the other. It happens. But it's cow level. Well, that's where... And then you can go beat people with Wurtz's leg. That's your video game Easter egg enthusiasm shining through. That's exactly what that is. Okay. Then I can go beat somebody with Wurtz's leg. All right, number seven. Seven. I approve of promoting literacy through A, spelling International Rescue. Oh, my God. B, spelling Paragon, or C, spelling TNT?
    55:49
    I like Paragon. I'm going with Paragon. TNT. That's the one I'm choosing. Get ACDC for the win. I don't want to spell in games, so I need baby's first spelling lesson, where it's just like, get the N in the middle, and you're a winner. Yay! I'm a wiener! All right. Question eight. When it comes to modes, A, I take the red pill. I pick my own path. B, I take the blue pill. The machine maintains control. C, I realize the truth. There is no spoon. No modes. I prefer picking my mode. I really do. So do I. There are some games where I don't care. I don't really necessarily care which song GNR plays and I'll leave it on default but with Star Trek and Godzilla I like to pick my mission, pick my kaiju and that was exactly my thoughts where Star Trek, Godzilla, Deadpool stuff like that but when it's stuff like pick the song and the song doesn't make any sort of difference whatsoever then it's like yeah, I don't know I do like modes though I like modes and I prefer to pick it Because there's some modes that I just think are more fun than others.
    57:10
    Okay. Question nine. The fatal flaw I hate least is... Okay. So this is the one you're most accepting of. A. A catch-up feature.
    57:20
    Well, I guess that one's not going to win. B. Having a ball taken away or stolen. C. A huge scoring exploit. D. No ball save. E. Bugs in the code. No ball save. All right. Tony's is no ball save. And mine actually is the ability to steal balls. See, that one doesn't. But for me, those two are about the same. Yeah. I mean, the other option would have been the no ball save. I mean, on older games where you know there's no ball save, I go in expecting it. But when a game like TNA or whatever where you know there's ball stealing, it's like I'm cool with it and I know that. When people take a game that has ball save and turns it off, it pisses me off. Sorry, Josh Sharp. It pisses me off. I don't like that. I don't like that strategy. It's there for a reason for us to learn. Let us learn. Why can't we learn? It was programmed originally for that. That's right. That's the default settings, Josh. Actually. Come on, Josh.
    58:21
    All right. Last question. Question 10. This one's the longest on options, so broaden your mind, quade, and get ready. I love being handed easy points from A, a bag of tell. B, a special outlaying bonus. C, a mystery award. D, a video mode. E, an extra ball. F, pity multiball. G, the doodlebug. H, interrupting commander data. I. Playing shoot the RPG and other back glass games J. Bombs, booms, missiles and torpedoes K. Other and specify if you choose K I actually appreciate there being points in the outlanes Alright, so special outlane bonus is your favorite Kind of like Walking Dead if you hit got bit Yeah, I like that because that softens the blow of the outlaying and the others. Some of the other stuff, like occasionally the back glass stuff, like the RPG and all that stuff can be okay, but they get annoying after a while. Yeah, I was tempted to choose the RPG one. I'm going to actually choose option F, which is pity Mothiball.
