Hey, everyone. Just a heads up. This episode is something. Travis, everything broke. Everything broke for Travis. Audio, video, everything's terrible. So I'm recording this before I start the editing, but I'm pretty confident it's going to be rough for Travis. I don't know how much video or audio of his will be in the final episode. I'm going to try to work some magic but hopefully I'm able to salvage the majority of the conversation was between Keith, Tom and myself so hopefully I can edit something that sounds good but video wise it may just be a static image of Travis so enjoy that but buckle up have fun with the ride because yeah it was a fun conversation I hope everybody else gets to enjoy it so thanks for listening and enjoy the episode Online, launching, Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right. Episode 45. Episode 45. We're cruising right along. This should be our December episode, which is awesome. End of the year. Should be a good time. Hopefully a lot of people traveling for holidays and whatnot. So, yeah, we decided to get a guest, you know, a good guest. And we got a great one. So we have an extra ball on the episode tonight. Keith, are you excited? You ready for this? I've been waiting this my whole life. Oh, perfect. Keith, I want everybody. Tom, how are you feeling? You good? Real good. You look great, that new cameraman. And Travis, what's up? As long as my stuff keeps working, I'm fine. I'm good. Travis is in his new house in his basement, so the chances of his audio and video working this entire episode are very, very small. It's zero. Let's just get to the intro, Joe. Let's just go. All right. Perfect. And here we go. We, we, we're, we're three guys who like to talk and ball. So we came up with the club, our name. We're Joel and Travis, got no talking ball. And we call ourselves Triple Drink, Triple Drink, Triple Drink. We're Triple, Triple Drink. There we go. Isn't it, you know, doesn't that just, I love it. Just gets you pumped up, ready to go. I'm ready for tournament talk, Joel. Let's just get to it. Let's go. So speaking of which, this is the end of the year. Twippy season is always what pops into my mind about this time. And apparently the Twippies, when voting opens for the Twippies, it goes with the Pinball Promoters database. So believe it or not, Triple Drain is part of the Pinball Promoters database. So I thought, you know what, let me look if we have any reviews, any reviews on our podcast. We have three. We have three reviews so far. Three big old reviews. One from Doug. Of all the two plus hour podcasts, this one's the best. Sweet. Triple Tramp do a great job covering the industry. News is an entertaining matter. Pretty sure in real life they don't actually like each other. I cannot confirm or deny. That is true. Okay. Yep. Second one from Josh. Freaking amazing. Joel, Tom, and Travis do a great job making the industry news and tournament talk. Interesting. They play off each other well, and the show is very well done. Sweet. But this is it. This is our oldest review from Marino. Great podcast. Love the podcast. Entertaining. Killed the tournament talk. Boring. So there we go. So that's who we are. So we thought let's double down on that. Tournament talk, here we go. Let's get arguably the best tournament player of all time on the podcast. Keith, you are here, and we are ready to hear everything. Just share all your wisdom and all your tournament talk, please. Oh, yeah. Since 1993. 1993. Perfect. Well, wonderful. No, we've got some fun stuff to talk about. Let's back up a little bit. One thing I want to – I consider myself a tournament player now. And the reason I do consider myself a tournament player is I was in an intense head-to-head battle with Neil McRae. I flew across the ocean. I was in the Domino Arcade, which is his thing. And he challenged me to a nine-game tournament, best of nine. We streamed it. It was intense. And now I just feel like I'm right with you. You know, the four of us are just twins at this point. I mean, because I won. I'm a tournament champion. I'm a tournament champion, and it feels good. Where's your trophy? Where's my trophy? I don't. Neil did not. He did not give me a trophy. But the victory is still there, and it feels good. I will say, honestly, though, this is the first time that I've experienced the, you know, you got to play the game and you got to play it well. But the picking the game, there's strategy with that. Like, so much strategy there. And when you talk about running out of picks or what do you do, because he let me, he said it's home court advantage, so I get to pick the games. Game one, I went Monster Bash. Nice game to warm up on, even playing field. I actually did really well on that. I copied his. I said after his ball won, what are you doing? He goes, I always do creature first. Okay, looks like I'm doing creature first. So did that, ended up winning that. Then I went to turtles, went to my bread and butter. I know Neil hates turtles. Stomped him on it. Crushed it. So wait, wait. He hates turtles, but he owns it? He owns turtles. And he owns turtles. His view was he owns turtles because nobody has it. It's a great game to learn for tournaments because when it comes up to tournaments, people are afraid of it. I don't know. Keith, you afraid of turtles? You like turtles? I barely played it. I mean, if you need it, I love it. Let's just have an F you money when you're like, I don't really like this game, but I'm going to get the LE shipped overseas and just have it. Okay. So what I've learned is if for whatever reason I'm in a head-to-head battle with Keith Elwin, I'm picking Turtles. I'm picking Turtles. Pretty much any modern game you can pick. I don't know the rules. Oh, yours. I'm not picking yours. Well, mine I do, yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. And we're going to talk about modern gaming rules, Cause I have some thoughts on your thoughts on that, but pick turtles, beat them on that. Then I went to Deadpool. You know, these are all games. I know all games I've owned. Deadpool had, I'm not going to call it a house ball, but like I barely flipped the game. It was bad. It was bad. Got beaten, beaten. And now I'm starting to run out of picks. Now I'm starting to run out of picks of stuff that I'm confident with. And fast forward, the deciding game, it was four, four. My last game, the game that I picked that I actually won on was Jurassic park. And it was a game that I've streamed. Keith, you know I've streamed it. You've seen me stream it. You've probably watched it for about 30 seconds because it's one of my brother and I streamed Jurassic Park. We just got lit up. That game kicked our butt. But I had my best game of Jurassic Park ever, playing Neils in a tournament. And there's just something completely different when you play a game and you shift your mentality of progression to just I need points. I need safe shots and I need points. And who would have guessed? I got my highest scoring game of all time. But I beat Neil on Jurassic Park. It was a great feeling. And now I'm a tournament winner. What was your score? I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. It was higher than Neil's. But it was your high score. Yeah, what was it? Your highest score. I don't know. I'd have to pull up and, you know, talk amongst yourselves if you really care. It was less than a billion. Should we guess what it was? Sure. Epic pillow fight. No, Neil, it was vicious, you know, brutal. They were, you know, close to bloodshed without it, but it was great. But it was – I'm just telling you, I'm trying to relate. I'm trying to relate to the three of you where I'm saying I was – what started stressing me out was running out of picks, you know, really hoping I had it in the bag with my first three or four picks and then started losing games that I was confident I was going to win on. And then I was purposely looking at games like I know Neil's a Bond, like loves Bond. So I'm not picking Bond. There's no way I'm picking Bond. And it just, that head space of trying to understand what your opponents are doing or what they want to play. So you're saying that you don't pick to your strengths. You pick to what your opponent. I did pick to my strengths, but I ran out of strengths. I ran out of them. Yeah. So is that, I don't know, maybe that's a good question for the three of you. I mean, do you guys always stick to, I want to play the game that I want to play? or are you thinking, I just need to pick a game I know that person doesn't or hates? We'll start with Keith. Why not? Or does it matter? Just whatever. Not my normal strategy? No, I always pick what I'm comfortable playing. If I don't care, like if it's a toss-up between games, I might do that. Yeah. So I know what I've witnessed is this younger generation, the Eschers, the Z-Max, Jared August, I'm forgetting people for sure. They crush these modern sterns. And so it seems to me that most people, if they're going to play head-to-head, they're going to try to avoid a modern stern as much as possible against these guys. So imagine playing them at the Stern Pro Circuit Finals. when all you have is monster. Yeah. What do you pick then? Yeah. I picked, I played against Escher and I was deciding what to pick and it was literally a coin flip. Like what, what do you even do at that point? Travis, I love you, man, but you, your, your audio cut out about half of that. So, you know, anybody want to try to interpret what he just said? I think you said, um, I'm back there it is Monica you're listening to this buy me a new mic it's not the mic I'm telling you take it to your internet I found my score it was a whopping 202 million so okay let's just move on solid score but it was a winning score it was a winning score for sure but that's it so huge shout out to Neil McRae that was a ton of fun it was really cool being in Europe and experiencing pinball from that side. I went to Pinball Republic, had an awesome time playing some of those games, which actually leads us to a message we got from Matt Freeman. So he said, hey, Joel, Tom, and Travis, a quick question for you, buddy. I just got back from Neil McCrae's Pinball Republic in London, UK. There's a great atmosphere. All the games looked amazing. However, all the modern games were set up to be brutal because they're used there in leagues i.e tilt bob short no ball saves so how as a novice can you deal with issues like on guardians where the ball would drain pretty consistently from the right scoop to straight down the middle or on bond premium top left sling to right out lane much appreciated matt so i don't know you guys all play like do you guys have any thoughts on and i think we've talked about this before not i haven't asked keith directly but a lot of these tournament locations now they are trying to make the games as brutal as possible uh how does a novice attempt to play that or or is there a way that you can keep a game friendly for novice but yet adjust for a tournament i don't i don't know i mean and a lot of these are physical adjustments and i know keith obviously in your games you guys try to really think through a lot of software adjustments i don't think is there a discussion there at stern of like we really don't want people adjusting the