Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast, everybody's favorite pinball podcast, right Alan? We're one of many. It's my mom's favorite pinball podcast. It's my mom's favorite pinball podcast as well. So before we get into the actual episode and why we're here today, I have to plug the coffee fundraiser like I always do. Anybody that's been listening to the show knows we're raising some money and, you know, we're always raising money for something. But this is for a trip to go to Colorado, see our friends out there, go visit AJ down in Pueblo, some of the guys in Denver, just all that good stuff. If you're a fan of the show, you want to support us, throw us a few bucks, ko-fi.com slash Wedgehead Podcast. throw us a few bucks you can invite to our discord where we're always you know hanging out and talking with people too anyway with that out of the way what's today's episode about alan we are here to talk about a game that is so reviled so utterly and almost universally hated a game that ended an unbelievable pinball dynasty it was a cutting-edge game with a new augmented reality pinball platform set to reinvent pinball for the new millennium and it was a licensed game based upon one of the biggest franchises of all time with a popular young designer at the helm what could possibly go wrong and yet this would end up being the last game that ever left the williams pinball factory as it hammered the final nail in the coffin of the incredible innovative pinball 2000 platform thus allowing gary stern to go from pinball underdog to pinball juggernaut that game of course is 1999 star wars episode 1 designed by john papaduke with software by cameron silver and Duncan Brown. It currently ranks number 253 on the all-time pin side list and joining us on the show this week is Ian Jacoby, the editor-in-chief of Nudge Magazine to defend Star Wars Episode 1. Welcome to the show, Ian. Tell the audience why everything they've ever heard about Star Wars Episode 1, the pinball machine, is wrong. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure to be here. Yeah, happy to have you on. Yeah, this game, it does speak for itself, but I guess not. So I will defend it. You just have to look at it. First of all, it is a beautiful machine. When we talk about this being like the end of Williams, it's like the twilight of the gods, right? Like it's this beautiful like capstone of Williams. So you have this like amazing art package. It looks just like the like those vintage Star Wars like movie posters. What is that art style called? I'm not even really sure. It's sort of this like the artist's name is Drew Struzan. he's kind of did all those old movie poster like those collages that are all illustrated and painted word i don't think this is his but clearly you know it's in that style like trying to look like those classic movie posters exactly and it's just like has that even of that era it sort of felt retro right like it was supposed to like harken back and so yeah it just has this like sort of beautiful timeless feel and that to me is is like as an aesthetic piece whenever i see it it's like first ones that like catches my eye i think there's the john williams score right you get a john williams score in this in this game which is like and the actual it's not the actual music because i'll bring this up later but there's this really weird mode where it's like musical chairs but it's the jedi council yeah and it has this really weird like funhouse version of like the star wars theme just an utterly bizarre choice honestly because the rest of it is so like serious and and beautiful so yeah you have the john williams score and it actually sort of integrates star wars into the code in a way that like i don't know that we've had a star this might be the best star wars game whoa there's a lot of star wars games there is so the first like controversial article uh i think that i had was basically like star wars data east kicks star wars stern's ass i think that was like alan probably alan probably agrees i like data east star wars better personally i like how the stern shoots yeah i don't love the rule set of the new one if you ignore the multiplier the game's fun i agree with you i i actually love the stir i i'm a shill for all star wars uh games i think But yes, obviously this one is no exception. Like you get to buy stuff from Watto in it. You're putting together C-3PO. Yeah, you have like story modes that are just, they look awesome. I think that reflective screen, like does it totally work? No, the layout is really simple in this game. I think that hurts it. And I think a lot of the ways in which they were trying to like integrate this screen into it was like, there were some constraints, but also it's a really cool technology. And to me, it's like more compelling even than new stuff like the P3. It's interesting to think that like, I mean, we see with modern releases and we kind of like, you know, everybody scrutinizes everything. We have the internet. We're watching along the way. And you see how hard the licensors can be to work with. And like the fact they were dealing with the Pinball 2000 screen bullshit, trying to figure this out for basically they were working on this concurrently, right? With Revenge from Mars. And you're like, and you have to go get all of that approved by Lucas. Had to be a fuck. the movie wasn't out yet had to be a night when they're developing the game and this technology was built from the ground up in a very very short amount of time like six to nine months i believe i know really yeah like extremely short i'll let i'll tell the listener