Jaws is Elwin's Worst Game Yet?!

Cary Hardy·video·18m 12s·analyzed·Jan 9, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Cary Hardy critiques Jaws as Elwin's most disappointing game, lacking memorable moments and home appeal.

Summary

Cary Hardy reviews the Jaws pinball machine reveal stream, expressing significant disappointment with Keith Elwin's design choices despite acknowledging the game's accomplishments. While praising the movie assets and artwork, Hardy criticizes the lack of memorable mechanical moments, bland Richard Dreyfuss call-outs, and concerns about the upper playfield visibility. He suggests the game may be optimized for tournament players rather than home enthusiasts, marking it as his least favorite Elwin game to date.

Key Claims

The upper playfield in Jaws was not completely visible in the official reveal video, cutting off a feature that 'cost a couple of grand for us buyers'
high confidence · Direct observation of video production choices; Cary Hardy watched the gameplay reveal stream
Richard Dreyfuss's call-outs in Jaws sound 'bland' and require better direction/energy
high confidence · Direct critique of audio heard in reveal stream; Cary Hardy played audio examples
Jaws may be the worst Keith Elwin game Hardy has played or seen
high confidence · Direct statement: 'this might be the worst that he's done yet'; explicitly states this is his least favorite Elwin game
The shark raising mechanic is underwhelming: 'He comes up, you hit him once, he goes back down. That's it. No moments, no fanfare, nothing really special'
high confidence · Direct gameplay observation from reveal stream
Modern pinball games have fewer mechanical moments than older games, representing a declining design trend
medium confidence · Opinion stated as general observation; Hardy compares across his collection
The Standard Edition artwork is Hardy's favorite tier, while Premium Edition features a first-person perspective on the backglass that may be an industry first
medium confidence · Art critique based on reveal images; Hardy expresses uncertainty about whether this perspective has been used before

Notable Quotes

“I cannot put into words how happy I am that I have no interest in this game. But I'll try.”
Cary Hardy@ 0:20 — Sets up Hardy's paradoxical stance: congratulating Stern while expressing personal disinterest in Jaws
“Richard Dreyfuss to come in and record call-outs. Holy shit, this better be him just warming up or just giving it a run through to make sure he has all the pronunciations correct, because this is god-awful.”
Cary Hardy@ 3:22 — Harsh critique of voice acting quality in reveal stream; implies the audio may not be final
“He comes up, you hit him once, he goes back down. That's it. No moments, no fanfare, nothing really special there.”
Cary Hardy@ 5:45 — Criticizes the primary mechanical feature of Jaws as underwhelming and lacking spectacle
“Maybe this is a game that's going to be going towards the serious players, because it is a serious theme. And who are these serious players? Tournament players. The ones that don't care about all the fancy stuff.”
Cary Hardy@ 6:32 — Hypothesizes that Jaws may be designed for competitive/tournament play rather than home enthusiasts
“This could be just the theme, but as of right now, this is my least favorite of an Elwin game just going by what we've seen.”
Cary Hardy@ 11:40 — Direct statement of ranking Jaws as Hardy's least favorite Keith Elwin design
“I'm excited that I don't want it. So it's nice.”
Cary Hardy@ 17:18 — Reiterates the paradox: happy the game exists for fans but has no personal desire for it

Entities

Cary Hardyperson Keith Elwinperson Richard Dreyfussperson Jack Dangerperson JawsgameStern PinballcompanyThe Avengersgame

Signals

?
event_signal: Anticipated Jack Danger stream expected to be more entertaining and favorable to game reception than Papa Duke's reveal stream
medium · Hardy suggests future streams 'will do much better for the game whenever you have other people in there and you've got a little bit of camaraderie going on'
?
product_concern: Upper playfield shot feeds unreliably with excessive rattle; mechanical reliability question during design phase
high · Hardy observes shot failing frequently; Elwin makes comment 'Terrible, terrible' acknowledging the issue
?
design_philosophy: Primary mechanical feature (shark rising) criticized as underwhelming with minimal spectacle and no follow-up moments
high · 'He comes up, you hit him once, he goes back down. That's it. No moments, no fanfare, nothing really special there.'
?
design_philosophy: Trend observation: modern pinball games feature fewer mechanical moments compared to classic/older games; potential industry-wide design shift
medium · Hardy surveys his collection (Last Action Hero, Getaway, Jurassic Park, etc.) and concludes 'moments are getting fewer and far between when it comes to games these days'
?
design_philosophy: Hypothesis that Jaws optimized for tournament/competitive play rather than home enthusiasts, suggesting divergence from Elwin's typical balanced approach
medium · Hardy speculates game may be designed for serious tournament players who prioritize points over experiential moments, contrasting with home buyer expectations