physical sides of our games besides taking rubbers off outposts? Or how do you, what's your approach there on handling the difficulty on games? I mean, honestly, when we're designing games, we don't think about tournaments at all. Obviously, on the software side, we'll put some, you know, non-randomized stuff in. You know, it's just modern pinball has become this storytelling era with long ball times. And, of course, with that, then comes, well, there's, you know, can't put too many dangerous shots in there. So it is kind of a catch-22 with making these games hard for expert players because you can take all the in-lane, out-lane posts out you want. Escher is still going to, you know, blow the game up. So you're actually hurting, I think, the, you know, the more novice player. And, you know, another thing with these modern games is you can get away with a huge move. I mean, Travis knows what I'm talking about. So it's like, wham, all right, there's my two warnings. I actually tend to rectify that in my next game. So I think that will help narrow the gap down too. I mean, so when I would play, sometimes Logan will have the monthly tournaments, and they set it on one tilt warning, which is actually brilliant because you can't make a big move at all. So I think that really helps narrow the skill gap. So instead of adjusting the tilt or the tilt's already tight, you're just saying you get one danger. You don't get a free slide save at all. Got it. Because what is, I think I read or heard somewhere like Josh Sharpe's thought is you're allowed one. You're allowed one big move. That's it. Well, those guys, yeah. No. Those guys just also go make changes in the adjustments that we haven't actually known what to do. Well, so that is what I experienced when I was playing Neil's game. So I, we actually stepped up to walking dead. I will tell you walking dead. My, my, um, I'm starting to understand, I'm starting to understand the love of walking dead. And it was really cool having Neil standing there beside me, like telling me exactly what to do. But he told me, he's like, Hey, do this and this and this, and you'll be a multiple. I did it. And I'm not multiball. And he's like, Oh, I got to check the settings. And he had gone through in like every setting was, he just increased the number of shots, you know? And it was just, And that's something that I don't see a ton in tournaments of purposely just adding more shots. Oh, that's happened a lot. Even on rush, we've seen people do that to rush a lot, and it just makes it super wood choppy. It makes no sense to do something like that. It actually slows the game down. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, what am I going to do? I'm just going to graze the whale walker on the right side, you know, 12 times rather than, you know, okay, I only need three more shots. I'll be more aggressive. so maybe this is a good question if if keith if you were going to host a tournament tomorrow and godzilla was going to be in the game what adjustments would you make to godzilla if you knew high level players would be playing the game um i mean not too much to godzilla i designed it so that right side would be extremely deadly if you remove the uh the rubber um but software wise there's really nothing I'd say to make it more difficult you just put it on tournament play and let her rip yeah what about Jurassic Park Jurassic Park same thing it's a very drainy game especially if you remove the outlane and inlane rubbers you know Iron Maiden is the same way Avengers those are all fairly drainy games with the outlane rubbers gone Godzilla I made a lot friendlier with the outlane settings and rubbers so yeah i mean to your point walking dead which the rule set itself is brilliant because you have to shoot drop targets you have to shoot a building with a magnet you have to shoot the well walker with or without a magnet depending on which version you're playing those are all dangerous shots um and it's brilliant because you can avoid them but you're not going to get very far in the game so i think that's what makes it such a great tournament game it just you know it's all about getting the ball back under control yeah and that's i think that's important what you know you guys alluded to the younger players being so good on some of these games that's because oftentimes you can do really well without ever putting the ball in danger no it's a good point and that's that's something that or at least what i felt i was starting to experience in walking dead was like being that i was hitting my shots it was like cool i might actually progress a little bit in this game but unfortunately the way neil had the settings, I wasn't progressing because I just, you know, I need a reward for hitting the shot three times. Don't make me hit it six, you know. But it was, I don't know, I think that's just really interesting. The more that I watch tournament streams or the more that I go on location and I love it that locations are doing, trying to do more tournaments, try to do more stuff. So I think they are actually making their games a little harder, but trying to find that balance of how do you keep tournaments so they're not 18 hours long, you know, with crazy long games, but then also how, how do you keep a tournament fun for the people participating in it? And I don't know. I mean, Tom would be a district 82. I'm assuming that's a constant conversation. Yeah. You just turn the lights on. I'm not, I'm not, no, I'm not in those conversations. I mean, I, I kind of am, but I think district 82 is kind of taking it a little too crazy as far as setups go. making some of the games too hard that don't have to be especially some of the classic games like Stars. You don't have to make Stars as brutal as it is. You don't have to make that game hard. The police force with the rebound rubbers, that's awesome. It's gone now. It's not there anymore. Although I think Thorn still has it. I think too with modern pinball And hopefully, Joel, can you hear me? I can hear you. Okay, for now. But with modern pinball, I think I don't, I'm not a big fan of switching up the software beyond just maybe taking off a ball save. And then outside of that, just change the outlanes, like change the rubbers. That's all you have to do. And tighten up tilt a little bit. Because I'd rather see players have a chance to progress through the game. And like Keith said earlier, you become more aggressive in that way. Because you know a multiball is closer. You know a mode is closer. It's not so much of just try to hit this one safe shot, get trapped up, do it all over again. I mean, it just allows for just more dynamic gameplay. And I think a lot of tournament directors out there have gotten away from that because they think they have to bastardize the game so much to slow it down. It ends up just hurting the average player. It does not hurt top level players at all. Until you see somebody in the 500s or 1000s make a top four at a Stern Pro Circuit event. I mean, it makes it to where just the top players will automatically just crush everybody else every single time. Yeah. Another big thing to me is every tournament puts the game maximum pitch, which actually makes the game easier. So, you know, if you really want to screw up someone like Escher, put him on a flat pitch game where it's really floaty. The slingshots are just sending it to the outlings left and right. because I've been playing in tournaments for years and years, and I'm so used to the steep pitch game. But if I go in a location and play a game that's really floaty, I have a really hard time adjusting to it. So that's actually something to actually think about when you're setting up a tournament game. It's like, yeah, these guys are used to playing it a certain way. If you change that dynamic of it, it really throws off their game. Yeah, and I thought it was really interesting. When I interviewed you previously, Keith, I asked you about Godzilla. I was like, okay, what pitch do you think a game should be at? And you had a very open-ended answer. You're like, play it whatever you want. You know, if it's draining too much down the middle, flatten it out a little bit, drain too much on the sides, raise it up a little bit. Like it doesn't – I don't know. I remember – There was some idiotic rumor that I told everyone exactly what pitch to put. I think it was Jurassic Park or something. I was like, I don't even have it in Clamonaut, so I don't know. I couldn't even tell you a number if I wanted to. Just pitch it to what you think feels right. Yeah, no, that's a good point. I will say at Freeplay Florida, they kind of went a little crazy with the pitch. Like on Iron Maiden, they put a two-by-four underneath the back legs, and you could barely hit the right ramp. I took three shots at it, and it would go and back down. And again, like I said, in the long run, that makes the game easier because the slingshots don't do what they're supposed to do. Well, you made a comment, Keith, which I think is interesting, where you said, you know, at Stern, we're really not designing for tournament play. You're trying to design a game for the masses, which I think is clever. And I know I've talked to you before that when you release a game, you're watching streams like a hawk because you're trying to see how all these different people, all these different skill levels. And I think we saw that the way you've adapted the code based on what you're seeing or how you're seeing people play. I just think it's what I find really interesting is whether it's Facebook or Pinside, there are people that truly think, you know, Stern's only hiring tournament players. So Stern's only making games for themselves. They're making games for themselves and their friends. Like, I don't agree with that comment. I don't either. But at the same time, you know, Venom just came out. and the majority of the media right at the beginning is all from tournament. A lot of the streamers play tournaments, you know, like a Carl D'Python Anghelo. A lot of the media early on is tournament minded people. And even Travis with the pinball company, you know, he's making videos on how to win your launch tournament. It's very tournament focused stuff. So I don't know from a designer standpoint, how you balance that of like, when I release a game, I need this to be tournament ready. But at the same time, if the bigger picture is, I'm trying to design a game for everybody else. How do you handle that? I mean, a great example is our new programmer, Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske. I think you know her. She goes to District 82. She plays in a lot of tournaments. She's on my team now. And when she first came on, you know, we talked. We talked about we're not designing this game for us. We have to design a game everyone's going to like. So as much as, you know, we'd like to put some super complicated, you know, rule set in it, it's not going to fly. So, you know, every day, you know, we bounce rule ideas off each other to put in my next game. And it's like, it's like, OK, you know, shut your brain off and just flip or, you know, have a family member play. And it's like, where do they think, how far are they getting? And then, you know, we'll just plus or minus from