You signed your real name? Of course I did. If you believe in something, you sign your name to it. Alright, I'm gonna tell you right now. I ain't crazy. This is the ground you'll die on. Are you sure? Oh my god, are you serious? Son, people can see you. I don't tell you what to do with your money. Don't fucking tell me what to do with mine, okay? I'm not as dumb as you think I am. I will defend myself. He means it, sweetheart. Well, that's because you're an idiot. I will fight and win because I am the most intelligent. You sure about that? You sure about that? I got something I want to say. A lot of you motherfuckers think you know who Teddy Powers is. Well, I'm here today to tell you all you don't know shit. Oh, I give up. You're going to get yourself killed, and this time I won't be able to save you. I make you laugh. I'm a clown. I amuse you. I'm here to fucking amuse you. Come on. Don't bullshit me. Go ahead and go, but I'm not going to stop yelling because then that'll mean I lost the fight. So please leave a key under the mat. I love you all very much. Peace out. Serenity now! Serenity now! What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Okay, a simple wrong would have done just fine, but this makes no sense. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. As always, I am Alan, your host of the show. Joined in the basement studio, my co-host, Alex the Waterboy. How you doing? I'm doing great, Alan. How about you? Doing pretty good. Very happy because we're doing another Die on the Hill series of our show, which is where we invite a guest to the show to defend a commonly crapped on game that they unironically love. And it's a chance to highlight some underappreciated games and cut through all the groupthink and the blind hate and realize that pinball is always subjective and people actually do like these games. Some of these games that you have simply written off may have more to enjoy than you previously gave them credit for. This week's episode, we will be featuring Gottlieb Premier's masterpiece, Raven. great odin's raven released in 1986 designed by john trudeau with software by john burris play field art by larry day and featuring some incredible sound and music from Kendall Hale it was actually a very big seller for gotley premiere at this point in time with 3500 units made but it's currently ranked number 301 on the all-time pin side list making it the lowest rated game that we have ever featured on the show yeah it's abysmal maybe it's the lack of a multiball maybe it's because of the photo backlash which was the first time any company had done this but Raven, for whatever reason, has no shortage of haters, and we're going to read all their reviews. But thankfully, one brave man is joining us on the show to defend Raven's honor, and that man is Scott Denisey. He's a pinball designer, programmer, engineer, musician, a name but a few things to Scott's time. You already know him. He's been on the show before. Welcome back, Scott. Why do you love Raven? Excellent. Glad to be back. Awesome. Why do I love Raven? Okay, so Raven was a game that I owned a long, long time ago, And I got a real beat up one and I fixed it all up real nice. And there's many, many reasons why I love Raven. And I think we're going to probably touch on those. We should probably just, let's just get right into it and start. Let me get in the hate and let me do this because I'm going to justify every reason probably why I did this. We probably got like 13 or 14 reviews that I picked out. Oh, perfect. And then, yeah, and if there's any that are... I culled a bunch of them because there's a mountain of hate for this game. You want me to start it off here? Start it off. The first review is from King Daddy. He says, it's hard to argue against Raven being the worst solid state game of all time. It has laughably horrendous artwork and concept combined with very poor gameplay. Gee, Brittany, I'm overcome with emotion. See, so this is the problem here. So there's two big things here. So I'm going to start with gameplay, first of all, because the average pinball player now, they don't understand simple rule sets. This one has a very simple rule set. it has a lot of cool little things going on in the playfield. Yes, it doesn't have an orbit that goes all the way around and that's fine, but it doesn't need it. Not every game needs an orbit. It doesn't, but there's a lot of little cool things going on. And the fact that you can hit those standup targets and get those little sniper guys to pop up and stuff. It's really cool. That was ahead of its time. That's before Cactus Canyon. I just want to remind you guys. Clever use of drop targets for this time. Dude, very clever use of drop targets, which I'm a big fan of. And now like the artwork right so let's talk about that again so like actually there's probably three things this guy was hitting on artwork the artwork is actually really good if you look at it the photo back glass is probably fantastic it's it's badass it was supposed to be rambo right yeah so that's like a it's back when gottlieb was doing stuff like bone busters was supposed to be ghostbusters right the gottlieb knockoffs which are just endearing yeah yeah they're great they're they're unlicensed themes that are tech they're like sort of kind of like the license you know they're trying to get around the licensing this is like rambo and then they put instead of putting rambo on there they put this lady with a ak-47 shooting from the hip which you can't do um you know it's like and