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Blabbing Into the Ether

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 35s·analyzed·Apr 25, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast covers pinball truck economics, Brisbane tournament recap, and digital pinball releases.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss a detailed business analysis of a hypothetical pinball truck venture (requiring ~$126k startup and 44 weeks to break even), review Brisbane pinball tournament results and local collector's machine lineup, critique FarSight's Last Action Hero digital table and disappointing Wii U port, and provide an enthusiastic early review of Zen's upcoming Aliens vs. Pinball pack releasing April 26.

Key Claims

  • A pinball truck business would require approximately $126,000 in startup costs and 44 weeks of full-time use (40-hour weeks) to break even, not accounting for gas, wear and tear, taxes, or permits

    high confidence · Detailed business analysis by listener Daniel Price, broken down with specific costs: $35k trailer, $40k truck, $36k for six machines, $15k for generator/setup/misc

  • An operator in Brisbane has a Data East Tommy machine that has paid for itself at ~$3,000 purchase price and remains a consistent earner with minimal maintenance issues

    high confidence · Jared spoke directly with the operator at Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective tournament location (bowls club)

  • FarSight had to alter/re-compose AC/DC's Big Guns title track for Last Action Hero due to licensing restrictions, a practice now called 'festering' in FarSight circles

    high confidence · Chris explains FarSight's licensing workaround: changing music 10% makes it considered original

  • FarSight's Wii U port uses PS3-level graphics (no dynamic lighting), a mirrored gamepad DMD instead of dedicated DMD display, and outdated UI that's being replaced on Steam

    high confidence · Jared tested the Wii U version on release, noting disappointment with UI and gamepad functionality

  • Zen's Aliens vs. Pinball pack releases April 26 (4-26 in reference to LV-426 location in the movies)

    high confidence · Chris confirms release date and explains date significance to European co-host

  • The Aliens vs. Pinball table features Sigourney Weaver's voice (Ripley) with direct quotes from the movie and Queen Alien artwork

    medium confidence · Chris describes opening scene and visual elements, though his exact quote is incomplete in transcript

  • Dylan ('Walker' on Aussie Arcade forum) has been building his pinball collection over 10+ years by buying machines, holding them until they appreciate in value, then selling to upgrade

    high confidence · Jared spoke with Dylan at his home tournament venue about his collection strategy

Notable Quotes

  • “You better sell some sodas and snacks along with it. But otherwise, he thinks you could make a good go of it. Recouping the startup cost of a small business in a year or less is not bad.”

    Daniel Price / Chris (summarizing) @ Early segment — Key insight from business analysis: profitability depends on ancillary revenue (snacks/beverages)

  • “Recouping the startup cost of a small business in a year or less is not bad... you'd actually have to get about $250,000 as a loan so you could actually wait out the first part of the revenue issues.”

    Chris and Jared discussing @ Pinball truck segment — Reveals actual capital requirements beyond startup costs for cash flow during ramp-up phase

  • “It's done, it's paid for itself, and he got it for about, I think, three grand. So there's money to be made in pinball if you know where to put it.”

    Jared (reporting operator's comment) @ Tournament discussion — Validates Data East Tommy as reliable revenue generator for commercial operators

  • “If they're going to release something just release it properly. Don't half-bake it. Just frustrates me. It's very underwhelming to me.”

    Chris @ Wii U port critique — Expresses frustration with FarSight's incremental/incomplete product releases

  • “All my fears dissipated within moments... It just starts with a close-up on Ripley... direct quote from the movie... that Sigourney's voice. Sweet, right?”

    Chris @ Aliens vs. Pinball review — Enthusiasm for voice acting and movie accuracy in Zen's Aliens pack

  • “Even though there is Spellerama, the Spellerama is really only to give you enhancements during the game... it has nothing to do with advancing the game. It has everything to do with basically buffing up your stats.”

    Chris @ Aliens table mechanics — Addresses concern about spelling ramps by explaining their buff/enhancement function rather than progression

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonDaniel PricepersonDylan (Walker)personPeter WattpersonFarSight StudioscompanyZen StudioscompanyBrisbane Pinball and Arcade CollectiveorganizationAussie ArcadeorganizationBlockade Pinball Podcastorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Detailed financial analysis of pinball truck concept reveals high barrier to profitability requiring 44+ weeks and ancillary revenue streams (food/beverage)

    high · Daniel Price's comprehensive breakdown: $126k startup, $250k financing needed, $72/hr revenue at full capacity, break-even at 1,750 hours

  • ?

    community_signal: Australian pinball community (Brisbane/Aussie Arcade) maintains active tournament scene and collector networks with multi-year acquisition strategies

    high · Brisbane Pinball Collective hosting regular tournaments; Dylan's 10-year acquisition/flipping strategy; Aussie Arcade forum parallel to Pinside

  • ?

    licensing_signal: FarSight unable to secure AC/DC Big Guns license for Last Action Hero; compensated by re-composing track (practice called 'festering')

    high · Chris explains FarSight's 10% alteration rule to classify as original music; community term 'festering' now standard for licensing workarounds

