BlahCade Pinball Podcast this is the BlahCade Pinball Podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap and joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hi everyone how you going all righty uh Well, I know that you're in winter right now, correct? Technically. Technically, yeah. I know your winters are like our winters. We're just going to spring. Spring is here, really. Here in SoCal, we are currently having a heat wave in September. That's right. We're in triple digits. What? Yeah. It's 104 or 105 yesterday. So what's the mean temperature normally there at this time of year? Oh, well, usually we are, like, this time of year, you would be high 70s, low 80s, normally. Okay, that's hot then, in that case. That's unseasonably hot. It's really toasty, yeah. This is, well, but this is the thing. Our summers have seemingly gone from what you normally would expect in August, have moved into September. Right, okay. They just bumped out of the year. They're extra. Yes. And then inevitably what will happen is it will cool down and we'll all be like, okay, cool, fall is finally here. And then Halloween will hit and it will be just roasty toasty one more time. Yep. It's like we have this unseasonable blast of hot Carl Weathers because we've had a similar thing here where I was able to swim in September here in the pool. And it's normally very cold still and not really pool Carl Weathers at all. Well, we were in the pool and it was fine. So we call it the spring of deception. Spring of deception and then second winter. And then we actually have actual spring. And then it actually goes. There's nine seasons here now. The other thing that's funny. So I was telling Jared before we started, I'm running on bad sleep for this weekend because there's this 5K, 10K half marathon event going on at the Disneyland this weekend. And that means I get to show up at, you know, 2.30 in the morning because the race starts at 5 in the morning. But anyway, it's been, for us, a little bit humid. And we're like, ew, gross, it feels like Florida. Meanwhile, people that are actually from Florida, they will come out here for the race. And they're sitting there going, oh, my God, it's perfect running Carl Weathers because to them this is not humidity. This is a lovely, lovely day. Yes, this is perfect conditions for strenuous activity. Yes, but God forbid there's 15% humidity in the air. Oh, yeah. We're just like, no, too much. Stop it. I had to wait. We did Movie World last weekend. Did you ride all the roller coasters? I did ride all the ones that were functioning, yes. There you go. Because they're just at the end of their maintenance, like low season, shoulder season there. And they're going to be like the Green Lantern and all these other ones are going to be coming back online. But pretty much all the roller coasters were working. We got to ride the big DC Hypercoaster, which is the only hypercoaster in the Southern Hemisphere. And it kind of puts the launched Superman Escapes roller coaster to shame. because it's about three times as long and it has all the thrills. So it was a blast. We had a really good time down there. But we were sort of working out, when do we go up to this? It sounds really weird, but it's a mine, and you're mining lava, basically. It's a big lava deposit, and they call them thunder rigs because they're geodes, if you find good ones, so you can slice them open, and they've got that void area in the middle where all the bubbles were formed. and we're going, oh, it's so hot up on the mine because it's just like an open mine. You don't have to go underground or anything. And you're digging in this white sort of clayey soil. So the soil's just bouncing back at you. Yeah, yeah. So we did it yesterday and it was actually okay. It was about 26 degrees Celsius here, which is bearable for that sort of activity. But yes, we've been, yeah, trying to work out. the weird Carl Weathers has been causing problems with trying to work out when we do what and how. You know? It's been fun. Excellent. Hey, did you happen to catch the Stern announcement for their new machine Uncanny X-Men? Yeah, Jack James' second machine. He's not mucking around. His first one, Foo Fighters. Was Foo Fighters his first? Well, I guess you could say probably third technically which is the best sort of correct um because he did that that home version of jurassic park which was like is let's see how you go as a designer jack danger and uh you'll do one of these home versions that you know will end up the costco guys will end up playing you know right um right because it apparently has appeared at costco now yeah it's not at mine but yeah no i I would laugh if I saw a Stern Pimmel machine at my Costco. I'd be going, really? They've got those down here, have they? Okay, good. Yeah, I checked mine, and all they had was an arcade one-up golden tee and a wall-mount Pac-Man machine. Oh, really? The usual trash. Yes. Yes, I would like to see. Imagine if they had one on there, and imagine as in typical Costco stuff, they had it turned on. you'd like just imagine how black that thing will be getting so i know right hey a cheap floor model i'd be okay with that right like uh it's something with the floor model you know um but uh yeah the far out x-men he hasn't mucked around with no it was i was uh in my mind i was thinking it was just gonna be you know yet another reskin of the previous x-men or whatever. He was going to be just like, okay, whatever. And, damn. It's like, okay, mate, just hold my beer because this thing is incredible. It's got... I'm like, what do you think you are, Pat Lawler? Or are you just like, here, let's invent some things and put some things in here that just normally would never be seen. Yeah, has never been seen. Or I should say, never been seen outside of something zen would do that's a very interesting point i am there's a few things in this um x-men um uncanny x-men table that make me go hmm yeah what's jack danger been playing when he hasn't been building pinball machines right uh because there's there's one of the ones in both the Premium and the Limited Edition where the ramp just breaks in two and it just flexes in the middle and the ball gets flung off it. It's so good. If you guys haven't seen it, A, stop watching this and just go watch any of the announcement videos that are out there. But what it is, is there's a Sentinel head. Think of Circus Voltaire. And Sentinel head rises out the bottom. But unlike Circus Voltaire with a magnet it on the top it's got a high speed kicker out the mouth yeah uh so if the ball hits it it's like bam welcome to the hell it's like a yak off right yeah um at 14 but then on either side of the table it's the sentinels hands coming out and one of them a i don't know if i did you see any plastic at all ramps i think it was all chrome and wire form it's all right which is just like Remember last episode when we talked about things that we like in machines? Wire forms. All the wire forms. All the wire forms. But more importantly, this hand, the wire form runs through the hand. Yeah, I'm like, do I have anything that I can, you know, here, let me grab something on my desk so I can just show. Yeah, so if the hand is like this and the wire form is going through there, and then at some point the hand goes and bends, like breaks the wire form so the ball just falls off the side. It kind of broke my mind. What? Yeah. No, it was very cool looking. And the other thing that I found really cool is there's like a little finger that pops up between the bottom rails. Which is on the other side. So on one side you've got the breaking ramp and on the other side, yeah, the hand is up there and it's like the wire form is going on either side and now and then i don't know if it's permanently or whatever but the finger will pop up and catch the ball and go bing and fling the ball back up the ramp and around it's like okay yeah that's really cool and then well the obvious thing which is pretty cool that they've managed to do this on both the pro and the premium is the the little mini