also that yeah i don't want to go into the technical details of why you can't shoot a firearm like that but but it looks cool scott it looks cool hey you know what though in those those photorealistic back glasses i bet you like it doesn't even matter man when you're in a bar and you are looking at this thing you're just like this is hilarious i'm gonna go play this game oh my god it's like rambo look at this it's it's actually pretty awesome no the playfield artwork is sick and then it's got like a cheetah print cabinet which is cabinets right dude the cheetah print cabinet did you know that it came with black armor on it too whoa oh that's factory yeah go look at pictures yeah that's factory crap man yeah damn and they had the model pose with it. Well, they had to create, they created these photos, so like, they got a model, and they dressed, and they photographed the game, and they got the model to come back, which is impressive. Yeah, it's so cool, man. I think I got, I think I got everything right. Did I get it all? I got the art, I got the gameplay. There's gonna be more commenting about the same things. In fact, Frank Black says, Raven gets slammed for its artwork, and rightfully so. The backlash is silly and dated. The cabinet isn't much better, though it fits the theme such as it is. This was made post-Rambo 2 and at the same time of Aliens. So we have a Rambo female like the character Ripley in Aliens. Anyways, there are some nice conversion kits out there, but it's like putting makeup on a pig. A really big makeup experiment. With a nice translate replacement and new side art, this could be made to look like a nice machine. But the play field in play isn't that bad. However, the audio is rather drab. I guess it's passable. Oh, that hurts, man. That audio in there is so awesome. It's like 8-bit audio. So it sounds like it was made on a Nintendo with a few oscillators. It sounds amazing. This person obviously didn't listen to it at all. Yeah. So they must be trying to compare it to the new 44, 100 hertz CD quality audio that we're getting out of these things now. It seems like they want this game to be something it isn't. They're like, oh, you can change the back glass and paint the cabinet. Although it would probably be considered a felony in most states. And you're like, that's just ludicrous. They're just ruining it. Yeah. That's what makes it cool. Yeah. What makes it cool is that back glass. The back glass is the best part. It is that cabinet. I mean, seriously, look at that cabinet. That's hilarious. It's awesome. It's great. I'll get into the next review because we'll just keep going on the art for a minute here. Yeah, perfect. Like, let's go, yeah, let's just keep, yeah, we'll keep hammering on it. Dr. L says, the back glass in the cabinet artwork screams ugly and lazy. There was not much effort put into it. In fact, I consider it the ugliest back glass ever. Don't fashion people squander their lives loudly worshiping all that is superficial and meaningless. The art on the play field is actually pretty good. For the record, I agree with you. It would have been better if they left the gun-toting woman off of the lower middle. play is pretty good for a late 80s game but i would never own it because the ugliness of the back glass art really man this like i don't know man this guy just doesn't like fun i guess like i look at that i go like this is great this is fun that's people don't people need to like embrace the cheese and maybe it's because we're younger than these guys we didn't live through it and so they're looking at this as like a dated relic and we're looking at it as like a like a time capsule and you're like this is hilarious you're absolutely right you're absolutely right and i'll tell you what too i think there's something wrong here i think there's a lot of issues with people saying the back glass like looks like crap i wonder if what they're actually saying is the back glass looks faded and crappy they do get yellowed because these got leaves have the fluorescent right behind them correct people just fucking hate it though man yeah valley who says this is a fail the designer should have stayed in bed that day but on the positive side it has set a standard in what not to do when making a pinball machine. Change your attitude, hon. Change your life. Really? The whole thing? Like, you're going to discount the whole thing? This is what not to do. He says that everything of this game is what not to make a pinball machine. He uses this as an example. All of it's bad. I don't even know how to respond to that because, like, this person is so off base that it's, like, bewildering to me. The next one is even more vague. Stantone. he says wow i can't believe i owned this game once i sold it quickly after playing it just a few times it's very bad i don't like fun yeah in all capital letters it's very bad very bad well obviously they must have not uh had some friends over and played this thing because they couldn't hit the spinner and see the helicopter twirling dude the helicopter run every time you touch the spinner the helicopter turns on dude yeah it's cool as hell man and the snipers pop up and shit like how is that not amazing and there's a shot between the pop bumpers right you have to slam that up there the whole store full of shorts for sports and get those four targets that are behind the pop bumpers come on it tell me that not awesome it cool it is cool man that like that what weird i like i shocked by some of these actually i thought people were