there. Yeah. No, I love it. That's really good to hear because to me, where I struggle with any game that's down here in the basement, if a friend or family steps up to it, they always ask, what do I do? And if I can't explain what to do in like 10 words or less, I don't even know where to start because I know they're going to turn off. And and that just giving them that or hoping that the game communicates once they do the thing. Hopefully the game communicates them enough with lights or sound that they would know why I did that. So now what? You know, carry them through. And I for the four of us, you know, we're all decent players. I'm going to just include my I'm just increasing. We're all good players. And we all have a pinball mind where we can deal with complexity. but I understand that's just, it's really hard to get people outside or on location to step past that or embrace that. You got to remember too, Joel, it's when it comes to complexity in a rule set, it takes a very unique person. Oh, he's here. Now you guys are all gone. Can you see me or not? We can see you. You started talking. You sound better. We, you started talking and your video actually disappeared, which was pretty great but now it's back okay you were talking travis yeah he probably can't hear us oh there he's gone tom rush i what i wanted to say with rush was rush you know rush is your baby you love rush rush is the greatest game ever made right um no offense keith but that's that's tom too on rush i know rush got a lot of hate early on when it came in that it was too hard to understand And I feel like that was one of those games that is hard to tell a novice player when they step up to it. Do the thing. Definitely. I don't know. I mean, did you have any thoughts on that when it first came out? Or you were just like, no, I'm glad this game is as complex as it is because this is my game. Yeah. I mean, I was glad about the complexity just because I'm a big Rush nerd. So, you know, so to me, that was a big thing. Plus, I like the more complicated rule sets. but I could see where other people are like, I have no idea what's going on here. For sure Travis you are back Did you have a thought I did and I said it to myself and all three of you were just frozen I thought I was saying something epic because you guys were all paying attention and then nobody responded, and I was just like, shit. Oh, no, he's freezing. There he is. Am I freezing again? He's frozen again. For our audio listeners, buckle up. Can you at least hear me, though? I don't know what to tell him, man. I can we can hear you you can hear me hear you so if you're ever if you're ever on a podcast okay he's gonna go no video you three go ahead I'm gonna switch over to my iPhone I'm gonna yeah yeah we're going old school Keith will have the best looking webcam here so I can't wait to edit all this together but okay um good luck godspeed Travis so sorry Keith well actually no this is Travis you know we're not faking it if you're a podcaster don't move don't move your house just don't move okay I know so Keith your current so obviously Godzilla came out and you had Bond 60th you've since that you've released new code for Bond for Jurassic Park And Bond 6, yes. Both of those were received incredibly well. I know Jurassic Park co-op mode has been embraced really well. You've been chipping away on that. If I had to look at a schedule and I had to look at how Stern is rotating designers, you might be on the top of that list. So I'm guessing life is getting busier or you're heading in the direction of busy coming down the path. And I don't know. How's how's been the last few months at Stern? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we just moved into the building, getting my office set up. Yeah, I've been going in two, three times a week. So that's getting busy. feeling good well i'm hoping nothing now yeah well no i'm i'm i'm excited for uh i'm excited for the next few months it's always normally right around late december early january is when stern will renounce another game it'll be fun um stern's last game venom has been a really interesting game to have in play um the xp system or the leveling up system i don't know is that any thoughts on that? Are you enjoying that? Or is that something that you feel Stern might embrace more? It's just such a unique thing to have in pinball. The persistent data thing, yeah. We're planning on doing something similar. If you have the ability to do it, then you might as well do it for something. We're not going in the same direction as, say, Venom did with power yourself up to make the game easier. We're doing it in a completely different direction, but hopefully people will like it. Yeah, it's great. Actually, I like playing Venom. We have one in the office there. I do our quote-unquote 15 minutes a day. That's one of the games I gravitate towards. Yeah, and I've heard, we will probably talk a little bit about Venom later with one of the games or the discussions we want to have, but I've heard that Venom's actually doing well on location, and it makes sense to me because once Venom leaves my house, it will absolutely be a game that I'll want to put one or two games on. Because when you put a game on it, you're just progressing. You're just building levels. You're picking up where you left off. And yeah, to me, I have no doubt that I think it would be a really good game to have on location. Well, the other side of that being that I've had this game in my house for two months, it has totally changed. I was obsessed with the game when I first had it because I just wanted to grind and I just wanted to beat Noel. But now that I've beaten him, I've beaten him four times. So I have everything unlocked, but I still have Insider Connect. my mind is shifted to okay I can check that box but now how do I want to play the game and it's just I've never had a game like that of like pulling me in different directions or motivating me in different ways so if you're talking about using some sort of progression system I'll be really curious to like I like that I like the change that it's thrown at me with the game so yeah cool plus I mean I'm sure You're also appreciating that with every code update, your strategy completely changes. Yes, yes. We've talked about that. I know Travis, once again, with the Pinball Company, has made multiple videos now because whatever he's preaching is the right way to play it. It changes because they're adapting. And I know you do that too with any of your games. If you see a very clear exploit or a very clear path, you don't want that, so you're adjusting. It's all Carl's fault. It's Carl, yeah. Yeah, well, the great example is I was watching Jurassic Park on a stream, and the commentator was like, always pick whatever that mode is. System, boot. Yeah. I was like, oh, well, that's a problem. So when we did the update, Raymond worked on those control room modes. I said, make them more interesting. No, and I will say when I was at Chicago Pinball Expo, I actually commentated a little bit of the streaming. and I had a moment where I was sitting between Robert Byers and Eric, the Florida guy. Stone. Eric Stone. And what was great was Jurassic Park came up, and I'm like, all right, so you're stepping up to the game. What are you doing? And Robert goes, oh, yeah, you want to go – you want to spell map, get into a mode as soon as possible, get through your first paddock. That way you can get to the control room. That's the way you want to go. And then Eric, without missing a beat, goes, no. he goes no like you want to go raptor pit raptor pit is where the points are on this and he explained this whole thing and i sit in there listening and i'm thinking i bet keith loves to hear this to hear two competitive players from the plunge arguing what direction to head and that's the goal right that's the goal is to have that type of balance in a game yeah i remember kaylee george you know famous tournament player came up to me he's like i hate your games because they don't how many exploits? And I was like, okay. Yeah. And I think we've talked before that you said from a designing standpoint, the physical layout, you're good at that and you can knock that out and you've got ideas for days, but it's the code in the code direction and the code paths and the code balance. That is where all the mental energy gets sucked into. And that's the exhausting part of designing a game. Yeah. It's the hardest part of code design is when you're working with assets, it's, you know, how do I make this rule set fit what's going on screen? Whereas Jurassic Park was actually super easy because I just told the art guys, hey, I have this idea for a mode. Make me these assets. Okay. Doing it the other way around is so much harder. That's why after Godzilla, my brain was just fried. When Bond 60th came around, I told Mark Panaccia, you know what? Just do what you want. Do whatever, yeah. Because you said with Godzilla, you like watched everything. You were pulling. You were the one that pulled all those video assets. It was, yeah, yeah. Watch each of those movies like five times and then pull the assets out. It's like, what can I use? What can I design a motor around? It was, yeah, it was mentally exhausting. Well, the outcome was worth it. So I appreciate that. Speaking of exhausting, Travis is back. What is going on, man? We can hear you. I'm doing my best to torpedo this podcast. That's what I'm trying to do. you're just good at balancing we get a really good guess you're just jealous you lost to Keith at Indus that's what this is about the double zero on bad girls it was his fault I'm happy the whole world knows it now that wouldn't have happened if he didn't pick that damn game so yeah that game was fun it was a blast Keith Yes, I fully enjoy it. You guys get to play three full balls. Although I think you guys had what, like $20 million, $25 million on it, something like that? Yeah, something like that. You know, that's what I love about InDisc is they just throw the most random game at you. Going into that tournament, I had never played it before, but at least competitively, or, you know, I don't remember. and when they threw it in there, I had like a junk ticket going from qualifying. I was like, oh, I'm going to try this game out. They ended up really liking it and putting it on my next run. And so it was actually one of the few picks I had left when you were in my group. Well, I liked all the other picks. I mean, what were we really going to do? We weren't going to try to play Tron against Escher. Like I like playing Flash. I like playing Bad Girls. And I think, what was the first game? Firepower? Firepower. I think, right, yeah. So I liked all those games. Like, to me, it's like I was like the Joel of that group because we had Keith, we had Zoller, and we had Escher. So it's like, yeah. I was already hitting way above my weight. Keith Escher and Jason Zoller. Yeah. It was a tough group. What's going to be really interesting is when all of this uploads at the end, how much of Travis's audio or video is actually here. But you know what? The good news is people are tuning in. Am I coming through still, even on the iPad? It's a little better. It might be an Internet issue, but we'll figure it out. It's