Transcript

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0:00

This is probably the first time that I have not released any kind of content right after a new machine is like released and revealed but my life and work got in the way so my apologies for that but it is what it is. We're going to get straight into Jaws starting now. So I have seen all the images and I have now watched the gameplay reveal stream with Keith Elwin and I cannot put into words how happy I am that I have no interest in this game. But I'll try. what's up guys and welcome back to my channel where i talk and do everything pinball and a special thank you to the almost 9 000 subscribers down below so i'm gonna do something that i don't think i've ever done and that is congratulate stern pinball on their latest release and pinball is hard and you make it look easy so as to the elwyn team congratulations on getting this pinball machine all put together and i hope it's very well received it's yet to be determined but we'll see how it goes i know this is something that i definitely couldn't do so by all means congratulations i'm sure there was quite a few of you out there that were worried that we were not going to be getting a lot of movie assets in this game especially when it comes to the character Brody but honestly it looks like they've done well and provided quite a lot of movie assets even with the character Brody there is a lot of movie assets but I'm going to tell you right now the most common one that I saw and that you may see is this one right here this one tended to be on the screen more often than any other asset that is in the movie. Multi-balls. So I can shoot any of the yellow shots to actually start the multi-ball. But I'm going to try to bring a mode in with this, so I'm going to shoot the bow first.

2:16

All right, so now I can bring in any one of the flashing modes. You really want beach panic because pretty much every shot is... all right so now i'm uh one target away from letting fish finder uh what else i got pippet lit a beachgoer at one of the five shots if you complete three on the same shot it starts a beach closed hurry up when you collect that uh whatever value you collected it then every shot you collect at that same shot so remote multi-ball whatever is lift that shot gets added bonus of whatever the beach closed value is it's like 10 of whatever hurry up you collected maybe it's 20 i forget uh but i need so i have one flashing so i have a beach goer ready to go on the wave ramp terrible terrible so there you go and if you're saying carrie did you really go through this entire stream and cut and edit all this together yes they got richard dryfist to come in and record call-outs. Holy shit, this better be him just warming up or just giving it a run through to make sure he has all the pronunciations correct because this is god-awful. Arboom ready. Barrel ready. Jackpot. Gobble jackpot. Triple jackpot. Super jackpot. double super jackpot triple super jackpot bounty hunt bounty jackpot bounty super jackpot what the hell where's the direction okay richard let's uh take it from the top jackpot super jackpot cut uh yeah richard that was good i mean sounds great but you know what would sound even better is if uh we did it completely different okay so let try it again Jackpot should be a little more exciting You cheering on the player for doing a particular task So let put a little bit more excitement into it and you know maybe a little red in there How about that Jackpot Perfect Look, I think if you're a Jaws fan, then you're really going to enjoy this game. It's got all kinds of things in there that I think would tickle the bone for all of the Jaws fans, including the movie assets, Roy Schneider, you're getting him in the film assets, not necessarily in the art anywhere. I think that's pretty good. But, if you are an Elwynn fan, then this stream might have been a little disappointing. He implemented some things that he hasn't before, and that includes an upper playfield that wasn't completely visible in the video. So good job Stern on that by cutting off a portion that cost a couple of grand for us buyers out there. God forbid if you want to show something off like that, but oh well. But at least they did put a camera down low enough to where they can show off the shark that raises up out of the playfield, which honestly was a little underwhelming as well. He comes up, you hit him once, he goes back down. That's it. No moments, no fanfare, nothing really special there. So, yes, a little disappointing. I really hope that you buyers out there think that what we're not getting in a pro is worth it in the premium, because as of right now, I'm not seeing it. Now, granted, this is more than likely early code, So the moments that I'm looking for are probably not even implemented yet. But what if?