just going to be making fun of the art and stuff But people are saying like this the game sucks I like wait a second No way. This is why we do this segment on the show, Scott. It's offensive. We do this because we get people on that love a game and they're like flabbergasted that everyone else thinks it sucks. And they're like, what? Are you kidding me? This game rips. Dude, how much do these go for? You know what? I'm checking Pinset right now. Hold on. They're like $1,200 still. They're like one of the actual games that's still cheap. No, man. There's one in West Chicago right now for sale. $2,500. Oh, that's way too much. I mean, it's probably worth it. No, it's not too much. It's probably worth it. Let me see the play field. Let me see this thing. Let me see this. I'm just checking it out. Holy crap, dude. This thing is in nice shape. Oh, wow. It does look... Oh, wow. That's real nice. You see that? Look at that play field, man. Dude, look at that armor. It's so beautiful. It's got the original... Look, the Mylar's still on there. Yeah, okay. The armor's nice. Dude. This is a nice raven. Look at the lack of wear around the start button. That's what I was like. The cabinet's like that. People would say that's because the game's not good and they didn't play it. Yeah, see? That's their problem right there, man. People don't know how to have fun. This is just a perfect relic. People do not know how to have fun. So check this out. In all seriousness, though, there's absolutely no such thing as an unfun pinball machine, and I'm going to prove it to you right now. That's what I always say. Yeah, like I challenge you to grab a buddy, go play Thunderbirds, and try to spell international rescue on that motherfucking ramp in the center. Okay? Dude, I guarantee you will be there for an hour with your buddy, having a couple beers, and having the best time of your life trying to spell that fucking word. Dude, I've had fun playing that game at Next Level. We have a huge museum out here and they have one. And like, I've had fun playing it. And people are like, what? That is the worst game ever. I was like, it's still kind of fun. It's the worst game ever. And it's still fun. I got it. I got to ask. Now we're getting we're getting off topic of Raven. But was that the inspiration for the spelling Pirates of the Pancreas on Rick and Morty? Absolutely. Yeah, there's a big joke behind that. Yeah. So there's a. So I actually I actually spelled legit glass on. I actually spelled international rescue on a Thunderbirds. And I know what happens when you do that. I don't. Yeah. Anyone know what happens when that happens? You want me to tell you what happens? I think it's just you. It's pretty cool. I can tell you the lead up. So you get 25,000 points or whatever the hell it is. I think it's 20. I don't remember the exact number. It was something like that. Every time you hit one of the letters, you get 25,000 points, right? Yeah. So it builds up. You're building this thing up. You're going to get to international rescue. It's going to be great. I'm one shot away. I'm getting all crazy. Like my buddies that are with me were at work even. And I freaking shoot that thing. I hit the last E, get the thing. It starts over and it gives me 25,000 points. So I can now. And honestly, if it did anything different, I would have been a little upset. That was the best thing it could have possibly done. It just rolls over. It just starts over, and you can spell International Rescue again if you want to. Yeah, you should. And you get 25,000 points for the letter. You get 25,000 points for finishing it. Or whatever the shit happened. I don't know. This was a long time ago, so I don't remember the exact number. See, this is making me want to play. It just qualifies the mode. Yeah, it qualifies the mode or whatever the hell it does, and that's it. So nothing. It's incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. We're here to talk about Raven. We're not here to talk about what is the lowest. Yeah, this is actually a good game that people think is shitty. People think this is the same level as – it's only like four spots ahead or something on the pin side list. Yeah, so that's what's crazy to me. Not even close, man. This is actually well-engineered too. Like if you look at the inlanes and stuff and all the metal bits and stuff, like that's actually really well done. Dude, it's got like the airball protectors and stuff. It's cool. It's got a lot of little like random innovative stuff. So it can't fly it. Yeah, exactly. Like this is, it's, there's some thought put into this thing. Yeah. So the, the ramp that goes down the center is a little bit quirky because it kind of randomly goes to one side or the other, but it is cool when it goes in there and then like you shoot that ramp and then it comes down and it goes into the little hole over there and it does a little thing with the light. Yeah. And then it kicks it out right to the in lane, which is super cool. I love that. Yep. Yeah. That is cool. It's like the Rick and Morty fast. You know? Yeah. Yeah. And you can nudge it too on this. Yeah. And you can nudge too on this ramp too. Yeah. Cause they got a little star post. Yeah. Yeah, like if your right side's lit for, like, what is that, advancing the multipliers? Yep. You can nudge that crap over there and try to get it to go down one side or the other. Dude, there's strategy. It's kind of fun. M. Bomley says, The game's similarity to firepower in layout is its strongest feature and also one of its greatest