play field um that's off to the left hand side that's actually gotten an outlane spinner I was going to say, it's a mini play field that I can actually get behind. Yeah. Because it's not... Because it's functional. It's functional, and it's not blocking any portion of the table. It's literally just making it so that they shifted the flippers off-center from where they normally would be. Yeah. Allowing the left side to have yet another playable area there at the base. so it's not like a mini playfield that I don't like all the time where it's covering a giant portion of there. But yeah, it's got a ramp, it's got a spinner. It's how you get to the mini playfield. It's almost like it's using NASCAR or Flintstones with the ball going around the bottom and then plopping in. It's got another wire form that carries the ball into the mini playfield area. And then it's got this other feature that actually has, I don't know how they've done it, but they've got a magnet on a wire form that you can't see. Oh. And it's not like a post that pops up that would stop the ball and then have the ball release. It's a magnet that holds the ball on the wire and then releases it. Oh, I know which part you're talking about. Yes, yes. Then it drops it into the in lane of the left in lane. Yeah. It's like, okay. So much innovation. Yeah, there's a lot of really cool tech going on there. Stuff that we've just never seen. But it really does. Like, we saw it with Jaws. The pop-up, the stand-up, oscillating, knock-down target. Right? That is an absolute zen trope that they've used for decades. And now they're finally working out how to do it in Pimple. So it really is interesting to see how some of these more modern designers that aren't set in their ways are looking to other um inspiration points to to look at their designs and actually translate these things into something into the real world which is an engineering feat in itself because i would love i have not seen the jaws play field lifted up with the mechanism underneath but i would imagine it's big and complex i uh i think this is something that we're spoiler alert uh we're going to be doing once again our annual uh chat with mel um and i think that that's something that we might have to bring up is uh does he feel that what zen is doing is influencing real world real manufacturing or is it just pure coincidence um yeah he's probably I was going to say pure coincidence because he has to probably. Because he has to. But still, it would be nice to see what his thoughts are. Yeah. If you're just going to go, hmm, you know. I think we'll have to ask that one. Yeah. Yeah, I think for sure. For sure. But, yeah, I mean, this one, honestly, Chris, it's like, how do I find $15,000 Australian dollars to get a premium? Well, Jared, you have four machines in your garage. But then I'd have to sell them. And I don't know if I want to do that. I'm in a very difficult position here. Like we discussed, was that also last week that we discussed that? Or last time, I should say. Where it's, you can either have four machines with parts that are maybe a little harder to come by because of their age and no manufacturer. Or you could go with a modern machine where parts are manufactured as we speak. However, the cost of said parts, there's a premium to them. Yes. And, you know, do you want to deal with that? But then you are also dealing with brand new tech and electronics that are considerably going to be more reliable than old stuff. So, you know. Yeah, it's true. And, you know, there is that classic thing where you buy a new in-box game, you play it for six months, and you sell it for pretty much the same price that you bought it. and I would say that this particular title is going to hold its value relatively well because it's got very cool stuff going on in it and I think people will really want it. So I might be finally going to a location that has a lot of these modern pins that I haven't touched in a long time or ever. Well, okay, so the conversation literally started with my friend calling me up and saying, hey, I was dropping off a vehicle to get serviced, and there was this advertisement for this place, and it was, you know, Korean barbecue and pinball. I thought, that's weird. I went, oh, AC Goge. Yeah, right. They've got two locations out in the valley, which is, for me, that's... So, Jared, I don't know if you know this. We Southern Californians, we measure distance differently. Okay. We do not measure distance by actual distance. We measure it by how long it takes to get somewhere. It's time, not distance travel. Yes, yes. Because sometimes the distance, depending on, like, if you're in Hollywood and you're going to the west side, hey, that's only 10 miles away. That still can be an hour and a half drive. Oh, right, yeah. Because traffic is dumb. Right. So you don't measure it by miles. You measure it by how long it takes to get there. That's actually a smart way of measuring things. And it's also dependent upon what time of day you're going. Because, again, you know, at certain times of the day, yes, you would say, oh, it's only 45 miles away. And you understand that, okay, that's 45 minutes. Great. But at other times of day, that becomes, again, hour and a half, two-hour drive. Yes. So unfortunately for me, the two locations that this place has are in the valley. And as anybody that's ever heard, you don't want to go to the valley. The valley is a it's a trek. Oh, is it? Yeah. And again, it's it's I think it's probably 45 miles from my house, which, you know, under normal circumstances, that's under an hour. oh that's easily drivable i know you go to i don't know how far netherworld is for you uh for me driving there it's um again if we're basing our time yeah it's about a 35 minute drive right so totally reasonable right yeah but it's going to be 35 minutes almost every time you go right relatively consistency yeah that time of day yes and that's unfortunately not because me driving to the valley it means okay uh you don't want to drive too early in the morning because then you're dealing with morning traffic. So you want to wait for the morning traffic to get away and then drive out there. But then you've got to finish early enough, which is like pre-3 p.m., to get back before the evening traffic starts. So you've got this like four-hour window maybe. It's like four-hour precise window that you must hit. Yes. Otherwise you're going to be in traffic forever. So anyway, my buddy was just like, how can you have a pinball podcast and never been to this place. He goes, I'm intrigued, and I'm not even into pinball that much. We're going. I was like, all right, well, if you're willing to drive and I can just sit there and not deal with the traffic, that's a whole other ball of wax. Shut up and take my money. I'll bring the quarters. Yeah, so we'll see how soon we can arrange for that to take place. But if that happens, I'll see about taking some video and whatnot, showing off the words. because I know for a fact this place is one who, they don't just buy the latest and greatest. They always buy the LE version. Oh, yeah. So did they have Godfather? Oh, yeah. Jeez, LE Godfather. Yeah, did they have the full-blown Guns N' Roses? Yep. So I have no doubt they'll have X-Men. Oh, they will, yeah. They'll probably have it way before we get it down here in Australia because I think the way Stern does it, and correct me if I'm wrong in the comments, but I think what they do is they actually get the export games ready first. They get them on the boat. They actually ship them. And then they start working on the domestic ones for the US because they know the actual shipment time is like two months on the boat. So, yeah, we will get ours in a couple of months and you guys will be playing it probably in a month or now. Actually, I don't know how it works. So I think the last time I really went to a location that had pinball was back when the Museum of Pinball was still open. And the newest table that they had at that point was Iron Maiden, and I didn't get to touch it. So that's how many cycles of tables have come out since that I haven't touched. That is a lot of mists. Yeah, it's a lot of new tables. You are basically suffering from the same problem I had when I hadn't gone to the theme park ever since 2003. Yeah. It's like, that is your pinball experience now. Yeah. So you'll be a kid in a candy store, mate. You'll be going, oh, what do I actually play? There's so many things I haven't experienced. Yeah. It's going to be a mad four hours. I hope your fingers are ready. Well, and the thing is, I know my friend's going to want to eat. So I'm like, yeah. Okay, anyway. Hey, Jared, I've watched some of your movies lately. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Let's see if you've heard of any of these or seen any of these. I'm just going to give a real quick rundown of things that I have recently seen. Because I don't know, have we talked since Deadpool and Wolverine came out? Or have we even mentioned it? I don't think we even mentioned it, really. Haven't even mentioned it, yeah. So, I'm just going to start there. Okay yep And go with So Deadpool Wolverine Loved it Great time Fantastic right Yeah After that I watched the new Roadhouse or the new version of Roadhouse Oh, with... On Amazon with Jake Gyllenhaal. Yeah. Yeah. Eh. I watched that, too, and coming in without any idea what the heck was going on with the movie, I was going, oh, yeah. It's not bad, but it's also like, I always say this, if you're going to remake something, it's either because it was a potentially good movie that was just bad. Yeah. Or a bad movie that you know you can make really good. Yeah. The problem with Roadhouse is it's a movie so bad it's good. Right. So what do you do? You know what I mean? It's already cheeseball over-the-top nut job of a movie. What are you possibly going to do? I think having Conor McGregor in this was fairly inspired. As a bad guy. As a bad guy. And a totally unhinged bad guy. It was off the chain, wasn't it? He was so good. It really was. um yeah but the problem was was the the head boss bad guy was so milquetoast you're like i don't fear for this guy at all you know it's just no i definitely like him to be dead because he's a douche oh yeah uh yeah i don't really have any fear about him no because he's just sending his henchies to do his work for him you know yeah uh so anyway there was that okay then i have uh okay nox goes away which is a michael keaton directed movie um very interesting it's it's about a hitman who uh is a has the onset and it's very aggressive and rapid uh uh form of alzheimer's oh and so he's trying to get his affairs in order before he goes away he goes away yeah um very interesting very interesting very interesting yeah no that might be one that i'd check out just for it's it sounds like a really noble story yeah um then i watched the beekeeper which is look i like jason statham but my lord this movie so thought that it was it thought it was john wick and it is not john wick it is very much the b movie version of john wick of john wick yes um Right. The beekeeper. Yeah, not going to watch that. No. Okay, so then, so, I don't know if you're familiar, Netflix, back in December and then a few months after that, they had this Zack Taylor Snyder movie called Rebel Moon, and it was broken up into two parts. Yeah, yes, I have heard of it. I have not watched it. Okay, so the thing about it is it's from he had done a pitch for a Star Wars movie, and they went, no. And then he went, fine, I'm going to make this instead. Oh, okay. So you can actually infer where the Star Wars-iness is in it, and there's no denying Zack knows how to do an action sequence. he knows when and how to use his slow-mo he's a master he's kind of the one who invented that whole look and everything the problem is he doesn't know how to make you care about characters ah right and so he's all about the sizzle not about the sausage yeah and then on top of that he does this it's kind of what plagued a lot of the dc movies when he was you know when was the Snyderverse, it relies on flashbacks way too much. Just way too much. And it's like, just tell the story in order then. I don't want to just keep on going back and hearing. And it's not just like a quick flashback. It'll be a 10-minute long sequence. And he's like, oh, God. So anyway, he released that, and they were PG-13 versions. and then there was a director's cut right and the director's cut has now come out and think about that in comparison and he's got them for both movies and it basically adds an hour runtime to both movies is that added hour worth it no right um okay here's what i will say if you've never seen these just watch those you might as well right the director's cut the director's cut just because there's where all your gore and blood is there's also a couple of things that got cut that when i saw them i went oh okay well that makes this little bit seem you know make more sense right the problem is that there are bits and pieces added throughout that literally after i got done watching i was like okay well i can pick out this one scene and this other scene that's about 15 minutes where are the other 45 minutes of content come from that's how like just you don't even know what it is and i don't to me when you do a director's cut it should be obvious you know this is where the patchwork this is what got put in this is the added what you know these are the cuts and they should be really obvious you watch the difference between you know lord of the rings and the extended versions and it's obvious you know what what the add-ins are um the other thing is that in both movies almost at the exact same point in the movie two sex scenes that i swear it's his audition to be able to direct a game of thrones episode not really because they just go on and they're kind of like yeah i got the point why are we still here this is an this is an action movie it's not you know something on skin of hex right yeah you're just like and the thing is is literally the two it takes place with two two different partners but they play almost identical to each other and there's one in one movie and one in the other movie and that's where i was like what did you do you had the exact same setup the exact same lighting and then you were just like Okay, let's swap actors. Okay, here we go. Now let's do it again. We don't have to sit. Let's double down on this. It's fine. So, anyway. We're all okay. Unless you really like Zack Taylor Snyder's stuff, I wouldn't bother. Give this one a miss. It's not that it's a bad movie. It's just you're not going to be coming away from it going, wow, that was really cool. I need to recommend that to my friends. No, it's just more, you know. Yeah. Anywho. um okay so that's the thumbs down from you and uh it's more of a thumb neutral just like thumb neutral yeah yeah you know i am riffing off that you know the comment we got on our youtube about we are the what is it those two movie reviewers over long ago we hit long ago that's right which is funny um so yeah um okay i'm gonna i'm gonna this is all in the order that i saw things i'm gonna skip the next one because we need to have a discussion about this but okay then i watched Challengers, which is that tennis movie with the two guys trying to get Zendaya's affections. Yeah, right. Pretty interesting. No, really. It played out... When I saw the shorts for that, I was going... When I saw the shorts for this and the reviews, the local domestic reviews, I was going, that looks like a very interesting interplay, a character interplay. It is. It is. It could have been done so by the book, by the numbers, predictably, and it doesn't. And there's a lot of style to it. And then on top of it, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross did the soundtrack, so I'm already happy about that. That's a solid soundtrack. Yes. So definitely worth a watch. I would watch that. Then I watched Monkey Man. Monkey Man is the actor Dev Patel. He directed this. takes place where would I have seen Dev Patel before uh Slumdog Millionaire ah yeah yeah also takes