i'm saying that off the top of my head but it's a very short time frame there's a great pinball documentary called tilt the battle to save pinball that i recommend everyone goes out and finds a copy of and watches if they can because it talks about the pinball 2000 development or just of the whole project it's incredible you know it really is an incredible story the documentary is really well done and i'll link it in the show notes but if you're listening and you want to hear more about pinball 2000 like people you should go check that out you know basically it's a crt mounted in a modified shorter pinball cabinet and it does the old school sort of it projects an image against a mirror so it looks like there's images being projected on a playfield snoop dog hologram style sort of yeah same technology is is that like pikmin's ghost or there's some name for that they did the same shit on uh the ghostbusters premium right yeah for like no reason it looks like a mod every time i see a premium i see that little like ghost view screen i'm like what the fuck is this it's pretty it's a very cool effect there was one game beforehand revenge from mars on this platform for the listener if you've never seen one of these it is a pinball 2000 it was meant to be the first mainstream modular platform for pinball machines so you can like if you're familiar with the modern day p3 like ian was talking about you can swap out the play fields and you could swap out side art it'd be meant for operators you know because home collectors weren't really a big deal yet to swap games in and out as they came out and keep it more cost effective it also had a bunch of really cool technological pieces that we'll have to cover in its own episode about what they tried to do to make it like operator on route friendly which i personally as an operator think is really fucking cool some stuff that we still don't have today that was present in this game which is kind of like what happened man let's come on dude gomez doesn't own the trademark you know he doesn't own the patents yeah so right one of the coolest things just from like a basic operator and i'll explain it to just as a player right like if you go out and play on location right and there's a stuck ball right which happens on a pinball machine all the time the only the operator has the key to the game because that's where the cash box is that's where the money is so you have to open up the coin box to pull the glass out to lift the play field up or whatever to get access to the ball which at a bigger arcade there's probably someone on staff always that has the key but on a normal route sometimes the ball gets stuck somewhere and that's just it until the operator comes by so that game is you know either played with a stuck ball or it's unplayable until the operator comes by this allowed operators to give a separate key to lift the glass off without being able to lift the play field where the coin box was like a valet key for your car yeah you're like okay you can drive the car but you can't get into the glove box and so it's very cool like that's a very cool innovation definitely and there's plenty of others but we want to talk about this game and we want to just sort of hear why you love it so much i don't want to get in the details of the platform that actually is a great segue into what i was going to talk about because there's another kind of technological integration that i think is the best version of this as well which is the use of action buttons integrated into the existing flippers. So anyone who's seen this platform, the buttons are kind of interesting. There's like a normal pinball, you know, like flipper button, but then it kind of, how would you describe this, Alan? Like it sort of fans out. There's basically two buttons right next to each other and they're surrounded. It's sort of like if you're clicking on a computer mouse, how there's two buttons on they're right next to each other and they feel almost like one, but they're separate and they're very easy to access in a way that normal two-button flippers are not and george gomez told us that he used keyboard switches like switches or computer keyboards for this platform and he said that they're super reliable and he was talking about that as another alternative to using leaf switches or opto switches too interesting he told us that when we talked to him about the sopranos episode And I thought that was very interesting. But yeah, it's kind of a lot better than the center lockdown bar. I mean, I guess it doesn't have the flashing light effect. Yeah, which to be fair, I think that's the big reason that they've done the center lockdown bar action buttons is because Gary just wanted a big flashing button that starts the game. And this cabinet art is sick. I know the cabinet art is really good. And I was like, we got to get back to the art because like the play field art is a is a really cool like marriage between that like poster realistic art style along with like heavy outline cartoonish like like colors. It looks like pinball art. It's good. Yes, it's really good. Yeah, absolutely. If we want to get back into the art. Yes, for sure. Because well planned out like you have the good guys on one side, the bad guys on the other. Like it's sort of like the whole machine is sort of like this good versus evil theme to it. And it was cool because, right, Darth Maul was like the most memorable part of that movie. And he's like pretty prominently featured in it. Like they got it right. You know, the fact that they were doing this before the movie came out, they actually hit most of the things