downfalls. The sniper drop targets are fun to hit and aim for, but everything else in the game falls flat. The ramp shot is tough to make and not rewarding enough, and the layout just makes you wish you were playing a firepower. Lack of multiball is disappointing, and spotting a stand-up target with the scanning lights is more luck than skill. And I'm sure someday we'll once again be on speaking terms. The helicopter that spins its blades when you hit the spinner is a neat gimmick, though. It was a bad translate, underwhelming cabinet art, and a poor focus on sound that makes this game as disappointing to look at as it is to play. The only redeeming feature is the playfield art. It is detailed and well thought out. It's a shame the rest of the game didn't follow suit. Overall, this is certainly a well below average game. Definitely a dud. Worth playing only for the sole reason to say, I've played that game before. That's a tough one. So what I don't understand is why people are playing pinball and staring at the back glass while they're playing. That's what's weird to me. That's what I don't understand. like what like are you supposed to be looking down at the play field and like you know like actually playing the game like what you know the translate is the focus for almost all of these reviews it feels like well it always yeah they're all staring at it like they really like they people really love looking at it they do like it's crazy you know what i mean like they're looking at it all the time they're like man look how shitty that is they're like man i can't even play this they keep looking at it they can't play it because they keep looking at it i think there's a little bit of reverse thing going what do you think about the thing where he says that hitting spotting a stand-up targets with the scanning lights is more luck than skill yeah i was gonna go on that that was uh that's a little bit crazy if you think about that for a second skill 100 scanning lights where you have to where you have to hit it when it's moving is totally luck all right so so this guy just he just needs to play more that's all there's to it man oh my gosh yeah that one that one kind of gets disqualified to me because of that that statement so okay we'll move on we'll move on to the next one then this one's thrown out we're going on to seven rights he says well i'm not sure what happened here maybe they were trying to capitalize on the rambo movie franchise without paying the licensing they definitely were and also trying to do a bit of girl power at the same time but whatever happened i'm not exactly sure what is clear is that they managed to produce and sell some of these raven machines so i have to give them credit for that it lights up it plays it has shots but there's nothing special about this machine at all that makes me want to play it even on free play unless there's nothing else at all around to play that is bummer i wish there was something i could do but what ah this guy needs to actually listen to the audio on the thing for real like these people are not listening to the audio they're just going like they're just hearing the like really cool like once in a while like that's all they're hearing they're not listening they're not giving enough respect to the audio absolutely and the whole the whole girl power thing this to me wasn't uh this one probably was not a girl power thing but maybe a little bit and a female counselor talks to us about body image but it was to draw the guys in yeah absolutely i'm like i don't think anyone's looking at raven as like a feminist icon i think this was like we need 13 year old boys quarters The man is coming! The man! Yeah, and that was it. They're like, oh yeah, she's got a gun, check it out. You know, like, she's so bad at it. Yeah, every guy's dream girl. She's hip-firing that thing. I didn't even know you could do that. We should go try it with ours at home. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. You know what needs to happen? I think everybody here needs to go look at the actual flyer for this game real quick. I'm going to pop it up too. Are your games missing in action? She's here, Raven, to the rescue. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And also, take a look at that back glass and how nice that actually looks. Yeah. The reason people hate the back glass is because it's faded. It's actually really good looking. When the blues and stuff are coming through on the back of that. It's nice. Come on. It's a nice photo, dude. That looks really cool. Gottlieb went all out. It is a good photo. They had the new technology cameras, and they really went all out. They were using cameras. They had the tech. Yeah. so and the writing's cool on it like look at that cool 80s writing dude the script is really the script is sick yeah again the cabinet is super cool a couple people now have called out the cabinet and i'm just blown away because i'm like the cabinet looks rad cabinet is rad dude it does it's supposed to be camo it's supposed to be camo yeah i mean yeah yeah but it looks like cheetah print and that's funny like it's cheetah print camo it's camo cheetah you know it's like that new thing that the people are into now what cheetah prints just nature's camo that's true That's true. That's a good point, actually. Oh, crap, dude. You guys are better at this than I am. We have more practice. We have a podcast, Scott. It's kind of what we do. Holy crap. Because a really deep person like you has too many important things on her