6:40

Because it is a serious theme. and who are these serious players? Tournament players. The ones that don't care about all the fancy stuff. They look at that a lot of the times as just an extra fluff that they don't really need to have in there. All they typically care about are points. They want to know the code. They want to know what do they need to do to hit the highest amount of points. They don't care about the moments. the fun that's not within them now for us home buyers out there these are things that we look for we want the fun we want the moments and we need an experience and i don't think this game has it yet i mean all the tournament players need when it comes to moments is a moment for them to lean back you know stretch rub their hands off on their jeans just a moment to kind of like you know catch a breath they don't need a show whereas us home buyers and enthusiasts we kind of want a little bit of a show and honestly i think moments are getting fewer and far between when it comes to games these days i think they were definitely more common on your older games and as we've reached into the more modern times in pinball we're not seeing them as much i mean let's just go through my lineup here last action hero moving crane with the ball that's a moment the getaway the supercharger one of the best moments in pinball world cup soccer whereas you don't have like a big moment you have a lot of small ones when it comes to scoring a ball into the goal ask anyone that loves the game it's a moment tales of the arabian knights quite a few little cool moments in that game but definitely one that sticks out to me right now is the multi ball where it pulls it up underneath the plate field and you just kind of get it's it's there trust me uh food fighters although i do love the game i don't really know of a moment per se There like moments where it holds the ball and you get some stuff on the screen but as far as mechanical nature underneath the glass not so much Jurassic Park, premium, you have the T-Rex that will throw the ball around. That's pretty cool. The Pro doesn't have anything like that, but I do have the moving T-Rex mod on my Pro, so that kind of gives it a moment right there. And it's definitely a moment that has been highlighted when my daughter first played the game, the look on her face because it was a moment it was an experience she wanted to see what the t-rex was going to do whenever it something happened she wanted to see it move she needed that moment and a lot of games aren't giving it to us got deadpool pro i don't even think that game really has a moment at least on the pro there may be something better for the premium when it comes do like a disco ball or whatever the the ball is ejecting from the katana blade that's pretty cool but i don't think an exciting moment i didn't get a wow factor from my kids whenever they played it what is your favorite moment in a pinball machine let me know in the comment section down below so let me preface what i'm about to state with is keith elwyn is not an entertainer he's a designer and a skilled player. But he accomplished what the primary goal for this video was, and that is to show us how the game plays and give us some insight onto how the code is going to work. That was his job. Mission accomplished. It wasn't to entertain us. So that may be why a lot of us, including myself, found this to be a little on the boring side. I haven't been this uninterested in an L1 game since Avengers Infinity Quest, which by the way, shot great.

12:27

Now, the only concerns I have, obviously, is something that I mentioned earlier with the call-outs from Richard Dreyfuss. they did seem very bland in that particular video hopefully it comes out better within the game and you do also hear the word shark a lot as a call out in this game whether it be from kids saying shark and stuff like that but i think with the theme it's the nature of the beast so let's go over the art a little bit here and i'm glad that they gave mike another shot when it comes to creating a art package for a pinball machine because you know i think he's got skill obviously it's just that i think that the first glimpse of what we saw he could do with rush so yes i'm glad that they gave him another shot i think he definitely did better this time around Going through all three of the art packages I want to say that the Pro Artwork package is honestly my favorite of the three Premium being the most different due to the fact that all of the art is above water whereas the other two tiers are below water and i think this may be an industry first here and if i'm wrong i know you'll correct me but i don't think i've ever seen a first person perspective on a back glass for a pinball machine because that's what perspective this is taken from you see the individual's hand and their feet so you're seeing it from a person's point of view um i like i said i don't think i've ever seen this on a game before uh so i don't really know how i feel about it i do believe that the artwork on the back glass does remind me i guess it something in my mind whether I've seen it before or something but it easily looks like it could be an artwork for a video game and I feel like if they were going to do a Jaws video game then this is the art that would be on the game case. Now the LE art though has a lot more Jaws and when I say Jaws I mean like the logo Jaws. That's one thing I definitely like about the Pro and Premium is that they didn't put the logo Jaws on every damn side. So I think that LE-wise, they put Jaws on every panel of that art package. And I don't know if it was a requirement or what, but so basically from every angle of that machine, you're going to at least see the logo of Jaws five times, maybe even six depending on how tall you are to see it on the apron now when it comes to the play field art i mean there's definitely a lot of blue but it's not too surprising since the main setting for these films is on water now a couple of things that stuck out to me that i enjoyed was the shots the shots look pretty cool but is to be expected with keith elwynn Although there was one shot in particular that seemed to fail more often than I believe it should, and that's the one that feeds the upper play field. A lot of rattling going on in there, and even at one point, Elwin made a comment whenever it failed to go up there. terrible terrible the upper right flipper the ability to like stage a ball to help you know plan out your shot a little bit better i like that touch the leds underneath the play field to simulate like chum in the water or blood in the water around the shark fin that's pretty cool as Well, now I would have liked to have seen the Ride Out Lane ball save, but it's not like I've never seen something like that before. But I'm sure we'll see it pretty soon. And when I say pretty soon, it looks like Jack Danger has now got a Jaws Pro and Premium at his building. So more than likely, we're going to be getting another stream of both models, Pro and Premium of Jaws, probably within the next week. I think those streams will do much better for the game whenever you have other people in there and you've got a little bit of camaraderie going on I think that will help a little bit just to make it at least the stream more entertaining so that is how I feel currently about Jaws I'm excited that I don't want it.