place in India just a weird movie that again is going for something is trying some stylistic things but it's also there's just like culture if you're not I feel like if you're not familiar with Indian culture, you're going to be missing a lot. Oh, interesting. Because it's definitely dealing with Hindu mythology and also dealing with how society, how their system is. Right. And I don't know any of that. And so I'm expecting the movie to tell me in it. And I'm kind of piecing it together, but there's also moments where I'm just like, am I supposed to be getting something out of this? Because I'm not getting anything out of this at this moment. Right. You know. Twisters? Serviceable. That's what it says in the box, right? I'll put it to you this way. If you had never seen Twister, it probably would have played for you exactly the way that when I saw Twister, which I came out of the theater going, whoa, that was pretty awesome. But the thing is, is I've already had that experience. Yeah, and, you know, they're tornadoes. Yeah. What more do you need? tornado visual effects extravaganza been there done that you know so yay for a new audience but for somebody that has already seen that 30 years ago look you know i will i will i i haven't didn't obviously didn't bother going to see it in the cinema because i didn't i think we could be there but you know straight to video uh i will probably check it out when i just want to switch my brain off and watch something mildly entertaining yeah um that's my solid review for it i haven't even seen it i'm a big fan of these first two movies so i had to watch this one uh a quiet place day one oh that was fun it is fun it's it's it's a good watch it doesn't hit the same as those first two it definitely does not but it was still fun like you get you still it's not the level of suspense that A Quiet Place had. The sound design in A Quiet Place is brilliant. It's genius. And they completely went off the rails with that. And I don't actually think... The thing is, I don't think that was the intention. No, it wasn't. Because this was describing how it all unfolded and why A Quiet Place, the first movie, existed the way it did. Yes. So that was interesting in itself. They're learning how the creatures interpret the environment around them. So that was quite interesting. And then last one before... What's that? You got to see the creatures way more as well, which was pretty cool. Which, again, at this point is kind of like, we've already seen them, so do you really need to hide them? Because that mystery is gone. Well, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay, so I was a big fan of this back in the day. John Woo's The Killer. Hong Kong cinema. It was his movie previous to Hard Boiled came out in, I believe, 86. Right. It's about an assassin who, in the midst of a gunfight, this singer, her eyes, she gets blinded in this thing. And he feels so entirely bad about it. She doesn't know who he is, but he tries to protect her and build her back up because he feels like he was responsible for this innocent to be blinded. Right. And it plays out like a Greek tragedy. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It is... John Woo movies to begin with are pretty melodramatic. this thing is really melodramatic all right okay but it's it's a wonderful like i said it's the precursor to his master stroke which is hard-boiled um you can see where he's going as chow yun fat it was great with him and everything so anyway i do really like that movie well he remade the killer and he remade he remade it and just put it out now it's okay now it's set in paris and uh interesting to see how a director remakes her own yeah yeah because the script is not the same there are certain elements that are the same but the script is definitely different and there's enough where you're i was just like okay i don't know where you're going with this necessarily um because you're changing things up uh he still knows how to shoot an action sequence it's just the problem is his style is very dated uh right it's still stuck in the early 90s and I would love to see him have grown with how he shoots action but that being said he still shoots it very effectively he knows what he's doing we're not dealing with shaky cam and bad geography or anything like that you understand so anyway that's one of those I'd be like you know it's worth checking out it's not a great again it's not mind-blowing um and i don't know you'd have to actually have the the light and day contrast of seeing the first one the original first and then going you don't need to have and that's my thing when i saw the killer i saw it in 91 when things were still fresh and that looked good if you watch the killer today while i could enjoy it i don't think a lot of people would enjoy it because it's just a very different style of cinema that people are used to now so i would almost say go in with this one and see what you think um it's worth it's worth the watch that's okay i will check it out um okay so the one though i've been wanting to talk about freaking alien aramis come on so good so good so good um it it's definitely in my book we go aliens and then you're gonna have to go alien and then you go alien romulus right but then there's a large gap between the next whatever you put on the list a large gap this thing nails so much right um just the aesthetics the sounds the the mood it does what I like which is world building without spending a lot of time on the world building you have to be paying attention to what you're seeing and build in your head and because then you can go back and watch and now focus a little bit deeper on certain things and go oh that's cool oh okay I didn't notice that before but yeah and it just keeps on the more you view the more it's going to build in that capacity and And there are three set pieces, like, you know, action or scenes, not necessarily even action, but three scenes that are stellar standout moments that really just you go, that is a great alien sequence of things that happen. So many practical effects. oh see that's that's great to hear because there's like I don't know practical effects man when you see them there's one practical effect that everybody thought was CG and then they saw the actor and they went oh wait that was real oh that's frightening because they literally A, I saw the actor out of costume, and then B, they showed him in costume. Oh, right. On set. And you're like, no, that's what was in the movie. Whoa. Imagine, so I know you're trying desperately not to spoil it here. Yes, yes. There's like someone in a very large costume walking around the set. Imagine if you're an actor faced with that actually looking at you. Yes. Like a point, like a reference, like a little green dot point. This is what I need to look at. Yeah. seeing this thing that would be quite frightening i was very curious because this takes place in between alien and aliens that's the okay when oh that's the time period that takes place so i was very curious to see if it would um completely ignore prometheus and covenant right and it doesn't which is interesting oh it it recognizes those not only does it recognize those it also does homages to things that were in Alien 3 and things were in Resurrection. Things that were in Alien Isolation. Apparently Alien Isolation was a heavy influence on this movie. Really? Yes. The way it is shot, it's very deep focus. So you can see far into the sets. And that just brings the whole mood. And it's a lot of wide photography um so it's very you can see down the hall a long way and you're like do i really want to be seeing down there i don't know i don't know if i want to be seen down the way the like i said the the the set design the tech that is used fits right in place with everything you've seen between those two movies um the sound design cinematography is phenomenal it's a gorgeous movie um yeah the sound design is is spot on right on point um there's there was one moment that i really wish hadn't existed it's just it's one line of dialogue that i was like it