You signed your real name? Of course I did. If you believe in something, you sign your name to it. Alright, I'm gonna tell you right now. I ain't crazy. This is the ground you'll die on. Are you sure? Oh my god, are you serious? Son, people can see you. I don't tell you what to do with your money. Don't fucking tell me what to do with mine, okay? I'm not as dumb as you think I am. I will defend myself. He means it, sweetheart. Well, that's because you're an idiot. I will fight and win because I am the most intelligent. You sure about that? You sure about that? I got something I want to say. Well, all you motherfuckers think you know who Teddy Powers is. Well, I'm here today to tell you all you don't know shit. Oh, I give up. You're going to get yourself killed, and this time I won't be able to save you. I make you laugh. I'm a clown. I amuse you. I'm here to fucking amuse you. Come on. Don't bullshit me. Go ahead and go, but I'm not going to stop yelling because then that'll mean I lost the fight. So please leave a key under the mat. I love you all very much. Peace out. Serenity now! Serenity now! What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Okay, a simple wrong would have done just fine, but this makes no sense. Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alex the Waterboy. I'm in my basement studio here today joined by my faithful co-host Alan. Alan, how are you doing? I'm doing fantastic, Waterboy. This is an episode everyone's been clamoring for. But before we get into the episode, it's my turn to plug the coffee account, our coffee fundraiser. That's right. We're raising funds for trips all over the country. Maybe we'll get to Denver eventually. Allegedly. Supposedly. Once scheduling conflicts quit arising. But in the meantime, all you need to know is that if you throw us a few bucks at ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead Podcast, We appreciate the support, and it'll get you an invite to our private Discord server where we're always in there chopping it up, talking shit with all the gang. It's a good time. It's actually been a lot of fun. But yeah, that's not really why we're here. What are we here for today? Today is the glorious return of our Die on the Hill series. Faithful listeners will know it, but for new listeners, this is where we invite a guest onto the show to passionately defend their love of a pinball machine that gets regularly shit upon online. In today's edition, we are talking with an active member of our Discord community and a game designer in the video game world who has a passion for pinball. He is here to defend 1995 Shack Attack, released by Gottlieb and designed by Jon Norris. Software by Bob Wilson and Rand Paulin and artwork by the husband and wife team of Constantino and Jeannie Mitchell. It sold 3,380 units in a down year. So it was a moderate success upon its release. I thought that was important to know. But it is currently ranked number 309 out of a possible 316 games on the Pinside Top 100 list. It's the second lowest rated game that we have ever covered on this show, with the lowest being another solid state Gottlieb game, Raven, that another game designer, Mr. Scott Denisey, agreed to defend in episode 75. One of my personal favorite episodes that we've ever done. It's a good one. It's a good one. With all that being said, we want to welcome to the show our guest today, Paul. Are you ready to defend Shack Attack? I am excited and proud to defend Shack Attack. I mean, right off the bat, I'm here to dial this hill because I'm shocked there's even like any hills or dying needed for Shack Attack. A monster license? No, the man's a monster himself. Shack in his prime 1995. Yeah. It sold well. Why? What is there to hate on this game? So I have read the reviews. There's one thing that I will absolutely give anyone who plays this. but I think it's one of those games that fits every terrible checklist or checkbox for somebody just mad on pin side in that it has immediately off the bat it has that like carnival feel like but not in like a like sexy sort of oh fan in the opera way where it's like oh it like you know you find it abandoned it's great like oh it glows and it talks to you no no it's like sold next like the cheese fries like I think I saw one of these as a kid in like an old hockey rink it has that kind of thing. What are you doing? Nothing. Eating nachos. But I mean, the immediate thing people always say is the art. I know people, when you pull up the pin side, are going to start shitting on the art. They hate the cheap vibe. He's ugly as shit. And that's what I love. I was at Logan. You know, Logan Arcade. That's where it used to be my stomping ground. Saw it across the room and giant shack moving hoop. I knew what I was in for. I loved that immediately. And I tell her, once you go to Shack, you never go back. I agree. You can't take your eyes off of it. I do think it has, like, you're like, it feels like a carnival thing. It does have, like, an inherent cheapness kind of to it, but it's endearing. To me, the art package looks like the art you would see on, like, a carnival ride. You know how they always have, like, crazy airbrush shit? Oh, that's right. It's free corn dog night. Or, like, you know, at, like, a glass shop or something. Like if you ever were buying like a Shaq themed bong, it would look like this. A little bit too big for it. Yeah. And I know there's people that hate it. They're like, oh, he's comically too big. But it's it's pinball, man. Like one of the best games out there. You like recruiting the creature of the Black Lagoon to play saxophone for your jam band. I don't care that somebody is like mumbling to themselves like Shaq's disproportionate. Like it doesn't. No, that's fun. It's got that 90s vibe. but I love that man 100% I'm with you Paul for the listeners I I like this game I think I think Shag Attack is fun as hell and every time I see one I play it yeah what about what about the the you know the play field itself theme aside the play field no one could critique it for being boring right you want to kind of like give like a rundown of stuff going on there yeah so before we even begin there's somebody who is a very valid critic to this game and it's super weird it's actually Jon Norris himself, I swear to God, in that I was reading, I've got a pinball compendium, right? And I was like, oh, I'm going to like look up Shaq Attack, see what has to be said about Shaq Attack. There's like two sentences and it's all kind of just, it's him. And he goes off and he says, look, the flippers, look, they've got to be in good repair to make a basket. I found a Shaq on location that had weak flippers. And the problem is you can't