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Ep 23: Whole Lotta Led Zeppelin

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 13m·analyzed·Dec 18, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Final Round Ep 23: Led Zeppelin reveal analysis with host anticipation tempered by design reservations.

Summary

Jeff Teolis and Marty Ruffins discuss the newly revealed Stern Led Zeppelin pinball machine in detail, covering art packages, playfield design, song selection, and code depth. They express mixed feelings about the visual presentation but are optimistic about gameplay mechanics based on designer Tim Sexton's interview. The episode features guest Chris Stevens, a top Pittsburgh player, discussing the impact of ReplayFX closure and Pittsburgh's pinball community.

Key Claims

  • Led Zeppelin pinball features three art packages: Pro (Led Zeppelin 3 album), Premium (Led Zeppelin 1/Hindenburg), and LE (Swan Song Icarus symbol)

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis describing the three tiers revealed with the game announcement

  • The game contains 10 full songs and the wizard mode requires playing all songs, totaling approximately 50 minutes of music

    high confidence · Jeff and Marty discussing song count and wizard mode progression

  • Robert Plant was personally against including 'Stairway to Heaven' in the machine, preferring 'Cashmere' as the defining song

    medium confidence · Jeff Teolis stating 'the real truth is...Robert Plant himself would have said, I don't want that song in'

  • Steve Ritchie designed the game with clear shot flow and easily identifiable targets, consistent with his design philosophy

    high confidence · Marty Ruffins referencing 'Steve Ritchie has said time and time again...when you go up to a Steve Ritchie game, you know where the shots are'

  • Tim Sexton (game designer) described a code system with basic multiballs progressing to complex concert-themed modes

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis referencing Pinball Profile interview with Tim Sexton where he described multiplier mechanics and concert modes

  • Jeff Teolis purchased the LE model sight unseen, his first and only planned LE purchase, specifically for the Led Zeppelin theme

    high confidence · Jeff stating 'If I have to own one LE, this is it' and confirming it's his first and last LE purchase

  • Marty Ruffins considers the playfield design 'fucking awful' with excessive openness and minimal detail, comparing it to Star Wars

    high confidence · Marty stating 'I think it's fucking awful' and 'I'm ridiculously underwhelmed by it'

  • ReplayFX event and Papa Pinball venue closure affected the Pittsburgh competitive pinball community significantly

    high confidence · Chris Stevens and Marty discussing the emotional impact of ReplayFX closure on the local scene

Notable Quotes

  • “I think it's fucking awful. I just... I'm ridiculously underwhelmed by it.”

    Marty Ruffins@ 24:40 — Marty's frank assessment of the playfield design despite his respect for Jeff's purchase decision

  • “The code is going to make this game shine. I'll tell you that right now. I'll try and give a sort of a medium view of hype because the comparison I'll give it to is Star Wars.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 12:08 — Jeff's optimism about code quality despite visual reservations, using a cautionary comparison

  • “If I have to own one LE, this is it. There's never been another brand or theme that has made... This is I want the best that you can possibly put into a machine and for my dream theme.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 21:36 — Explains Jeff's unprecedented sight-unseen LE purchase and its significance to him personally

  • “What makes that a great game? It's all about the code. I'll tell you this time and time again.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 11:30 — Jeff's core philosophy that code quality can overcome visual/layout shortcomings in pinball games

  • “It's licensed. It's definitely Led Zeppelin authentic. But to me, I wanted a little bit more. Well, I was having a conversation today, and I said, yep, I get it's iconic, but stylise it rather than make it look like wallpaper.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 6:02 — Criticism of repetitive art across cabinet surfaces rather than varied imagery like Avengers or Guns N' Roses

  • “Robert Plant himself would have said, I don't want that song in. He is adamant about that song is not the defining Led Zeppelin song.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 15:10 — Insider claim about Robert Plant's personal involvement in song selection, explaining Stairway to Heaven's absence

  • “You know what? Someday in our lifetime, we'll see a Harry Potter pinball machine, and I'll replay this episode and just take a fucking heaping turd or whatever it is.”

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonMarty RuffinspersonTim SextonpersonSteve RitchiepersonChris StevenspersonJeremy PackerpersonRobert PlantpersonJimmy Pageperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Led Zeppelin pinball by Stern officially revealed with three art package tiers (Pro/Premium/LE), 10 licensed songs, designer Tim Sexton

    high · Jeff: 'Christmas came a little early for some people' and discussion of three art packages confirmed by announcement

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Led Zeppelin art criticized for repetitive use of licensed album covers across cabinet surfaces rather than varied imagery; calls for more stylization

    high · Jeff: 'stylise it rather than make it look like wallpaper' and comparison to Avengers/Guns N' Roses varied art approach

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Playfield design features sparse layout with large open center space and back-heavy shots, creating minimal detail impression similar to Star Wars

    high · Marty: 'It has an Elvis feel...there's not a lot of detail to it' and 'accentuating the openness of the play field'

  • ?

    code_update: Tim Sexton described code with basic multiballs progressing to complex concert-themed modes with multiplier mechanics and multiple difficulty tiers

    high · Jeff: 'the multipliers work...It's got basic multiballs to start off, simple ramp shots on the left ramp...then there's a lot more in there'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong pre-release hype about Led Zeppelin theme contrasted with visual disappointment upon reveal; code optimism offsetting aesthetic concerns

    high · Jeff: 'my hype was so high that how is it going to possibly live up to that?' and Marty: 'I'm ridiculously underwhelmed by it'

Topics

Led Zeppelin pinball machine reveal and receptionprimaryPlayfield art design philosophy and consistencyprimaryCode quality as determining factor in game successprimarySong selection and licensing in music-themed pinball machinesprimarySteve Ritchie's design philosophy and shot flowsecondaryPittsburgh pinball community and ReplayFX closure impactsecondaryLimited edition collector dynamics and sight-unseen purchasingsecondaryComparison of playfield design across Stern titlessecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Jeff is optimistic about code and excited about the Led Zeppelin theme despite visual reservations; Marty is significantly more critical of playfield and art design. Both acknowledge the game will likely play well but express aesthetic disappointment. Chris Stevens segment shifts to nostalgia and sadness about ReplayFX closure.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.402

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine.
0:30
Welcome to the final round. I just thought it would be something special before our final episode before Christmas, Marty. Here it is, episode 23. My name is Jeff Teels. My name is Martin Ruffins. Thanks, everybody, for joining us for a special episode of Final Round. Why is it special, Jeff?
1:01
Well, it's, uh, Christmas came a little early for some people, and I might be one of them. That's why I thought I'd sing, but do you sing much? Do you do karaoke? Yeah, I used to sing a lot better than I do now. After my hearing's gone, my ability to stay in tune also went. So that's another benefit of being old. You did karaoke the other night. What'd you sing? I can't remember. There might have been a bit of aha Take on me, that's a tough note to sing
1:32
Yeah, didn't get anywhere near that high note You didn't ask Casey Borg to kick in the nuts right before you hit that one? It was actually Curly Tech that I was doing that song with Barbie Girl, Aqua, that was a bit of a highlight Okay, that's a song I have forgotten in my life And you had to bring it back, thanks But there are songs that are timeless and we've seen ten of them on the new Stern Pinball machine known as Led Zeppelin. What do you think, Marty?
2:03
I think some songs shouldn't be timeless, is my first reaction to what you've just said. But yes, Led Zeppelin has now finally been revealed. What a massive surprise, didn't know it was coming. Led Zeppelin. Okay, so when I see a new game, the first thing that you obviously notice before flipping is the art. And there are three different unique art packages. And because, as people know, I might be a massive Led Zeppelin fan, I'm not kidding you. I had a combination of at least 100 different messages, texts, people inside Pinball, outside of Pinball,

  • Led Zeppelin changed their name spelling from 'Lead' to 'Led' to prevent North American pronunciation of 'Lead Balloon'

    medium confidence · Jeff Teolis explaining the band naming history based on Keith Moon/John Entwistle's 'lead balloon' comment

  • The LE model features a motorized toy/magnet feature on the playfield (Electric Magic mode) that Marty views as gimmicky

    medium confidence · Discussion of Premium and LE features including 'a toy that jumps up' and motorized playfield elements

    • Jeff Teolis@ 24:14 — Humorous self-aware comment about his strong opinions potentially being wrong in the future

  • “I'm just not close enough to this band to know what should be in and what should be out. And I'm sort of just echoing all the feedback that I've seen. And really, number one is art, as far as it being, let's say, polarizing or negative. So art's number one, layout's number two, and then song choice is number three.”

    Marty Ruffins@ 18:23 — Marty synthesizing community feedback into three primary complaint categories about the reveal

  • “Game of Thrones came out because it was a similar thing where you looked at it and you just went oh my god that looks awful. But then it shoots really well, right?”

    Marty Ruffins@ 25:18 — Historical comparison suggesting gameplay may exceed expectations despite visual concerns

  • “I would also talk with Joe and be like, hey, can you tell Marty I said hi? And he probably never did, so boo on him.”

    Chris Stevens@ 30:17 — Chris Stevens expressing long-time awareness of and respect for Marty Ruffins through Papa Pinball content

    • Keith Moon
    person
    John Entwistleperson
    Led Zeppelingame
    Star Warsgame
    Game of Thronesgame
    Elvira, House of Horrorsgame
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Avengersgame
    World Poker Tourgame
    ReplayFXevent
    Papa Pinballorganization
    Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
    Stern Pinballcompany
    The Whoorganization
    Swan Song Recordsorganization
  • ?

    licensing_signal: 10 songs selected for game, notably excluding 'Stairway to Heaven' reportedly due to Robert Plant's personal preference; includes 'Cashmere' as longest track

    medium · Jeff: 'Robert Plant himself would have said, I don't want that song in' and discussion of song length/suitability

  • ?

    design_innovation: LE and Premium models feature motorized Icarus angel toy that pops up for Electric Magic mode, using Swan Song Records logo as visual motif

    medium · Discussion of 'a toy that jumps up' and 'a magnet' on playfield with Marty viewing it as 'very gimmicky'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Jeff Teolis made unprecedented sight-unseen LE purchase decision, confirming it as his first and final LE acquisition, indicating strong thematic attachment

    high · Jeff: 'My first and my last too, by the way' and 'If I have to own one LE, this is it'

  • ?

    community_signal: ReplayFX event and Papa Pinball venue closures significantly impacted Pittsburgh competitive pinball scene; Chris Stevens made Final Four twice before closure

    high · Marty: 'news of replay effects, it was the biggest bummer' and Chris discussing making Final Four multiple times at venue

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve Ritchie's design approach emphasizes clear, identifiable shot flow where players immediately understand target layout and progression

    high · Marty: 'Steve Ritchie has said time and time again...when you go up to a Steve Ritchie game, you know where the shots are'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Led Zeppelin released with three cabinet tiers (Pro/Premium/LE) with differing art packages and physical features; LE includes motorized playfield toy

    high · Discussion of Pro (Led Zeppelin 3), Premium (Hindenburg), and LE (Icarus) art variants with toy features on higher tiers

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Hosts speculate about future pinball themes including Harry Potter, Muse, and Kraftwerk; note Harry Potter as rumored upcoming title, Muse/Kraftwerk deemed 'homebrew at best'

    low · Marty: 'rumours are Harry Potter's going to happen' but Muse and Kraftwerk 'will never happen, unfortunately'