an Internet issue, for sure. By figure it out, I mean when I go to edit this, this has got to be a bear. Okay, so when we asked Keith to be on, we said, is there anything in particular you want to discuss? And Keith actually proposed this idea, and I think it's really cool, which is if we look at the pin side top 100 list, there are games, if you really look at that list, there are games that score in the 100 to 200s that shouldn't be there. They should be higher. Or the latter part of that, games that are in the 200 to 2, whatever the most one is, that should be higher. So we thought this would be a fun discussion with all of our different viewpoints here on what games we think should be ranked higher. So we've picked three. Each one of us has picked three per range. So we'll start with the range of 100 to 200. What are the three games that each one of us personally feel should be in the top 100, not between 100 and 200, that kind of thing. So, Keith, being that this is your game, you can start. So go for it. Three? I thought we were doing five. All right. let's do five because i did five two yeah shoot okay well i did three well but that's my name five games we're screwed that's not okay so uh so my number five pick is lethal weapon three lethal weapon three let me find that lethal weapon three currently ranked jeez it's gonna take a little while but uh i gotta scroll lethal weapon three okay go ahead Why is that better than where it's ranked? To me, you'd have to think when this game came out, 184 was really, you know, obviously the play field is a little bit of a copy of T2, but I think it really works in this case. The orbit around and you're building up your clip and then you're cashing that in for awards. You know, I just thought it was a really fun game for a spot. And the one in District 82 we've played, you know, numerous times in the tournament. and it's always been fun. While I don't think it's a top 50 game, I think it definitely deserves to be in a top 100. Yeah, cool. Okay. That was not on my list. Was that on any? No. Anybody else have anything to add to that? No? Travis does. Let's see what happens. Well, that was my number three on it. Are we all just doing number five? Is this going through, please? Is it not? It's coming. It's coming, man. I'm just going to drive to Chicago it was his number 3 everyone just go to Keith's house and I'll be there we only expect this from Travis what's crazy is his camera has stayed on it's just frozen maybe he needs to turn his camera off yeah maybe just go try at this point Travis just go pure audio yeah his 28k modem is just not yeah I'll stick up turn your camera off I'll stick up a beautiful picture of you for the video it'll be flattering for sure but I think it's time to ditch video do they only have dial up in St. Louis? yes I don't know he's so frozen ok well lead the weapon Keith what was your next game? I'm doing my entire list or are we going to someone else's number? might as well so my fourth game is the best scissor flipper game ever made, Harlem Globetrotters. Harlem Globetrotters. Looking at the list, I knew that was coming because I know how much Tom and Travis both love that game. But, Keith, why do you love that game? I played that game when it was brand new. That's how old I am. I was like, wow, this game is really fun and unique. You know, if you love spinner rips and inline drop targets, which I do, man, it's your cup of tea. And that game still holds up today. It's just super fun, super dudley. and I enjoy it still. Yeah, and I'm guessing because I think Harlan Globetrotters made both of their top five games of all time list. I'm assuming Tom and Travis both had this on their list of games they think should be higher. Yes. Yes, got it. Perfect. Okay, number three, Keith. Number three I have is Mousing Around. Oh, that has a shot right up the middle. Like that's a, yeah, okay, why Mousing Around? I owned one for years and actually you can set that shot up to be pretty deadly. It's got these little ramp covers on it. If you take those off, the feed is a lot more wild. Something about the... I really love the... What do you call them? The trapdoor locks? The cheese locks. I thought that was really innovative. Having to hit all those stand-up targets. It sounds easy, but then you're like, I've got to hit all these stand-up targets. but it's actually great, you know, risk-reward aspect. And then, you know, there's an alternate strategy of, you know, blowing up the cheese letters and cashing them in at the mouse hole. So, you know, for its time, it had some unique strategies. You know, you can try to loop the left orbit. You know, depending on how the setup was, you can get pretty good at that. So I just think for its time, it was a great movie, and it's still a great game, and it still holds up today. Nice. Does District 82 have one of those, Tom? yes yeah because i think i've seen that streamed yeah and it's it's kind of got the uh the papa rubbers in the middle so it's harder to hit the middle and then it has the cover off of the left uh return so yeah it's it's pretty brutal but it's still fun nice nice okay good pick okay What else you got? My number two I have is Sopranos. Sopranos. Okay. I know Buffalo Pinball has a lot of love for that game. What do you love about it? The back left corner? I never even watched the show, and I think it's a fun game. You know, I like the safe that comes apart. You shoot through. I thought that was pretty cool. You know, obviously they had some pretty good assets to go with it. You know, Gomez game, you know, it shoots fine. Yeah. Yeah, it's got some nice orbit action, and that spinner shot, I think, is really satisfying. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's funny that they went – Sopranos is a rather serious show, but they made the game fun, like campy almost. They leaned into the humor way more than the serious side of Sopranos. Yeah, and the talking fish. Yeah, the quips of that fish make are hilarious. I just enjoy playing the game. Yeah. was that your two? that's my two my number one is Baywatch Baywatch with that little shark flipper the shark flipper the layout of that game I think it's just a really great layout especially at the time when Sega was kind of cost cutting everything in that era I think this game kind of hit the mark the drop targets felt good The ramp, if you can make it, when the flippers weren't dead, it was a nice shot. I love to have a little right side with that little spinner that returns to the little shark flipper. I thought that was pretty ingenious. Okay. Yeah. And I love the big DMD, too. I love the big DMD. I am really becoming a fan of just, yeah, it's weird. the more I get into this hobby, the more I'm actually really drawing to the DMD displays, the DMD art, you know, nothing against all that time and energy you put in pulling clips for Godzilla Keith. There's just something about pinball feels like a DMD to me. I mean, the game obviously has some shortcomings. The video mode is terrible. It could have leaned a little more into the campiness, but I think just as a shooter and just, you know, kind of a shut your brain off, have fun type of game. I thought it was pretty good for its time. Cool. Okay. Um, uh, I'd go to Travis, but I don't think I can. Tom, Tom, you want to go through your list? Sure. I know you, you had, you had, um, Harlem on it, but what else? So that was my number four, actually. Um, I didn't really number these in any particular order, I guess. So, uh, my fifth one was Black Rose. I just kind of like the you know the multi balls and the goofiness of shooting the cannon shot yeah I know Ray Day has a big he loves Black Rose I own a Black Rose yeah so what do you think about it Keith why do you love Black Rose I wouldn't say I love it I have a lot of fun shooting it I love the theme obviously it's kind of a one trick pony with the rules, which is kind of the downside of it. But that shot, which has got to be the longest shot in pinball to hit the broadside, it's pretty satisfying. The video modes are what they are. They're not great. They're not terrible. But, yeah, no, I actually enjoy playing that game in tournaments since it's such a one-trick pony. But, you know, when I have it at home, it's like, yeah, I'll play this once in a while. Did you have that game? You used to be an operator. You used to route games. Was that a game you routed ever? Yeah, that was at 82 for a while. And how did that do on location? Not too great. Okay. Because it is an unlicensed theme, but it's pirates. People like pirates. And it's the layout with the cannon. I do think there's enough there to be like, ooh, how do I? I think people hated the cannon because that area was just so warped. I did everything I could to make that as flat as possible I've never met one that was I think from the factory they were warped yeah okay cool Black Rose so yeah four was Harlem pretty much same reasons Keith said three I picked Radical Radical is a cool game the layout is super cool um i like the you know the spelling radical doing the multiball um i know they there's like an updated rom which makes the game a lot more fun to play especially in tournaments but i i really like radical i i kind of wish i owned one kind of thing so i put that on my list yeah there's not there's not a ton of them out there that's becoming a more sought after game um that was actually in my if i have to go top five it didn't make my top three i probably would have included that and it's just because i think it's a fun theme like skating a lot of people i think there's some overlap there that people were into that type of culture and then the ramps the ramps and the layouts are really appealing just the way there's so many of them in the way they're laid out I think it draws you into want to shoot all that. Keith, what are your thoughts on Radical? Yeah, they have one at Logan. It's a great shoe. Obviously, the random jackpot values kind of blow, but, yeah, there's a tournament ROM. That's awesome. Okay. That shot up the middle is pretty tough. But, yeah, it's actually, you know, a very interesting Dan Langlois design. And he definitely took some risks, like having a ramp like six inches from the flippers, but it works, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's real. Is that the closest? Like, I know the left ramp on Shadow is real close, but is Radical, is that the closest ramp that you can? Is there a ramp in pinball you can think of that's closer to that left ramp on Radical? Maybe not. Maybe the ramp on Bond. Oh, yeah. or uh yeah i'm thinking uh maybe monopoly monopoly yeah um travis can you hear us i'm here i'm just chilling okay all right um he has dropped out we're trying people we're trying this might be a uh you know we may hear we may hear more out of the two of you than we've ever heard on podcasts and i love it I love it. Okay, Tom, what else you got? Number two, I picked Demoman. It's not like a super deep game, but I like the shots. And, I mean, it's kind of a fan-ish layout, but it has the upper flipper. It's got some cool shots. It's got a lot of flow to it, which I like, and a lot of multiball, which I also like. um but i i thought it you know i thought i thought it could crack the top 100 for sure even though it's not like i i remember you know when i first got into this hobby you could get like a demo man for like 1200 bucks yep you know um but uh i i think it's a really underlooked game it's just my thoughts on that yeah and it has the handles, it has the handles on the upper side what are you, don't you score more, don't they have it where you get more points if you play with the handles yeah do you play with the handles, either of you I'm bored when you're bored yeah I will say it has the most probably satisfying shot in pinball is nailing that scoop, which is such a tight shot. Not the computer, but the left orbit into the multiple start. Trying to nail that shot under pressure is one of the most fun shots of pinball. Right, Travis? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. It was great. Can you guys hear me? What I would say, just to hope that things work well, we can hear you, but I think for the sake of everyone, maybe turn off your camera. I'm on top of the roof, Joel. And we'll try that. Okay. I'm going just audio. That is perfect. You can hear me, though. We're good. We can hear you. We can hear you. Yes. You can hear me. Okay. Demoman is what we're talking about. Do you like Demoman? Do you like Demoman? Yeah, it's okay. And he's frozen. It's a good thing. Okay. It was Tom. What was your, I feel so bad. You know, he feels bad. You know, he's, he's probably it's Travis. It was meant to be. He needs to go to a Starbucks or something. So what's funny is we joked around. There was one week that we talked about recording. Cause Travis was busy and I messaged Tom and I said, Tom, what if we get Keith this week? Cause Travis is wanting Keith. Like what if we get Keith as the sub for Travis? And I was just like, no, he would, his heart would be absolutely broken. It would be broken if we eat the one episode we get Keith on. And now we're here and it's technical difficulties. I can stop laughing I know I hope Monica not there in the house because he probably like Monica I need you to fix all this Okay Demoman what else you got My last one was – it's probably my second favorite early solid state game, and that's Paragon. Yeah. Yeah, I just – it's – I just like the – It can be kind of brutal. You've got to go for those inline drops, and you have to literally hit them all down and get in the saucer if you want the 5X. So I think that aspect of it is a little tougher than Harlem. Yeah. But, you know, I just – and I like how it's a wide body, which is, you know, not the norm, but they barely did those extra wide bodies. And I like that one the best out of all the ones they did. And you love the art. No, the art's good. Yeah. All the muscles. All the muscles. Yeah. And no neck. Yeah, it's like looking in the mirror, Tom, right? Right, exactly. Travis just texted me. He said his whole internet's messing up on his internet. Everything's falling apart. Reboot your router. Use your cell phone. That's what I just said. Call in. Restart the router. Let's see. Yeah, I'm hitting it now. He's saying, y'all keep going. We will. Or just cell phone. I have no idea what his cell phone service is. Anyways, okay. So great list, great list. I only did three. And yes, I actually, Radical was one of them that I was genuinely thinking about, but it didn't make my list. I'm trying to remember what the other one was but my number three is is oh, Skateball, I was surprised Keith, that Skateball, I know you love Skateball, but Skateball wasn't on your list I love Skateball for sentimental reasons, yeah, but you know, when I was a kid I would play the whole game, oh this game's awesome this game's great, but I played it in so many tournaments where you just shoot the right saucer over and over It's kind of soured on me over the years, but I still think it's a great game if you play it. The artwork's great. My coworker, Greg Freres, must have been like 20 years old when he drew that. But no, yeah, I love Skateball. In a tournament, I don't love it. Got it. Okay. So if my fifth then, this is a shout-out to Chuck, where it would be Big Game. And I've only played big game twice, but I've watched Chuck stream it and the passion that he has behind that game. And really, for what it is, the complexity of it and the way that you can attack it, you don't realize it just looking at it. But there's actually some depth there. And I'm assuming from a tournament standpoint, you guys both enjoy that. I like ripping spinners. Yeah. I own a big game it's my favorite classic stern but in a tournament am I going to sit there and try to complete bingo grids no I'm going to just hope the spinner's lit if it's not lit I'm shooting it over there anyway but yeah it's a great game when you're trying to fill out the bingo cards and get your multiplier up and then the reserve bonus yeah I love that game but tournament wise yeah I'm shooting that left spinner all day Yeah. Okay. That's fair. So those would have been my four and five. So my number three, my actual number three, and I'm just – it's almost nervous, like my view on these games because you're going to probably laugh at me. My number three is F-14 Tomcat. F-14 Tomcat? Okay. You guys are in because that was a game I actually traded. This was back when I had a Hobbit, and that was the only game I had. And I wanted to – I realized I needed more than one game. I needed to grow the collection. So I actually traded – this is when Hobbit was worth like $6,500. hundred, maybe seven grand. So I actually traded Hobbit for World Cup soccer. It was World Cup soccer, pin bot and F-14 Tomcat. It was a three for one trade. And the F-14 was like pristine condition. So it was a game I never wanted to have, but it was like, oh, part of the trade. What a blast. That game, that game is, it is high energy, high adrenaline. the just even just getting a multiball is such a battle you are that is a game where you really feel like you're battling the freaking game and when you the beacons it's just i feel like everybody has to own a 14 at some point in time you kind of have to own one and um and i love watching it play in tournaments because it's that's like i don't know what they edit or change on that game to make it harder for tournament players i think it's just already there it's a It's ready straight out of the box. You can drop that at a high-level tournament. The one thing they do is give it a spotting when you shoot the buck. Okay. But, yeah, the second game I ever owned was an F-14, and I loved it. I still like playing it today. It's just so weird and different. I remember talking to Steve Ritchie about it, and he was like, I hate symmetrical games, but this one just worked. And it did. Yeah. What a fun game, though. That was a game. I ended up selling it because, yeah. But that's a game I genuinely miss. I don't miss No Offense. I don't miss Pinbot at all. I just never got into it. But F-14 was a game. Never wanted it. Got it. Blew me away. And then now it's gone. I actually miss it. And so I will happily play it if I ever see it on location. And so the thing, you know, people may not appreciate today, but when that came out in 86 or whenever, both the sound and the light shows, were just leagues beyond anything else at the time. That game has like 30 flashers in it, you know, and the sounds and the music, everything was just top notch. Yeah. So when I had it, it was right after my daughter was born, but she was big enough that I could put on like a harness, like a carrier, and she would sit and watch me play, you know, like little babies looking at lights, freaking love it. My wife wouldn't let me do that with F-14. She's like, this game is too bright. The beacons, like she's like, you're going to overstimulate this child. Like, don't, like, you can do it with the other, but not F14, which I thought was hilarious that there was a stipulation on it. That is the best multiball ready moment, I think, in pinball when, you know, you lock that third ball, then the beacons come on and the music changes and it's intense music, you know, it's going. It's like, yeah, that's crazy. It's great. It's awesome. So F14, I definitely think, because my view with this is like, are you telling me there's a hundred better games than F14? like nah like i there's it's gotta be even if it's 99 like it's i surprised me that it's 176 176 of 14. uh i said i was surprised uh keith you didn't pick frontier because you always wear the frontier shirt i love frontier that's the game that got me in the pinball um yeah i don't know i honestly didn't see it ranked that far down i mean i'm not gonna pretend it's like some amazing rule set game it's just one of those here do this thing it's very hard to do and you know just keep doing it over and over and uh yeah no i love frontier um but you know i'm at peace with it not being in the top 100 i'm at peace i'm at peace uh my number two game is nba fast break and i don't know i don't think that's a tournament game i don't know if i've ever seen it in a tournament i don't know how you feel it fits in a tournament but it was uh it was an ifpa uh 17 and the european pinball championship so i'd say it's a tournament game yeah i'm not sure on it at the ifpa so what is uh what's a final score like what do you remember because it's it's f14 or sorry NBA Fast Break is actually scored in basketball points. So a score is like 100. Do you remember what a high-level competitive score is on NBA Fast Break? I mean, I played tournaments where rings were worth points. Okay. Because your score goes up two, three, whatever, and you win a ring. Yeah. So the ring was kind of like a tiebreaker. But, yeah, I don't know. I think we had 200s. 200s. Okay. I would have to remember what I feel like I might've broken 200 one time, but I had it in the house. I got it because I was trying to convince my parents to get a pinball machine. And my dad loves basketball, loves basketball. So I was like, I'm going to get this game. He's going to love it. And then he's going to buy it. Like, that was my thought. Like that'll be what gets him into pinball. Um, and he didn't enjoy it, but my dad's cheap. So that's what it did. It didn't happen. But, um, streaming that game was a ton of fun. And I, There's something about task-based wizard modes that I love. And the fact that to get to the final, the ring, to compete for a ring, you have to do very specific tasks and you have to do them. And once you've completed that, though, then you can actually do the final, I forget, the world champion or whatever it is, the ring. But I also love the combos, the fact that one of the tasks is based on combos, the combo shots, the dunk, the alley-oop. It's just very creative, very creative. Fun layout. Friends and family loved it. Interesting mechs. I can't imagine the number of coils that are in the back to pass the ball and shoot the ball. Gomez at the time, like, screw coil count. We're putting them all in. I mean, it's a fun game. I've yet to play one head-to-head, and I know people say that's like a whole other thing. So very unique game. It surprised me that it was not a top 100 game for sure. At the 82 Arcade in LA where we operated games, we had a head-to-head pass break, and it was a huge draw. Nice. Nice. And that's the only head-to-head game so far, like ever, right, that's