make a basket. That's all he has to say about this game and it's true like you go in and you see players i've introduced newcomers to this game they'll be able to score at least two three like players who have never played pinball i love showing them this game you'll see players online be on pins i particularly be like ah can't even score one and i swear to god i think that's a legitimate issue and it brings up a good point in look imagine you're playing this game imagine it's well like it's a system three with uh gotley flippers and you just can't score a basket that's all this game is set up to do and you can't even score one i can't blame people from the get-go for being pissed off about that uh you're robbed entirely of shack attack that's like the problem with a lot of so first of all i feel like we've probably Jon Norris is the uh most represented designer on the die on this hill series is he you've got to be dude no i think this is his first game what other Jon Norris game do we do uh we did his start we did his stern game oh yeah yeah we did high roller casino wipe out no i want to do wipe out and that's not his game that's a ray tanzer game oh shit oh i didn't realize i think he did the software on it yeah maybe i'm overthinking it but these system threes i think you're just a Jon Norris hater is what it sounds like love Jon Norris games but these games they're always wild layouts like this with like cool shit going on but these got leaves like we talked about in the flipper episode a while back they were like the last hey like hold-ons to the the direct power flippers and now they're old enough that it's like if all those contacts between the flipper switches and everything get dirty the flippers will just be really weak even after like a fresh rebuild there's just more going on there and it's like with weak flippers these games suck with weak flippers though any game sucks that's true it's just more common on the system threes i feel like i think it's just like one of those things where it's like anytime a game is not well loved it doesn't get the maintenance people don't make like because this has always been a cheap game for a long time these were like the cheapest dmd you could buy and also like to buy gotley parts is a little bit harder because you got to go to the pinball resource and you gotta buy it from steve young and you gotta send up a check and so like and that and that's how it's still done in the year 2025 okay so so you gotta imagine you're like okay it's not a popular game it's not super well loved it's cheap it's cheap so people treat it as such and they don't go through and like really tune it up doesn't get the respect it deserves exactly you can make these flippers exceptionally strong i mean if you play our deadly weapon i rebuilt those flippers even though alex is like it's fine i rebuilt those flippers and that thing's like break and drop targets and smack it into the glass you're frank thomas even with like a fresh rebuild and stuff They have like just enough juice to hit the shots. Well, that's also, those are. Like a 45 degree angle. Yeah. That's an insane jump ramp. That's a crazier jump ramp than this. Yeah. But, but yeah, that's like, you know, I'm like, Jon Norris put his designs right on the edge. I feel like. He was pushing the limits here, dude. And especially with this thing, all the shit going on here. I like the fishbowl over the top. That's my favorite part. We're looking at a photo of it now. Sorry. No, no. it's cute keep it from like hitting the top glass yeah you mentioned so you mentioned the basket in the middle what else is uh what else is going on here so for absolutely no reason uh it has the court spins you've got like it's just it's all this nonsense but i love it it has an upper when you get past the basket suddenly you're in an upper with the spinning court with uh you've got drops you've got two habit rails going back to the inlanes you have a spinner you have jesus christ um it's not a scoop it's like a saucer yeah the weird saucer that you cannot intentionally shoot you like must fall into kind of acts as a scoop and then it's got it's got the ramps yep then on top of the fucks fucks it has two bucks and those are another two things like a weak fuck is just sad to see yeah um if it's not in poor maintenance oh my god it's also got like the alphanumeric displays the scoreboard in the back it's got illuminated basketballs on the side you know it's got the fucking uh it's got a vera target which might very well be the last vera target on a game no um uh ripley's believe it or not oh shit that's the one people always talk about yes it's great though because what's cool about very targets is they were an em mech whereas you hit a target and if you hit it softly it goes partial back and if you hit it the harder you hit it the further back it goes but the thing about the ems when they were doing this is like em flippers are weaker the ball's moving slower and by the time you're playing in em now a lot of them just aren't juiced and are not going to work that well but with a solid state flipper yeah when you get the verit targets on a system three you can crank those things back and that's fun that's a lot of fun this thing just has an unbelievable amount of stuff going on and i just remember missing something we just like keep adding it's fucking we're missing the we're missing the slam it and jam it slingshot plastics which is notable i would say well also like i think you alluded to it but it's like shack is comically big i mean he's a big guy in general but like he is they made him like a giant in the games i made him look like godzilla you know like oh yeah so he's ostensibly playing the same game as everyone else but on the back glass and on the play field he is 10 times as tall as the next player like so it's fun it looks very much like the 90s it's also just like the frank thomas game big hurt that gotley made during this time uh it's licensed for shack but it's not nba license so his jersey just says shack on it you know he's clearly in magic colors because in the the time of this game he was an orlando magic player but it's not officially licensed for the nba unlike nba fast break was and i sure somebody will bring up the difference between the different nba games but there quite a few of them quite a few basketball games Yeah People like basketball man Just right above here there Space Jam though Another, that could be the next die on this hill. Oh, yeah. We've done that. We've done that. That was early on. Space Jam. Yep. Oh, Lord. Yeah, we're going to do all the sports games eventually. Yeah, they're all well-loved. Do you have, like, quick tips and tricks for