    • 2:40
    that said, hey, Red, take a look at this. This is, what do you think? And I asked about the art. And there is not a clear-cut winner as far as what art package is the best. It really is personal choice. So can I ask this question then? Because since it was revealed, I've done some Led Zeppelin research. Yep. You're welcome. I've done some research. Thank you. No, that's okay. It was, I don't know, maybe five, ten seconds tops. That's actually not true. But what I was trying to work out, because you've got Pro Premium and LA.
    3:11
    I'll get to the LA in a second. The Pro has got the artwork from the album Led Zeppelin 3. the premium has got the cover from Led Zeppelin which therefore is known as Led Zeppelin 1 because it was the first album. The Ellie which has got the Icarus angel thing what's that from? I couldn't work out whether that was from an album or it was from like a tour poster or something. What's it from? So after Led Zeppelin gave us House of the Holy they had their own record label
    3:41
    which was Swan Song Records. Swan Song. I did some research. I knew about that. In fact, the first band that was signed to Swan Song Records was the band Bad Company. So they actually... They actually might have been Dread of Anfancy, but yeah, good time. They, on their albums, have the Swan Song logo too. So you'll see that on Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti and Presence and Coda and In Through the Outdoors, the later albums of Zeppelin. But that's the symbol that they use, the fallen angel Icarus.
    4:11
    And it was neat that they put it on the playfield, albeit, I think, ten times on the LA. I think there's also a toy as well that jumps up as well. So it's a pretty iconic symbol. I mean, it really is their symbol. So you'd want to put it there. So there we go. So we've established you've got those three different albums on the thing. What do you think overall about the art? Again, it is all personal choice. And I think, I mean, it's not a clear-cut winner, majority, minority, but I do think I'm in the minority.
    4:42
    To me, by far, my favorite art package is the Pro because of the iconic Led Zeppelin 3 album, which, by the way, had a spinning disc. The album cover changed as you spun the disc, and you had different figures kind of come in those circular holes where the faces are. Also known as the Bugs Bunny edition. Yes, I actually quite like that one. The premium has got the iconic Hindenburg Zeppelin disaster on the front,
    5:12
    which is just, again, such an iconic album cover. All over the premium. That's the problem I have with the artwork, is not that they're not good images that they used. It's like, really? I've got to look at it on the back glass and on the side and on the front where the coin door is? You couldn't mix it up? Like, look at Avengers. Look at what Zombie Eddie did with the art. You look at the front, you look at the sides, look at the coin box. They're all different. It doesn't matter which model. I kind of wanted a little more from that, from Zeppelin. I realized they only wanted you to use their licensed stuff.
    5:42
    That's great. They have enough of it. But mix it up. I mean, look at Guns N' Roses. You've got all those great concert... Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. What? There you go, ladies and gentlemen. That's our first comparison to Guns N' Roses this episode. Well done. Keep going. I'm just saying, the art, it's licensed. It's definitely Led Zeppelin authentic. But to me, I wanted a little bit more. Well, I was having a conversation today, and I said, yep, I get it's iconic, but stylise it rather than make it look like wallpaper. And I say that with the pro as well,
    6:13
    even though I did look at the art and I went, to be honest, I had never seen the cover art for Led Zeppelin 3. Don't be shocked. You know I don't like them. So for me, the big iconic one is the first album. The second album where they are sort of re-enacting that old war photo. With Phyllis Diller, by the way. Okay, cool. Well done. I know the remastered one, which has got the crop circle. That's very iconic for me. And Mothership, which is the compilation.
    6:44
    Yeah, that's not a real album. That's a great album. No, it's not. I just said it's a compilation. Yeah. But I'm just talking about when I was looking at art, I was going, oh, well, on the pro, I don't recognize that art from anywhere. And it's silly, obviously, because it is such a big album. But it's the first time I was seeing it. So I was scratching my head going, I don't get that art. What is it? All the non-Zeppelin fans were saying that. And even Carl McAlpine, who does like Led Zeppelin, he said, what's with that art on the Pro? And I said, it's exactly the model of the Led Zeppelin 3 album.
    7:15
    And he went, oh, I get it. That is perfect. But I guess if you're not a Zeppelin fan, you don't know that. But to me, that's why that one popped for me. Okay, you did some Led Zeppelin trivia. Why are they called Led Zeppelin? Do you know that? No, they wanted to become the most overrated band in the world. Fuck off! And that was the name that they... I don't know. Tell me. Good one there. They're called Led Zeppelin because when Jimmy Page, who used to be at the band the Yardbirds, was developing a new band, he told members of The Who, Keith Moon and John Ethel, that he's forming this new band and he played a sample.
    7:47
    And I think Keith and John said, that band is going to go down like a lead balloon. He thought that was funny, So he changed it instead of Lead Balloon to Lead Zeppelin, the blimp. And he spelt Lead, L-E-D, because, and this is true, he didn't want North Americans, he didn't want them to pronounce it Lead Zeppelin. So he changed it to Lead Zeppelin. And if you notice, bands like Def Leppard, they've also changed their name in tribute to Lead Zeppelin. I know. And people still call them Def Leppard. So, you know, fix the second word as well, Def Leppard.
    8:20
    Just saying. very influential band this Led Zeppelin so glad there's a pinball machine so we talked about the art let's talk about the play field no no no before we do oh we haven't talked about the art on the limited edition which is the one that you're getting okay because I think for me I think that the best art of all of them except for the blue trim I'm not a fan of the blue trim but I'm not a fan of any different color trim I like
    8:51
    It doesn't do anything for me. So that's fine. I don't care. You know, I showed Anne the three models, and I said, Anne, we're getting one of these. Which one's your favorite? And thank goodness she said she liked the LE art the best. I'm like, great, that's the one we're getting. All right, there you go. Playfield. Playfield art. Continuing with art just for a little bit, I like that they have on the inserts some of the famous Led Zeppelin IV Hermit inserts. That's very, very iconic, and I'm glad that's on there. I like the playfield art, but the playfield itself, first time I looked at it, I went, okay, I'm glad I don't own Star Trek.
    9:24
    It reminded me a lot of Star Trek, some of those shots. It did to me too, but it kind of actually more so reminded me of Star Wars, mainly because the shots are really right at the back. And so there is a big space in the middle of the playfield. I'll get to why I come around to that later when we talk about layout. Okay. We can do that now if you want. Well, I'm sort of giving my overall impressions.
    9:54
    I kind of looked at it and went, huh, is that it? And I'm trying to say this respectfully. Is that in comparison to what we've seen this year or is that just in general? Yes. Okay. That's what I'm saying. In compared to what we've seen where, you know, people are really trying to push the envelope when it comes to layout and geometry and art and light shows and all that kind of stuff. I just looked at it and went, yeah, I'm a little bit underwhelmed by it.
    10:25
    And I would have watched that promo video probably upwards of 40 times just because I just wanted to get the feel of it. And in the end, I just sort of said to myself, I don't care. I want to stop looking at this. I think this will shoot really well. There you go. That's what I said. What I don't know is the rules because unfortunately, your interview with Tim Sexton on People Profile has only just come out. So I haven't been able to listen to it to understand the rules.
    10:56
    But, you know, rules can make a layout shine. To what you said about being a good shooter, absolutely. You know, Steve Ritchie has said time and time again, probably on your old head-to-head show or my show or wherever, he has said that when you go up to a Steve Ritchie game, you know where the shots are. So that's kind of the flow, and that's what you get with this game and all of his other games. So yeah, it will shoot well, no question about that. The rules. Was I a little underwhelmed when I saw the play field?
    11:26
    a little bit, again, in comparison to what we've seen in 2020. But what makes up for things like that? It's all about the code. I'll tell you this time and time again. I know a lot of people own it, and they've spent a lot of good money on it. When I first saw Elvira, House of Horrors, I went, that does nothing for me. The ramp is too wide. Everybody and their brother can hit that, and there's just not a lot to do there. But what makes that a great game? It's all about the code. So when I interviewed Tim, a couple things. One, no matter what they gave us with Led Zeppelin, my hype was so high that how is it going to possibly live up to that?
    12:01
    So I see it. I'm like, okay, Tim, tell me what you got. As I'm talking to Tim about the rules, I just got more and more excited. This is going to be a great coded game. I'll tell you that right now. I'll try and give a sort of a medium view of hype because the comparison I'll give it to is Star Wars. because everyone has said, oh, you know, you were never ever going to be able to live up to the hype because it's such an iconic theme and everybody loves the theme. I don't love Star Wars.
    12:32
    I've watched them all and I've enjoyed some of them, but I'm not a Star Wars fan. So the hype meant nothing to me and it was a letdown. Led Zeppelin, you know, everyone knows my thoughts on Led Zeppelin. So there's no hype for me on this. so it's not like my expectations can be met, exceeded or lowered. I had no expectations. It was just present me a machine. And what I've got is a machine. It's there. It's got flippers. It's got ramps. It's got art and it's got code.
    13:04
    So nothing by looking at the video or the art really leaps out at me and that was exactly the same feeling I had for Elvira. So I'm glad that you mentioned that and I was talking about it today with someone and I said, same thing. Elvira's got all these shots out the back and they seem quite, you know, easy. But there's something about that game that is just a lot of fun. So, I don't know. I'm reserving my expectations until I play it if we ever get it here in Australia.
    13:35
    But looking at video and images, I can understand why people are underwhelmed slash disappointed. And the people that love it, they're the ones that are fans of the band. And you know what? I intentionally don't want to shit on this because, you know, you're a mate and I don't want to shit on something that you're going to own. And I also think that people that are fans, they're still going to enjoy the band and you're going to turn it on, you're going to hear Immigrant Song or Whole Lotta Love, the two songs that are good, and you'll enjoy it.
    14:06
    The song choice is fantastic, by the way. You'll be glad there's no Stairway to Heaven and I'm glad there's no Stairway to Heaven because it's... A lot of people are so pissed off that there's no Stairway to Heaven. I'm glad. You know why? Because as you play this game, you're going to hear songs over and over again, and you're probably going to be, like any music pin, maybe tired of them. Well, that is a song you'd really get tired of because of the slow pace of it and how the modes work. You have to play the entire song. That's a lot of Stairway to Heaven, even for someone like me. That's a long song. So I know that people were saying, you know, it probably doesn't suit the machine because it's a ballad and it's a slow song.
    14:42
    I mean, it gets rocky towards the end. But then I kind of thought, oh, I agreed. I said, yeah, absolutely. But then I thought to myself, well, hang on. Fade to Black on Metallica is a ballad. So that kind of works in the game. So I don't know whether I see the pace of the song really being the problem here in Pinball. It's probably the duration of the song. It's probably the price of the song, if we're really honest. No, the real truth is, and I don't think Stern will say this or anyone else, but Robert Plant himself would have said, I don't want that song in.
    15:14
    He is adamant about that song is not the defining Led Zeppelin song. To him, Chasmier is, which is in this. He thinks Fairway is a great song, but just he believes it's overrated. And I disagree with Robert, but he's in the band, so what do I know? So were there any songs that you think should have been in the game? Okay, let me look at the list here. What about Achilles' Last Stand? Well, Achilles' Last Stand is one of my seven favorite songs. I think somewhere I ranked them once
    15:46
    And I just think that's spectacular But it's 11 minutes long Or 10 minutes long So maybe nobody's fault off of the Presence album Here we go Good Times, Bad Times Aren't you impressed that I mentioned a good song like that? Do you like that song? No, Greg Silby sent me a note saying I wish they'd put this song in the game Yeah, it's pretty awesome But it's just too long So you've already got Cashmere Which is your longest song on here Good Times, Bad Times It's the first song on the first album It's what introduced us to Led Zeppelin, and you heard the thundering drums from John Bonham.
    16:18
    Perfect. Communication Breakdown. A lot of people call Led Zeppelin the fathers of heavy metal. I totally disagree because they played blues, they played psychedelic, they played rock and roll. But Communication Breakdown might be the first ever heavy metal song. When did you ever hear Robert Plant or any other singer in 1969 scream their heads off like that in a song? It rarely happened. I think that is the first heavy metal song. also probably just have to backtrack because I think people actually call them the greatest cover band that's ever been.
    16:50
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's called Three Dog Night or Joe Cocker. Artists, all they did were do cover tunes. So in the first couple of albums, the first album certainly has a lot of covers. Oh, by the way, so did fucking Van Halen when they put out Diver Down. So a lot of people do covers. There's nothing wrong with that. But by the time they got into album number 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, there weren't the covers anymore. They did a couple on physical graffiti, but it's an old joke and it's not what I meant. You know what? Most bands start out as cover bands. That's just a rite of passage, so whatever.
    17:22
    Exactly. Immigrant song, no cover there, nor is Cashmere or Black Dog. Ramble On is the one song that, to me, is... I know so many people that love, love, love that song, especially women. It's, to me, the overrated song, but I get why it's there. So that would be the one I would maybe flip out and put in Dazed and Confused. I needed more. There's no psychedelic song in here, whether it's no quarter of that. Rock and roll, great rocker. Trampled underfoot, John Paul Jones, maybe at one of his best. And the song remains the same, showcases Jimmy's incredible guitarist.
    17:53
    It's actually one of my least favorite Robert vocal songs. The song remains the same, but there you go. Good song choice. Okay, so you're happy with the songs, and you're happy that there's only ten? I could name another ten I'd like on there, but ten's good, and especially when we're talking about getting to the wizard mode, which you have to go through all these songs. So that's 50 minutes of songs. So that's enough. The reason why I'm bringing that up, because remember, I'm just not close enough to this band to know what should be in and what should be out.
    18:23
    And I'm sort of just echoing all the feedback that I've seen. And really, number one is art, as far as it being, let's say, polarizing or negative. So art's number one, layout's number two, and then song choice is number three. and everyone's chiming in saying that they wish they'd had more songs or they'd had my favorite song or take this song out. That's just, it's all very subjective, I guess. Yeah, Led Zeppelin did about 90 songs in their career and there are only four I can't listen to.
    18:53
    So that's a pretty good, in the days of albums, nowadays we're all singles, but you could listen to an album in its entirety and go, okay, I'm loving this. So that was Zeppelin for me. So you know what? You're going to have some hits and misses, but it's a good, strong mix of their career, and certainly their first six albums. But I understand that if people love, let's say, Stairway to Heaven, It's Not There, that would be, for me, if they didn't have Whole Lotta Love in there, I'd be going, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, I guess, but I'm fine with what they've got on there.
    19:24
    Oh, yeah. Sure, yeah, you're right, it's a little shocking, but here's the thing about music pins, right? Think of Guns N' Roses. Here's another comparison, but just think of any music pin. I bring up Guns N' Roses because it's current. If you don't like Guns N' Roses music, or if you hate Guns N' Roses music, no matter how fucking great that game is, and it is, you're not going to like the game because the music's going to drive you nuts. And you can't turn it down. You can't put pin sound or anything else like that in Guns N' Roses. You have to have the music.
    19:55
    I guess, you know, I know people that have Iron Maiden that have changed all the songs, whether it's disco or whether it's whatever, and you can still play that game. It's a great game. So I think it's a bonus if you like the music, but it can be a big deterrent if you do not like the music. Yeah, I get it. Music is a very personal thing to people. I understand. So we've talked about the art. We've talked about the play field. We've talked about the songs and the sound. As mentioned in Pinball Profile with Timmy Page Sexton,
    20:26