happened? Yeah. Well, I know. Separate machines, yeah. I think you could technically do two P3s, like head-to-head. You can do that, two P3s head-to-head side-by-side. But without the basketball score, I think the brilliance of it is the basketball scoring. Because you can just look over your opponent, oh, they got 40 points or whatever. You're not trying to read some billions number on the screen. No, it's super simple. Super simple. It's just fun in the call-outs and everything. It's a great game. It's a great game. Definitely should be a top 100 game. I agree. We have one on our Stern Breakman, actually. Oh, nice. Yeah. Okay. And then my last one is Johnny Mnemonic. So apparently I just like George Gomez. But Johnny Mnemonic, I like the layout of Johnny Mnemonic. I like that spinner right up the middle. I find the glove very entertaining even though it is a mech that apparently breaks all the time I know the final wizard mode I've never gotten to but I've seen and it's like all the lights start to turn off it's like blackout or something whatever it's called that's just a fun game and I think that's one of those I think it's interesting these are the ones where people are like I want to get a DMD level game but I can't afford you know Tales of the Arabian Night Like Johnny Mnemonic falls into that category. I think Lethal Weapon falls into that category of, you know, cheaper. But yet this is a game I have a lot of fun on. I know a buddy of mine here locally has one, and I love playing it every time I go over there. How does it work from a tournament standpoint? Is that okay? No? Terrible. Not at all. You know what's mind-blowing is we have all these custom ROMs going around, but no one's touched Johnny Mnemonic with its obvious, hey maybe this 10 million super spinner is a little too much yeah yeah that's all you do is you go for the spinner you carry that bonus over just keep doing it you got 36 billion in no time and that's the spinners right up the middle yeah and it spins it spins for days too yeah i remember papa actually found some rusty old spinner from one of the damaged games and stuck that in so you get like two or three spins and even then that's all you would do because it's still, you know, even $30 million a spin is worth more in the long run. So, yeah, if there's ever a tournament run to fix that, I think it would be an amazing game. Yeah. Well, now that we've talked about it, not saying you've impacted my list, but I think I'd move Johnny Dermot down and move F-14 and NBA Fast Break up. That's where I'm at. But those are my three. Those are my main three. Travis, I see a screen. I just, you know, we could imitate him. You just, oh, I do a Harlem Golf truck. You know, we can travel. Can you hear us, Travis? I don't. Just, oh, boy. He should just call you and put him on speakerphone. Just put it. He still is like. Yeah. Apparently there's a, I don't know, there's a sandstorm or something over his house. Oh, that was Oklahoma. Oh, he's here. What? What? You are here? he comes in right when we start kind of here he's kind of here i don't he's here and not tell him to text his list and we can laugh at it text okay okay yeah all right well we'll move on to the second half then um so the second half is games that are in the 200 to whatever the max is it was like 278 that we feel once again should go up should be higher they should be in the top you know not say top 100 but maybe between 100 and 200 um let's just say underrated games for where they're placed sure so i'm going to start with this just because it's i'm just going to throw a game out because it's it's criminal is wrestlemania no just kidding right now game number 205 on the top on pinside's list of top games is venom pro and you're telling me that there are 204 pinball machines that are better than Stern's latest game, Venom Pro? I think not. I think not. So Venom Pro is absolutely on my list on that. Venom Pro, I get it. The code is different. It's unique. They've tried something new, but the layout is, it's a fan layout. It's very accessible. It's easy to shoot. It's fun to shoot. I think people can enjoy like i think for them to take a game where they want literally any level of any skill level to be able to achieve the final wizard mode that's a great layout for that um the animations are good the sounds are good the sound package there's four different freaking sound packages in this game like light show every like no this game should not be 205 should not be 205 so we talked about it a tiny bit but i'm not taking crazy bill here's right um key thoughts on venom venom pro no i we talked about venom earlier i like it yeah uh it's so different um i actually i think i've only played the pro once and i was at the uh the pro circuit um so i don't have a ton of time on the pro but um i don't imagine it's too much different other than maybe the the toy the horseshoe shot but no i actually enjoy um progressing through that game and i'm a sucker for bingo grids so maybe that's part of it ah it is there is definitely the risk reward there of before i get into this or before i go further do i want to change host fill out another lane and boom you got rewards that'll carry through until you fail a battle which i mean you're not going to fail a battle you're keith ellen so um yeah no i get it but tom you've you've been you've played a lot more venom than that um yeah 205 why why in the world is it 205 uh i don't know maybe just simplicity a layout i mean that's that's the only thing i can think of um just because it's a like a fan layout like i said the i've said on other podcasts like the i mean the code is what makes that game um and dwight's done a fantastic job with it but yeah, I, I, I think it's one of those games that, you know, people may not appreciate it now, but they'll appreciate it more in the future. I agree. I agree. I think there's a chance that that game might get to a point where, yeah, people really start to discover it down the road and all those that are still sitting there all of a sudden are going to start. Yeah. Look, look at Circus Voltaire. I mean, they couldn't sell those when they, they came out and now they're $10,000 games. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a tournament prize for a long time. Just trying to get rid of them. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great game. I like the circus. Voltaire is a beautiful game. Um, well, I'll just finish my list then. Uh, my second one, which really, once again, very surprising. I get it. We're at a point now, these are not tournament ready games, but still star Wars, Star Wars episode one, the Pinball 2000 game. I get it. Pinball 2000 games in general is... I get it. I get it. And Revenge from Mars I do think is the better game. I do think it is a better game. Revenge from Mars has all the humor, all the animations. But this is... Star Wars Episode I, what happened was I had Hot Wheels and Zach was like, hey, somebody's coming to get Hot Wheels. They're trading me. They traded him a Star Wars Episode I with cash, and then it was another play field. He had the additional play field of a range from ours. And he's like, so you get this, and just hold on to it for two weeks or whatever, and then I get it. So I get it in my garage. I'm looking at the game. I'm like, do I even want to unbox this game? Do I even want to unpack it? I'm not going to move a Pinball 2000 game all the way to my basement when I know it's going to leave two weeks later. Like, I'm not messing with that. but I set it up in the garage and I had a good time with it. I had a good time with the game. So once again, in my mind, are there 223 better games than star Wars episode one? This is Keith. It's 223, 285 better games than star Wars episode one. You think star Wars episode one should be the worst game on this list. That's between Thunderbirds and Hercules. Okay. So explain, explain to me why, why this game is absolute garbage. Okay, Joel, lock the ball. That's it? Lock the ball. Show me you locking the ball. Okay, and then it's garbage. Absolute garbage. Just shoot in the saucers. Yeah, just shoot in the saucers. If you get it to stick, you win. Yeah, I know. There's a little bit of rejection, and by a little, I mean all of it. But you have those spinners on the ramps that are – The virtual spinners? Oh, my gosh. Are you guys talking about Star Wars Episode I? I'm not trying to rain on your parade. No, no. I don't own the game. Yes, we are. I'm not flying a flag. Shoot it up. Just keep shooting up the middle. You'll get something going. It's just, once again, though, in my mind. So, okay, fine. Maybe it should be in the two. If I play the game, are there 223 games that are better in Star Wars Episode I? in my mind no but that's just my that's my mind I wish I could see Travis' face right now he loves Star Wars he's just going to go yeah Joel you're right Travis normally agrees he agrees with most of what I say I think we line up on a lot of things clearly I wish I should have done a Travis soundboard you know if I would have known if I would have known it would have been a lot of bro and I would place it a little bit higher than Bugs Bunny's birthday ball. It's that bad. Okay. It's that bad. It's not great. Wow. Wow, wow. Okay. Well, my last one, and this is just to make Carl D'Python Anghelo twitch. My last game is Big Buck Hunter. Big Buck Hunter. Okay. Big Buck Hunter. And Carl is now in a cold sweat. But Big Buck Hunter is currently ranked at 255. 255. I know Nick from Buffalo Pinball, he owns one, loves it. That's not a 255, really. It's better than that. It's better than that. Have you guys ever played it in a tournament? Oh, yeah. It's a brutal tournament game. Okay. What was the game? I'm sorry. There's a lot of commotion back here. Big Buck Hunter. Oh, yeah. That's on my list. Hey, okay. I just came in. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? No. He's staring. He messaged the group. He said you're an idiot, Joel. Oh, so he's listening. So he's listening. You can hear me? We can hear you now. Yes. You can hear me, though. The video's frozen, but we can hear you. It doesn't matter. It's okay. We'll see what happens. Maybe Travis can talk. give me a few seconds that's fine your dog you can't hear me Tom got a new dog we can hear you Travis there's like a 20 second delay maybe it's just you and me maybe it's just you and me we can start talking about Star Wars ok you have to get in ok you agree with me Travis Star Wars Episode 1 great game shouldn't be rated at 200 and whatever it was yeah can you hear me at all I'll take the silence okay I don't know what it is oh god he cuts out alright Keith this is just you know this is what it is St. Louis internet this is what we have this is it you know we asked for this can you guys kind of hear me here Travis there he is I am I'm literally You will go just to cellular signal. With cellular. Is it worse? Like, I don't know what else I could do. Like, look at this. I'm upstairs. I'm as high as I can get. I would, Monica. You need to go to Starbucks and jump on the Wi-Fi. I know. Well, we hear you now. Go on the roof. All I can think of is if you turn video off, it would be less signal. That's all I can think of. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me. Whatever. We'll get through it. Okay. We're talking about. Let's go. Video off. Here we go. We're going to have great success now. We can hear you. Keep going. We can hear you. No. Okay. Star Wars Episode I. Should it be better? And your answer is yes. Star Wars Episode I? Keep going. Don't talk about stars. Okay. Okay. Yep. The game sucks, Joel. I don't know what to tell you. It's so delayed for him. Like the game sucks. He's just screwed. Yeah. Okay. So we'll move on. We'll move on to the next game. The next game that I listed and Tom put it on his list as well is Big Buck Hunter. Do you have an opinion on Big Buck Hunter? Big Buck Hunter is rated 255. Do you think it's where it should be or should be higher? Higher. Higher. Keith, it's just you and me, man. what are your thoughts on Big Buck Hunter I haven't played it in a long time but I this is just wonderful hey Twippy Awards are coming up guys feel free to vote for this podcast it's incredible it's an amazing podcast that we have very professional 45 episodes in we're only improving alright what about now Joel I am outside. I enjoy Big Buck Hunter. It's a single ramp game, but there's enough to shoot at to keep you entertained. It's got a handful of modes. Oh, God. Walk to Starbucks. We can hear him walking. We can hear him walking, but we can't. I'm literally outside right now. We can hear you. You can hear me. I'm outside. I don't know what else to do. Okay. He's outside. We're going to try it. We're going to try it. So Big Buck Hunter is what we're talking about. We're going to try it. Yep. It's a great game. I'm outdoors. It looks nice there. It's the theme. It's excellent. Yes. It's shit out here, Tom. Wonderful. Everything's shit right now. Yeah. All right. Like, I got a tree. I got a tree That where we at with this podcast What are what are Steph we from Oklahoma I feel like I in the future Yeah everything I say you guys are like 10 seconds behind So, I feel like it's not my problem, it's your guy's problem. I feel like I'm in the future coming from a guy that's streaming eight pixels of data right now. That's great. Okay. It's so bad. Okay. it's bad we'll just go to Keith I'm listening we're in 200 to 300 yeah let's listen go for a walk Travis get your steps in man I am I'm walking I can hear you guys you guys just can't hear me go ahead I'll chime in when I can we can hear you alright Keith bottom of my list i have robocop robocop one yep yep yep yep data east uh where was that ranked all right why why robocop it's just a silly cheesy you know can't be game i love campy games and robocop definitely fits that uh you know i had limited assets limited art but it's still something about it that's fun, especially in a tournament. Okay. All right. I've seen that streamed tournament. That has been on a tournament stream before. Does DAT have it? Papa always has it. Okay. I've seen it before. Cool. I remember the music being fun. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Techno. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Robocop. Tom, thoughts on Robocop? I like it. Solid. Solid review. Big old thumbs up. It's a brutal game. Yeah. Very brutal. Future Travis. RoboCop? RoboCop is a fun game. Yes, it's a fun game. Wonderful. Wonderful. Good. Thumbs up. Okay. Okay. Good. Way to contribute, Travis. All right. It's like two Toms. Yeah. I can say for a fact, Tom, that there will be less audio waves for Travis. I'm talking as much as I can. I don't know what else to do. I know, I know. Okay, RoboCop, that was number five on your list, Keith. Let's go to number four. Number four is Twister. Oh, yeah. That's the topper, right? Just blowing at you? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Where's Twister at? 252. Okay, why Twister? I just think it's a fun game. It's a fun theme. That magnet disc, the multiball start, that whole sequence is very cool. The lock target is very risk-reward. You know, you've got the orbits. Obviously, in tournament play, you're probably going to focus on the orbits, but there are other ways to score points, so you're not locked into that. Okay. I don't know. I just think it's a fun, campy game and cheap, so good bang for the buck. All right. No, I respect that. Tom? Yes. that's that's what are your thoughts on twister tom yes i have not played twister a lot so i uh i i can't really comment well i know neil has yes neil neil played it a lot at indisc i stayed away from it because i saw everybody blowing it up and i'm like i don't really know how to play this game so i'm just gonna go elsewhere I'm scared to ask but Travis it looks like you are on location you know with a twister in the background yes can you report is there touchdown in St. Louis are we experiencing you know tornado winds what's going on thumbs up no no it's fine it's fine don't worry about it Okay, Twister. Thank you, Keith. All right, next game. The game I have on my list is a childhood favorite. I used to play at the pizza restaurant down the street, but it's The Amazing Spider-Man. The Amazing Spider-Man, yeah. The art on that is real good. Art? It's a wide body that, you know, it's a little slow, but it doesn't play like the typical super wide body of the time. the plastic spinner that spins three or four times you know but you know it's just a fun you know you're shooting the ball over the play field i love the plunge because there's so many different places the plunge can go so i have that as my third uh overlooked game in the top 300 that is a that is a beautiful game and it amazes me so why okay maybe that's the question why is this ranked so low like what what is the hate for this game because the theme's incredible the art's incredible it looks like a fun layout so what's the what's why why is this suck so bad apparently uh maybe people haven't really played it or the ones they played hasn't really worked very well you know it is a got leap so is it maybe it's just a plastic spinner that people hate i don't know i just i don't know why this game is ranked so low it doesn't make sense hey tom any insight on you have your finger on the pulse why do people hate this game i have no idea honestly well if we don't have an idea then maybe then maybe that's a good example of a game that should be ranked higher uh travis yeah travis knows travis you're on location um with uh the spider fan club. Why do they hate this game? Yes. I don't know. They don't have good taste in games. It only has one ball. That's what I think. Oh, it's not a multiball game. Yeah. I believe it's from, what, 78 or 79? 1980 is what it said. Right there. I legitimately have looked at... Just not enough people have played it. That's what it is. I've considered buying either a replay, like a repro back glass or play field just because the art is so great. My son loves Spider-Man. I would happily buy that and just hang it in his room. Like that just, it's that good. But that's one of those games that, yeah, if your entire purpose in pinball is to have a game that looks good in your collection, just buy one of these. It's a beautiful looking game. You know, Joel, instead of asking us, you can just read these reviews. I should. Oh, okay. Let me pull that up. While I'm looking at that, what's your next game on the reviews? Yeah, what's your next game on your list? My next game is another Gottlieb. It is Genesis. Oh, yeah. That's another crazy art package. These reviews aren't, yeah. 6.5. It's not as fun as it looks, but other games I've owned on the Esfera are more entertaining. Looks great, but mediocre gameplay. 4.7. Game is a bit boring. Great comic art. Playfield and Glasswell. Done. Yeah, just boring. Gameplay's pretty good. Nothing spectacular. Here we go. 5.3 rating. Had this game for 12 years and looked at it off more than playing it. I'm a big Spider-Man fan. Love the art of the playfield. the gameplay just never did it for me the sounds drove me crazy too slow for me had fun playing it just didn't hold my attention this guy's uh pin side profile picture is of spider-man so this is a loyal loyal spider-man i won't disagree with him the sounds are pretty bad for the time okay okay brutal and being such a Dick White body yeah it's gonna be slow yeah i kind of want to click on this star wars episode one reviews and see uh no so genesis genesis i know the art package is I know Genesis the art package is insane like it is what a weird looking back glass that is but why do you enjoy it Keith? I just love that there's like not one thing you're shooting at you're trying to collect all the body parts you're trying to get your multipliers your playfield multipliers and your multi multipliers when you're in multiball so it was just a fun game for it's time God they weren't known for their great ramps um this is no exception but at least you know they had ramps you know a lot of the games from that time the street level games didn't have anything fun to shoot at uh in this case i thought it did okay yeah i somebody somebody streamed it and um i remember it being better than i thought like i was impressed with the the way that you approach the game does have any of you guys played genesis in a tournament oh yeah oh yeah yeah so high stakes oh wow so what are your thoughts then tom i think it's a cool game like just basically what keith said you know you build the body parts multipliers and you know again it's just a you know for a game from 1986 it's kind of a little bit ahead of its time. I think people probably dog it because of the artwork and the back glass. If that game would have been like Universal Monsters Frankenstein it would probably have... Metropolis. Some kind of theme that was more grabbing. I think it would definitely be ranked higher. sure okay uh i pulled up two uh star wars episode one reviews that i think you guys will enjoy um number one the shots feel mind-numbing in this game but the theme is pretty cool for pinball 2000 and then uh this one here played it at the pinball office in uk honestly this is comedically awful it got one shot way too many modes involving the inexcusable jar jar beings one mode involved jar jar beings would be enough in a mode about shooting jar jar in a foot was more than enough one play was plenty. If you want a video slash pebble combo, revenge from end is way, way better. In summary, absolutely appalling. That was, that was the Star Wars episode one review. Okay. All right. That sounds about right. I got it. Yep. Okay. Uh, Genesis got it. Okay. Uh, next game, Keith. All right. So the game I have is number one. Doesn't quite qualify because it's like two votes short. but it's one of my favorite campy all-time games, and that's Torpedo Alley. Oh, Torpedo Alley. Shout out Noj Pinball. Noj Pinball. It's sitting at 6.8, which puts it pretty low. Yep. Torpedo Alley. Why? Why do you like Torpedo Alley? It's just the campy call-outs. It's blue. I love blue games. The sound system is great. David Thiel worked on it, so the music pumps. It's kind of a unique layout with the upper flippers. It's kind of a weird spot that kind of just shoots nothing much. But it's – I don't know. To me, it's just a fun game to play. So, wait, you like that there's a flipper that doesn't have anything to shoot at. No, it does. I mean, you can shoot the drops with it or you can try to shoot – It's a