was the one thing that pulled me out of the movie okay um again once you see it probably once you see it i will let you know where you may even be the guest um so even if you're not a hardcore alien fan you think that this will actually detract from the movie like is it that obvious for if you're not super into aliens if you've seen the movies you'll know it and it'll stand out yes um there was another moment where i went oh you're not going there are you and I was relieved at how they went where I was like are you Maybe I don know But I was relieved at the outcome I went, okay, I can breathe. Balance was returned to the force. That will make me, the next time I watch this, I will now be able to, instead of going, wait, what? I can relax into it and enjoy it for what it is. And then there is one bit of – it's been very divisive on the Internet of how people feel. and it's a visual effect that I really hope that they, now that the movie's a hit, that they go back to Disney and go, hey, can we have just a little bit more money to work on this just a bit more? Because on a giant screen in a close-up, you just kind of went, why does that look wrong? Oh. on a TV screen you may not even notice so I don't know but this is by far one of those you gotta go see it in a cinema it deserves the cinema approach I'm pretty sure it's playing still pretty readily here in cinemas so perhaps I will go just do that so I did want to after the movie came out the director Fede Alvarez has been very active on Twitter popping up all over the place, being playful. Domestically, they beat, after the opening weekend, they overtook the number one spot again on like a Tuesday from Deadpool and Wolverine. And so he posted an image of Deadpool with a chestburster coming out of him. That's amazing. And he said, you know, he was like, hey, we took number one again for one day. And he was like, Ryan Reynolds, you're being greedy. but i was like i love it when they get playful you know with other with other filmmakers um yeah so then he he before the movie ever came out oops i'm too far hold on i need to get my image up here okay so before the the movie ever came out he sent out i think it was the trailer uh as a press release or just you know like a call it like a three or four minute sizzle reel kind of thing um and it was sent out to press and this is how he sent it oh look on vhs in a you know a case that looks like it's been sitting on the shelf for years since 1980s yes it looks amazing i was just like that's genius thank you That is amazing what you did there. So then he asks on Twitter, he says, hey, if we were putting out trading cards, what would be the trading card that pops up the most? What's the one that's the rare one? And so people are joking like, oh, this would be the rare one, this would be the whatever. Since then on Twitter, he's gone and done these. trading cards that look straight out of what my Empire Strikes Back trading cards look like in the condition that I have them. Straight out of a gum packet. Straight out of a gum packet, right? There's your lead character, Rain. Yep. Even doing the... There it is. Even doing the... That looks so cool. And it's like... That's not a beauty shot. That is literally the kind of image that used to pop up on these trading cards where just somebody slapped a you know a brightly lit photo and like oh hey look at this meanwhile all the cosplayers are like thank you because this will be heavily referenced yes well not only that he later put up a because this is influenced by ripley's flamethrower in alien and then the pulse rifle flamethrower from aliens and it's kind of a hybrid of the two um and so again he threw up comparison images of all three and the community was just like oh my god you have no idea what this is gonna allow me to do so yeah um this dude's cool this dude's speaking my language if they look so good they do they really do they really do um so all that to say it's just a really good movie it's a an excellent time and as somebody who is a massive i mean alien is my favorite franchise aliens is my favorite movie um this wasn't even the property that i was looking forward to this was the one that i was holding my breath because i knew that it was initially set to go straight to streaming and it's thanks to Prey blowing all the streaming records when it premiered because it didn't get a theatrical release. They went, okay, we'll give this a theatrical. And now they're so happy they did because on an $80 million budget, it's already at like $280. So, yeah. It's doing phenomenal well. That's a lot. Yeah. Way more than they would have earned on streaming. Way more. Well, not only that, but it gets... It doesn't have that stigma of direct to video you know what i mean it's theatrical is always going to have that elevated sense it is it is the top shelf it has that top shelf feel yeah but so anyway that's where i was just like oh i don't know i was very leery i'm looking forward to the tv show that they put the teaser trailer at the front of this movie um all right it's called alien earth takes place before prometheus and the reason why I'm so excited about that is because the show creator Noah Hawley he also is the person that created the TV show Fargo and created the TV show Legion and A. Fargo is brilliant writing and Legion is if you're not familiar with it X-Men adjacent about Xavier's son who's in a mental hospital and doesn't know what's real and what isn't. And it plays like a psychological horror movie. And it is... That sounds amazing. It is just bug nuts wild. It's really wild. There's only three seasons. Totally worth the watch. So if you have Hulu, you can watch it. Legion. Legion. I think that's the list. Yeah. But anyway, because of those two, I'm so excited for the TV show. Yeah. But now watching this, I'm just like, Oh, my God, if they're actually throwing this kind of money behind these projects... It's going to be incredible. It's going to be so good. So good. Anywho, that's what the old movie things are. That's definitely a good amount of coverage on movies, this show. Yes, and look at this. We are now 48 minutes into it, and we still haven't talked about our title card. The titular subject of our show, which is a little Zen release has popped into the air. Zen release. Yes. Popped into the game recently. Two wildcard properties, according to the category that's in the Zen board. Yeah, that is an interesting way of categorizing them, because it becomes kind of silly when you just have a table that's forever permanently going to be its own category. Why did you make a column for that? You're never going to add to it. Yeah. A little bit like Garfield. Yes. Yes. It's sitting there by itself. I mean, if you ever do any other Nickelodeon properties, great. What other Nickelodeon properties are you going to do? Are you going to do Spongebob table? Are you going to do Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I mean, if you're going to... I'd be okay with that. I'd be okay with that. And then you've got the slot added in. TMZ, I'll be okay with. But when you have World War Z sitting all by its lonesome there... Yeah. Maybe they should be in the wildcard. The thing is that they probably can't do wildcard pack and then recategorize it later on because it's all linked to DLC. So they have to make a call, which is rough. But it's like, anyhow. Anyhow, we're talking about Princess Bride and Goat Simulator. I think Goat Simulator is the one that's just like, what? I've never played Goat Simulator. So I'm, because I was like, why would I? Yeah, I'm like, why would I want to be a goat? I don't want to be a farmer either. So, you know, it's like. It's a very odd game. what I've heard. Yeah. And honestly, the table kind of reflects that. It's quirky. It's quirky as all get out. It happens to be a Thomas Croft table. We know I like his tables. So we'll get into what I think about this. The other one is The Princess Bride. Yes. Which, thank, thank, thank God, they actually have full voice. Full voice call outs. Full voice call outs. If they