    you didn't know his middle name was Page, but it is. He gave me just the greatest feeling when he was talking about the code and how the multipliers work. And it's got everything you want in a pinball machine. It's got basic multiballs to start off, simple ramp shots on the left ramp. Okay, great. You're going to get your easy multiball, but then there's a lot more in there. And the concerts that they've chosen, I mean, those are iconic to Led Zeppelin fans. And, ah, fuck, I'm so excited. I'm really, really excited by the code.
    20:57
    Okay. I've got to be honest. I was worried that you were going to be disappointed. About the game or the code? About your purchase of an LE, your first ever sight unseen LE purchase. My first and my last too, by the way. Yeah, okay. So it's a big exception. Sure. If I have to own one LE, this is it. There's never been another brand or theme that has made... For me, I'm not a collector.
    21:27
    I know a lot of people that buy every LE that comes out because they want to have it. It's limited edition, just like they buy the toppers and stuff. It's more about the exclusivity of it. This is not that for me. This is I want the best that you can possibly put into a machine and for my dream theme. So there you go. I don't know how I would feel if that was my dream theme. Which is Harry Potter, right? Which is, well, and Kraftwerk or Muse. Realistic. Those are never happening. Well, they reckon someone, you know, rumours are Harry Potter's going to happen.
    21:59
    No, no, I meant Muse and Kraftwerk. Those will never happen. Those are homebrews at best. Those will never happen, unfortunately. I guess probably what I want... I'm happy with the layout. I'm really happy with the layout. I think I'm going to be happy with the rules based on what I've seen with all the inserts. The biggest thing I'm really disappointed about is the playfield art. I just... It has an Elvis feel to me. Not saying it looks like Elvis Presley. It's kind of a similar impression I get on the Elvis pinball machine
    22:31
    Where it's just, there's not a lot of detail to it So it's therefore accentuating the openness of the play field And I think that was the same issue that Star Wars had When you play Star Wars, is that the thing that drives you nuts? The openness of it? To me, the biggest Steve Ritchie open game ever is World Poker Tour I mean, that is a lot of distance between ball and wherever you're aiming. But, you know, there's a lot on the side here. There's the ball saver. There's the stand-ups on the right.
    23:02
    I don't know. It doesn't jump out at me for that because, you know, you need to get a little bit of speed there with the ramps. I like that you've got three here. I don't know. That never jumped out at me, and especially on the premium and the LE when you've got that toy that's going to come up for electric magic. That's pretty cool. A spinner inside there, a magnet. Okay. Is it? Okay. Fuck yeah. You don't think so? No, nothing for me. Absolutely nothing for me. Wow. Nope. No. Because you haven't played it or just even seen the video of it? No. Just, I don't, it just, it seemed very gimmicky to me.
    23:39
    Okay. So if it's Harry Potter and all of a sudden that's the, I don't even know what the platform is, nine and three quarter platform that pops up, it's... Obviously the Chamber of Secrets. Oh, my bad. All right, yes. The stairway? Is that the staircase? Well, could be one of them, yeah. Or the spiral staircase that goes up into the professor's office. Oh, fuck. Marty's got his wand out. I'm about to expel the armor.
    24:10
    All right. Oh, dirty. You know what? Someday in our lifetime, we'll see a Harry Potter pinball machine, and I'll replay this episode and just take a fucking heaping turd or whatever it is. Okay, so, what you've got to understand here, Jeff, is I am being very sensitive towards you and the fact that you are buying this machine. If you really, really want me to tell you what I think about this machine... Yes, I do. Be honest. I think it's fucking awful.
    24:42
    I just... Oh, really? I'm ridiculously underwhelmed by it. I just looked at it and went, oh, no, no, no, no, no. all knows, absolutely knows but the fact still does remain, and this is true after all of that and then I had a night to sleep on it, woke up watched the video again and again and again I thought, okay, I'm really not liking what I see, but jeez I really want to flip this, like I really do want to flip it, I think it's just going to feel good, because see Richie, his games feel
    25:13
    good, and you know I'm kind of trying to remember back to what I felt when Game of Thrones came out because it was a similar thing where you looked at it and you just went oh my god that looks awful. That's a good analogy. But then it shoots really well, right? So we just we're playing photos and videos at the moment we're not playing the actual game so that hopefully will change everything. So there you go enough on Led Zeppelin, Jeff we've got the rest of the show to do And a special guest too
    25:44
    somebody we both admire very much from Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of the top players in the world. A pleasure to be talking to Chris Stevens. Hey, Chris, how are you? Hey, Geoff and Marty, I'm doing very well. How about you? Really good. Pittsburgh's obviously one of the big, you know, makers of pinball. Certainly, in my eyes, an outsider looking into North America. Has the pinball thing been affected? I mean, for me personally, I really haven't been able to get out to go to any of the local places.
    26:15
    Obviously, with the news of replay effects, it was the biggest bummer that I can come up with. I'm not going to lie. I teared up just thinking about it. But for me, I haven't been able to go out. I've been supporting kickback the gift cards and trying to do what I can and just try to help alleviate some of the downtime. And now we're back on a lockdown. We're back to waiting, seeing how things go. But I really hope that we can pull through it and the public places will continue to have pinball and we'll finally be able to get back together and play them again.
    26:46
    Hey, vaccines on the way. That's good news. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. We will get back there. It's just getting to that point, which is still very, very tough for so many people. But you mentioned a tear in your eye for Papa and for Pinbird and ReplayFX. You're not alone there. So many people have meant so much, too. But that's kind of why we wanted you on, too, because you are certainly very close to that. When you watch Papa Pinball on YouTube, you're always on the stream. And, of course, I've gotten to know you very well from playing competitively, but also seeing you on that stage the last few times, making it to the Final Four,
    27:19
    I mean, we kept always saying, one of these years, Chris Stevens, hometown boy, he's going to win it. He's going to win it. And, unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going to be the case now. So I share your sadness with that. Yeah, it's not going to be the case now. But I like to think there's an asterisk there just in case it does come back. I want you to elaborate a little bit on being on stage there for the last two Pinbergs. I mean, that's pretty special. Yeah, it's definitely a special moment for me. And the funny thing about it is that producer James, he's always like, hey, you know, whenever you get eliminated, you can come over and you can commentate.
    27:55
    And I'll give you one of these spiffy papa shirts saying that you're a part of the crew. And I was like, I can't wait. And then I just kept advancing and advancing. I'm in the finals. And he's like, OK, next year it is. And then next year happened, and then I just advanced and advanced, and he just said the same exact thing. And it just kept working out in my favor. I kept playing well, and I got to the Final Four again. And so it was always exciting, and I just really felt like I was starting to get more and more hungry. Like, okay, you know, Top 8 isn't good enough.
    28:26
    Top 4 wasn't good enough. Like, now I'm actually really going to play for it and make the push. But it was always enjoyable being up there and just hanging out and just feeling like I'm doing what I like to do. So one thing I just wanted to mention as well, this may sound a little bit weird, Chris, but I'm going to say it anyway. I sort of mentioned before, outside of looking in Australia, looking into North America, we get really our content via the internet, obviously. Stop me if I'm going too quick. But what that meant for me is that there are certain personalities that I've been watching for many, many years.
    29:05
    Stalker Yeah, well, it is a bit creepy But you're one of these people I've known of you I don't think we've met Maybe we have, I don't know But I've known of you for many, many years I've watched you play on Puppet TV Pinball For years and years And I've got to say, you're one of my favourite players Because I love your play style I love that you're very calm But I love what you're wearing right now I love where you live.
    29:36
    I love... Go on. It's more so that you, for me, in another country, have been one of the faces of pinball for a long time via Papa TV Pinball. So that's sort of linking into the whole replay effects thing as well. I mean, they sold off their machines as well. So that as well has got to have another impact for you. Yeah, I mean, it certainly has. And first off, thank you. I'm flattered. And, I mean, you're right.
    30:07
    I don't believe we have actually officially met, which does make me sad because I've been listening to you also with the old head-to-head I was a huge fan of. And I would also talk with Joe and be like, hey, can you tell Marty I said hi? And he probably never did, so boo on him. But with Papa TV basically being done, I think, for me, that's what upset me the most, just thinking about the friendships that I had with the crew and how we would get together prior to,
    30:38
    and we would take hours to set up and get ready and kind of talk about what we want to do. And with that majority of the stuff that we would do being broadcasted, I was definitely aware that I'm actually on here fairly often, and I do it because I want to have fun. And it's also a way for me to reach out to people that I possibly haven't met yet, that, like, whenever I do meet them, they can talk about something they've seen with me. And it's like, well, now it's my turn to talk to you, and you tell me a little bit about yourself.
    31:09
    Like, I want to learn more about you as well, because, I mean, that's what friendships are for, right? So with replay going down like that, it was like, is it real? And then I learned that they're, like, selling all the cameras, and I was just like, no. Like, give me one of those patsies things. Like, let me get one of those cameras. I want to keep it. And it was great. Like, it was a weird way, like my little claim to fame with being able to talk to more people, which I'm definitely going to miss. But at the same time, it was a good feeling knowing I was volunteering my time to something that not just myself having a good time with,
    31:46
    but sharing it with everyone around the world. So it really means a lot to me hearing you say that. And I still want to continue doing whatever I can with the social media to kind of do more things and keep my voice out there. So that was great. You know, stupid me. I knew they were selling off the machines. I didn't put two and two together and realize, yeah, they're going to sell off all that gear, too, for Papa Pinball TV. And, boy, there are so many great people that I've gotten to know. and I'm not even in Pittsburgh, but whether it's showing up at Fight Club or certainly the PPO,
    32:17
    Papa events, Pinberg, whatever that Papa Pinball was associated with. Not only that, but other tournaments, too, the New York City Pinball Championships, the old Buffalo one, I mean, Clee Pin. They were always in and around that area and just were great for giving games, giving that great stream, and, yeah, now that's all gone, too. So a good chance for you now to maybe give a shout-out to some of those wonderful people behind the scenes that we know, we might not know, but certainly deserve some sort of credit. So many people. I mean, strictly the Papa TV Live crew. Like, I remember I was a part of the very
    32:51
    first episode, and it was like me and John Replogle and Priyanka and Elizabeth and Doug and Fred, and we just kind of had this idea, and we're like, let's see if it's interesting. Like, we have all this equipment. Let's not let it just sit here and rot for 360 days of the year. So it was like, oh, this would be a great opportunity to provide more content. And just talking with all the people about it, it's like it was cool seeing the people that would kind of come and go and the new people coming in. Like I mean my buddy Evan Bookbinder he came in and he just nice to talk to and great to work with and just maybe even more fun to play pinball with And we have some great people coming in like Tia
    33:34
    Oh, man, I'm on the spot thinking. See, this is great. You're giving all these names and they're all going to be like, thanks. I'm just dying to see all the people that you forget that contact you and say, what the fuck, Chris? Hey. I know. Hello. The tattoo's on my back, Jeff. I can't read unless I'm in a mirror, you know, but I'm just trying to think of all the people. It's crazy how many people I've met through pinball, which really makes you just step back and appreciate it that much more. So then on that, so you are currently ranked 45 in the world, which is, you know, pretty good.
    34:05
    What are you, Jeff, at the moment? No idea. I have no idea, Marty. He looks at it every half an hour and, surprise, it doesn't move. So you probably had to do that a tough way as well, because in order to win tournaments, You've got to play against all the Pittsburgh people, and I know that there's a lot of talent there. What's been your journey to get to 45 in the world? I mean, a lot of people would look back and say it all started at Pinnberg, what was it, 2016? Maybe 2014? And whenever I took second, and Keith Allen took first, Sean Grant took third or fourth.
    34:41
    I can't remember the other guy that was in it. Oh, Jorgen. That's where it kind of started where I was like, you know, I think I can get better. Because as I was up there in the final four, I just, a part of me felt like I was the weakest link. And so I was like, you know what, I bet if I put my mind and time and effort into this that I can climb the ranks. But the most important thing for me was to travel. Because while I was walking through after that tournament, I just overheard people being like, oh, Chris is from Pittsburgh.
    35:15
    So that makes sense why he's there. And a part of me was like, oh, yeah? Well, tell you what, I'm going to go to Fairfax, Virginia now. I'm going to go to Denver, Colorado for the IFPA. And shove it up their ass. I love that. Yeah, that's good. No lubrication. I just went hard with it. And I got invited to the IFPA for the first time ever, and I was like, I'm going to go. And John Replogle also got invited, and so he was excited. And so we were like, oh, let's do this together.
    35:46
    It'll be cute. And me, him, and his wife went out to Denver. We made a little trip out of it. I mean, I've never really seen mountains before. I've seen plenty of hills around Pittsburgh, obviously. But I don't really travel too much. I never really had a really nice job. So I never had some really, really good income or kind of the means to be able to get places. So I basically saved up money and I went to Denver, Colorado. And I remember going through and learning how to play and basically seeing the rules for IFPA.
    36:16
    And I think I ended up taking third place. I played my heart out. I was in some really tough head-to-head matches. You'll like this, Jeff. I 4-0'd Zach Sharp. Sweet. My first time ever playing up against him. Holy intimidation factor. But, like, I was putting all these positions while I was playing some of these players. and I was like, I need to change how I play. I need to focus on shooting all these safe shots. I'll go big if it's ball three. And, like, it just kept paying off for me.
    36:47
    And I eventually took third over Daniele Acciari. And from there, it was just like, all right, now I kind of felt like I belonged where I was. And so I started playing in more tournaments and just kept playing as often as I could. And I kept climbing the ranks. I learned that it's kind of easy to climb, but man, trying to keep that position, that's so hard. Trying to be active and trying to get out and trying to travel. I'm just lucky for me that being in Pittsburgh and the pinball scene being so abundant,
    37:18
    it was easy for me to keep points as long as I kept performing well enough. So had I been somewhere else, I feel like I might have been a little more difficult. But for me, I did all right just because I kept getting better and kept playing more. And even though the competition I have might be as fierce as it is, it was nice being able to play in all these tournaments and then travel with some of the good players from Pittsburgh to go and get more points. So it just kind of went hand in hand with getting the ranks. And, man, I'm dropping. 40, 50, you say? Yeah.
    37:49
    Oh, well, that's just a number. You definitely belong. No one would question that at all. Everyone has seen you play and knows that you are one of the best in the world for sure. And that's what makes what you're doing with Evan Bookminder so cool. And there's only been a couple so far. I hope there are more of these. It's a great competitive podcast. I dare say maybe better than anyone I know, present company included. It's called Play Better. It is a really in-depth competition pinball podcast.
    38:20
    But it's more than just that, too, because what I've learned in the few podcasts that you've done with Evan is that you like to bring the novice people in as well. If I'm a pinball player and I play at home and I've never been in a competition, it's easy for me to be turned off by final round or by play better or anything that perceives it as competition pinball. But you don't do that, and you never did that with streams too. You always kind of bring people along and explain things so that you're not losing the novice people, but you still have good information for those that are experienced players.
    38:54
    I really appreciate that. Oh, I'm really happy that you pointed it out because originally, I think it was like two years ago, whenever I came up with the concept of a podcast I wanted to do, the partner I was going to be with was fairly new to pinball, and we were going to call it the Joe vs. Pro podcast in terms of pinball because they felt like they were such a less-than-average B player that us talking about a competition and a strategy, it's nice to hear from both sides because you don't want me to say, I just shook the ramp over and over.