    59:49
    Daddy is coming to my rescue. Give me that pity multiball. That's kind of how I view it. Things are going really bad on Star Trek, for example. You know what? Vince's multiball, especially if you have some torpedoes built up, is basically a gimme. It ain't going to be worth anything, especially if you're not in a mode. But you know what? Sometimes you just need those easy points to be like, you know what? I can do this. I can come back. do it on like a the game just left my head where for your skill shot you choose your skill shot to lock a ball for multi ball so you can guarantee yourself no fear things where you guarantee a ball three multi ball yeah and it used to be with the old code like daddy east Jurassic Park code without the chat H update was like you got multi ball on ball three if you hadn't earned it in the game up until that point the main multi ball yeah in a pity way like here you go but no the oh my loathing of point stealing and oh god no the catch-up mode well yeah i knew on the fatal flaw thing you weren't you probably thought of bugs bunny the moment that was the dude i still remember laughing and laughing of course i think i ended up winning because of that where it swapped our scores at the end Yeah. It's like, holy cow. That's worse than any Mario Kart rubber banding I ever saw. Yeah. Wow. Okay, well, that's it. That is worse than the Mario Party star catch-up BS. Yeah, Mario Party. Oh, Mario Party. Okay, well, all right. So that's it for the game. I'll get all those answers and questions up on the Facebook after I get the episode on the air. So we only have one last thing Tony In pinball and that is Rumor Corner Rumor-tame me Give me the rumor Rumor Corner Dennis Graceless got the news before Napa Caves Is that right Tony? Yeah Well, we need people to write in to us, Tony, at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com, because I'm kind of running low on rumors. This one, I did not make this rumor up. Sometimes people think I make up the rumors. I can neither confirm nor deny that sometimes I have done that But I can confirm this one I did not make up However in my rumor bones it feels like a rumor troll So I'm just trying to note that because this one seems a little sus to me. Here's the rumor that I received via email.
    62:34
    Jersey Jack Pinball has the James Bond license. We've been talking about that Stern for a long time has been rumored to have the James Bond license. I have now heard that JJP actually has James Bond. However, I was also told in the rumor that it's specifically the George Lazenby film. So that would be on Her Majesty's Secret Service.
    62:54
    No. He was the Australian actor who played James Bond for one movie. No. This is the rumor I have. It's the one where he gets married. Yeah, I know. No other movie does James Bond get married. So they could really maybe have the chapel or something. No. They could have the skiing scene. No. I think George is still alive. Maybe he could do call-outs. I'm just, no.
    63:23
    Are you rumor-tained? I'm rumor-hopeful that it's trolled. Okay. Well, you might be rumor-talled. Of all of the James Bond stuff, is it the worst? No, but it's probably. No, that spoof Casino Royale is the worst. That would be the worst. Is the worst. Yes. I wouldn't even rate this as the worst James Bond of the serious James Bond films as a movie. But it was such a weird period because he came in and he did the film because, for those that don't know, Sean Connery didn't want to do James Bond anymore because he's tired of only doing the one thing. They brought him back, Sean, back for the next movie. And then they were able to change over to Roger Moore. And then Sean Connery then did another, that not with eye on, the Thunderball remake. Yeah. I forget what that was called.
    64:16
    Because people don't consider it official. It's the one where they play the pain video game. Yeah. But anyway, that's, are you, you already said you're rumor troll. I'm rumor troll. I have nothing else to say. We're going on video games, Tony. Guide us, guide us to safety. Topkin dinosaurs.
    64:36
    Welcome to the video game segment. Okay. For video games, I fear the best way to start talking about video games today is to start talking about movies. Okay. That's different. Sonic 3 has been confirmed for 23. Okay. I've not seen the second one. The first one, after they changed him from Human Tooth. I wouldn't see it in the theater, but it was fun. I've read people who liked it better than Detective Pikachu.
    65:11
    That's impressive, because I consider Detective Pikachu probably the best video game to movie thing there is. But Sonic is Sonic. Meow. But the reason I want to start here is because there's this huge list of things that are coming to TV or movies. video games being made into TVs or movies. We know we've talked about in the past Uncharted, Last of Us,
    65:37
    the Fallout. There's picture leaks from the sets of the Fallout TV series coming out. They have now announced a Days Gone movie, which is that kind of zombie post-apocalyptic pandemic-y thing that is coming out, and it's being described as a love ballad to motorcycle movies and a modern-day western.
    66:04
    Oh. Okay. Sure. I'm all for it. Zombies, motorcycles, why not? I thought that was Daryl's entire character on Walking Dead, but okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's kind of – that was the big stuff in the – I mean, I've not played Days Gone, but a lot of the Days Gone stuff, it opened with motorcycle stuff and, yeah. Maybe. Sure. Why not? But also Sega has decided to get into this whole movies from video game.