that were cool. Like, you know, it's you'll notice like amongst all of the characters prominent on the play field where you're actually looking. Jar Jar Binks is suspiciously missing. Well, he's in the game plenty. He's in the game plenty. Trust me. He is. But I just want to at least point out whoever was doing the play field art was like, nah, fuck that. I am putting Jar Jar on here. But they did put a fucking, they did put the Naboo fighter, right? I don't know if there's a better name for those things. I'm sure there's an actual ship name, but the yellow ships from Naboo or whatever. Yeah, those are sick. The fucking, the coolest ships in Star Wars, in my opinion. I just love. For sure. I love everything on Naboo that has that like art deco futuristic kind of vibe. and the fact that that's like in the center and it's like a screened over giant series of inserts it's cool and i don't know if this is where we include it i kind of think it is but like the screen integration stuff looks good like it yes it looks dated it looks like a video game from you know 1999 or 2000 but it integrates well like it responds instantaneously you know you're seeing it works for me we got to tell the listeners too this is one of those technologies that's really hard to photograph or even videotape you have to play it in person you know like it's it's impressive in person in a way that it'll never be impressive in photographs or streams or whatever or any you know like any other medium like you have to be directly in front of it it truly feels 3d when you play it it's like so there's underwater scenes and it's sort of has this like tiered feel to like how you're how it is projected i don't know it's it's a very effective like use of it and then there'll be pod racing scenes where you're just like flying forward you know or fighting ships like they every way that they could sort of like use video in different ways give you different essentially play fields like they did it you know yeah yep that's what i was going to say also is it's weird when you play this like if you play it somewhere in the dark in like in a fairly dark room but it doesn't even have to be that dark because the back half is covered by the screen itself so it's always dark back there you can't really see what the layout looks like which is interesting which is good and bad i remember the first time i played it and you're following inserts they have like those kind of like the big red inserts that lead you to the ramps or whatever but you don't really know that you're hitting ramps you don't really know what the center target looks like or anything so it's kind of a bizarre experience and i remember i played a monster game of this the very first time i saw it was at next level i was like i'm gonna play this episode one and i just absolutely like blew it up because the game's the next level ian if you haven't ever heard us talk about it they're always set up pretty friendly and it was just like one of those days where everything's clicking i played it for probably fucking you know 20 30 minutes or whatever and then i pulled out my phone and i was like i got to see that like and i got the flashlight out because i was like what the fuck is actually going on back there yeah and that's like after just playing it you're like it's really so it's it's a bizarre experience and the center shot's interesting because the center shot is literally just a rubber band stretched across post with a switch behind it and what when you see in the tilt the battle to save pinball documentary they discuss that where you know on a normal play field like this would not work because like we be like what i gonna throw it right into this rubber Like that stupid It doesn look good It doesn have like the kind of like kinetic But that what they talked about is that they tried different targets drops stand tried different things And the thing that felt best was the prototype where they just stretched a rubber band on it and then put a switch back there. And then they were like, oh, this feels the best with the technology over the top of it. Yeah. You know, so as long as you couldn't see it with your eyes, that felt best. Wow. This game, just like Penicillin, like the product of a happy accident that changed the world, you know? Yeah, unfortunately, this one didn't really change. Didn't change it for the better. I think they blew a shit ton of money getting this license. They put a decent amount of money, but mainly a lot of hours in developing Football 2000. And this just did not make much of a splash. I think you bring up a great point, though, which is that a lot of people's problem with this game, that I've heard at least is sort of the rhetoric surrounding it and the closure of Williams and less to do with the game or the platform itself like I think it was probably a bad move for them to design a game like this it seems like a bad business decision but also it's like sort of this like beautiful moment in time where like the dreamers were still in charge and you could do something that was really ambitious and like interesting and like integrated art in a way that hadn't been done yet in pinball and kind of still hasn't been done since so um that that part of it i think is really cool yeah it's kind of like a delorean you're like it's still cool it's it's a piece of shit exactly but it's cool it's still cool yeah exactly and and that's great that is great because obviously there are things about this game that are hard to defend like the layout is we're gonna get to that are you ready to hear yeah we're gonna start reading your reviews and