mind. It's awesome. Lawler in Order says, I had to play this game in competition at Pinberg, and I was reminded of why it might possibly be the worst machine produced of all time. And thus becomes negative reinforcement. From the horrible theme and incredibly cheaply produced artwork to the nearly unplayable rule set, set to the cheesy mid-80s flippers to the dim and tiny LED scoring and the hard-to-see playing field, I have tried hard to find one redeeming feature about this mess, and I have failed. And the experience left him questioning the meaning of life? Gasp. Okay so you know what else he failed at He failed at coming to find me playing a game on this thing and beating me at it Yeah That what that guy needs to do Yeah Come find me Play a dollar game. I'll even throw $10 down. We'll play a $10 game, and I will take your $10. Scott, you sound like me, Scott. I do that all the time, especially when I make people play EMs. And they're like, this is all luck. And I was like, I'm going to take as much money as you're willing to lose. I'm going to beat your ass. If you want luck, it should be 50-50. Exactly. You should take that bet. Yeah, 50-50, huh? Yeah, nothing to lose. Okay, we got a different... We got a change of pace here. This next review, it's from OneTaste. He says, Another John Trudeau masterpiece. Dangerous stand-up targets. A ramp worth nothing. A spinner worth way too much. Making it the only shot in the game. Do we look stupid or something? Unlike the other reviews here, I actually like the back glass. It's very 80s. Not enough strong female characters in pinball. Could I see what she'd look like with eyebrow ridges and a large sloping forehead? Yeah, so it does have a lot of dangerous shots, which is a positive. So far, this guy's saying positive stuff. A ramp that gives you no points, I get it. The ramp is actually, in this game, used to get the balls to those outer areas, right? Yep. And that takes skill, right? So you shoot that ramp. Well, it first takes skill to get the ramp to go down. And then you have to shoot the ramp up there. Then you have to nudge it to the proper side you want it to go on, so you get the most points. So if one of them's lit, right, you're going over that way. So there's a lot of skill going on here. It kind of slows the craziness of the lower play field down a little bit because it's not just, like, all in your face all the time. You get a second when you hit that ramp. I don't know, man. I think that's an actual positive review. So that was a 10, right? I was going to say, that one should be a 10. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that one's a 10. Perfect. Yeah. Next one, we got Dumb Record says, When I got this pin, I was – Oh, no, hold on a second. And that's a, I think I know who this person is. You know who this person is? Yeah, that's an operator in Springfield, Illinois. Hell yeah, Scott. This is going to be fun. Who owns a record store with a bunch of stuff in it. This is going to be awesome. Dumb Record says, when I got this pin, I was wondering just how bad could it be? I suppose it's not as bad as compared to early solid state games. Charles, shut your miserable, lying, cheating mouth. Whoa. Whoa. Okay. Sorry. I'm not crazy about the military theme, and I can't decide if they were trying to go for pinup girls or fight the patriarchy theme. I told people the latter when it was in my arcade. The layout is pretty much a ripoff of Firepower, with a really tight ramp thrown in as an afterthought, and probably the worst return rail in pinball. I thought someone had haphazardly 3D printed a replacement on mine, but nope, that's how it really is. The sniper targets at least add something to the game. I added red flashes where the bombs explode on the playfield, and that added a neat little touch. This pin holds the record in my arcade as the lowest amount of plays of any game, and that includes EMs. When I wanted to sell it, it took forever until someone finally picked it up, even during the peak pandemic boom market. Ah, you know what this guy needed to do? Okay, so this is where he messed up. If he's throwing it in an arcade and he wants to compete it against some other stuff, you've got to throw LEDs in it, man. I bet you he didn't put LEDs under the inserts. You've got to add some lighting. That's probably where he messed up. Jump it up. Yeah, exactly. And I bet you the faded back glass probably hurt it. I always tell other operators this. I was like, highlight what you think is cool, and then your people will think it's cool. And it's not even like, hey, I'm forcing you to like this game that I like. I'm just like, hey, you don't think about this game. So when you come in, I'm like, oh, have you played our Raven yet? And they're like, do you always believe everything they say? Isn't that game bad? I was like, no, you're bad. Like, you're bad. Like, and then come play it. Then you kind of teach them the rules, you know? When the owner, when the operator of the game is leaving a really negative review on Pinside and clearly dislikes the game, like, of course, your patrons aren't going to be enthused about it. Yeah, for sure. Not. Yeah. That's why even when we get a brand new game, like a new unboxed game, and everyone comes in and they're like, Alan, what do you think about the new game? I was like, I don't know. I haven't really played it. You know? I was like, I haven't got a chance yet. I was just over there. I had to fix Frontier and then play 40 games on it just to make sure it was working. Yeah. You