    66:38
    So they announced too Space Channel 5 because this is what we need. This is what the world needs. We need movie about a journalist doing viral dances to kill the aliens. Chew. Chew.
    67:04
    Chew, chew, chew. And they're also doing Comic Zone. I don't remember Comic Zone. I didn't either, but it's a game where you're a comic creator who's been pulled into your comic creation and stuff. But it makes more sense than Space Channel 5 is what we need space channel 5 is going to literally be tiktok the movie who who's gonna play space michael i i i mean space i have no idea michael is a core part and michael jackson isn't as popular as he used to be i i i don't know i just oh man i read that i literally had to read it like four times and i still am like it's just an april fool's joke in august it's like the ultimate april fool's joke we wait till i there's no way this is real but it it appears to be we'll see okay oh i don't see how it could possibly work but uh jedi fallen order is releasing a novel to cover the time gap between the first jedi fallen order game and jedi Survivor, which is the sequel that's coming out. And that novel will then get a movie. Probably. And the expectation is that the main character from Jedi Fallen Order is going to be getting into... will probably be appearing in some of the Disney Plus Star Wars shows. Okay. A lot of people seem to think he'll be in Andor for some reason.
    68:42
    I was hearing that he was going to start writing a Vespa in Book of Boba Fett. Book of Boba Fett Vespa. We're a Vespa gang. Let's go. 360 spin.
    68:55
    Oh, what a terrible show. It had its moments. It did. The Mandalorian moments. It was there. Mandalorian moments were great. First episode was okay, too, but after that. Yeah.
    69:09
    Last episode, we had talked about the Knights of the Old Republic remake issues, where it's on indefinite hold and the art director and programming director had both been canned and they were looking for new ones.
    69:22
    The parent company of the company doing the remake, Embracers, the parent company, has announced that one of its major AAA projects has been transitioned from one studio within its group to another studio within its group to better or to give it the type of quality that is expected for the title, which between those comments and other rumors coming out of Embracer makes most people think that KOTOR got pulled away from the company that had screwed it all up and was handed to another company internally. But I thought we'd talk a little bit more about Embracer Group because we've talked about them a couple of times lately. And in addition to that talk about that AAA project that they have not confirmed what it was that has moved, they've made another big move as they are in the middle of purchasing Middle Earth Enterprises, which owns all of the rights to the Tolkien stuff, all of it.
    70:29
    When the purchase is finished and goes through, they'll own the rights to the movies, the video games, the board game, everything, everything related will be to Tolkien's works, will be owned by Embracer Group, which means Embracer Group is pretty large. So I did a quick little rundown for those people who don't really know who Embracer Group is. They used to be known as Nordic Games. I remember that. And then they were THQ Nordic. They have about 13,000 employees worldwide. Oh. and just some of their current subsidiaries, most of which has a major number of subsidiaries underneath them, is Asmodee. They're one of the biggest tabletop game publishers in the world.
    71:14
    They're the ones who own Seven Wonders, Catan, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic. That's all Asmodee or subsidiaries of Asmodee. And they also have some of the big fantasy flight games, Z-Man games, Days of Wonder. Again, the play pool you see all the time putting games out, all owned by or all subsidiaries of Asmodee. So they're huge there.
    71:39
    They own Coffee Stain, which is Goat Simulator, Satisfactory, Deep Rock Galactic, Valheim, Sanctum. Dark Horse Media, which is the parent company of Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment. So, yeah, they have all of that. DecaGaming's whose big thing right now is the Realm of the Mad God MMORPG first person shooter thing, Gearbox so Borderlands Homeworld and about a billion other things PlayOn which used to be known as Coke Media and is everything they're so large by themselves that they could be a whole other just major massive company, but they're owned by Embracer Group. Saber Interactive, which also has a massive number of subsidiaries, but they do Kingdom Come Deliverance, SnowRunner, Space Marine 2, Gloomhaven, and just tons and tons of other games. And obviously, THQ Nordic.