    39:25
    Why are you playing the game? When they can be like, oh, man, I shot this, and I missed, and I recovered, and I shot this, and then this happened. That's way more engaging than hearing a professional, if you want to use that term, just talk about how you should play a game because I think it's more important that you should play a game first and foremost for fun, but then once you learn that game, you can really dial it up to get it to a competition. So having the original idea via Joe vs. Pro, it was kind of fun to think about that.
    39:57
    And then whenever the competitions kind of went away due to the pandemic, it was like, well, can I still make this podcast based on that? And we're trying to go for it. We're bringing up certain situations and topics, and just I think it's a fun way to go about it. And one of the big things that we did learn, like you mentioned, where bringing novice players into it is whenever we would do Papa TV, some of the emails that we would get would be like, hey, it's great seeing Alexander Kazmarchuk come on and blow up this game,
    40:28
    but can we see more, like, beat-level players to see how they might struggle on a machine and then see Alexander Kazmarchuk come on and blow up the game? So that's why Fred Cochran was on. Oh, yeah, he was there, yeah. That one time? Yeah, it was great. So it was nice to get that feedback because, like, that was really important. I was like, well, that makes me feel good because, you know, We don't need to have certain people on all the time. Let's reach out and just get more and more people, and not just because they might be a B player, but I thought it would be cool to see progression,
    40:59
    like have someone be on there where they don't know what they're doing or something's a little different, and then have them on like eight months later and be like, look at what did you learn? What did you take out of it? And that's kind of part of where the Play Better Pinball Podcast came in because it is nice to kind of track progress because I got so used to tracking my own progress I said I love hearing whenever people play a machine again and realize what they did wrong or what they wanted to do different and put up a big score. I'm always excited to hear people do well.
    41:30
    So that's kind of how that tied in. Well, it's a question I like to ask a lot of the top players because Final Round has sort of had a similar journey in that we really sort of started talking about competitions then there weren't any. So it really started talking about, well, how can people become better players and therefore play better. So the question I ask is, what did you do, besides just playing in lots of tournaments, what did you do over time to improve your skills? What did you focus on and how did you do it?
    42:01
    I think, in all honesty, the first thing that you need to learn to become a better player is to learn how to lose. That was the hardest thing for me to overcome. Fuck, Marty should be the best player ever. Yeah, right? You'd think so. Yeah, correct. I just kept on thinking to myself, I used to get upset because I might be put in a head-to-head matchup with someone, and then they would beat me because, you know, the slingshots launched the ball up into the specific target, and they beat me. And I'd be, like, mad. Like, what could I have done better? Like, what could I have done? Like, this isn't fair.
    42:32
    But after a while, once I started traveling and kind of being more into, like, the kind of pinball spotlight, so to speak, you kind of learn to appreciate things more. So the biggest thing for me was just learning how to lose. Like, you need to accept defeat. You need to, people that aren't even IFPA ranked are going to beat you. And you need to be humble and be like, that was great. You earned it. Congratulations. Like, let's play another game next time. Let's hang out. So for me, learning how to lose is definitely the biggest thing.
    43:02
    But if you really want to talk about skills, I really think that if you want to own a machine, it's important that the machine that you're picking up on, there's going to be a machine that will help you with your weaknesses. and my first ever pinball machine was a Bally X's and O's because there were two things that I needed to work on. I needed to work on my nudging and I needed to work on my shot accuracy. So whenever I went to John Replogles, he was like, hey, I have these two machines for sale. Which one do you want? Would you like Bally X's and O's or Black Pyramid?
    43:33
    And I was like, oh, Black Pyramid. But then I looked at it and I was like, you know what? That outline on X's and O's has a poster where you can nudge the ball back into play. That'll help me work on my nudging. And there's specific targets all around the play field that you need to hit in a certain order. That's going to help me with my accuracy. So I took that over Black Pyramid. It was only like a $100 difference, too. But I was like, that's going to help me with what I want to do in my tournament play progression. And I bought that, and I played the heck out of it. And ultimately, it helped me get the skills that I needed.
    44:06
    Now, I didn't learn how to tap pass, obviously. but I kind of felt like, you know, if I can learn how to shoot accurately and get used to nudging, because whenever I first started playing pinball, I'm not sure if either of you have had this problem, but whenever I first went to the Pittsburgh Pinball League, my first league ever, I walked in the door, and standing in front of Medieval Madness was Doug Polka, and I almost didn't see him. I had to come around the machine. It was a little short, but as soon as I saw him, I was like, hey, I want to play in this pinball league,
    44:36
    and he was like, hey, oh, that's great. And the first thing I asked him was, so we're not allowed to move the machine, right? And he just kind of like stopped writing my name and looked up and was like, yeah, you're allowed. And I think I went, damn it. I like walked away. And then I played my first league night and who was in my group? None other than the Al Tomka. And he really taught me how to be loud while I play pinball and also how to nudge the machine. And I was like, you know what? If I want to get better and beat guys like that, I probably need to move the machine.
    45:09
    And so nudging was definitely one of my weaknesses, and I worked on it. Like people like to say, practice doesn't make perfect. So getting all the skills you think you know you're weak at, working on them, and learning to lose. That's what I got from that. That has helped me. I heard you say that story on Play Better about are we allowed to move the machines. I thought that was funny. And Big Al, I mean, he could probably easily move that game. But the one thing that really shocked me, and I think of you as a seasoned veteran who's played in so many different tournaments,
    45:40
    I can't believe, unless things have changed, you have never TD'd a tournament. You know, I'm really glad you went that direction instead of saying, I can't believe you were late for a round of Pinberg. Old news. Come on. Were you really? I didn't know that. Oh, man. I'll tell that story off the air because there's more swearing involved. But, yeah, you're right. I've never TD'd. I've always wanted to. I helped my childhood friend Nick Chakwe create the Summer League in Pittsburgh, but he ran it. He did his thing. He just made it his, and I'm so proud of him.
    46:16
    and I've never TD'd. I've read the rule book. Believe it or not, I've read it front to back, both versions, because there was a Papa version and an IFPA version. I read them like Louis Bevins. I wanted to know exactly what kind of things could happen, catastrophic malfunctions, how do you determine that, because I wanted to be ready. And I think it's important that if you're thinking of being a TD that just having a nice simple grasp on things is pretty good, But, man, sometimes you might get put in that situation where you're like, I don't know.
    46:48
    And I wanted to do my best to try to avoid that because, like I said, I would love to TD a tournament. And who knows? Maybe I'll be able to TD my favorite style of tournament, which you'd never see anymore these days, and that's a gauntlet. What's the gauntlet? Oh, a gauntlet is whenever you have a set number of machines. Let's just say you've got five machines, right? And they're in a line. What you have to do is there's going to be certain quotas you have to hit on each machine in order to have that one completed.
    47:19
    Like, let's say you're playing a Twilight Zone. You have to get 30 million points. And then let's say you're playing a different game and you have to light extra ball. You're playing a different game and you have to score 50 million points. And let's say you're playing Attack from Mars and you have to destroy a saucer. But anyway, you've got like a set number of machines and each one has a goal, like a target. Basically, there's a countdown. Ready, set, go. And then you can start your time. You have to basically approach each machine, turn it on, put corns in it,
    47:49
    and then play the games to complete the targets. But it's also important which order you do them in, because if you walk up to an electromechanical game like the EM, the flip-flip-ding-ding types of machines, if you put a coin and hit start, you have to wait for it to reset. So what you can do is you can go up to it, put the coin in, press start, and while it's resetting everything, you can run to a different game and press start on that one and then play that one while that's resetting. You might go back, and if your game has a really long bonus countdown,
    48:20
    maybe you can go play that one. As soon as the ball drains, you run to a different one. But basically the premise of it is you have to do all these different targets, objectives, and scores for each machine. And once you've done all of them, you put your hand up, you say a time, and then that's it. the time stops and that's what you come up with. They actually did a fun one at a post-Papa years ago. I mean, obviously, I think it was like 10 years ago. And I think Bo and Karen's ran it. But the fun thing about it was it was my first ever, like, official one.
    48:51
    So he had it all set up and I went and I played it. I did really well. And he actually came up to me afterwards and was like, hey, like, you did really well on that. That was impressive. And I was like, oh, thanks. And I was all, you know, excited and gushing because there was a player that I've never really officially met before. but I really looked up to, especially with his style of play and just him as a person. So as soon as he told me everything about it, I was like, oh, that's great, and just had a good moment. And I think I fell in love with the gauntlet format after that. And it's just something that you don't see because, let's face it, you really can't just run a strictly gauntlet-style tournament because it takes too long.
    49:25
    Can you only have one person going through the gauntlet at a time because it's being timed? Correct. So there's definitely a lot of things involved that you won't be able to do. But I think it's like a fun party-style game when it comes to pinball tournaments. But I just think it's really interesting. Okay. Speaking of interesting tournaments, so I'm looking at your IFPI profile, and there's all these different types of tournaments that you've won, including, I think you can second in one that's called Al Tomka is not going to win this pinball tournament pinball tournament.
    49:57
    So that's interesting. But tell me about one. One that's piqued my interest is one that's called The Amazing Pinball Race. What's that about? The Amazing Pinball Race. That was in Columbus, Ohio, I believe. And it was, I think, at Level 1 or something. Level 1 Bar and Evan Bingham, my good Call of Duty friend and pinball homie. And Bree Reynolds. I mean, the whole crew out there. Kim Martinez. They did a fantastic job with it. And I can't tell you everyone. Scott that did the streaming of it. But there's so many people.
    50:27
    And I'm really bad with names. So I'm not going to try to get hung up too much on that. But the amazing pinball race, a bunch of my friends, and, I mean, I know a lot of people from Ohio, but a lot of people went to it before, and I was like, you know what, I think this is the year. I think this is the year I'm going to go to that. So the last time they ran it, I went out for it. And, like, it just blew my mind at how much of a good time I had. And the format was super fun. I couldn't believe it. Like, it was the first time I've done that style, that format. and, like, I mean, I think every place needs to run one.
    50:58
    I'm telling you. Well, what is the format? I don't know what it is. It just sounds interesting. Okay, let me see. I'm probably not going to do this, say this correctly, but from what I can remember, at first you need to basically, you have to qualify. You get put in groups of four and you play a game and if you take first, you get two points and then second, you get one point. Third and fourth, you get no points. Or maybe it's four, three, two, one. But basically, every time you earn a point, you, like, advance in the race, and the first person to get 80 points finishes first.
    51:32
    So let's say you're taking the top 24 players that finish the race. So once 24 people break the 80-point barrier, you now have your setup first through 24, right? And then what happens next is the following day, which I guess just makes no sense because you start early, whoever finished in 24th place plays machine in game one and they put up a score then whoever finished in 23rd comes up plays that same machine once they beat that score they move on to the next
    52:05
    game and play the next game to keep a score on that one while the person who has the lowest score has to sit and wait and watch and see if anyone else fails to beat their score once all the people go through that first machine, whoever had the lowest score gets eliminated. So now it's down to 23 people, then you move on to the next machine. And but while people are waiting, people can still progress and keep playing. So the benefit of being the higher qualified player is you get to see what score you have to beat. But sometimes that can be bad, right? Because
    52:36
    it might put some unwanted pressure on you. Like I only need to get 400 million on an attack from Mars. That's easy. And then you get up and you play it after ball two, the start of ball three, and you're at $100 million with the wall still up, and you're like, oh. So it's kind of fun trying to play around it. But basically you just keep going, going, going, going. I think once you're down to the final four, the standings reset. So if you did originally finish in first, you then are the last person to play because, like, let's say the person who finished first had the lowest score for something, and then kind of people's positions get jumbled.
    53:08
    But whenever I played it, I was blown away with how much fun it was. And it was cool, like, sitting there and waiting and watching. But it was a really cool format, and it was unique, and it was exciting. And it was a cool way to know what you're up against, and then just trying whatever you can to surpass that score. It was always really exciting. I think we were in talks of running it in Pittsburgh, and it's still something in my mind for my future. So I say if you want to run one, go for it, because it was so cool.
    53:39
    It's interesting you talk about how fun that is, that amazing race format, how you want to do the gauntlet, which sounds fun, I agree. Yet we don't see a lot of these because the way the IFPA is structured, it either takes a long time to do that and to achieve the maximum points that you could possibly get in a tournament, or it's, in some cases, overkill. Like, if you were to take a league, for example, that plays once a month for 12 months and they play six games a night, you've probably already maxed out your TGP after the first four nights.
    54:13
    and then with some sort of direct play playoff. But the reason you do things like leagues is really because of maybe the variety of locations you play, certainly 100% the social aspect of it, and it's just because people like pinball. It's not really so much about the points, or you would probably cap it off once you've hit that maximum TGP. So have we become too focused in on our rankings and ratings and IFTA versus the fun aspect? because here are two tournaments you just mentioned, and I think Marty and I both agree, they sound fun,
    54:46
    but we don't see them because, again, they're just either time-consuming or overkill, if you will, as far as TGP is concerned, the maximum points you can get in an IFPA tournament. Yeah, I kind of feel like there's definitely a focus on what points you can get out of it for the IFPA. Thankfully, I've never had that mindset where it's like, oh, if I do this, I get all these points, and that'll be great, and my ranking would go up, and I can finally, you know, shove in Jeff Gillis' face. I really don't care about my ranking.
    55:16
    There's enough people who do that. Thanks. I just, like I said, I was really in this not only to win it, but just to have a good time. And whenever I play a game and it just feels good, then I want to play that game again. When it came to pinball, it was the first game that made me feel like I had been defeated. I wanted to show it who's boss. But when it came to the point, I don't feel like I needed to defeat any other person. It's just it was cool to like, oh, while I'm doing something I enjoy, I can kind of brag about it, too.
    55:51
    It was pretty neat. Like, I remember some people in my old work would be like, you're like 17th in the world. And I was like, yeah, but like, I'm not even the 17th best person named Jake at anything. You know, it was just like a really cool statistic that I was like, I never really looked at it like that. Like, it's cool that we even are blessed enough to have this system. So thanks to the president of the IFPA, whoever that is today. Is it on show? Is it you, Jeff? The people's president. That's fine. We're going in front of the Supreme Court to contest that.
    56:22