tough shot. It's basically – I guess what I meant is it's really hard to set up. The ball just has to kind of land that. Got it. Okay. Because I was going to say, do you like Hobbit's third flipper? The upper right flipper on Hobbit? Yeah, it's not like Hot Dog, it's nothing to shoot for. Got it. Cool. Torpedo Alley. Yeah, Ian at Nudge Pinball has one, and he loves that game. Loves blue games. Got it. Okay. His next game is blue. Confirmed. That's what I just learned. All right, Tom, let's get to your list. all right i have uh vector oh that game yes i've like when i was first got in the hobby that game looked really appealing because of the art and the displays and i was like this game looks really cool and then you read reviews and people hate it um but yeah what are your thoughts on it I mean, it is a lot of hitting the hype targets, but I like the fact that it has the drop targets that defend the ramp, and you got to hit them in order from left to right. I think that's really cool. And then you can lock balls. I just think for the era 1982 it's just got a lot of stuff going for it I certainly don't think it's like a top 100 game but for where it's ranked I'm kind of surprised sure Keith what are your thoughts on Vector? they're a bit mixed I do love the dual drop target banks blocking the ramp and the little timer feature. Yeah, upper play field is a lot to be desired kinetically. And like you say, you're shooting high targets a lot. But I do like it that it's so different, and then you've got the saucer and the outlaying that you can try to save it into. So it does have a lot of cool features. Oh, I forgot about that saucer. Yeah, that is fun. And for its time, the game talked a lot. There was tons of speech in that game. Yeah, and doesn't it say it's recording the speed of the like that's kind of slick. Yeah. Cool. All right. Vector. Got it, Tom. Oh, yeah. Travis. Vector. Yeah. He's literally just pacing on his board. It's just thumbs up. Are you skateboarding right now? It's okay. Yeah. Okay. He's good. Oh, no. All right, Tom. Next one on your list. I'm just walking back and forth. No, just kidding. Walking back and forth. He's getting his steps. Thunderbirds. Got it. No. No, no, no, no. I'm just kidding. I did have Big Buck Hunter as my fourth game. Okay. And was there anything about – you walked up with your dog. I used to own one. I enjoyed it. I mean, it's not a super exciting game, but I like the different multi-balls. You know, you got the buck running around. You got the elk that shoots out. You know, it's certainly not a top 100 game, but I think it's a good game for what it is, especially that era that was like the era where Stern was really downsizing they let a lot of employees go and you know I think it's a decent game so I think it deserves a little bump up alright my third one was Jungle Lord just because I like Jungle Lord personally I like the the drop targets that change up top and the multiball in the game and then trying to go for the, the multiplier with the bonus. So, and then you got the Magna saves. So I think it's really neat game. And the art. I know you love, you love that. Once again, all the, I mean, that's what I go as Halloween every year. So I used to fight John about a lot. as a kid. It was still fun, I think. I remember when District 82 I played a few times, and it's a great game. I had a buddy of mine that he would just buy any pinball machine that was broken. That was his thing. He just liked to fix it up, and he got a Jungle Lord because it was cheap, and he brought it into his house, and his wife saw it. They have three young boys, and his wife was like, no, get this out of there. That art package apparently is not But he's like, I wasn't expecting that to have crossed the line with Jungle Lord. But not an Elvira or something, Jungle Lord. But all right, good choice. And then what's your last one? I have two more. Oh, yeah. My second one, this might not be a popular decision, but Wheel of Fortune. Okay, Keith is shaking his head in the right direction. I think Wheel of Fortune gets a pretty bad rap. You know, it's got the offset flippers, which are kind of cool. It's got some cool modes. And the game was technically never finished. It doesn't have a finished wizard mode, but probably nobody can get to it anyways. Probably like five people. But I think it's a cool game. You know, that's... I'm looking at it now. I've never played one. I've never seen one. man some of the art the art Zencaster just popped up alert participant Travis is having a problem just now just now warns me of that hi Travis no looking at the art the art is very colorful and then there's like three it's the three contestants those are interesting looking sculpts yeah they're like Wow. They're bobbleheads, basically. Yeah. You've got to hit them. For a multiball, you have to hit a jackpot and then hit the contestants to relight them. So it's kind of cool. What's going on below the flippers in the middle? Yeah, that's basically ball saves. And you have to hit – there's inline drop targets on the right that block a ramp, and you have to hit the first one to light your – it's called a free spin. like in the game show. So if you fall down one of those lanes when it's lit, you'll get the ball back. Wow. So it's a pretty unique play field. It's a weird-looking game. Kind of why I chose it. But for the amount of money they go, I wouldn't mind owning one. Okay. All right. and your last one i picked uh i i went with a early uh solid state gottlieb i went with simbad uh it's pretty simple game but i like the fact that there's the drop targets in the game you have to hit them uh a certain way to get your multiplier up and then it's just you know building up your bonus basically so but i i it's not necessarily my number one in that grouping but i i tend to like that game so i picked it keith thoughts on simbad yeah well i think the em version is a little more fun sure um but yeah no that's a solid games kind of Joker poker type rule set. Um, yeah, no, it's, uh, it's solid. Like I said, I, I, you know, I'm not a fan of the system on the sounds and then the blue displays. If you can find an EM sound bad, that that's where it's at. Well, that's probably a good transition. Then, uh, the other thing was going to be, um, your top EM games. And I will tell you right now, I, I honestly, and I know you guys gave me crap for it in our messenger group, but I've only, I mean, honestly, I've played probably less than 20 EM games and it's just because they're never on location. Uh, none of my friends have them in their collections. And I, so basically I have to play them at a show and, um, and you know, there's a handful of, and it's more like, Oh, I've heard about this, so I should probably go ahead and play it. Um, but I've just never experienced that. So please enlighten me. Um, Keith, we'll start with you and your list. What do you feel are the top EM games. Hey everyone. I'm sorry for the interruption. Uh, yeah. So we got this far into the episode and, um, we actually were moving on to what do you feel are EM games that are outside the top 100 that should get more respect. Um, I told them I was going to set out from this because I don't really know any EM games. Um, but Tom had a list of five and, um, Keith had a list of five And shortly into Tom's list, we lost Keith. We lost Keith. Or the conversation continued, but the recording of Keith we lost. So it just, you know, like I said, if you've made it this far, you know, thank you. I've done everything I can to salvage this episode, put it back together as best of my abilities. So all I can share at this point is that Keith's list of five, So these are five games that are outside the top 100 that he feels deserve better were time travel or travel time. Slick Chick, Monaco, 300 and Prospector. So those were Keith's five. And then Tom, I've been I don't listen to it this morning. I forget what he said. I know he said doodle bug. I made fun of him for not saying volley because he should say volley as much as he loves that. there was something like Free Fall I think was one but unfortunately I don't remember the other ones of Tom's so yeah that's basically it we do close out the episode I was able to salvage that little part Keith's voice is not on there but really it was just thanking him for being on that so we'll go ahead and get to that point of the episode to close it up plug away and yeah I appreciate everybody that listened to this and hopefully next round or next episode is a little better. Thanks, guys. Well, cool. That was the game we wanted to play. Travis, I don't know if you want to attempt. If there's any game off top of your head that you remember on your... No, he's not even going to... I'm telling you, the amount of alerts that I'm seeing here of just... Yeah, so we're just going to... I hope this all comes together. But, Keith, that's all I have, unless any of you guys have anything else you want to discuss. I bet Travis has plenty he wants to talk about. Oh, man. This was something. This was something. But, no, Keith, very much appreciate you being on here. I assume we're going to hear a lot more from you in the next coming months. We're excited to see what that is. And, yeah, good luck. Get some sleep. Hopefully everything goes well. Hopefully everything goes well. Yeah, we're excited for you. Tom, thank you for being here. is there any plugs we can plug I'll go ahead and plug for Travis he'll plug this podcast you can hear him here feel free all that thank you for listening to Triple Drain there was somebody on Facebook that actually posted a comment of like what is your favorite pinball podcast and there were a bunch of people that listed Triple Drain and that was awesome that was awesome to see and very humbling so thank you for that solid plug Travis Tom plug away I was going to plug for Travis the pinball company YouTube channel for us. Yes. Yep. Okay. He'll nod his head. Yep. Thumbs up. Big thumbs up. Yep. And then Fox Cities. You're welcome. Fox Cities Pinball. I do a lot of tournament streaming on Twitch and YouTube. Thank you. Fox Cities. Killer Merch too. New hoodie on... Yeah. What was that website? Forever the Flip. Forever the Flip. Check that out. If you want a very loud, bright hoodie that screams Fox cities. That's what you need to check out. Uh, Keith, anything you want to say or plug? No. Okay. Well, thank you Keith so much for being on here. This was, I had a lot of fun. I think Travis has lost a few years off his life or hours. I mean, I can't imagine. Um, Tom, it was awesome, man. It was really good to hear, you know, it was really good to hear. I finally got to talk. This was amazing. Yeah. Wonderful. Uh, and yeah, feel free to check me out every Wednesday night on the flipping out pinball or flipping out, YouTube channel. We're streaming that. We should be streaming a new game here soon. Had a bunch of fun with Labyrinth. That was a lot of fun to stream as well as Venom. But yeah, Zach's going to swap those out for two new games. So that'll be fun. Check all that out. And yeah, thanks for listening. If you guys have made it this far with this much technical difficulty, God bless you for still listening. So thank you. Like always, Tom, you get the last words. Sorry, everybody.