people playing this game? I've played it a couple times, but I have no idea what to do. And if you don't know off the top of your head, if you just play it for vibes, that's okay, too. No, no, no, I absolutely do. So I do like how it plays and the fact that so what you do is you collect and then can cash in game balls. So every time you score, every time you hit the spinner or you get multiple, anytime you do like a sort of event, you collect these game balls and then you could say like, oh, this goes up to start a multiple. or oh this will give me like an instant 10 million points or whatever like it's a pretty high scoring game i will however say this is that the game is actually objectively wrong in design in that so okay bear with me on this bear with me on this yeah i don't feel good about this may not have brought enough scotch so you collect up to like i think 16 ish game balls right and when you reach 14 game balls you that you can cash that in double your score which i like three i was at like 300 million or something like that around that point like that's a legitimate like boost yeah 15 game balls 20 million points so like right off the bat it's not like something is a little off there i don't know what slipped that's like classic classic godly programming like how did that one get out look monics i'm not an x's and o's guy right yeah and then it's got i mean it's got a wizard mode that i haven't reached one day one day when i own my shack attack yeah god no i mean it's God will. Honest to God, I would. I would. And I could tell you why it is. So, Alan, you use Attack from Mars to introduce newcomers. I think you said in the Gateway games, I use Stranger Things and I actually use Shack Attack. I do. You know what it is? With all the games I just mentioned, and then also another great one is like Championship Pub, right? Yep. A newcomer can play a full game loop in the Bozo Zone. They can. Should I explain that or? It's just in the center of the playfield. Yeah. Yeah. On our Gomez interview, he referred to it as the bozo zone. That's what Paul's referring to. So for the game design, it's the people flip really early on the playfield or on the flipper because they're afraid that the ball is going to roll off the flipper and drain. So the early shots lead to the center of the playfield. So from a game design standpoint and a pinball designer standpoint, you put stuff in the center of the playfield that everyone's going to hit accidentally. Those are the easiest to hit shot. Or if you're Steve Ritchie, you put like a bank of standups right there. Hell yeah. there's a very distinct two ways to approach the bozo zone and one is to reward and encourage the bozos and one is to punish the bozos it's funny because games have had like big big success both directions bram soaker's dracula punishes absolutely 100 so it's not just that there's targets there it's that for example stranger things a new player will surprisingly often summon the demogorgon just because you know they're always flipping over they're always getting it and so they more often than not like they will have some level of reward like there's a science to like i love bringing new players to pinball i fucking love it and with shack attack it's right there a player will walk away a hundred percent feeling like they played what they wanted to from the game and that's where it is in the bozo zone a new player assuming it's in good again assuming it's in good condition assuming they've got those uh flippers working they can score at least one basket they're going to walk away feeling good and that's one of the key reasons i love this game it works and then they they slowly get better they'll slowly be like oh maybe i can hit that spinner maybe i can you know play the upper play field a little bit more or they see you get a multiball and they're like how did you do that exactly and it's simple enough you just you score baskets the end and then expand from that i agree i mean it's it's the same reason why people like world cup soccer so much it's the same idea in the bozo zone there's a big goal And I think having sports themed games works because it's like you walk up and you're like, yeah, you know, basketball, you know how you try to score baskets. This is that. But with like flippers, no one needs to read anything or be explained. They don't you know, it's like you can just walk up even if you weren't around. Someone walk up to Shaq attack and it could be the first time they've ever played pinball and they will understand what they're trying to do because they understand that Shaq is trying to slam it and jam it into that basket. Well, and also this backboard moves back and forth, which is super cool. and it's got like a little jump ramp fairly far away from it so you're like really ripping the ball up and in and you're trying to time it for when the basketball hoop is moving which makes it basically every basketball pinball machine has a hoop or a representation of a hoop obviously this is definitely the best one oh yeah yeah easily this is definitely the best one the competition fast break or nba fast or or space jam space jam yeah no there's i mean hoops hey hoops doesn't have a basket doesn't have a basket that's why it's it is the standout it's probably maybe arguably better than check deck but they're both got leaves so we can all agree that got leave made the best basketball both system three got leaves did they were both made within the same five-year period neither have an nba license yeah and they're both better for it 100 and you look at fast break though look you're not making baskets like this you launch off you actually get it in the basket is the process in fast break you're making rips like it's a ramp it's like oh the idea of making a basket yeah if you hit a ramp if you hit a ramp in fast break it's like a fluke if it doesn't go into the basket itself whereas this you're 100 like launching a ball at the hoop and like praying praying yeah you could break shine it like but like yeah it's like a lot of you're like oh shit you know it feels like you're going for it it is lovingly the carnival next to the cheese fries game i just got traded for a fucking washing machine what am i talking about i in the best of ways care to get into some of these bad reviews are you ready to hear them you know what let's go for it let's go for it anything else you wanted to add anything that makes this game particularly great i i mean i think just re-establishing what we said about the mech the hoop is legitimately well done and i'm gonna get pretentious here just bear with me i teach you guys things like expert choreography and stuff bear with me as i talk about