didn't have that, this game would be a nothing game. Yeah. It would have been as forgettable as it would have been. Yep. I agree. This one's designed by, I don't know if we've had a tale from him, Andres Babar Kluber and Dolby Vigil. Dolby, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know if this is one of their new designers that got paired with a veteran designer or a more veteran designer. But y'all are probably like, okay, great, but what's it look like? well funny you should ask let me uh let me bring up screen here here's one we've prepared there's what i know and but then my our images just go right over the top of both of them here let's see if i can hide our images um let's go okay poof went away poof went away there we go now now you can actually see what these are um so there you go two tables that seemingly have very different design aesthetics going on to them. But then you look a little bit more closely and you can kind of tell one of them looks very Lawler-esque, which would be the Princess Bride, which is semi-fan, but you've got a midfield shot. Ramps on either side. Some drop targets. And then over on the Goat Simulator side, again, fan layout. with some vertical drop targets there. But there's a lot more similarities. Similarities being, now we know how much Jared hates Spellorama, but I do not consider either of these Spellorama, because most of the modes can be started within four to five shots. Yeah. And four, I'm okay with four. I look at these and I look at them as light clusters. They're not Spell of Rama as such. No. Shoot the ramp a certain number of times and then you get the mode available. Yeah. I'm actually alright with that. Yeah, I'm alright with that too. Initially, I'm more drawn to Princess Bride. That's mainly because of the theme. Initially? Initially. I still have not figured out how the hell to get up to that mini playfield up there and you know I do not like the mini playfields the rules, this is one that I had to read the rules on because I wasn't getting anywhere in the game and you have to realize that like you were saying each of the zones or the areas on the playfield is a mode start so it's shoot around mode start as i like to call it yeah not one one whole mode start so therefore you have to read the rules to understand where you gain access to the areas and i can't actually off the top of my head tell you what modes you need to light to get to the upper play field all the comments will correct us in that folly probably um but it is very much dependent on like shooting around the playfield but honestly the i i think in some respects as you play this table more unless you really like the movie you're going to get sick of the call outs because they happen a lot they do happen a lot and i just i think as a long player or as something that you come back to that's the only grating point i have with this table the the layout and design of this thing is actually a lot of fun to shoot except for i don't like that mid flipper shot it is so easy to brick yeah that's a real problem with it the visibility on that mid flipper shot is horrible even if you're playing in view through yeah or like one of the higher views you can't see what you're doing by the way these are really taken from my at um my my cabinet i just photographed what's um yeah but like you know that that is really you just gotta really go okay this point on the flipper i guess yeah go for it um so it is it's hard but the call outs are very well used spot on i loved you know where what they chose and what they did uh the video is great zen really understood the assignment with uh adding video uh it's every bit as good as uh what they were doing with like the thing uh yes like they're they're learning very quickly how to use on how to do video on how to do videos new yeah i would say you're correct there i think in some cases i i think it's in wish mode where you're shooting that um side loop where there's a voice call happening um and then like the the voice call ends and then there's a video that plays of venigo walking closer where he's being told by all means keep walking closer and then seconds later you see the video of Inigo walking closer and it's like that is mistimed so I think they've got some ability to refine further what they're doing but if you compare what they did in earlier titles oh just compare it to you know curse of the mummy yeah there's night and day night and day but you know curse of the mummy was a tricky one because it wasn't a licensed property yes licensed property they were dealing with would have been probably in pimble m and it probably would have been the thing because that's the first time i've seen video ripped out from a movie and yes the game um well because they did it for that and they did it for chucky yes so they were the those were the first two that actually did direct ripsaw and between is it chucky and the thing they were both released around the same time yeah yeah so between those two and this it is a very big jump in understanding how that format works yeah so that's very promising that the studio is going wow we're getting this real hard hopefully i think they're probably doing some understudy with stern if they're doing it right because you know and i think the the other big complaint i've seen on discord in the pinball effects forum is just choice of fonts in the um in the displays like they have to focus on readability over style and we see this all the fonts that you see in all the older Belly Williams games are boring but they're very readable and they need to be glanceable and they need to be high contrast and some of the games that have been released recently have really suffered because of that and I don't think these two do no I don't either so let's look over at let's look over at Goat Simulator then um yeah so if i go over to so i'll tell you this out of the two tables this is the one that i always come back to interesting and i think i know why maybe it took me a while to i wasn't immediately getting into this um because i didn't feel like i was getting anywhere and it was kind of frustrating me and then the theme wasn't grabbing me um and i was just like what am i missing what am i missing and then it finally clicked. This is Monster Bash. It's stackable modes. You can have multiple modes going at the same time, and again, it only takes four or five shots at most, and they're going. Yep. And the other really neat thing, which was pointed out as well on the forum, is that it issues you extra balls relatively easily. Like you can get extra balls from one shot, actually. Like the first jump ramp shot, if you nail the jump ramp shot, hey, you get an extra ball for that. Well done. And the thing is, though, that if you just hold them, you can get five extra balls banked and collect five extra balls in a row. Oh, jeez. You don't have to shoot the whole five times. And it's a really nice design. Yeah. That's a very, very nice design trick. I don't care for the fonts, or not the fonts, the inserts down at the bottom. Because, hold on, let me see if I can zoom back in again. On which table? Go on, goat. Let me come over there and... That. Because they're very... They're not distinctive. And so I don't know what I've lit and what I haven't. Yeah, they're not word-based. No. That's the problem. And I don't like that. Yeah. But what it does tell you is, like, when you've got three modes running, it does say, okay, I've got... It does give you glanceable information that, okay, I've only got one more mode to light. And it makes you think, what haven't I been shooting on the table? and then you go ah yeah i haven't been shooting this so i will shoot this and actually start lining that mode up or because the thing is that all those modes are like it doesn't matter what shots you're shooting it all contributes to the karma that you need to actually start mode so you could just shoot the same ramp 50 times and get the karma you need and then start that one last mode and then you can go and do it and i've judged i love that like that is