know? So I don't really know about the new game, you know, because it's like I'm not here to be like. Make sure the crickets are working on it. Yeah. We've got to test those crickets out. Okay. Next review is from Kate001. All right. They say, I try hard to love the underdogs of the pinball world, but Raven has fallen flat for me. The first time I shot for the orbits to get the rollovers done to lower the ramp, then made that ramp and scored only 50K. Well, my heart dropped. That was it. That was the big reward. The key shot is going over. Yeah, because you didn't light it. Exactly. You did not light what you were supposed to light. That's why. The key shot is going over the inlanes to light the spinner for 10K a spin momentarily. So many stand-up targets. You think it would be more interesting to shoot at all ten? In the end, the sniper modes tend to be more tedious than anything, and at first I had such high hopes for them. Props to the developers for having so many rules controlled via the dip switches, but even with them, I couldn't find an intriguing rule set that made the game more fun. With a modern CPU... Default settings. Yeah. With a modern CPU and new programming, this game could be fun. My mind spins with the clever rules one could theoretically put in place. now you've arrived and our lives can truly begin progress safe between balls complete stand-up banks build rewards better ramp utilization pops modes but alas we are currently stuck with what we have and it's just not that great all right so what this guy messed up on was he's saying like after the sniper mode it becomes like tedious do you know what happens after the sniper mode in this game what the freaking roving shot oh god the awesome sniping shot that's all luck i've heard that's luck that's not tedious that's the the luck shot the luck roving shot yeah yeah that's fucking awesome what is this guy's problem well and also the fact that it's like oh that was the reward for shooting the ramp you're like no it's advancing your multipliers right yeah exactly so you have to you still have to do some work but don't shoot the ramp then leave it up it's fine you don't have to complete all they just don't complete all the lanes up there okay next review is from mighty zen he says okay i remember playing this one and it's too bad you can't get refunds. I hate you. I would not own this game even if someone gave it to me and offered to set it up. It's that ugly. And so what does this experiment teach us about how the perception of attractiveness affects human behavior? The only satisfaction one could get from this game is if you hauled it to the top of a tall building, shoved it over the edge, and watched it smash into a thousand pieces. Babe, I didn't do anything wrong. How in the world did they sell this hideous creation in the first place i don't know how they sold i mean they sold a lot of them i see them a bunch actually sold a bunch of them 3 500 which is pretty solid for like premiere at this point well i think they made an interesting thing with the art package because people are like well is this female empowerment or is it exploitation and you're like well you can read it both ways honestly it's more exploitation than anything you can tell like just by you know what they dress her in that's not what uh that's not that's not a female that's not combat fatigue it's definitely not it's a little low cut the fact that the fact that she's holding the firearm on the wrong side of her body who's gonna shoot the shell right at her is gonna be really bad so like yeah it just isn't a thing all right scott we got one last review here are you ready for this yeah i didn't mean to insult it i didn't mean to insult it i was just saying you know it's when I was just stating the facts. Yeah, yeah. All right, so we have one. This is the last one. I'm going to say I abridged this review because it was a goddamn essay, and it's still pretty long. But I'm going to read some of the highlights of this. I'll try and be quiet. I'll try not to get angry and speak over it. Oh, no, you can interject. I can interject, yeah. The Thailander says, I don't like saying anything bad about any pinball machine. You really believe that? But then he writes this essay. But I have to be honest and admit that this one is not good. If I happen to own this machine presently, or have owned it in the past, I would never add that information to my Pinsight collection or admit it on my profile, even if I got that Raven for free, because it's that embarrassing. Gee, I hope this won't lower your opinion of me. It would be something if Raven was so bad that it's good, but it's so bad that it's depressing. Boy, she was really trying to make you insecure. And even free might be too expensive if it needs serious repair work, like it has a bad MPU or needs replacement displays. Have you ever seen those direct-to-video releases of low-budget films that are intended to trick people into buying them because they have a similar title and box art to the real blockbuster movie? Do you have a point? Or worse, the pornographic knockoff version of a real film? Well, Gottlieb Premier proudly did that to Pinball. And that's how all their games look during this period. From Bad Girls to Genesis to Gold Wings to Rock and everything in between. They all look like the box art of a sad, low-budget 1980s porn knockoff film released on Betamax. It's almost as if the playfield items that could be included in this game were dropped on a board and the designer began screwing them