    But anyway, that's just a sidebar. Yeah, fantastic. I'll be looking forward to it. But I really feel like it's cool to have that. And it was also nice, like I said, just enjoying the journey and playing the games and the formats and the tournaments that you're there to enjoy. And I really do think that people are starting to look at it like, well, I want to get the maximum amount of points out of it. But as a tournament director, which I have yet to be, as a tournament director, do you have to make the initial decision as to your format and which players do you want to show up?
    56:55
    Which players do you want to be happy that they showed up and earned these points? And I definitely think that's something that needs to be taken into consideration whenever you're a tournament director and you're trying to come up with how long your tournament's going to be how many players how many people are going to qualify what's the format of the finals and so on and so forth then like i said whenever that time comes where i get to td a tournament i'm gonna have that same thought process one thing i've noticed as well is that when you've been streaming your dad is there as well did he get you into pinball or was it you
    57:28
    getting him into pinball? Oh, man, my dad. My dad's awesome. His name's Scott. People know him in the pinball league as Sass, because his initials are S-A-S. Thankfully, they're not rearranged. But my dad has been a part, a major part of my pinball life. I remember whenever I got into pinball, I think I was like eight, and we would go to the ball, and there was a theater of magic, and I didn't know how to play the game, obviously, but I was playing with my dad, and I was having a good time, and I was doing magic tricks and shooting shots that I thought were worth points, but really that's not how you play the game. But like, it was great. And then
    58:01
    my dad never owned a pinball machine because he thought, and I'm sure this is a very popular thought, that you thought that you couldn't own one. Like you can have one of these in your house, you know? So, so he didn't have one. But then whenever I started playing in the Pittsburgh Pinball League, I was telling him about it. He was like, there's a league. There are other people that play this. You went to someone's house and played on their home collection. People have these in their house and he was blown away and like I could see in his eyes whenever he was talking about it that he wanted to be a part of it so I invited him and he came out and and we just kept
    58:34
    doing it together and uh and yeah whenever whenever I would be at Pinberg and be on stage he would like text me and be like all right I'm on my way keep it up you know and uh and him being there oh it's such a such a good feeling just being able to hang out with him and see him and And, of course, you know, like, I remember whenever I took second place, and there's pictures of us together, and, like, whenever I took second, and I was just smiling so big, and he came over and told me he was proud of me. And, like, I get pretty emotional, and I was just like,
    59:06
    Dad, don't make me cry in front of those people, please. We'll meet in your armpit or something. Just don't. And then he starts crying, obviously. But, yeah, but, like, it's cool having him there. He now owns a bunch of pinball machines, and now he's hooked, and now his friends are hoping to go to his house to see his collection. It's crazy how it spreads like wildfire. But, yeah, he's also been on a couple of the Papa TV Live episodes. Yeah. And it's nice playing with him and having something we can enjoy together. It's always been a pleasure. There you go, talking about Papa Pinball Stream, and in this case with your dad,
    59:38
    nice keepsakes, too, that we all can see and the great tutorials. At least we certainly haven't lost those, which is very, very important that those were archived and some great memories for sure. But one thing on the streaming I've noticed, and whether it was James, yourself, Doug, Fred, Priyanka, any of the great streamers, Evan and Louis, you really built excitement in the games and really broke the games down. And I think that's one thing, whether it's in competitions, whether it's tutorials,
    60:10
    we could learn a lot from Papa Pinball and people like yourself because, again, we can't assume everyone knows everything about the game, about pinball, about competitions. And even though you are at the top of your game and one of the best in the world, you bring us all in together into that thought process, and it really does build excitement. I think a lot of people can learn from that. I definitely agree. It's hard to build excitement over some things that you're just so used to being around. and having people watching that might not know what's going on,
    60:44
    it's always important to kind of be like, oh, man, this is the shot. If they can make this shot, it's going to be very exciting. Some of the best pinball that I've seen or that I've been a part of, having some kind of exciting factor where you're not sure something's going to happen and then all of a sudden it does, like, that's so good. And it's so good to have for the pinball community, even if you're trying to show it to people that might not care about pinball, But just being able to see something like that, it kind of gets people turning heads and being like, wait, why was that important?
    61:15
    Well, let me tell you why it was important. Let's see if it happens again. And then having it happen again, and that person can now be excited about it. So I always feel like it's super important to explain things and just kind of have that knowledge out there as much as possible, because I'm all about that knowledge. Whether it's rule knowledge, game knowledge, the history of pinball, it all comes together to me and can be super important. I think that if you can have that excitement, that anyone can appreciate it. Just like there was a game from, I think it was in Maryland,
    61:46
    and I forget the tournament. I'll have to link it to you guys. But it was me versus Al Tomka, and we were playing game one on ACDC. Does this ring a bell to anyone? And I stepped up as player one because I chose it, and me and Al Tomka at that point were, like, pretty level. Not so much anymore in Omslane, but we were on the same level. We were doing pretty well. and I really looked up to him as a person that I need to beat. I want to be as good as Al Tomka. And whenever I picked ACDC, I knew that it was his favorite game. It was fairly new, and it was just the go-to tournament game for that year.
    62:21
    And ball one, I put up like 100 million points. And then ball two, I put up more. And then at the end of my ball three as player one, I think I ended at 179 million points. He stepped up to his ball three. He had maybe 3 million. And I remember as I was walking away, he walked past me and was like, great job. Like, just consider that one a win. And I looked at him and I said, it ain't over until it's over. I know what you can do. And I walked out of the room. And as I walked out of the room, I'm just listening. I haven't heard Al scream. I haven't heard anyone say anything.
    62:51
    No one came out to get me from on the balcony to tell me, hey, Al's picking this game. Congratulations, I won game one. And after a while, I was like, he's been in there for a while. So I go in, I'm watching, and he is building the comeback. He is just coming for me. He's starting multi-balls. He's scoring points. And then he gets the ball in the cannon. And on ACDC, there's a cannon above the right slingshot where the ball falls in. And if you push the button at the correct time, you'll fire the ball out of this cannon into the drop targets on the side. And if you hit the lit ones, you score the jackpot.
    63:22
    Lots of points. He has the ball in the cannon. There are two stand-up targets lit. He hits the button. The ball comes out, hits both of them, and goes straight to the out lane. And while it goes to the out lane, he screams, no! And he starts shaking the machine, right? He's trying to wiggle it back into play. The ball drains. The game says tilt. Everyone's quiet. We don't know what the scores are because it says tilt. Scores come up. My score, 179 million. His score, 180 million points. And everyone lost it.
    63:53
    Everyone was screaming. And, like, I was, like, I was blown away. And the first thing I did is I walked up to Al and I shook his hand. And I was like, that was the most exciting thing I've ever seen. Congratulations. That was a great game. And I think I can look back at that and not feel so bad about it because I then swept in the next two games to move on. But that was still a really awesome, amazing feeling. And just watching it, even as it was happening to me, I was just like, look at what's going on. And like, oh, it's so exciting. Stuff like that is what I live for whenever I'm watching. It's just a good thing.
    64:24
    And I think if more people could understand it and know what's going on and know what's going down. But it's just that much cooler that you can have people that you can look at it and appreciate it with. That's a good point, Chris. You know, when you put up a great game like you did and someone just beat you, you tip your cap and say, well done. I'm never upset about those losses. The losses that bother me are the ones that are, boy, I played like crap. I deserve to lose, but I'm more upset at myself, not by being beaten. But there are so many great games in tournaments, and you've played a ton, especially in Pittsburgh.
    64:56
    Well, one thing we like to do here on Final Round, some might say it's in lieu of content. I would say it's creative as hell. I would say when it's great, you would do it a second time. And that would be the most underrated game of all time, part two. What? Just pay no attention to that. The point is, Chris, we're looking for some of those great Papa games or any game that you've played in your history that you would consider, hmm, these are outside the top 100 in pin side. But damn it all, that is an underrated game.
    65:29
    Chris Stevens, what do you think? All right. I'm going to go with my two here from the Penn State Top 100 that are not in the 100. I'm going to go with Nitro Ground Shaker as my first pick. And I'm picking Nitro Ground Shaker because it's one that a lot of people are going to be familiar with. It's kind of made its way into the spotlight with Papa TV as well because you see it in a lot of the finals. It's a part of the games you have to play on whenever you qualify and get to the Final Four, Final Eight, whatever. Cleveland Classics last year.
    66:00
    Oh, it's a classic, and it makes its way to the Classics. That's right. It's a great tournament game, but not only is it great for a tournament play, it's also pretty enjoyable whenever you're just looking for something fun to shoot. It's pretty challenging, and it's got pretty simple rules. And, I mean, who doesn't love shooting that kick-out hole on the left and having it come down, and you do a perfect drop catch, and then you flip it right back into it, and it gives you enough time to look around the room and go, I'm the man.
    66:30
    I am the person that is rolling this game. And I love that opportunity to just, like, take a second and admire what you had just done as a player. So every guy or girl is able to, like, make the shot and be like, all right. Like, look at the points go. So I think that's a pretty big, important factor in that one. That my first one And for my second one I have to go with Wheel of Fortune That is a game that I heard so many people hate as well as so many people love
    67:02
    and no one just is okay with it. I am one of those people that love that game. First and foremost, it's got the most difficult skill shot, because not only do you have to do a skill plunge, which feels like it's impossible, but once you make the plunge, that's when the pressure's really on, because then it comes on your footprint and you have to make the shot. So that skill shot's one of a kind. I love it. It's got a really weird, unique layout. It's got a big, big rubber post right down below the flippers. It's got a weird out-lane, in-lane configuration. It's got some really, really weird rules.
    67:33
    There's a lot of different things about it. It's a shame that the code's not finished on it, but it's still a game you can enjoy. I played it in disc a couple years ago in the finals, and Carl D'Angelo put the most amazing save on it to come back and beat me and ultimately win the tournament. And I just think it's an all-around great game. I like making fun of the people with the call-outs. Like, eee! Like, it's just so fun. So that's going to be my second one. Yeah, you know what? When I first played Wheel of Fortune, I really didn't like it.
    68:04
    And it's because of the flipper configuration. It's just really unusual. But once you kind of work it out, and you work out when you've got a flip and when you don't, And the fact that, you know, slap saving is very, very difficult. But in fact, a slap save can be from a flipper to the middle post to the other flipper. Once you get your head around that, it's a fun game. It's just, it's a barrier to entry because of that flipper configuration.
    68:34
    But yeah, I agree. I think it's very underrated. Nitro Ground Shaker. I'm going to go more on that one. I do think that's a spectacular game. game and because of the great valley nature of it, boy, you better learn how to tap pass because you want to get it on that right flipper to shoot it up the left orbit and collect and then if you can rip the spinner on the right, there's a lot of things in there. The difficult part is getting it in the scoop at the top. I mean, that's some skillful nudging which you talked about earlier, Chris. It's a good game, but it can beat
    69:05
    you up for sure. And Wheel of Fortune... What did you say? Everyone loves it hates it? Yeah, which one are you? You're right. I hate it. I can't stand that game. And it's not because of the bottom configuration of the flippers. I think that would actually be cool if they do more of that, because there's some creative nudging in there, too. It's really a big post in the middle that can help save the ball, but it's the code, I think. When Dennis
    69:35
    Norman was on Head to Head, we asked him about Wheel of Fortune. He just said at the time he just wanted to try something different because just everyone was doing either an Italian bottom or it was just the same. He was just like, you know what, why don't we just try to do something different? And I think the gamble probably didn't pay off. And, you know, as you say, Jeff, you can't stand the game and a lot of people don't. But I don't know, some people get it, some people don't. But that was always going to be off-putting for a lot of people.
    70:08
    Well, one for two, Chris. That's okay. The main thing is 10 out of 10 for your appearance on Final Round. And right before the Christmas holidays, it's good to talk to you again, my friend, and do hope to see you soon. I'm going to miss the guys on Papa Pinball and yourself included and certainly thinking of those people behind Replay Foundation. But I look at the positives and I look at all the joy that we've been given over the years thanks to people in the PAPA organization, people like yourself,
    70:40
    and I certainly wish you the best over the holiday season. Hey, thank you guys very much. It was a pleasure to be able to share some time with you. Of course, hear your voices and be able to interact with them is always great. But, yeah, we'll see what comes up, and I'll see you there. So there we go. Chris Stevens, lovely guy, really great meeting finally. But what did we learn, Jeff? I forget this because I'm so fixated on watching Chris play, and he's easily one of the best players in the world, but I forget how well-spoken he is.
    71:12
    It's just because I haven't seen the Papa Pinball videos in a while, and there's only been the two episodes of Play Better, but boy, oh boy, I enjoy talking to him a lot. He's got a lot of knowledge and a great player. One thing we didn't even talk about, one of the episodes they did on Play Better, they were talking about being TDs and playing in your own tournament. And I know you TD a very, very big tournament in Melbourne, but I don't know how you get around that because, you know,
    71:43
    TDs put on these big events and what, they have to sit back? I'm always shocked when they don't play, actually. Well, look, in the last, in fact, I don't even know whether I did for the last two, Melbourne Silver Bowl Championships, whether I participated. But I remember in the last one, how we worked it out, there was two days of qualifying. And the last two hours of day two qualifying was for volunteers only. And that was when I was going to put up my scores. I looked at the top 16 people and if I had qualified,
    72:17
    I would have knocked these people out. And I felt really bad about that. I think it might have even been Dr. John that would have been knocked out. Oh, how can you feel bad then? No, well, I mean, I'd love to joke about it, but I just would have felt really bad that, in particular, this guy's flown down from Queensland and misses the cut by one because I qualified. So I didn't qualify. I'm a good guy. You are a good guy, and so is Dr. John. By the way, I don't know if I've ever said this on a podcast before. When I came out there to Australia, he flew in, and I was like, what are you doing here?
    72:50
    And he said, well, the wife's away and stuff, and I wanted to see you. and that made me feel wonderful. And when we got off the plane, Anne and I, there he is waiting for us, and I just thought that was so cool. I don't even think I knew he was doing that. Yeah. But for me, it was when the Loser Kid guys and people in Utah, you know, Josh, I think, drove maybe three hours plus just to come and say hi. That kind of stuff's really cool. It means a lot. Yeah, no, they're good guys. Great guys. And at the time of this recording, they haven't released their 50th episode.
    73:21
    Looking forward to that. I know that several people reached out to wish them congrats. I think there were some 20 people that submitted clips, and I think we're on there as well, busting their balls like we do. But it's obviously we love them. I think if we didn't, people would have thought that we were imposters. So we're just keeping to our brand. Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of brands, Jeff. It's time for our sponsor of the week. It's the holiday season. We hope everyone is safe and with loved ones.
    73:52
    It's so tough to figure out what gifts to get. I know I struggle every year with what to get my wife. Well, if you really want to impress your partner, why not get something for the both of you? That sounds like my kind of gift. What is it, Marty? It's the Final Round Manscaping Kit. Say goodbye to the 70s and that shag carpet. Yeah, go rad on those gonads. Your scrollhawk is not a good look. It is Christmas time after all, so why not trim your tree? And while you're at it, give the family jewels a polish.