the the fact that all you need to do is shoot around the table and then shoot the mode start hole and you're in a mode and the modes you know they're interesting modes some of them are just you know shoot a ramp five times and then shoot the center it's fine yeah it's easy to understand like i was playing this table without looking at the rules at all first time I was going oh okay yep karma shoot shoot the ramps you that builds up each time I shoot okay good I get that mechanic and then i think the first time i played it i was getting a relatively decent score and it felt good to sort of walk away from the table going right that actually felt kind of good yeah actually i didn't get that feeling from princess bride and so i think that's where i'm kind of coming down to is it's that Princess Bride was the easy grab my attention right off the bat, and for me to immediately go, oh, yeah, I feel this, and I can get into this, whereas Goat Simulator is growing on me the more I play. Yeah. It's a slow burn. Yeah. So that's very interesting. I wanted to highlight one other thing with both of these, and that is how much I hated the back glasses. That Zen, okay. So generic. So here's the amazing part. Zen doesn't really produce a back glass. They produce an image that can easily be used as a back glass, and a lot of people use this image as the back glass. But then you go into the game, and you load up that table, and the image that they have on their own machine's back glass is not that image, and it looks better. Sometimes they'll use an image that's even worse, which is also like, what are you doing? Right? Yeah. There's just not a lot of thought going into Zen's back glasses. So here is their back glass for Princess Bride, which is just... That's the back... That's the back glass. That is... It's it. They've just taken the play field. Yes, exactly. What? It's very boring, very cut and paste. Just here, let's throw this together. This is not, however, what is when you're in your pinhole. That's not the image that's on the back of it, interestingly enough. The image that's on the back of it is a silhouette, I believe, of Buttercup and... Carrie Elwes. I can't remember. Oh, my God. His name is right on the... Dread Pirate Roberts, that's not his actual name. Wesley. Wesley. Wesley. All right, yes. It's a silhouette on just a gold backdrop, which, again, not great. It's very generic. So I had to go ahead and rectify that situation, and here's the back glass that I produced that you all can find in the... Blackade. Blacklist curated collection. Freely available. Oh, now, that's what we're talking about. Looks amazing. Right? And literally, it's an image that I found, and then I just put in the Princess Bride pinball logo in the middle. But it looks like it's in the middle of a pinball because of how that's framed. And I don't know. I just... Okay. I'm going to point out something obvious here, which you probably already realize. Yes. do you have the ability to flick back to the zen provided art at the moment let me see if I can do this I'm going to come back to the one should be able to flick between the two yeah no worries let me bring this up so do the one with the cut and paste zen official issued back glass yeah hold on going here and then going here because I want to point out a point that's interesting from an art perspective on the Princess Bride versus what you showed me on that Your Own Creation Backglass. Alright, here we go. Alright, here. So that's Zenz. And that's mine. So have a look at what's different. Go back to the original. That's cartoon art. Yours is real pulls from the movie, right? Now, all the video is real pulls from the movie. All the voices are of the actual actors. But the art is not. No. So, I wonder what went on there. That they could not use actor licenses on the table, and they had to cartoonify it. I mean, technically, there's no doubt that that's Wallace Shawn. There's no doubt that that's Andre the Giant. You know, I don't... And I'm not a fan of, I don't like, I didn't like when Stern was just doing Photoshop on their stuff. Yeah. This just happened to be, to me, more pleasing on the cabinet. This looks better as a, like, if they were to replace, if they were to take this layout that you propose here and turn it into that style. Yeah. The thing I like about this is see how they've got the dots as like... Yeah, the halftones. Halftones. I really like that treatment to this image. I think that's very pinball, 90s pinball playfield layer. I love that design treatment. Yeah. If they could do that and redesign it to look like this, you have me sold. That's a great looking back glass image. And what you've got here does... The layout is more conducive to a back glass image and it looks great. Okay. so now that we have that let me uh how do I get back trying to get back to my other why aren't you letting me go this one being for goat simulator that you're about to show us yeah I'm going to show goat simulator if I can get there get the original the OG and the OG and the new and the Chris F. If I can find it. Oh, I know what I did. It's hard finding these table numbers too. Oh, yeah. It's such a pain in the butt to do this. Every single time a new release comes out, I'm just like, oh, God, here I go again. I have to find all this. What is going on? So, this one is, hey Jared, there's a spelling error on here. It says Google Drive, pinblal, P-I-N-B-L-A-L. Is it? Yeah. Lol. Okay, here we go. Alright, so this is what you can find on Zen's website. That's their, what they call key art. Key art, yeah. Which, again, I don't like on my back glass images of the play field. Yeah. That's what bugs me about it. I don't mind the goat with the animals. We don't need to see it. Yeah. It just, I don't know. It's not as bad as the Princess Bride one, but it's also still just, I don't really care for it. Which is why, after doing a quick Google search and not knowing a thing about the game, I did this. So they were playing some kind of a ball game, and I thought that's fun. And then I found, I was like, hey, I think I have that Zen pinball from literally the ages ago PlayStation version of Zen pinball. I'm like, I know I have that pinball. And so I just replaced the ball that was in there, and then I threw up the Goat Simulator logo in the corner. And done. Bob's your uncle. Done. that that seems that seems great but that just seems as silly as the game itself itself and it's a cleaner image on the back glass than having to look at that thing staring at you yeah which by the way it's also i don't know yeah i just i have enough of that art on the playfield I don't need it also up on the back glass. Yeah. That's definitely like, you know, reusing the key art as a back glass is... Yeah. It's not, I mean, it's not really what it's designed to do. And I mean, I will grant you, this isn't the greatest at all. That ball looks like it's in front of the goat, not like he would actually be hitting it. Oh, yeah, it needs some blending and shading or whatever. Yeah, it's not great. but I can live with this. The other one I just can't stare at. So if, again, you're looking for back glass, it's all at our website. And I'll just now I can go back to this. So it's separated into a bunch of different categories. So we've got this box here has literally every single table pre-formatted, table ready. All you have to do is just drag and drop them into the folder that you need to do. Name correctly as well. Name correctly. And everything is in there. And more to the point, these are all back glass that I actually like. So the versions of things in here you might find different than what everybody else is using. Like, for instance, this Boba Fett, I just preferred that over the gigantic mask that was there. The same thing with, I'll give you another example. Oh, if anybody has a better Pasha, I hate this Pasha. A, because it has Pinball FX3 up on the corner. B, the Pasha logo is teeny tiny. I want that logo large, and I don't know where to get it. I really want a better one of that. I asked Ages ago for some