shack attack the one of my favorite quotes is from futurama and it's if you do everything right people won't know you've done anything at all right so we always talk about like oh how programmers are criminally under like appreciated in pinball like everybody just wants to talk about the designers the engineers aren't even talked about at all and this is they're not they're not and this is a mech that it does exactly exactly what it needs to do when the flippers work when the flippers work and you can score the mech is exactly as big as it needs to be it moves exactly as fast it needs to be and a skilled player can make like maybe four out of five like there's still a little bit of challenge and a newcomer will score a basket it is it does exactly what it needs to do and it's balanced exactly as it needs to do. If I were to say, okay, what is Shack Attack? You're going to say, oh, it's the thing with the moving basket. The most defining aspect of the game is exactly what it needs to be. And that's what I'll defend it with. I think that's very noticeable. Much like the castle in Medieval Madness. I would put them on the same, they're in the same conversation. They're exactly the same. One is one of the highest ranked games on Binside, and one is one of the lowest ranked games. And, you know, there's a lot in common between the two. Yeah, so buckle up as we read some bad reviews, and Paul will reiterate how this game is medieval madness. Exactly. Exactly. Good overlay. Same thing. First one is from Tamore, and he says, miserable. And that's it. That's it. That's all he said. That's the whole review. One word review, miserable. I don't know what to say about that. Like, not miserable. He felt compelled to open it up. You don't have to leave a comment or review when you score a game on pin side, but he wanted to let us know that he was miserable. I think it speaks about him, dude. I think he's describing himself. He's a miserable person. You can't find the joy in Shaq Attack. You got the next. Thunder 424 says, I played this game once and had no desire to ever come back to it. Cheap feeling mechanisms. Funky playfield layout. Just a bad feeling pin overall. Shaq, come on. You're jabbing us now by saying you don't be jabbing us. I made it as a fucking playfield. I mean, we just listed off the nonsense that it has for like at least three minutes. No, I get it. And I get I think I said like, oh, the carnival thing and the fact that the ramp is kind of a gimmick. I think that is a love it or hate it thing because it's really high concept. But in the end, come on, you got to find a little bit of joy in its kinetics. It's fun to just fling it off. It's something different. I think that's why I like listing Funky Playfield layout as like a negative, negative thing. You're like, that's not a thing. I mean, things don't need to be different just for the sake of different or you get an orbiter one. But like this, it's still very much pinball and it's just something different, which I don't think is necessarily a negative. But some people feel differently. They want all their games to be the same thing. Yeah, I could appreciate that at least tried something new. And, you know, we're still having fun with something new. Exactly. OK, K.A. Cadwell says this machine is so bad that I had to play it multiple times just to make sure it's a real slam doo doo. Right now, I'm urinating on myself. I'm speechless. I don't know what the fuck to say to Slamdoodoo. That has the same vibe of, like, if, like, an older guy who, like, served in career or something calls you a knucklehead. And you're just like, what? You're a knucklehead now. That's what you say to that. You're like, I don't know how to respond. I haven't been prepared for something like that. I haven't been prepared for Slamdoodoo. I was, like, brushing up on the game. Damn. Who was this? I'll give him that one. K.A. Cadwell. Yeah, he really thought that was a dunk, dude. He was like cooking that up. He thought of that in the shower, came back, edited his review. Runs back. Towel around him like, got to get him. DMC 726 says, I've put roughly $30 into this machine since it's one of the only pins in my town. It's decent, but nothing to write home about. He doesn't have that just one more game feeling to it. The art and theme is good. The moving basket is hard to hit for sure. I think I've only ever hit it once, to be honest. The dome covering the field where the moving basket makes it difficult to see what's going on underneath. That's my chief complaint. I was really having to get very close to the glass when it was on that part of the table. The callouts and sound are pretty good on this one, so no complaints. If there was another pin on location, I'd certainly be putting my money into that, though. So it sounds like he's at the carnival next to the cheese fries. The location you're describing, the only game he has to play is Shack Attack. And he doesn't like it, but he's like, eh, it's still pinball. I mean, I appreciate him in purgatory there. He's like 30 plays later, still coming back. No, it's a System 3. That's like how many 50 cents a play. He's dedicated. He's hitting triple digits on this thing. He's like, it's pretty good. You can't see under the dome. it was like paul was saying he's like he's like the guy said he only hit it once so it's like that does sound like very weak flippers you put 60 games on it something and you hit it once that's a problem with the game setup for sure yeah maintenance whatever for sure and so you're like and that's why you're like with how open how open this guy is to the idea of shack attack being a good game the art and theme is good the sound is good the call outs sound great you know and you're like this guy's like willing to give a shot he deserves a good playing shack attack so if uh if if the operator of this loan if you're a pinball operator and you have one game somewhere in a town uh that's shack attack and it's this one please uh you know get those flippers working for our boy yeah he's suffering out there my heart's breaking for him like everything about it's got like the dirty fishbowl glass i know like he's made a single one out of 60 like i'm not rubbing it in like i've had like my little sister i'm like this is pinball this is shack attack and like she scores like two or three like i'm not saying this person is bad at all like something is wrong with this attack yeah this derelict shack attack like this is the highlight the importance of having good operators and it's like you got to realize that you like shack attack because you were living in chicago and got to play it at logan which is a fantastic arcade where they have respect for