then we'll just take your your reactions to them yeah because i was going to say so if the listener has been playing you know paying close attention we've discussed the art at length and the technology and the vibe but we've stayed a little bit away from from the rules and how it shoots and a lot of what would say you know most would say is the important stuff so uh yeah we'll get into the reviews see what they have to say and then we can uh argue back on what we want to right me and me and alan might sit here on this one a couple more things to empty the clip on my notes here uh one one more positive yoda is in it i just wrote so there's that that's a positive yes yeah that's a i mean i don't know yeah he's not in a lot of other pinball games they got a good yoda on the side art too yeah dude they do that's what i'm saying it's kind of the best the art is undeniable in this game uh wait the end mode is is bad but you get to hear duel of the fates play it whenever i see it so anyway that was those those are good notes dude that's you'll play it whenever you see it is a good sign i mean that's why you're on the show because i only want people that are not you know like just taking the piss it's like you have to like legitimately it's in front of you you have a chance to play it you want to go play it that's like me and nascar where it's like it's not like it is kind of it's kind of a bit at this point on our show how much i love nascar but i'm like every opportunity i have to play nascar i go play and i'm always like that yeah it's kind of rad man yeah it's a good game there's just something about it that clicks and i think like for me yeah it's i don't think there's sort of this well you guys are great to talk about this because you're the biggest on location dudes that i know right like alan your big thing is like put your games on location like let everyone experience them and i i love that and this is a perfect example of a game that is a good location game right like i think so there's not a huge argument to own this unless you love star wars episode one specifically and you want every memorabilia merchandising come i'll show you but dude that's what i mean is like whenever i see it if i see it at an arcade if i see it at a convention which is like a lot of times the places that you'll see these i'll always like try to get to the end you know like i do actually try to like at least play a couple games on it and it is definitely an experience both the pinball 2000 games are just unlike anything else so it's definitely something that if you're new to pinball it's like you've got to go play these things totally and and generationally right guys we're around the same age like this is one of the few pins that we get you know like it's true it's an episode one i was like six or whatever when this came out so it's really early fuzzy memories but i remember my dad being like you guys got to watch all the star wars they're making a new one You guys got to watch this. And he did really, he really enjoyed like the pod racing. He really liked Anakin, the character, but he was just like, and it kind of just made it like a cartoon. But it was interesting because it was just such a big cultural thing. And now we have this time capsule game that captures like that era, good and bad and the movie good and bad. You know, before we get to these bad reviews here, this is what I miss about pinball in this era of pinball in a nutshell is I miss contemporary themes like because they do act as time capsules. What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie? Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now. What happened to then? We passed that. When? Just now. We're at now now. Go back to then. When? Now. Now? Now. I can't. Why? We missed it. When? Just now. When will then be now? Soon. In a way that, like, if you're chasing, oh, wait, I understand why the manufacturers default to nostalgic games from 30 or 40 years ago because they've proven the test of time type of theory yeah you're like oh no ghostbusters is still popular like we should make this or jaws or whatever guys with money like this this era is like you get really cool games like i know ian one of his favorite games is shadow and i'm sure it's not because you love the movie the shadow but it's cool that it exists right because there's no other way it was gonna exist they weren't going to make that game now yeah it's really it's rare to see i'm trying to think of like it's like contemporary games or like licenses are very very rare i always love it when i get them like i love stranger things because i'm like rick and morty like walking dead or when because they made those games stern will still do it sometimes dune dune yeah from barrels yeah yeah dune but it's an established license that one's kind of a cop-out yeah but i mean it's still based on the new movies but yeah it is yeah like exactly like this one is and you're right like this sort of harkens back like when you look at it it makes me think of like those giant pepsi cups you know like that kind of stuff it has that like that era of just like product integration and like us i don't know it it's like so gross to say it but it was like this nice time and right before the bad times you know so it's like it has that feeling my sega godzilla just reminds me of taco bell yeah and you're just like yeah it's like all wrapped up it's like the peak of capitalism being our friends. Such a good era, the end of the 90s. Spaceballs the t-shirt. Spaceballs the coloring book. Spaceballs the lunchbox. Spaceballs the breakfast cereal. Spaceballs the flamethrower.