    72:47
    So, yeah, Embracer is an extremely large holding group that has heavy inroads into everything. So, uh, them having, getting more ties in with star Wars, uh, getting more ties in with Lord of the, well, to the point of owning all of the Lord of the rings rights is going to do interesting things for a group that already has that many major companies under it.
    73:17
    I'll be a hundred percent honest. Part of me wants to know what gearbox could do with a Lord of the rings title. Gearbox. for me as a company that I, it's mostly because of Randy Pritchford. Yeah. That I haven't really been enthused by much of anything that Gearbox has been doing. Granted, I have not played the latest Borderlands. I did play the first two Borderlands and I really enjoyed those, but after the whole Colonial Marines debacle and their misuse of money, I mean, maybe under Embracer they can't get away with that. It sounds like Randy's been stepping away because he seems obsessed, this is my judgment, obsessed with, you know, rubbing elbows with Hollywood stars and like, that's what he wants to be is like a rock star. So maybe he's out and not going to be a problem anymore. But I mean, for me, Gearbox, like as long as they stay in their comfort zone of Borderlands, ask cell shaded gaming, they're good. And then everything else, I feel like they're overrated, but, but I mean, they also did like, or, or had direct ties in B and other subsidiaries of Gearbox have done like the home world games and play them. Oh yeah. No, Those are like some of the just purest best gaming of its type, the world scene, in my opinion.
    74:32
    But, yeah, no, it's just going to be interesting to see what happens with how large. And the fact that a group that's this large and has all of this stuff is still not one of the big, huge guys. I mean, they're big, but they're not huge. The fact that especially like play on, most of play on subsidiaries, the primary thing they do, ports, they've got whole subsidiaries. All they do are ports to different systems.
    75:05
    So they're kind of everywhere. And because I didn't go too deep into everything this year or this year, this episode, the last big thing I have is Overwatch 2. We talked last time that it's coming. They're not doing another. Yeah, it's coming in October. They're not doing another open beta. They're just going to drop it.
    75:27
    They are dumping the loot box system. They're going with the Battle Pass system and an in-game store, which is fine. I like, I prefer that. I don't like loot box systems. I've talked about that in the past. On the other hand, they sent surveys out to people that was asking people, like, would they be willing to spend $45 for a scan? I heard the survey had spooked people because the pricing on it, options got really high. Yeah. It's a survey. Right, right, right. It says all sorts of crazy stuff. I don't think they're really going to do that. But I just – who thought that when you're putting that – that you're even going to put that as an option because you know it's going to leak and that is going to become the talking point. It's like, they want to charge $50 for my new Deva skin.
    76:13
    I mean – Yeah. Weird. That's a little much. They've also started giving Overwatch players the chance to merge their Overwatch and Overwatch 2 accounts so they can use a single account to carry over the progress and cosmetics and all the stuff they already have. So, I don't know. Have you merged your accounts yet? No, I didn't realize I had to. You don't have to, supposedly. Well, because my understanding was Overwatch 1 PvP is becoming Overwatch 2, so I figured it just would happen. Well, yeah, the big thing, the reason they're doing it seems to be, and a lot of it is for consoles, is because the new system is going to have cross-platform progress. So you could unlock things on your Xbox, and then you could go fire Overwatch up on your computer, and you'd have all your unlocks from the Xbox. Okay, because, yeah, I do have two separate. I have a PC Overwatch account and an Xbox. Right, so you can merge those accounts. So you can do it, especially because Overwatch 2 is free to play, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it'll give you the options to maintain everything across. There are some special rules on it. Like you're only allowed to merge one account per game, I believe is what it was. So if you and your kids all had accounts that you played on the one game on your console at different times, it sounds like only one of them could be merged to merge with another thing. They're probably trying to deal something with Smurfs, would be my guess, because there's a big Smurf problem in Overwatch. There's a lot of big problems in Overwatch. It's just the reason I haven't played it in several years. No, it's much better than it used to be. Is it? No, there's been no updates for like three years. No. Everybody's gone. The only people left. Everyone's gone. All that's left is toxicity. No, I actually find matches really quick, at least in the fun modes. I haven't tried ranked in a long time. But in the quick play, random characters and stuff.