Gottliebs. Yeah, and they do respect the Gottliebs. Next up is from Grant. He says, pretty boring pin. Played it for way too long because my ball wouldn't drain. In about 20 minutes I was playing it I only hit the basket once The theme is basically a joke theme and the layout is weird with the upper playfield having just about nothing to shoot for it seems like Not a fan of Gottliebs this era and this is a great example why Ugh, this hurts me. Let's try to keep the fights in the tunnel or out in the parking lot. This hurts me as a Gottlieb fan. I hate hearing this shit. I hate the Gottlieb slander, dude. He's like, there's nothing to shoot for in that upper playfield. There's a whole bank of drops. Yeah, there's five of them, I know, because I believe Borgdog took a five bank out of a shack attack for his homebrew. Oh. It's a good source of fun. Local legend, Borgdog. People like stripping shack attacks down when they don't work. It's a sad, you know, sad fate for many a shack attack. Oh. Speak of a depressing episode, like people like the one pin in their towel with the dirty. But this is another case of that, but this is the evil version of the last reviewer. This is the person who, once again, can only make one, but is bitter about it. He takes it out on inside. But it's true, though. I mean, this is again, something is wrong. Like if he can only make a single basket, this is what Norris himself said. Like, look, something's wrong with the flippers. You can't make a single one. You're missing the majority of the game. And I can't fault him for being bitter about that. Like if I played this and the call outs were relentless and all I want to do, all I want to do is just make one basket so I could go home and I can't. I'm going on pit side. I'm going on pit side and I'm letting it rip a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I think we should have a little grace for some of these people. But Bieber Brewing says, I am usually a system three apologist. I like barbed wire, Street Fighter 2, Freddy, almost all of them. That's a good guy. This one falls way short, though. The sound of call outs are below par. Very repetitive. Well, there's a lot going on in the layout. none of it flows together the upper kind of playfield area is dull and hard to see with ramps going over it the art is very saturday morning cartoonish but not in a good way big hurt has great art don't know what happened here not very fun and like most system threes really unbalanced scoring i'm a huge shack fan in real life but the pin does not translate into fun Jackie's teammates doing just an awful job of stabilizing his spine. Wow. I actually, I will give him the visibility. The, as much as I love the mech, blocks it a little bit up there at the top. That's the one thing is that when I played it, I'm just like, it is hard to see, especially if you have one with a scratched up dome. And it's like the Vuck is kind of blocking your vision. The, on the right. Just polish it up, dude. Baskets thrashing around. And so you're kind of just like flipping up there being like, I hope I hit those drops. get the novice out or get the polish out and just scrap it that's what it is don't polish up the dome you can clean that up player we're a location-based podcast a location-based pinball podcast alan as a player i can't get you know i can't just get the polish out polish up these domes i'm playing the games as they lie it's weird he's like i like barbed wire street fighter 2 and freddy yeah well he says that like those are all incredible games everyone can agree widely widely beloved titles we we actually covered freddy on another one of these earlier episodes barbed wire i think is pretty fun barbed wire is pretty fun is the one that because it's like i like the theme i really wish street fighter 2 the holes were about half i wonder if you could just get like a cliffy that just makes the hole smaller i'm sure you could make one at the very least yeah someone could yeah that's not funny you may dude really improve that game i mean i'd be so curious though to see at this point like what a wedge head i'm trying to sell it to you like a wedge wedge head shack attack would be because i feel like you'd take care of it it's starting to sound like it's shack attack is like an old old dog that you kind of have to like massage and like you know get it like all yeah for sure they did the system threes deserve special attention and they've gotten they've gotten the opposite dude they've been kicked for like since they came out these games have just been like well this isn't attack from mars so it's trash and you're like hey man not every game needs to be attack from mars not every game should be attack from no yeah i will say in the defense of now we've we've run a couple system threes honestly and i said it on our got leave system three episode they do kind of a lot of shit right like they're not really pieces of shit they're actually pretty reliable it's because got leaves are fucking you know just one hell of a company like it is weird it is weird that they're still using like solid state em technology for the flippers and running full voltage to the flipper switches that's a little bit weird that but that's the weirdest part in the shape of the flippers and the throw them that's super weird but overall like people like oh these games are shitty or they're unreliable or whatever it's like dude i have to work on williams games all the time it's not that these are any more problematic yeah i was gonna say my buddy errol in south dakota speaking we're speaking about south dakota before we started recording but in south dakota there's a very cool arcade called 81 and my buddy errol has more system threes i think now than maybe any other generation of pen and he's always like i don't know what i'll do if like i if like a board does die but he's like they are all tanks they are pretty much tanks and they got rid of by the system three platform they got rid of all their ground float issues yeah so they're really kind very reliable you got to rebuild the flippers this is why i'm on the i'm all just shopping for my system three i really want to get one in here yeah that'd be sick trying to get gladiators if uh any listeners here i know norris yeah they're norris good one i mean shag attack's fun but glad you know gladiators it's like the attack for mars of uh of Jon Norris sesh pilot says another letdown from the once great pinball manufacturer got leap While I'd take this game over Freddy any day, it's still just a poor design with a license attached to it and rushed to market. The layout is awful, the art atrocious, and it plays like Mariah Carey on New Year's Eve. What should