    74:22
    And you know, personally, as a ginger, too much hot fire down below can be overwhelming. No one ever said, hey, great haircut, little orphan Annie. And men, think about what's going to happen when you get older. Hmm, I was kind of hoping, you know, like your ears and your nose continue to grow. Maybe so does my, you know... No, Jeff. But the grass still grows, and your lawn starts to lose its color. So make the gray go away with the final round manscaping kit. Bring out the old weed whacker and turf that hedgehog of yours
    74:53
    Look Borat, pubes are for noobs Okay, okay, but Is it easy to use? I mean, what if there's a lot to work with? Even the furriest of creatures need not worry Each kit comes with a how-to video advanced demonstration by Ryan C Taint no better time than now for the final round manscaping kit So Jeff, what have you been up to the last couple of weeks? Because all you know I want to know You got a Kleenex box there? What's going on with that? A little too excited
    75:23
    Yeah Do tell me about your last couple of weeks Not until you tell me about yours, Marty You go first Okay So probably the highlight for the last couple of weeks Is more time on Avengers Infinity Quest Rick and Morty And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles So really of the machines that have come out this year, obviously I don't get to play Led Zeppelin, so we can't count that.
    75:54
    So really it's only Hot Wheels is the only one that's left to go. But I've now had more play on these games. So I'm ready to talk about what game I like and what I don't. Ooh, I could guess, but I think I already know that you like Avengers. I could be wrong. You did the first time you played it. I didn't the first time I played it. What? No, I didn't. No, you know what? It's not that I didn't. Here's what it is.
    76:24
    This game has been hyped up so much. There's absolutely no way it can meet expectations. When people say, it's the best shooting game that's ever been made, I'm like, all right, fuck you then. Are you? Are you the best? No, you're not. Fucking, I don't know. That was kind of my attitude. So... Take that, Alan. So my first impressions of the game were this. You ready? Too much going on. All right? There. I said it.
    76:54
    Too much going on. When can you take a breath? When can you stop and savour the moment? Right? So my first night of streaming it, I was just like, you know what? It shoots well, but too much going on. I was just, there was a bit too much of overload. That's your first impression. That was my first impression. So I kind of walked away from it going, you know what? I prefer Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. and I knew that that would be the unpopular decision. The second time I streamed it and I ended up having this monster game. I say monster game. For me, it was over 700 million
    77:25
    and it was like a 45-minute game. I started to really understand the nuances of the game and even though there is still so much going on all at once, at least I had enough time to understand all the things that were happening at the same time. But the real clinch for me was the third time I streamed it, which was Saturday night, I walked into Eric's, I went straight to the machine, hit start, had two flips and I just went, oh my God, this feels so good. It just feels so good. And I now really understand the rules and I now really enjoy it.
    78:09
    But for me, I still prefer Turtles. Wow. Is this a pro or a premium or an LE? It's a premium. Because I know a lot of people that have played both and preferred the pro. I know people, and I won't say their names, that bought an LE and flipped it to get a pro. Yep. I'm pretty sure I know that person too. I think they've been on this podcast and maybe a couple others. but the point is I mean they're all good games this year
    78:41
    2020 has been spectacular for this is the whole thing it's not ones and zeros Jeff just because I think that I prefer Teenage Mutant Turtles doesn't mean that everything else is shit that's just a preference and here's how I'll explain it and I've explained this on the stream and I've said this many times before I like a game that surprises me and a lot of games surprise me through their flaws Avengers is clearly, clearly the better game in every single way, but I think it's too good. I know that sounds a bit backwards, but that's kind of how I just think it does everything so well that I don't have the moment to savour it. Yeah, it's going to be hard to justify my position, I know.
    79:27
    No, it'll probably take some more play to get that kind of feeling of what's going on and where it's second nature. Do you know what's already the number one game on Pinside of all time? Guns N' Roses. No, Avengers. Oh, but there you go. Guns N' Roses is high up there. Yeah. But I certainly enjoy it, and I've only played the pro. I have a premium on order, which I probably won't get until the spring with manufacturing, borders, and all that other kind of fun stuff. Hey, at least they're not in the UK and paying 25%.
    79:58
    Sorry, Neil McCrae. Oh, sorry, Neil. I know. And Mark Silk and all my UK buddies. Yikes. 25% tariffs. Anyway, good game. I'm glad you played that. And you said Rick and Morty too. What are your thoughts on Rick and Morty? So here's the thing. Rick and Morty is still a fun game. Again, how do I position this? Because I don't want to like shit on it. But it's... You just want to piss on it? I do want to piss on it. It's not in the same league as the others, is what I'll say.
    80:31
    But it is still a fun game. It's still got its charm. I think Rick and Morty is a better party game than all the others. I think it rewards certain moments. So when other people are witnessing it, you just have a laugh. And that's probably why I would rate it as high as these other games because it makes me laugh, it makes me smile more than the other games. Well, except for Guns N' Roses. Guns N' Roses just made me smile so much,
    81:05
    just through the way it presents the game at you. I think, as far as presentation goes and fun factor, I think Rick and Morty is second, but it's not technically as good as the other games. Sounds like a pretty interesting two weeks. You forgot to mention the great big Melbourne Silver Ball party that happened at Eric's house. That was cool watching the stream. That was fun. Well, yeah, no, so Eric just decided to bring all the streamers together, everyone that streams on the channel and other Melbourne streamers together,
    81:36
    and it was just a good fun night to see out the end of the year. It was a way of me thanking those people that had been streaming on my channel this year because it sort of gave me a bit of a break as well, but also gave me additional content to watch as well in Australia because there's not a lot of Australian streamers. So, yeah, that was good fun. Good personalities too with Dr. Curly Tech, Stacey Borg, Hashman, and, of course, Oz, Eric, and yourself. It's fun.
    82:07
    When I'm up late, I always check out Melbourne Silverball, and you should too, and you can see a lot of those videos. A good mix of games too that you've now added with those streamers. So that was fun. And, again, being here in North America, just watching, holy shit, there's like eight people there altogether. Nobody's wearing masks. What the hell? It was impressive. Yeah, we don't have to wear masks. That's a thing. Is 2020 over yet? No? No, it's not. So my two weeks put my money down on my first ever LE.
    82:38
    Ever. Did you? Yes. What could that be? Surprise to everyone. Sight unseen. Led Zeppelin. I know. Marty? Now, this is the first game I have ever bought based solely on theme. This, I'm sure, will be great. It could be a turd. I doubt it. But it is going to have to go up against all the comparisons of Guns N' Roses. We've already talked about Zeppelin, but I still have to have it.
    83:10
    Still have to have Zeppelin. And I will admit, if it's Sphinx, I'll flip it. I don't think it will. I don't think I will, too. I like Steve Rispy. I like Simon Sexton. See why I don't think it will? Because obviously, you know, now it's being revealed and we've seen it. There's enough of a game there for you to enjoy. Even if it's the stinkiest game ever, it just couldn't be. Like, the minimum standard is so high these days. Anyway, I just don't think I could see you flip it. It's still your favorite band.
    83:40
    So, you know, for me, I know it'll never happen. But if there was ever a Kraftwerk pin, you knew I was going to say that. I don't care whether it was an Absolute Stinker. The fact that I've got my favorite band in a pin would be awesome. If they had an LE version, you'd buy the LE, you'd buy the topper, you'd buy the full works? Yep. I can tell you right now, I won't touch the topper, but I'm not a topper guy. Not to shit on anybody who buys them because they're gorgeous and they look cool in a collection. It just has nothing to do with the game for me, so I'm not interested.
    84:11
    I totally understand it, and I've had this discussion with many people. Some people are, some people aren't. I'm not a topper guy either. I've only got one on my machines, and that's Wizard of Oz because it came with it. I have no interest in the topper at all. It doesn't enhance the game experience whatsoever for me. You love Jurassic Park and the theme. You've never once considered buying that, or when you had Iron Maiden or Monsters or anything like that, never once did it cross your mind to buy that? No, because I don't think the toppers are amazing.
    84:47
    If I had... Black Knight sort of rages pretty. If I had Black Knight, I would probably get that topper. If I had... My favourite topper of all time is Attack from Mars Remake. I would absolutely have that topper. And I'm looking at you, James. Get that topper out of the box and put it on your machine. For God's sake. Yeah, that's pretty spectacular. I have to agree. But otherwise, you know, they don't really do that much for me. If it's plastic and lights, it does nothing for me.
    85:18
    If it's some sort of animatronics, I love it. R2D2 doesn't do enough for me. I know it moves and all that stuff, but it's too small. I think that's what does it for me. But Black Knight, I mean, that looks pretty menacing, pretty cool. The only topper I have is fishtails, and it's unplugged on purpose because it's too damn loud. It's so noisy, I know. And I believe you had a special panel discussion on Pinball Profile. I did with the Deep Root guys, and that would be Robert Mueller, that would be Quinn Johnson, and our good friend Stephen Bowden,
    85:50
    and even though I put money down on the Led Zepponelli, I also, I think this is the first time I've admitted it publicly, I did put a deposit down on a Raza game as well. I'm excited to see what happens there. Fingers crossed. You know what? That could well be the first thing that's ever been said on this podcast that I didn't know before we recorded. Oh, you didn't know? No, I didn't know. You would normally tell me that kind of thing. So, well done, obviously. Yes, your voice is in the machine. That's fine. I don't think that's why you're buying the machine.
    86:22
    That would be really, it's a nice keepsake to have. But obviously for you, there's enough in the game for you to warrant a purchase. I'm glad you said that because, yes, don't get me wrong. It is fucking so cool. to be on a game, any game. Sure. I know all about M-Temp. Right? You know that with Houdini. Yeah. But you didn't buy Houdini. It wasn't a game that tickled your fancy, so I'm glad you said that. I nearly did. Oh, okay. But I just wasn't in a financial position, too, so I didn't at the time. Oh, okay. I have played the prototype of Raza.
    86:53
    I've seen what they've done with the pin bar and everything else, and if this all works, I'm going to be enjoying the game. I have said time and time again, I love John Papadu games, With the exception of Star Wars, I have so much fun on all of his games. So I like that kind of style. And when I played Raza, this is over a year ago, I really enjoyed that game. I also like Steve Bowden. I like a lot of people in pinball, but I don't go by their games. So there was enough there for me to give this a try, and especially with the innovations.
    87:23
    If that pinball is everything they say it is, I'm pretty excited. Yeah, cool. Well, it was a great interview you had with them. They had a lot to say, which was good. They were also on, I think, the People News and People Magazine podcast as well. So that was an interesting chat as well. And the reason why I bring those up, because I've now listened to both of those interviews, and I have something to say about it, Geoff. Okay. And this may be an unpopular thing to say, but I'm going to say it.
    87:58
    Uh-oh. What was really refreshing in both those interviews was to hear a humble Robert Mueller. He had to come out and say some things that were not the brand that we've had so far, where he's basically had to say, I was wrong. It was noticeable. Yeah. My second question to him was bringing up the point that his website said, pinball is hard. I said, that's a bit of a departure. Even in recent times, because people always bring that up. Even in recent times, he sort of dodged it by saying, well, I'm still saying pinball is easy, but everything that goes into it is hard.
    88:33
    This time he's actually saying, do you know what, guys? I've learnt. I was wrong. I shouldn't have said all those things. Can't change the past. But here it is. So what I got from it was he was really sort of just confessing that everything has been far more complicated than he ever thought. And he probably wishes he never said that crap. We as the public, I don't think we are still in a position to forgive, but we just want to see these games.
    89:06
    But after listening to both those podcasts, I kind of stopped and thought that was kind of good to hear that side of him. Less of the bravado, more of the human. Still got a long way to come, I think, to take back a lot of the bullish stuff that's been said. But for me, I'm like, okay, enough being said. I've got no ill will towards him, Deep Root or anything. Now just bring on the machines. It's just get your manufacturing sorted, get the games out,
    89:38
    make sure they're good, solid games, and then we will see what the next step is. I think manufacturing is the number one question people have concerns about when it comes to Deep Root. But I guess in the Pinball News interview, he chose to be secretive about manufacturing because of whatever way they're doing it. But if you asked Gary Stern, how do you manufacture? You're not going to tell everybody their manufacturing secrets either. Sure. Okay. But they do tours and you can see the facility and the people and the assembly line and all that kind of good stuff.
    90:11
    Yeah, yeah, yeah. It helps put you at ease. And I think for a new company, that would maybe get a few more sales. Yeah. But what do I know? I agree. I agree because, and that's why I said bring on the games, because up until now, like obviously there's a few people that got to play it when it was on location and you got to play it last year. but until then, it's been a lot of words. We just want the machine now. Just prove it now. Put words into action. Give us a machine that does everything that you say it's going to do
    90:41
    and hopefully people will be able to move forward from it. I think there's a lot of people that will never be able to move forward from it and I'm totally okay with that. Just give us a machine. We just want to see this thing now. There have been a lot of hiccups on the way to get us to where we are today, to where you can now buy it on DeepRootPinball.com until the end of the year. But the biggest thing that might have sold a few games was what happened actually right here on the Pinball Network when they finally streamed it on Fliptronic. When that happened, that probably turned a few heads. Yeah.
    91:11
    You saw that it's a real thing. It's not Viberware anymore. Yes, absolutely. So I've heard other people say, you know, when it comes to building a game, it's easy to build one, maybe two, three, four, five, six. Building several is the trick. So, hmm, we shall see. We shall see. Another thing that you were involved in as well, at the risk of being overexposed, Jeff, is Pinkash happened as well. And could we say best stream ever?
    91:43
    I don't vote for the Twippies, but if I did, that would be my kind of online event of the year. Listen, I had the smallest part on it, and all I really was doing was kind of filling the gaps. The show was the 24 competitors. The show was Snow Galvin and Stephen Bowden doing commentating for eight hours. The show was Carl D'Angelo putting this all together on IE Pinball. And I guess there was a hiccup maybe in the first 10, 20 minutes that they corrected on the fly.
    92:15
    You know, they had the sound of the machines. But when you've got two machines going at once, pardon the pun, a bit of a clash from an audio standpoint, killed that, and boy, oh boy, you know, Snow and Steve filled that void. And Snow had one screen, Stephen had the other screen, and I just think that is such a wonderful format of a tournament to watch on Twitch, on streams. It's exciting. I watched six-plus hours of that. Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm probably at about four hours.
    92:47
    Here's what they did. So we've had head-to-head tournaments before, and the biggest problem I've always had with a head-to-head format is following two machines at once. What Snow and Steve did with their commentary was point out to us what we should be looking at at any time. So I never felt that I couldn't follow. The rules were explained, like the objectives. Carl obviously had done some videos showing you the objectives.
    93:20
    And the way it was presented, this for me, I think now, is the closest I've ever seen to a general public accessible pinball stream. We were talking about this with Chris Stevens. Make sure you bring on the common people. You can still be advanced for all the pros and whatnot, but it brought everyone along. The tutorials, the instructional videos of here's what they're trying to do. And I don't really know Jurassic Park that well. So you do like the back of your hand because you own it.
    93:52