down where they fell until he ran out of room. Hmm. What do you know about geometry? Okay, that's an exaggeration. But seriously, there's no flow. Very few shots are thrilling or make any sense. And the ones that do are lackluster or don't do anything special. And you come away from your first game thinking, Wow, that was disappointing. I tried playing it again and again, and it just never got any better. It's the Star Wars Episode I of pinball. And they were really interested in my feelings and thoughts and stuff. I kept trying to convince myself that it's good, that it has some redeeming quality, but I was just left wondering what I could possibly say that was positive at all. Gee, Mom and Dad never told us that people can think for themselves. Oh, man. And I could imagine that being like 10 times longer. Yeah. This guy could have kept going. So okay just think about this for a second right These games when Premiere was making these this era of game they were all very quirky okay yeah all of them all of the shots are strange and they take risks and they're doing weird stuff these are street level games these are games meant to get out there get in front of people make some operators some money and then be tossed in the garbage right yeah so the fact that we have these now and we are now we've brought these to the future still Yeah, and now we're assessing them like they're brand new games. It's totally not fair. Like, this thing is quirky. It's funny. It's fun. The play field looks badass. The cheetah print camo is fucking awesome. The back glass is totally badass. Dude, the sound? The sound package? The sound. The sound is fucking outstanding. And the powder-coated fucking, actually, it's spray-painted probably, but the powder-coated armor. And the layout. Seriously. It's one thing. No one – this guy went off against the layout that they're just – it looks like they threw a box of parts. But I'm like, it's a firepower layout. Admittedly, it's a ripoff of a very successful game with a cool ramp that's a skill-based nudging ramp. But Trudeau said this is his ode to firepower. Like, he admitted it. I mean, yeah, for sure. The snipers are all in, like, cool, dangerous – like, there's that one dangerous one right in front of the stand-ups. There's one back behind the spare. Dude, that was rough. Do you see the one on the right there? Yeah, that one. The one on the right. Dude, there's – wait, let me see. I've got to pull a picture again to make sure I'm not crazy. Hold on. Yeah, there's a sniper that's like on the right. It's like, yeah, good luck. Well, dude, that's why you're like, none of this was just thrown on here. This is a very like. No, it's all thought about. How insulting is that, Scott? You've designed a few games. How insulting is that when somebody that's never done any reviews a game to the point where they're, not only do they not like it because different games are for different people. That's fine. But like when he's like, I think the designer just like dumped a bunch of parts and then wherever they fell, just screwed them down. Yeah, that's super insulting. But I'll tell you what, though, like I had if I can tell a quick story. Oh, yeah, for sure. I was at Expo in 2016. No, 2017 Expo was when I had my first production TNA off the line. and I brought it to Expo to share with everybody because the game hadn't been released yet. The production hasn't been released yet. Set it up in the, I forgot what booth I even set it up in, but I set it up and was just watching people play and letting people play and everyone was excited. You know, standing in line, just kind of watching and just, you know, seeing if there were any issues and stuff. And this one guy like stands up next to me, he goes, yeah, this game, man, it's like a refrigerator box with like some lights in it, man. I had to walk away after like one ball. you know this is like like not knowing like that you made it that's that's my shit like yeah like this i was so embarrassed for the guy i was like i'm like oh my god you're like jesus oh my god yeah man you're like yeah fucking hack shit it's like dude uh you know what i want to see what you got i know i'm curious like what are you what are you doing huh yeah you know i always wonder how because like this hobby is full of some wonderful people but it's also full of some people especially when you go to a show and and you see it in the community you're like man some people are so negative they come across the country to go to a big show they take time off of work they travel they go to play pinball this game that they should love and they walk up to a game and then they're just like this thing's like a refrigerator box i can't even play more than one i can't even play more than one ball on fucking like i can't even play a new game away from it insane statement on total nuclear annihilation fucking insane to be like it's boring i had a walk like i couldn't do it yeah you're like what the fuck that's why i was embarrassed for the guy like that's it's just crazy it's a crazy statement about that game in particular it's the same people like you said before scott i think we were off the air but like you said about people selling a game and you look at the audits you're like hey they played this game 50 times you know you're like why would you buy a machine go through the whole effort it takes up so much space why would you like it's fucking heavy they're heavy like they're a pain in the ass like why wouldn't you fucking play the game you bought it because you like