really be a unique, fun approach to pinball, like Gomez's NBA game, just falls completely flat. Bummer. Even you, Vakaitis. Goddamn dumb son of a bitch. What do you say about that, Paul? Sorry, what Mariah Carey New Year's Eve? That's probably a really hot reference when this was like written in 2010. And I think all of us were like, what is that? She must have like flubbed a performance on New Year's Eve, you know, one time. But you're like comparing any game to Mariah Carey's singing abilities is not like you're like, it's not a dunk. Yeah, not the slam doo doo he thought it would be. It's not a slam doo doo. No, I mean, it goes back to everything. I mean, the across-the-board Gottlieb slander is a little bit weird off the top. And, I mean, the art, you know, say what you want about it. I like the 90s cereal box-ish. Like, it's Shack Attack. Fuck it. Have fun. Yeah. Like, I don't... I know that there's others, like, people had talked in reviews, like, oh, they wanted it to be serious. And in no way do I see this as a serious game. You pick it up, it's like, ah, fling baskets. And I don't think that's enough to ha-ha dunk on this game entirely and say, oh, this, like, that sinks it. I do think it's easy that he's like, it's a poor design with a license attached to it. And you're like, this is the most ground up, like, Shaq. No pinball machine could make me feel more like Shaq than this does. Yeah, it does. I feel like I'm slamming and jamming, dude. When you play this thing, you feel 100 feet tall. There's a moving basketball hoop with a jump ramp into the basketball. So if the game wasn't designed around being a basketball game, what the fuck was that going to be? That's like what? Like what game was this going to be? They slapped Shaq on there, but they made it really hard to hit a basket. And that's kind of appropriate for Shaq. You're at the free throw line. It's just daunting. I don't know. Like, are you really? I have in no way see how this see how you could describe is just like a poured layout with a license tacked on. And you're like, what? I don't know, man. You know, everybody has their opinion. Some of them are just wrong. But Aviator says, now I may be biased because I'm not a basketball fan. If you like someone shouting at you, though, you'll love this game. They stop Joshua Clay to select extra points or free throw or something else using your flippers. I just want to play pinball. You can shoot a moving hoop with the use of a ramp. I still have this one, but we'll be trading it soon. for a 1995 game release you would expect more likable gameplay so he's an expert it's been on and off about the call outs i do understand what he's getting at that there is a little bit of sometimes the gameplay stops a bit too much especially when you're trying to like cash in the game balls yeah that is one of my big gripes with the system threes is they like making you pick this or that and it's just like i don't like picking shit while i'm playing pinball they do that a lot yeah no no absolutely and it just it kind of stops it dead especially when you're like oh i'm getting into the mode and then it's like nope i like to think that it's like the that's like the speed of shack's brain moving though you're making you are shack when you're playing shack attack it's hard to shoot you know it's hard to see it's just fucking visibility issues you're stumbling around everything stops you're going into shack time it feels appropriate so in that regard okay okay next review is from dung and he says it's a dog good for you if you like it but a total turd i love street fighter 2 and that's considered a turd by many but you could not give me a shack attack get the fuck out of my face damn good lord you could not give me a check that's like a review i would write i feel like this is a fucking dog it's just so it feels so mean i like of all the games that you could hate so much like what brings people to like loathe shack attack like to like bring it to like the eighth worst that's what's remarkable and i know it's like something what we always kind of like like we're always on here and we're like this game should be rated way higher and i always i'm like well for every game we rate higher something has to come down and so something has to be in the bottom 10 you know 10 games have to be in the bottom 10 but i'm really like when you see the reviews like the the words you're like this why are you so mean to shack attack i'm gonna give you guys another i'm gonna give you guys another tease for the listener out there who has yet to donate to our coffee account and is therefore not in our discord server i'm very open about what i think are the worst games of all time in the discord server you should come in you can argue with me there it's not but i guarantee you this game doesn't make it i guarantee you there's some more nothing got leave ever put out there's some more famous games from the last five or ten years that i put in the bottom 10 and if you want to know about it you should come to our discord because i'm not going to get i'm a classy boy on the podcast yeah i'm a sloppy boy in the discord yeah that's accurate it's accurate i feel like i'm basically the same everywhere so don't expect anything any too hot of takes from me but alan definitely you know lets it out there you're gonna slop it up boys okay next review from everybody's favorite yeah this is a uh a legend of the show mr caucasian two-step and this is his shack attack review he says shack is a game that has some interesting things going on for it that don't really come together for great gameplay the pros the ramps of the basket shot is very well done the shots through the spinning disc are great to hit the points kept for all players is a nice touch as well uh don't i mean don't most games keep points for players but it's on this i know i know i'm joking i'm joking no no the cons the game gets high ratings on the meh factor rather quickly it just does not feel like it should the saucer shot in the middle of the playfield seems out of place, and there seems to be a lot put into this game, and it just does not pan out as it should. Shaqzilla looks like he is made out of Tootsie Rolls on the back glass. Seriously, he has Tootsie Rolls four legs. He reads to him and paints him pretty pictures. The takeaway, maybe I need to take some time to really get to know this game and find out what all the positive reviews are about. or maybe i'd rather play another game i know i'm going to enjoy instead might be good for the shack or b-ball fans though okay that's a solid review and we've been avoiding talking about the spinning disc um on the upper playfield because holy hell it