    But I learned a lot watching that. And I can only imagine others did too. They had a lot of viewers over a lot of period of time. And even Zach Benny on the Pinball Network, there's a guy who really is not into competitive pinball. He was fascinated. So I have to think others were too. And I really do believe, and I've said this several times, the reason I started doing Pinball Profile was because I really wanted to know about the people playing. I wanted to know a little bit about them. So I got some really nice feedback, and thank you, Martin, you're one of them, about those little interviews because now you knew a little bit of where they were, what their background was, and maybe you could pick a side as you're watching this competition.
    94:32
    Yeah, yep. My background in that was watching poker and, okay, I get the game, but who are these people playing? And now, okay, there's some interesting stories there. But the truth of all that is, and this is Carl. Carl asked me to do that, but Carl had the vision of knowing I need some sort of transition to get two streamers set up, to get their cameras ready, to get the visuals of what he needs to do. If I can pre-record these interviews, that will give me two, three minutes of buffer. It gives Snow and Steven a bit of a breather from talking eight hours,
    95:06
    and that's what was so seamless about it. People joke, hey, let's do another one. Hold on a second here. Let's not forget the biggest thing about that. Carl D'Angelo, out of his own pocket, gave $1,000 to the winner. Yep. Wow. And not just that. Think of all the time spent putting all the videos together and putting the overlays together, coordinating everybody. It was a significant undertaking. But it may seem like a minor point, but this shows why I believe that his streams are the best quality.
    95:37
    He thinks about the viewer. Yes, he's got the competitors there, and that's fine. You've got your format. but he's thinking about what are the viewers going to see. And I'll just give you this one example because I know a lot of people that I've spoken to have all pointed this out as well. When you've got two people playing and one person meets their objective but the other person's still got to go because it's worth points, he instantly changed it to just the one screen. Now that's not easy to do in a streaming situation but he knew that people would prefer to just see one machine, one player
    96:11
    rather than somebody else sitting there with nothing to do. And instantly. Instantly. It's that kind of attention to detail, knowing what a viewer wants to listen to, that's what made us connected with these players and with the stream. It was just absolutely top-notch. Carl, you're amazing. I showed it to Anne when it was on because this was a Saturday afternoon, you know, normally kind of family time. I said, I really kind of want to see this. This is really the only big pinball event in the last nine months.
    96:41
    And I know pretty much everybody playing. I want to see how this looks. And so she's watching with me. And what you described happened where two were going on. One person completed their task and he blew up the other screen. And she said, oh, that was like, she even goes, that's so cool. I mean, the production was unbelievable. Yep. So good. Yeah. Carl is the best. No question about it. So thanks very much, Carl, for giving us that. And I know there are a lot of people that want another one, but you can take a breather and just pat yourself on the back for that.
    97:13
    If you do want another one. The funny thing was, I think he was shocked how many people were streaming and that could do this. And he's like, oh, boy, we've got to find a way to whittle it down to 24, which he did with Escape Nublar. But I'm telling you right now, Carl, listen carefully. You do another one, you're going to have way more. I think he had 43 different people that tried to get in. It's going to be more than that. Yeah, well, the biggest bottleneck he's got is the people all with the same machine. So there was 43 people that just happened to have access to a Jurassic Park,
    97:46
    and I think he said Iron Maiden was the next, and then everything else was just so much further down. So that's really what it is. It's just making sure that people can stream the same machine. But also just want to say a big congratulations to Esha. He won the tournament. So well done. well fought against Ray Day in the finals. No surprise there. Well, you know what? I say no surprise there. I don't think it was a shoo-in for either of them. Neither player in the previous rounds absolutely just had a cakewalk.
    98:17
    It was still really competitive all the way through, and I think that is a testament to the format of the pin clash as well. So Escher and Raymond were in the final two. If I'm just looking back at final round shows, Escher, episode 21. Raymond, episode 16. Is there a final round karma? Is there? No, not compared to pinball profile. Let's be honest. That's the real karma. Bad karma. All right. Okay. You know, while we're on this topic of taking shots at each other, one week from now is December 23rd.
    98:54
    And there are misprints on calendars all across the world because December 23rd universally is Festivus, the airing of grievances. And my first grievance, by the way, is in 2020, we need more than just one fucking day of airing of grievances. So we're doing a whole week and we're going to give some right now here on Final Round. Marty, may I start? Absolutely. Okay, because if you said no, that would have been a grievance. All right, here we go. My first grievance of 2020 is that I didn't play enough tournaments between January and March.
    99:28
    I should have played every fucking day. I would have been the king of the world as far as IFPA rankings because of all the bleeding. If I just played more, especially when I was in Australia where the points were just so fucking easy to take. It's a good thing they're not worth much. A bit of a grievance, but anyway, that's my first grievance. Okay. Similar grievance. My grievance is I did not get to go to the US this year. I'm not going to mention the reasons why. That's an easy grievance to talk about the route cause of no travel this year.
    100:01
    But it's my biggest grievance is that I had my flights booked, everything ready to go. I wanted to go to TPF. I wanted to go for the original deep route launch. Nah, didn't happen. No travel this year. Very, very annoying. And if I recall if I go back to when my mental health was at full strength I believe that cancellation of TPS was very last minute as far as are we going I think it was like the week before Yeah. Yeah, I had said to you, you know what, with everything that's going on, I'm still going
    100:34
    to go to TPF, but I'm just going to be really safe and precautious, and then it got cancelled, so I didn't have a choice. Yeah, so we shall see. And I guess in a couple weeks' time, we'll know whether or not TPF 2021 happens. I know he had a hard line in the sand as far as early January, whether it's going to continue. I doubt it. I don't think we're there yet. But, hey, fingers crossed, man. We're getting vaccines. Yay. You guys don't have them there. We don't need them. We've got no virus here.
    101:05
    Fuck. No, that's not true. The virus that we've got here is people that are coming in from international flights. Apparently, we've got five people in hotel quarantine at the moment, and there's nothing local. It's all just coming imported. So thank you to all you pricks over there for giving us your virus. So where are they quarantined? In a hotel. Okay, and no one else is in that hotel? So that's literally before we started recording, there was a big press conference and people were asking about,
    101:35
    well, particularly in Victoria, when we had our big second outbreak, that all happened through hotel lockdown transmission. So that's all the questions announced. Like, okay, that's well and good that you've got these people isolated. What are you doing to make sure that these people that are in isolated in a hotel are not spreading it to anybody else in a hotel? So that's what's coming under scrutiny. But let's face it, we've got five active cases in the country at the moment. So we don't have to wear masks. We can have up to 30 people
    102:07
    in our homes now. So, you know, it's okay, but we are still being a little bit cautious. Well, I'm actually happy for your country because let's go back a year ago, what your country was dealing with the fucking crazy fires and everything like that. Australia took a kick in the teeth a year ago. So the fact that you have no cases in coronavirus, that's good. Nice to hear. It is good. I do have another grievance. And it doesn't really affect me, but I'm thinking of a lot of my pinball friends,
    102:38
    and it's not the YMCA, the DMCA. Oh, okay. I feel for a lot of these streamers that have just gotten into it this year, in 2020. We talked about Carl D'Angelo. My goodness, how many people, yourself included, has he helped get into streaming with his equipment, with his mobile gear, with just being a great dude and passing along information? Well, now these people are streaming, and they've got a lot of the modern games, which are theme-based, or especially their music pins.
    103:09
    And now they can't really show them on Twitch. Have you run into that problem at all? You know, I actually did with Dungeons & Roses when we streamed it. But what was really kind of really interesting, because it's an algorithm that works in the background to try and pick out these songs and then mute them, one of the songs that got muted a couple of times was Live and Let Die. But in another portion of the stream, they played the whole song. And so, and he parts it, cut out only half the song and bled into the next song. So, obviously, it wasn't working 100%.
    103:42
    So, but yeah, I mean, I don't think I've got enough viewers to warrant a strike. I've not had a strike at all. I've just, if I go and re-watch my VODs, there's portions of it that have been muted. That's it. So, yes, I get that it is a grievance, and I also, as you know, I like to play music on my stream, but because my streaming is not a source of income that I rely on and or notice, I don't care. It doesn't bother me at all.
    104:16
    And so I've got my other streamers and they were worried about it as well. And I said, no, play music if you want. It doesn't matter. If we get, you know, taken down, we'll just start up as another one. I don't have anything financially linked to that. But I feel for those people that do. And particularly, I know there's a lot of people that have got years and years and years of great content that's all of a sudden had to be deleted. That kind of stuff sucks. So they don't mute the whole thing. They just mute parts where there was music. Yeah, wherever somebody has flagged it as a copyright infringement.
    104:49
    I don't want to take anything away from the artists and the songwriters and the people that are in the music industry. I certainly feel for those people. I just wish there was some kind of compromise. If you're a top streamer and you're making huge bucks, okay, I get it. I can see where just like DJs or radio stations have to pay royalties. I get that. But the shutting down and in the States, you've got politicians who want to make this a felony.
    105:21
    I know. That's kind of crazy. And think about this week, too, right? Led Zeppelin, that normally would have been streamed on Twitch. On Deadflip, not happening now. It's going to be streamed on Facebook Live to avoid DMCA. So that's a little different. That's a bit of a kick in the teeth for Deadflip and any streamer, for that matter, that is going to get this game and wants to show the game. That's tough. Yeah, look, it comes down to, I believe, that Twitch, the organisation, the company,
    105:53
    which is, you know, Amazon, hasn't got an agreement with the DMCA to be able to monetise this for the artists. So, therefore, they have to strike it and mute it. whereas I think the likes of YouTube, they do know how to monetize that. So you could probably still see... Is that where the solution is going to come? Because I think to me, all right, the streamer gets a portion, Amazon slash Twitch gets a portion,
    106:24
    now we just have to give a portion to the artists. Yeah, I just think it's complex and they haven't come up with a solution yet. And Twitch themselves are getting a lot of grief over this. they've issued some statements basically saying, hey, your best solution is to not play music. Well, that's fine until you stream a Led Zeppelin pinball machine. And what do you do? You have to turn the music off. Well, that's not great, is it? No, it's sacrilegious when you turn down Led Zeppelin.
    106:55
    You never fucking turn down Zeppelin. You crank the dance. I would... You know what? I would never turn down Led Zeppelin music if I had a Led Zeppelin pinball machine because I would have replaced all the music with something listenable. Right before Christmas, you have to say, I thought, you know what, I've had people online say to me, are you going to pick on Marty because he hates Led Zeppelin? I'm like, he doesn't hate Led Zeppelin. He, like many people, do not like the song Stairway to Heaven. That's fine. Teach her on. Yeah, no, you know what? Let's just clarify right now.
    107:26
    It is not that I dislike Led Zeppelin. I just fucking love giving Jeff shit. Let's just call it as it is. Right? That's what it is. No, except for my absolute genuine hate for Stairway to Heaven. That song can suck a fuck. But everything else, I'm okay with. My grievance this year is that there's a Led Zeppelin pinball machine. Right, there you go. There's my grievance. Where's my Muse pinball?
    107:56
    There you go. There's a Velocity. With their hit? Still putting out music. don't have a look at how many albums I've sold it's more than Led Zeppelin bullshit it is take another look at that fuckface it's not even close no but do you know what I did look up and I can't remember what it is but it's someone like what's her name I shouldn't say this but that hideous woman who had that song I think it was called Spaceships Anaconda what's her name everyone's screaming oh it's so and so
    108:28
    anyway the thing of it is yes, over its time, Led Zeppelin have sold more. I think they're kind of like number three or four most sold in the world ever. Yeah. But as far as records sold per year, they are way down. There's a lot more artists these days that if they continue to sell as many records, as long as they've got staying power, they will overtake Led Zeppelin. They've just got 500 years in advance of everybody else. Yeah, that's how old they are, 500.
    108:59
    Good math there. You know what? That's the key of what you just said right there. And the problem with today's artists is the staying power. All right? Name a rock artist or name artists that can stand the test of time for five years. Nicki Minaj. There you go. I don't know why I didn't know that. Darn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I'm saying is she's better than Lizzie Plum. In what capacity? Twerking ability, maybe. She can twerk better than Robert Plant. Is that his name?
    109:29
    Yeah. Robert Plant. All right. I don't know. There's obviously, there's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Hold on a second. I'm cutting you off here, you son of a bitch. But Jimmy Page is the other guy as well. So he's also somebody that's saying that he wants to make sure that they earn more money as well through all the streaming services as well. These people are just greedy. It used to be about the music. It's now all about the money. Whereas Nicki Minaj, she is all about the music. No? So, my anaconda don't, my anaconda don't, my anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hun.
    110:09
    Okay? So, they are better lyrics than anything Led Zeppelin ever came up with. I come from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun, where the hot springs glow. You like that song. You like immigrant songs. Oh, God. You like immigrant songs. I love. Absolutely love the Immigrant song Are you saying Nicki Minaj has got the Edge on Filth songs? Hold on a second here, okay? You're going to ring out You're going to read out WAP Hold on, no? That's my grievance
    110:39
    My biggest grievance for this year Is that song WAP By Stupid Head and Fuckface Got released this year And was a popular song There you go, there's my big grievance Squeeze me baby Till the juice runs down my leg Squeeze me baby Until the juice runs down my leg The way you squeeze my lemon, I'm going to fall right out of bed. 1969, the Lemon Song, Led Zeppelin. All right, Nicki Minaj, take that one. You got nothing, Minaj. Oh, wow. This really is the best of the best.
    111:09
    Squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg. Fuck, if you squeeze my lemon, I'm going to fucking scream. Ah, I get you. Did you know that the song Ramble On is about Lord of the Rings? We already talked about that, you smartass. Here's another song, all right? In the evening when the sun is sinking low, everybody's with the one they love, I walk the town, keep a-searching all around, looking for my street corner girl. I got a woman, want a ball all day. Ah, hey, hey, what can I do? What a song.
    111:40
    Led Zeppelin. It's no muse, I'll give you that. You're right. No, that is correct. Listen, all right. Grievances. My last grievances, but we did this. I thought I gave you a platform to... My actual biggest grievance is that the game I was looking forward to the most this year, out of every game I was looking forward to it for so long, turned out to be just not so great. What game? I'm talking Cyberpunk 2077, obviously.
    112:13
    Oh, video games. Okay. Are we now a video game podcast? Are we the eclectic gamers? Is that what we are? Yes. They are really good. I listened to their latest episode, episode 130. It was good. I like Tony and Dennis. I really like their show. Because I like video games as well as pinball. Yes, Jeff, you can like two things. So what is Cyberpunk? Is it all that and a bag of chips or what? Yeah, look, it is a phenomenal game. It is actually probably one of the best games ever made, except for the fact that it's very glitchy, lots of bugs,
    112:44
    and it's probably crashed about 12 times in the last four days that it's been out. So, and the company has actually offered full refunds for anybody that's got the game on a console. What? That's how dire it is. Apparently, the stocks of this company went down 30% upon launch, and the product's been review-bombed, so it's got terrible reviews as well. So, yeah, no, there's a... And again, and I say I was looking forward to this game all year, and because it was like, oh, my God, it's here, it's here, it's here, it's here, it's here,
    113:15