people right like it's crazy man that's why we're focused on positivity here and you know giving exactly giving a platform to raven exactly like that's why raven's so good though because like this is one of those games that's like really it's it's gonna have short ball times it's gonna be fast there's not much to the to the rules which means you can learn the rules very quickly and you can learn how to exploit the rules very quickly right so let's just say like okay the spinner is the thing right so do this for me shats the fucking in lane and then hit that spinner yeah let's go let's go you know it's fun yeah that's the way to play like come on let's let's play let's play fucking shoot the spinner you know it's they always say it like beat you they always say like oh yeah like as if it's an easy thing to do because we also have an alien star and it is that it's like if you can shats the in lane and then rip the spinner you could score huge points but again you got to be a fucking good player to do that like you gotta be absolutely real good yeah you're like that's the nice part about these games you're like you can tell somebody what to do and then they actually have to do it it's not like you're sitting there trying to explain a rule book yeah and it's like that's why alex has in his basement in his collection of games actually right next to his rick and morty he has a gotley barack he has right next to his which i noticed it actually has a power ball in it right now too we put a power ball in it oh dude i think we're all friends we were probably friends in a different life here that we just haven't we haven't you know yeah you just need to move closer yeah yeah i noticed rock caught some strays in this one getting lumped into the beta max knockoff porn category yeah i think it's a little offensive rock is clearly not a knockoff of anything it's just a beautiful tribute to the rock music genre as a whole yeah it's a beautiful yeah incredible music that you hear the just the fucking just the like drum section of all the time oh my god yeah okay all right yeah that's a thing and i'll tell you what like the the back glass on rock you know i mean it's it's uh it it's you know it's like it's it's it's like it's there it's there oh yeah it's totally there you should see the alternate back glass that alex drew for his yeah because it's incredible my original is yellowed beyond it's like brown at this point yeah probably just got ruined huh yep and i can't find a replacement anywhere so i had to make my own and i used you know the best tool i have at my disposal which is microsoft paint and he made an amazing back glass it's very true to the original yeah i'll email you a photo of it and you'll yeah it'll be fun we'll bring it to the we'll bring it to the northwest show it'll be at wedge at some oh yeah we are going to bring it into wedge it's going to be on the floor at some point because we don't have a raven unfortunately maybe bring it in when we do this episode you know what you should definitely get a raven in um my buddy actually just restored a raven with like a beautiful like clear-coated playfield it was new old stock and he had it like clear-coated that's insane dedication to raven i love when people do that like every part perfectly cleaned i love it when people rebuild like games like this lowly regarded games oh yeah dude yeah it's at the pinball olympic stadium right now. Hell yeah. Well, Scott, we've kept you up late enough. We thank you for joining the show. This was a blast. Absolutely. It was a great time. We appreciate you. For all the listeners out there, we end this episode like we end every episode. If you can find a Raven, use the pinball map, go out and play a Raven and give it another shot. Scott Danesi likes it, so what makes you think you're better than him? You think you know more about pinball than Scott Danesi? How dare you? Yeah, fight me. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Challenge me. Yeah, and next time you're at Expo, find Scott. He will beat your ass on Raven until you cry. Yeah, let's do this. Until you admit that Raven's a good game. We want our pinball. Oh, man. No such thing as a bad pinball, guys. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Pinball's fun. That's what we always try to preach on the show. That's why we highlight these games. Pinball's fun. It's supposed to be fun. you should have fun playing it and for all the listeners out there until next time good luck don't suck who's into pinball noses raven godly 1986 this machine believe me or not is such a lot fun to play absolutely underrated and there's a lot of hate outside going against raven i don't know why because this is a real classic game made for the players classic play field design a lot of fun it's not too easy and uh you will always come back here to play some games on this machine and this is germany we got november 2019 and i show you what's going on on my machine here I always liked it. Saw it as a young boy in our cart. Never forgot it. And I wanted to shoot the sniper targets again one day. And so I decided to buy this machine. Drop the bomb, baby! Let's go! I show you one or two games on the machine and I'm sure you will be impressed how nice Raven is. Let's listen to the music, a very nice synthesizer sound from the middle 80s. Good mate and fits the scene very well. Well, shooting the sniper very nice. Four sniper drop targets are hidden underneath the playfield and to release them to shoot three of the six flashing stand-up targets.