of the Legacy Table art packages, and they said they might have been lost to time. So it is a little frustrating. Here's a good example of I really like that for Discovery versus what Zen did. Right. I can't recall. Well, I can bring theirs up too. It was another classic mixture of play field and thingo. No, not actually. It is... Wait, those are Deep Space Nine. Did I not even download Discovery? I don't think I even downloaded Discovery. But it kind of looked like what they did here. Oh, yeah. Where it's just, eh. Yeah. So that's what you'll notice. There's another folder that is the alternative art preview. where there's just the, you know, what typically people are loading into these. And so I figure, hey, you might like those better. Like, for instance, this is the actual Fishtails backdrop, as opposed to the one that I wound up choosing, which is... There it is. This hyper-aggressive Fishtails. Oh, yeah, that's the Reader's Island one, actually. And so I have this for this, Medieval Madness, and Attack from Mars. I just thought, hey, you know what? Those are pretty cool. I always see the other one. Let me play with this one. It's kind of fun to see. That really is a monster fish. Look at that thing. Yeah. So my Octo Island, I just happen to like. Other than that pork, that pork can go away, but I can't get rid of it. And the pork can go right away. It's a little off-putting. and I like Porgs but it just look at that Porg that Porg is so photoshopped in it's ridiculous even worse than your ball on the simulator table but look at this Han Solo I made oh that looks good that looks good just a screen grab from the movie it says everything you need to say you know yeah it looks really good yeah so there's all sorts of things like I said you get your regular art preview there's all the pinball M glass they're also already I already put them in the main folder. You'll notice there's the Pinball M plate, because eventually I feel like these are all going to merge, so I just threw them in there since they're all table-numbered anyway. Yeah, right. And then there's also all these pre-formatted back glass, which, again, when it comes time for them to finally come out with Alien, And I'm sorry, these look amazing compared to what everybody else has. Yeah, right. Because what everybody else has is not these. I happen to really like, come on, open up. Oh, yeah. I like that just because it looks like it's a pinball in the middle, even though it's just the earth. That's like a good image. That's so good. um and then i'm sorry that's the only reasonable thing for a back glass that's all you need that's all you need you don't need anything more no no that's perfectly fine you know the story behind that no that was the poster just that just that oh and then there was a little tag on the on the bomb that said this time it's war oh right and the whole reason for that was cameron went into the meeting and they had the art that they placed in front of him and he threw a fit and was just like, that is hideous. I hate everything about that. He goes, I'd rather you just had a black background just a logo on it than use that thing. And Fox went, alright. It went, actually it's not a bad idea. Let's do that. Not a bad idea. And so that's why that is. Which is hilarious because it doesn't tell you a damn thing about the entire movie but you know what would be really good like if they actually end up if that's the one that they use in the the actual pinball back glasses and they work out somehow to make the back glasses animated imagine if it did no if it did like the opening logo where it starts off all fuzzy and then clears up and does the bright and then just does oh that would be so sweet see that this is the sort of thing like sometimes simplicity is the best right and folks i guarantee you when we talk to mel once again we're going to harass him about why do we have to find our own back glass where is our animated back glass yeah why are we rolling our own here we should not be rolling our own things no we really shouldn't uh so if you're watching this and you are going yes i would like to ask if sit down with mel and ask him a few things and how about you send those into us um and we will add them to the dance card the questions that we ask it's not saying we'll ask that question but but we will definitely consider it for inclusion if it fits what we're looking at doing um or if it's if it's a unique enough question that we go hmm that is that is potentially something that could be worth exploring sending your submissions yeah um do blah blah blah kate at gmail.com better yet just comment on this video oh you could do that too yeah um and then chris doesn't have to do any work not only that but i don't think a single one of you has ever emailed us so no you could always like break that mold and actually do it this time but uh by all means just comment on the video because you know we read that and thank you for your comments we really appreciate them actually somebody did email me one time because we were doing a contest and they included a photo that was just like yeah this is why you don't ask for photos it's like it was an inappropriate photo yes yeah didn't really need to see that um yeah all right well that is uh that's what we got for you this go around um So there are things happening in the at-games front. Again, more things to talk to Mel about, mainly in that finally the issue of lag is being addressed with all the tables. Slow rollout starts in, I think, on the 15th of this month. They're starting with Adam's family. they will go through all 23 tables in a five-week rollout to correct all of that and i know that they're even putting out a video on how to measure the latency um because i think some people have unrealistic expectations uh of what is capable surprise i know of what is capable of latency and so they want to a prove that the latency has been uh gotten better and they're also doing a comparison of latency between this and the magic pixel titles um i think to just really hammer the point in because they do not want people going they didn't fix anything um especially when i still read comments of people going oh adam's family is completely unplayable and i'm like Really? Because people have posted like 700 million point scores on that. That doesn't make it unplayable. For those people, I would just say maybe you need to get good, actually. Maybe you need to let your brain actually adjust. I'm not saying, I'm never saying it's acceptable, because yes, it is noticeable, but it is playable. Especially the new Jurassic Park tables. They really did a, the latency is very good on those. right so uh but we're also promised that maybe the tables there's more two fixes than just the latency so maybe there's some visual improvements too i don't know we'll find out and see um but that's another topic that we'll have to bring up with mel um just what what was involved in that what's the learning curve um what's the takeaway what can we expect in the future kind of uh in nailing of that yeah so put your questions in the comments folks we want to read them yes and uh we may we may feature some of them in our questions that we ask mel uh for the end of year wrap up yes all right which i believe we have basically one other that we know of that hint was dropped in terms of what to expect from the next Batch of Williams I'm assuming that's what our next table releases are going to be, it's just a question of when so it's going to be by the end of the year obviously probably end of the year there's a lot of end of the year left so we're in September now they should be able to slot it in somewhere I just think in the past they've always released something either end of November or beginning-ish of December. So I think that's when we're expecting that. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. All right. Like I said, that's all we've got for you this go-around. Next go-around, it's what Jared loves to talk about. Stuff and things. Until then, folks, bye-bye. See you later, everyone. pinball