    and then you get it and you go, you're fucking crashing on me? What? That's bullshit. I saw a video Dennis, I think, posted where he was walking around and he walked right through a car. And I was like, what? Yeah, that's actually, at least you can still play the game. There's worse than that. And it's not fixable? No, they have started fixing it with patches, but anyway, we'll see. My son, Brady, is huge into Star Wars, huge into the Avengers and Marvel and things like that. And when they came out with an Avengers video game, I think it was, let's say, September or so,
    113:47
    they did a little sample where you could try it out, just a part of it and so he got that and when the game came out he said, I'm not buying it I'm like, what? You love Avengers he goes, it's not a good game I'm like, really? So like I said earlier, even though Zeppelin is my dream theme, the game has to be good If it's not good, out it goes I think you're going to be very happy with it I do too You're literally going to hit the button and it's going to play whatever song, let's just say
    114:19
    Whole Lotta Love, right? Imagine if that started. Oh my god, you would need to change your pants immediately. Just down the leg. I might fire off a couple shots before I play the game, just to empty the chamber. What are we talking about? No, but so, that for me, I've got to say, that's like, for me, when I play either the Data Reist Jurassic Park or the Stern Jurassic Park, when you hit the start button and it plays the theme song of Jurassic Park. You jizzing your pants? I don't so much, so.
    114:50
    But every time, I don't get sick of it because it's such an iconic thing that just reminds me of all these, you know, emotions and experiences I had loving the movie. So, I get it. I get it. I'm not going to shit on you anymore about your love of Led Zeppelin and all the machine because I just want you to have a good experience. I really do have to watch Jurassic Park over the holidays. You still haven't seen it. I've never seen it. No. Although one of my favorite things in pin clash, there was this guy, Brian Cottle.
    115:21
    He dressed up like the Sam Neill character in Jurassic Park. So when he came on the stream, he's got the hat, he's got the neck scarf, he's got the glasses, and he looks into the camera and does the glasses thing where he comes off. It was so funny. Find it. Let's put it up on the ground. Let's tip it. I want to see it. Okay. It's spectacular. popular Brian Cottle out of North Carolina. Well done, buddy. Very funny. Awesome. Okay. Jurassic Park right now, I think, sits third on pin side.
    115:53
    So no one is going to call that game underrated. But there are games that people call underrated. And we gave 16. 16, Marty. That's all we could come up with. No, that was it. That was the best we could do. That's why we have the best listeners here on Front Around Pinball Podcast. We do. So we are now going to do the people's choice battle two of the underrated pinball battle royale. How are we going to get more games? Well, we asked all our listeners and we managed to get 26 machines nominated.
    116:28
    We then obviously asked our good special guest Chris Stevens for his two picks. And then you and I, we're going to add four more games to make it a 32 bracket. This is going to be a little bit different to how we did it last time. We are going to do a full automated bracket. So we will send you the link. It will have all the 32 games ranked according to Pinside. I know, but we had to rank it somehow.
    117:00
    And every two days, you will need to vote for all the games that you think better. and it will go from 32, two days later it'll be 16, then 8, 4, 2, and then the winner. So the only thing about these 32 games, the only kind of rule, if you will, they couldn't have been named earlier when we gave you 16 games and they can't be in the current top 100 of Pinside. Yes, and like, I think it was Barracora last time, by the time of selection it was outside the 100
    117:32
    but then just popped up in, I think it was Barracora, it was one of them. So, you know, these things may have moved, but at the time that I asked everybody for their nominations, I took a snapshot of where they were on the top 350, I think it is, and we're going to rank it accordingly. Do you want to know what the machines are, Jeff? I do. I can't believe there's 32 of them, and then we've got to pick two each? Okay, go ahead. Yep. Okay. So, we've got Earthshaker from Williams, Star Wars Data East,
    118:03
    Which I'm kind of surprised that we didn't put that in the first one, but, well, anyway, there it is. Is that John Borg's first game? It is John Borg's first game. How did you know that? Okay. I thought it was either that or... Did he do Tales of the Crypt? That was also his, but Star Wars was his first machine. Not a bad way to kick it off. You've got Black Rose, Junkyard, Elvis from Stern, Last Action Hero, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. I like that game. Same.
    118:34
    Nineball from Stern. Oh, good one. No Fear, Dangerous Sports from Williams. Big Game from Stern Electronics, which I believe might have been their first wide body. Starship Troopers. You like that one, don't you? I do, except I don't like the little mini flipper with a separate button. Okay. Harlem Globetrotters. Money. Laser Q by Williams. World Poker Tour from Stern. NASCAR, which is Grand Prix everywhere else in the world from Stern.
    119:07
    Godzilla was Josh Sharpe's hit. Josh Sharpe's. Correct. Countdown by Gottlieb. Monopoly from Stern. Rollercoaster Tycoon from Stern. Sinbad from Gottlieb. Time Fantasy from Williams. Who was high when they voted that? Stacey Borg. Was he really? I love that game. just purely because of its art and the acid snail. Sure. Big Buck Hunter Pro. Carl, you son of a bitch.
    119:38
    Was that D'Angelo who voted that? No, it was Kevin Peterson. Sorry, Kevin. Phoenix by Williams. Again, very underrated. Not a lot of people know about that game. Knife-O-Ground Shaker was one of Chris Stevens' picks. Shack Attack. Oh, good game. I was thinking about that one. That is a John Norris game. Great game. It's very underrated. Okay, good. Okay. Counterforce by Gottlieb strangely is not even ranked on the Pinside top 100 or 350 because it hasn't had enough reviews to be able to get a rating at this stage.
    120:12
    And then there's another blast of the public votes. Actually got voted by two different people. The Rolling Stones by Stern. Now you and I had a very brief discussion about this while I was streaming the other day where I said if you fixed Mick on a Stick took it out of the way so it wasn't all over the place, I reckon you could have a decent game there. I will say it would be a great game without Mick on the stick. That is the only problem to that game. I'm fine with everything else. It's just that getting in the way and how frantic it really is.
    120:47
    If it was more controlled, I'm fine with it. For sure. You know, I've been so down on this game for so long. I mean, I just hate it so much. But if there's a game that I would just wish that they would go back and do new code for, it's Rolling Stones. That was almost the first new in-box game I bought. Do you know that? Ah, there you go. Anne's favorite group of all time is the Rolling Stones. Okay. And so I only had one game at the time, and I was going to buy a new in-box game.
    121:17
    And I said to Anne, I said, hey, what do you think of us getting a Rolling Stones pinball machine? you know, let's be honest, I was just trying to grow the collection, all right? Win the wife over, you know how it is. So she said, well, do you like it? And that was the statement, Grace. I said, well, not as much as ACDC. Well, which is a better game? I go, oh, ACDC's a better game, but if you want Rolling Stones, she said, get ACDC. Thank God you did. Yeah, yeah. So there you go. And so the other
    121:48
    nomination we saw from Chris Davins was Wheel of Fortune, which we talked about. So then we just need four more games to make this a top 32. What two games are you going to nominate this time around? It's actually a game that they were talking about just recently on Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. And they were talking about some of the games that they enjoyed. And they were actually talking about some kind of underrated games. And somebody piped up about Devil's Dare. And I went, you know what?
    122:19
    That is a fun, fun game. I never get to play it often. And where was I when I was playing that in a tournament? Papa? Because I know Papa's got one. Because that was the last time I played it was at Papa. I played so many damn tournaments, I can't remember. Wherever it was, holy shit did I enjoy playing that game. Yeah, I really liked that game too. I just don't have a lot of time on it. But Devil's Dare, I'm going to throw that one in there. And then my other game, I was surprised to see how low this was. Devil's Dare was, what, 230?
    122:50
    This one came in at the time of the recording at $2.97. And I went, wait a second. There are three games in the 8-Ball series, if you will. One is 8-Ball, the one with the Fonz. I used to own that game. There's the classic 8-Ball Deluxe game. Everybody knows that. Spectacular game. But the game, I think, is extremely underrated. Maybe not as good as 8-Ball Deluxe. But to me, right there, at $2.97, 8-Ball Champ. Yeah.
    123:20
    Yeah, I would agree that I would rate it higher. I can understand why it has ranked so low. And I think it's because 8-Ball Deluxe is so beloved and it's got the bank of targets and, you know, that when you've got 8-Ball Champ, which has got those sort of just little individual stand-up targets around the outside, I think people sort of thought it was more of an EM layout and they considered it a step back.
    123:52
    I think it is a step back, but not a vast step back that it is 297. I think it should be much higher than that. Do you know what it is for me? 8-Ball Deluxe is great. It's a very simple game, but completing it is difficult to do, and there's so much pressure to do well on the first ball. It's the code of 8-Ball Deluxe that makes it good, because if you have a terrible first ball and somebody blows it up or does a rack, while you're just playing catch-up. But think about when you're on the right flipper on 8-Ball Deluxe. How many shots do you have?
    124:23
    Eight. On the right flipper. Oh, on the right flipper. You've got two. Two. That's it. The in-line drop targets and then the left orbit. That's it. Yep. On the left flipper, of course, there's the bank of seven drop targets and then there's the 8-Ball at the top. So there's a lot of shots there. But, you know, it's pretty simple, pretty easy to learn. I think 8-Ball Champ requires you to hit a lot more targets. and there's some... I don't know. I just find it fun. Every time I play it, I'm like, I'd love to own one of these.
    124:54
    What are your two games? I like it. Okay. My first one, coming in at 228, is a great widebody from Bali, 1979. Possibly the best slash worst slash disturbing back glass and play field art there is in pinball, and that is Future Spa. Do you get to play that often?
    125:25
    Yeah, not recently, but I did. I think the last time I got to play it was maybe at the Museum of Pinball in Banning. I think they had one there. Yeah, I really, really, really like it. Holy shit, look at all the space. How are we going to fill it? Just add a few more in lanes. Let's eat in lanes for everyone. Go ahead. Yeah, I kind of, I know. Come on. There's just too much on that left side. And also, too, Future Spa has the worst spinner.
    125:56
    Sorry, second worst spinner in all of pinball. Sure. That right spinner, I've never seen anybody rip it. Ever. The worst spinner, by the way, is also one of the games that was mentioned earlier. Big Buck Hunter. How do you hit it? You fall out of the pops and do it. What? Okay. I mean, I didn't cheat over your two selections, but that's fine. You shit on Zeppelin earlier, so I'm on whatever the fuck I want. Funny. What's your other great game?
    126:35
    I think we know what it's going to be. Yep. Wow. Do we have to listen to this? Is there a Bossa Nova game by Quincy Jones that I didn't know about? That's all I have to play. Because literally, that's mealy. Let's go to Boston Palace. See, now that's so funny. I think the game is good. I think the worst part of the game is that you can't get out of that fucking sound.
    127:07
    I love it. Whenever there was a game to turn the volume off, that is it. because it just beats on you so much. It's a catchy number. Don't get me wrong. Love it. But not for 15, 20, 30 minutes. I'd never get sick of it. Ever. I could listen to that 24 hours a day forever. But I think Austin Powers is underrated because it's currently at 255. Any better than that. Yeah, it's good. I mean, just hit the toilet over and over again.
    127:38
    Do it again. And I remember Keith Elwin on this program in episode 10 talking about spinners. And I asked him, what do you prefer, having optics or the mechanical spinner? And he said, optics for sure. And I said, why? He goes, well, because of the friction and just how many spins you can get. And I went, really? And he goes, take a look at Austin Powers. And that was an example because of Mini-Me. It's hard to rip Mini-Me, I'll tell you that. This is, I mean, we don't want to get too much into the whole Pinside rankings
    128:11
    because we don't really take it that seriously, do we? But if we were, you would therefore say that Barbed Wire is a better game than Austin Powers. Oh, okay. I'll give you, well, yeah. You know what I mean? No, Austin Powers is better, you're right. Yeah. Hey, listen, Pinside rankings, let's put things into perspective, okay? Out of all the games that have been made over the years, did you know we talked about Avengers? Instantly number one. It's a great game. It's probably going to remain top 15 when it's all said and done.
    128:44
    Spooky. Their last three games are all in the top 50. Okay. Again, is that favoring the new games? Hot Wheels, number 44 of all time. It's a great game. It's a lot of fun. All six Jersey Jack pinball machines are in the top 40. Are you seeing a bit of a trend here? Yeah. Look, do you know what? I think it's to do with accessibility. I think there's particularly a lot of the older games, people just haven't played, so therefore can't rate them. I don't know whether you would allow me to change my nomination,
    129:19
    because I just noticed a game here that I'm thinking, how is that 226? Flight 2000 from Stern Electronics. You may absolutely change your pick. I own Flight 2000. Well, there you go. I'm going to change Future Spa to Flight 2000 because I think Flight 2000 is... I can't believe I missed that. Well, you're a little excited by the back glass, let's be honest, all right? True. So there you go. I'm changing mine to Flight 2000.
    129:49
    That was Stern's first talking pinball game, a Harry Williams classic. I love it. There you go. Well, I think, therefore, I should change mine from Future Spa. do that because I just can't believe that that is so low. But as I was saying before, if you think about the resurgence in pinball that we've had, I think it's really, let's say it's from Stern onwards, there probably are a lot of these games people just have not played, so therefore they can't say that they like them. It's going to be interesting, and you're going to put that bracket up right now.
    130:21
    This is going to be fun. I am. This will be done within 24 hours of the podcast airing. So the instructions are slightly different this time, but similar in that you will have 32 machines, but they will still be head-to-head. So it'll be like, you know, 1 versus 32, 2 versus 35, etc. You still need to pick 16 games. You will need to click a total of 17 buttons. 16 will indicate the game that you think is better out of the two that are head-to-head.
    130:54
    Then you've got to click the vote button down the bottom Then wait two days And it will automatically move to the next round We will put notifications up on Facebook So you can follow along That'll be fun for our next episode When we find out who makes the most underrated Battle Royale number two The people's choice Oh, that's going to be a lot of fun Also on next episode We are going to give you the categories for the greatest pinball awards ever.
    131:25
    What would that be, Marty? That would be the final round, reach-arounds. The reach-arounds, which are going to be awarded on January 27th. Why? That's my birthday, and who would love a reach-around on their birthday? So we're going to name all the winners on January 27th. We will have all the categories in which you can vote for next show. And, of course, voting is done, oh, I don't know. With your heart, with your wallet, a PayPal account has been set up on finalroundatpipolichemail.com.
    132:00
    Whatever you want. Listen, everything can't be about integrity. No, that's right. It's basically awards, and we just want your cash. We will have all the categories for you next episode, and just, you've got all the details, send your money, we'll send you a reach around. It's going to be a lot of fun A good way to end out the year And I guess I won't talk to you until after Christmas Yeah So that means nothing I don't know, is that a big deal? Is Christmas not a big deal in Australia?
    132:32
    No, not really You know why? Because there's no snow there, that's why It probably is We don't have a white Christmas Well, some people do But no, Christmas is a lot of fun for a lot of people Just not me I'm okay with it I give a great Christmas experience for my children, but that's it. I think I heard Jesse Jay talk about Christmas as one of the biggest days of the year for people in Australia to go to the beach. Yeah, that is actually true. A lot of people do go to the beach because it's the middle of summer.
    133:04
    It's pretty hot on Christmas Day, usually. Well, we're getting massive blizzards here on the east side of the U.S. right now and hoping everyone's going to be okay. It will be fun times, hopefully, for everyone. I hope everyone is safe. We appreciate you listening to Final Round. And you can reach us several places, Martin. I know you know them so well. I mean, I know them. It's obvious. I know. Look, it'd be embarrassing for you to have to read them out because you know them so well. But you can email us at finalroundpinball at gmail.com.
    133:34
    Look at Final Round Pinball on Facebook. Final Round Pin on Twitter. And Final Round Pinball Podcast on Instagram. Okay, everybody. We'll talk to you in a couple weeks. And happy Festivus, everyone. Festivus for the rest of us. All right. Stay safe. See you, guys.