doesn't do anything i've never been like excited it's something that they added it's certainly something like a literal it's like a literal like a spinning disc as in like a pizza type saucer right like a turtles or whirlwind turtles turtles yeah Turtles or Whirlwind It not a spinning disc like a vertical or horizontal spinner style like the Arabian Knights. No. Yeah. Okay. I was like, I'm not missing something, am I? No, no. It's just, it's Turtles Pizza. It's, again, hard to see because of the fish pole. Yep. And then when you kind of look down, you're like, wait a minute. Oh, my ball's spitting around as it does in basketball, I guess. And then that's it. That's what it does. I don't know why it's there. It's adding a little bit of whimsy up there. Yeah, I guess. Just adding everything you can to Shack Attack. Jon Norris had only made the game 380 pounds at that point, and he was like, we need another mech in here. John didn't let a game out of the Gottlieb factory under 400 pounds. They put so much shit in these games. I'm starting to get a theory. Yes, tell us. Tell me if I'm crazy. Tell me if I'm crazy. I think the reason that, honest to God, eighth worst game, which it's not. This is not the eighth worst game of all time, review game. But the reason it's so low is being honest, to get high on Pid's side, people have to lie. They have to own a Godzilla and be like, 10 out of 10, not a single flaw in my Avatar Last Airbender, because they needed to retain a certain amount of value. People want the top 10 game, right? Nobody who plays this. For starters, again, the only people who own this now are the carnivals, as we've established. So no big Pinsider is really like, you know, I got to say this is 10 out of 10. This is people allowed to be honest on Pinside. And this is where that review gets you in that people are actually saying, OK, there's a legitimate problem with visibility. There's a legitimate problem with, say, the call outs that some people can't defend. There's no recency bias, which we know Pinside has. It's not being overrated because people like own it in bulk. uh so it's not having a perfect score so you see people actually get like i'm just taking a quick glance at it now like oh six out of ten seven or eight out of ten yeah which brings it surprisingly down compared to a ten out of ten which nobody's giving it fairly yeah and you're like that's always the thing because it's like you're like i'm not saying shack attacks a 10 out of 10 game i'm just saying that a six out of 10 game isn't the worst pinball machine ever made and it's definitely not a six out of ten game doesn't mean it's like not fun and that's like the crazy part about i don't know that's always the goofy part about it yeah i mean like paul touched on i mean that is the inherent problem with the pin side list in general is that the people writing the reviews are usually the same people that bought the games to put them in their house and they are incentivized to whether or not they think the game they just bought is the best game of all time if they ever want to sell that game it helps them to go on and go hey i own this game it's the best it's the best game i've ever played a pretty bad review for ultraman before i sold it so you know not all pinsiders yeah well and then you were also sweating the whole time not all pinsiders but always a pinsider dude you were sweating like a whore in church the whole time you kept seeing the prices dropping on ultraman you're like oh no dude no no no no dude no dude why does everyone think this game sucks is it because i tell them it sucks every time i caught my breath and i'm like okay it's a four thousand dollar game suddenly you'd see one list up for three and you're like what the hell and you're like every time you see that when you're sitting on one you're just like i lost another thousand dollars yeah the worst feeling that's why you should never buy new in box games listeners do not buy new in box games this is why we don't get invited to the stirred factory dude like let somebody else take that hit for you play the game at the arcade you know it'll still be a good game in a year or do what or do what paul's doing when he's buying his first game he waited until jaws is done and then he's buying the 50th because that's his favorite game oh yeah so it's like that's how you buy the game hey game's done i know i love this game that's why i'm gonna buy it yeah that's what i did with my godzilla the only stern i've bought new in box new in box yeah and you bought it what like four years later exactly and you're like yeah because it's still a good game i still like it and you know it's like you know what the price is going to do at that point too yep which helps but okay anyway on to our last review it's uh it's a gooder in my nascar episode i talked about how 9-11 shaped so many pieces of our lives and it shaped a surprising amount of pin side reviews too i would say oh no a lot of weird references And this one starts with it's from Connecticut. And he says Iraq can only dream of a bomb like this machine. There's something creepy about that young man. Pros. Pros. Admittedly interesting layout with. Wait, actually, I want to go back to that because is he implying that they weren't making weapons of mass destruction? I was told under oath. I was told otherwise that they were making weapons of mass destruction. Anyway, they could only dream, Iraq could only dream of a bomb like this machine. Pros, admittedly interesting layout with a moving basket and a Vera target. Be sure to get the five hidden features for one billion. Gottlieb did a terrible job in quality control on this machine, so you won't see it on location much. That's what he put as a pro. Oh, man. Oh, my lord. Wow, he slipped that in. Oh, okay. Cons, shoot the spinner, shoot the spinner, shoot the spinner. Sound on this machine could be the worst of all time. Barely beating out everybody underground now. Which, everybody underground now, is that from Whirlwind? Wait, no, Twister, Twister. Twister, yeah. Okay, okay. Twister, yeah. Knock off Whirlwind. God, man, I did it myself. Okay, next con. Basket bounces are random and score more points than anything else. You're down on the court trying to sink an impossible shot. Terrible artwork. Shack on the back glass looks more like a giant Tootsie Roll than a basketball. People said Tootsie Roll. a true i gotta pull this image up next bullet point a true turd chopper if there ever was one the last bullet point shoot the announcer a true turd chopper is he like chopping wood but it's just such a turd he's chopping turds and 9-11 everything Baskets bounces are random and score more points than anything