    78:28
    Yeah. Yeah, because I don't remember if I'd mentioned it. I think I mentioned it on one of the privacy podcasts, but I was clearing space out on my computer, and I deleted all of my old Blizzard games because I wasn't playing any of them. You did. And they're like, your account is locked because something strange happened. Something's a-brewing. There's something wrong. A $45 skin will get you back in the game. Just come buy your $45 Diva skin. I don't think they'll price them that high. Who knows? Who knows, honestly. I dare not promise that. Considering when the financials came out, how much money they're making off of Diablo and Mort. Don't you all have wallets? Apparently, yes. Apparently. I mean, it's an ongoing problem. I know some people are very good at going and doing free-to-play games and never spending anything. Other people spend a little amount here and there.
    79:24
    On the free-to-play games I play, I like to get something little that's special a couple of times a year. Because if I'm playing the game that much, I feel like I should support the game. But I mean There are people out there And I've talked to people who've quit playing games Because I just can't afford it It's a free to play game I was spending $300 A month It's like okay That's like a car payment On That's like Netflix plus Hulu plus Paramount plus Discovery plus HBO Which is now combined with Discovery And yeah Yeah, that's... Disney plus Amazon Prime.
    80:11
    I don't know what to say about the whole Discovery HBO Max thing. I don't know. I like HBO Max. HBO Max is a really good service, and it's one of the three I watch the most. But I've heard terrible, terrible things about Discovery streaming service. Well, they'll be together, so you can... Together forever. The best of both. They're probably just going to cancel everything that's on HBO. No, just the Batman stuff they want to do. They're going to get rid of the Batman stuff. They're going to get rid of all the other canceled things. We went and canceled Peacekeeper Season 2, even though Peacekeeper Season 1 was amazing and did great. Probably. Maybe. But just take comfort in knowing Netflix would have done the same thing. That is very true. And all that is better fit on our eclectic pop culture podcast. Yes. Which might actually exist. Maybe. It doesn't. If the patron had enough money. Maybe someday.
    81:12
    That's a tier. Get access to the podcast. We're going to do this at a certain level. If we hit it at a certain level, we'll go ahead and do once a month talking about TV and movies and stuff like that. Yeah.
    81:29
    But if you want to reach out to us with any of your ideas on what should be in those tiers, You can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go, as I mentioned earlier in the show, to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Be sure to check that area out for the game so you can see our answers that we talked about here and you can play along yourself in the comments. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and the Instagrams as eclectic underscore gamers. And we should be back in probably a couple of weeks. That's what we usually do. Maybe we need to wait until the Space Channel 5 movie comes out. When's that coming out? I don't know. Never. Let's be honest. Never. This is another one of those things that gets announced and it never happens. I want it to come out on Discovery+. And then you can watch it and tell us about it. We'll do an entire – That would be the first episode of the Eclectic Pop Culture Podcast. We'll go into the history of those video games, and then we can talk about our review of the movie. Oh, no, no, what you do is you do that, and then since you're doing it on Twitch, you do it as a live watch. So while the movie's going on in the background, people can watch it on their own, but us and all of the fans have to get up and do the viral dances with the movie to help kill the aliens. That's true. Choo, choo, choo. That's right.
    82:54
    Dennis will wear the outfit. There we go. That's a $45 skin. So Patreon people know there's a price. There's a price. That's it. We're done. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Bye-bye. See you.