else. So it's just like clearly they were frustrated that they they think it's like an impossible luck shot to make the baskets, I guess. I have it on good authority that Paul's little baby sister was scoring baskets. No problem. No problem. No, you can see you can legitimately see like high quality players just YouTube like, OK, they can score. They can score. They can score on, again, machines that have been taken care of. But it's not a high-quality luck shot. Like, it's, you know, it's like scoring on, say, dog sucker. Yeah. It just takes a little bit of skill. Actually, fuck it. I'm just going to throw it in here. Controversy time. I would infinitely rather just, in regards to chopping wood, score baskets again and again on this than I would on dog sucker. I just have to throw that out there before this is finished. Hell yeah, Paul. Welcome to the dark side, dude. I've been saying that for years. Down with dog sucker. Why is that not the bottom eight of all time? That game sucks, dude. You know, I reckon we only dream of dog soccer. I like the art package on Shack Attack more than dog soccer. Oh, dude, Greg's going to have an aneurysm listening to this episode. Everybody brings up the art package. Does anyone shit on dog soccer? It's cartoonish. It's fun. Like, I don't know. I don't care. outside of you and me paul i think everyone likes that game so they don't think the dog looks like a tootsie roll and tootsie rolls are apparently a you know an upsetting thing for these these reviewers it's a terrible thing meanwhile godzilla on the standard version of stern's godzilla looks like a watermelon or a cucumber and nobody can't like that's still number one game of all time you might see it get brought up in a review or two but it's certainly not impacting their ratings it's the only thing that alex always goes off about he's like godzilla's not green and i always point to the machine i'm like he's not he's pretty green he's he's super green dude yeah sega godzilla they made the whole game green but they kind of kept they kept him the color of him in the movie but you know is that literally why you bought like a 70th just so you could get rid of that like watermelon yeah that was why when they released the black and white one i was like I had been saying that was my number one gripe with with Stern's Godzilla and if they released one where he wasn't green I would buy it and they released the black and white one and I am a man of my word I spent the you know fucking nine thousand dollars to buy the black and white Godzilla because I felt like I had to at that point they fixed my one complaint yeah because well because also Gary Stern privately texted you and he's like he's like you saw the 70th and water boy's like yeah he's like so what's up bro like i think that was a direct quote from gary stir he said so what's up bro and then alex felt like he had to buy it this is why i'm always like you know i put a lot of dumb statements out there but i do stick to them a lot of the time yep you're a man of principle yeah i bought a nascar that's true we bullied you into buying a nascar and it's on the floor at ledge right now buying a shack attack though but if one popped up that is one thing i will say so for the for the record that's the end of the bad reviews you know we're through that but just as a note on shack attack this is one of the few games a lot of the times we have games on here and i will say i've been saying this more recently like this game's underrated but it's not necessarily undervalued like nascar if you go on to pinside is like a 4500 game or something and i'm like well that's kind of high like that's like approaching like a new stern pro you get a venom yeah well yeah you could get like a john wick you know like you can get good you get a john wick for 45 you can get a fucking shadow you i mean within 500 if if you're paying that for a nascar all i'm saying is i'm like that's high and i like the game a lot arguably the greatest game of all time but what makes it so great is i bought it for 2500 i and like i can't separate those two in my head but shack attack for basically since i've been in the hobby has been the cheapest dmd game you can get which really gives it value on its own i remember when i first got in the hobby i was like looking into games and i was like this game looks hilarious it's when i was putting games in a buddy's arcade and i was like i really want to get a shack attack and my limit was if i could buy one for 1500 and i passed on multiple that were like under two grand like 1800 because i was like that's too much i'm waiting for 1500 my arbitrary limit would have been like yeah but they still are like a two thousand dollar game which is cheap for a dmd you don't see dmd games pop up there that alone is noteworthy it's also you know widely loved it's a good game it's fun it's the eighth worst game of all time uh clearly yeah the eighth it turns out the eighth worst pinball machine of all time is still a fun pinball still pretty fun They're almost all pretty fun. And that's the whole point of this series, right? That's the whole point of the series. And we want to thank Paul for joining us, even though he's got to go to work on. Like three hours. Yeah, in European time. And he's joining us to talk about his deep love and affection for Shack Attack. It was worth it. But if you want to hear more from Paul directly, he will be in our Discord. And you can argue with him about all the shit he was saying about dog soccer. Take it out on him in the Discord. and you can get there by donating to the show, supporting the show at ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead Podcast. But until next time, we want you to go out and place the pinball on location, use the pinball map and try to find a Shack Attack near you or just go to the sketchiest bowling alley or go to a carnival side show and they probably have one in the corner. Exactly. Look by the cheese fries. But until next time, everybody, good luck. Don't suck. There you go. All right. I like that. I like that. That sounds dope. Music, please. I dribble rhymes like basketball-ums People call me 18 What's that, Jack, man? Extra columns You're better than Shrug-Tac Ooh, shut up, liar I lean on a statue of liberty when I get tired Then I punch it in the stomach, I don't give a heck Hey, yo, why you booger-hookin' like that? Yo, she beats on my neck People walk around like yo, they get charged But I'm big like a gorilla Six, seven, that's a large I kick rhymes like New Duck Kwong, dude I smoke, smoke the mic, mic like Cheech and Chong, dude You don't like Shaq, frankly, I don't give a damn I know I got skills, man. I know I got skills, man.