  • $

    market_signal: Data East Tommy machine demonstrates strong ROI and reliability in location operation; validates vintage machines as viable commercial assets

    high · Brisbane operator reports Tommy paid for itself at ~$3k, consistent earnings, minimal maintenance issues

  • ?

    announcement: Zen Studios' Aliens vs. Pinball pack confirmed for April 26 release with Sigourney Weaver voice, character ramp mechanics, Queen Alien artwork

    high · Chris: 'this comes out on April 26, which is 4-26 in honor of LV-426'; early review code; detailed table mechanics description

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.161

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Chris Frebus, aka Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, my co-host, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris. How are you, mate? I am doing well. Hey, Jared, we have got a jam-packed show today, just tons of pinball stuff to talk about. So if you can, I need you to refrain from going off on tangents. I don't want to hear anything about your TV shows you like watching or the cartoons you've been looking at or movies. None of that, okay? It's the on topic. Yes, I know it's difficult, but I trust you can refrain from doing that, okay? Look, I'll do my best.
1:10
Hey, folks. So quick news here. We did record a session last week. Unfortunately, Blab was very mean to us and for some reason didn't upload the audio for us to send out to you folks. So this week we are doing it not on Blab. We're doing it on Google Hangouts Live or on air. Now, if you guys, I was going to say, if you guys want to, I'm not sure whether I'm actually going to bother doing last week's recording. It might just be a Blab exclusive.
1:39
So, because I don't know if I can actually push out two podcasts in one week. So, I think what we might do is let that one ride. And if people want to check it out, they can go to blab.im forward slash Blarcade and just see the last episode. Which was, I believe, titled Blah, Blah, Blah. Yeah, that's right. It is, quite appropriately, because that's pretty much what we did. Last week we didn't have all that much pinball to talk about, and this week we have a ton of pinball. So that's why we weren't taking any chances. We're going to go with something that we know used to work for us, and we'll go back to Blab once the kinks are worked out. But anyway, here we are today. It is beta software, so we can't really hold them too much to account, and we're not paying for it, so even less of a reason for us to hold them to account. So we'll just switch back to Hangouts. It's all right. week. Who cares if I'm not paying for it? See, some people. Hey, um... Well, where we're going to start is, I believe, two podcasts ago, maybe three, we were mentioning about the pinball truck. Yeah, the pinball truck. What a cool idea that would be, and then we said, go forth, come up with an idea, and we'll chat with you all about it later. Well, we got an email from one of our listeners, Daniel Price, who went ahead and crunched all the numbers for us. And he's a legend for doing that because I wouldn't have the first clue how to actually do that. So he must have an accounting bent or a project management bent or something like that. Yeah. It was very detailed. It was. So he basically broke it down to approximating that there were six pinball machines on this truck and that there's a 12 game an hour average per machine. And then adding in all the costs of a new trailer, buying, not leasing, new, not used, and sticking to the typical 40-hour work week, here were his startup cost numbers, which we found rather fascinating. So he came up with the idea for a trailer utility of $35,000, priced for a good utility trailer. So I don't know exactly what he's talking about there, but I'll trust him on the numbers there. I'm assuming it's a towed rig, because then he has a truck. He's got a truck for $40,000, priced at, say, a Ford F-350, which is what you would need to be able to haul something like that, especially if it's a fifth wheel.
Pinball Arcade
product
Zen Pinball FX2product
Last Action Herogame
Aliens vs. Pinballgame
Data East Tommygame
Sigourney Weaverperson
  • ?

    product_strategy: Aliens vs. Pinball implements Star Wars-style progression mechanics: character ramp buffs (multiplier, reload time, health) leading to Xenomorph boss battle

    medium · Chris describes Vasquez/Hudson/Hicks/Burke ramps as buff mechanics rather than spelling progression; magnet bash mechanic similar to Star Wars

  • ?

    product_concern: FarSight's Wii U port criticized as minimal-effort PS3-era port with outdated UI, no dynamic lighting, and wasted gamepad DMD opportunity

    high · Chris: 'I really, really hope that does transpire. But then again, I've got too many years of experience with FarSight... If they're going to release something just release it properly. Don't half-bake it.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Chris experienced positive sentiment reversal on Aliens vs. Pinball after initial skepticism/hypercriticism; fears 'dissipated within moments' of gameplay

    high · Chris: 'I was going to be hypercritical... And with trepidation, I loaded this thing up... all my fears dissipated within moments'

    • 4:00
    Yeah, that sounds like it would be like a tractor-trailer style arrangement. That's the only way you can really do it, really. Yeah, he's got six pinball tables averaging $6,000 apiece. So it sounds like we're talking new sterns, not going back and buying some Williams table for $2,000 or something like that. System of livings. Exactly. So we're looking at $36,000 for that. Then you're going to need a generator, electrical setup, paint, tools, advertisement, media logos, miscellaneous startups. He's calling that at $15,000. So for a grand total of $126,000, this is what he's talking about. You can have a pinball truck. And he's saying it's a dollar a game, at least in the U.S. That would be realistic. 120,000 games played to break even on the startup. So approximately 12 games an hour per machine. That's 12 times 6 equals $72 an hour, if all the games are running up a hypothetically hourly rate of play. After 1,750 hours of full gameplay to break even on the startup, or if a 40-hour week of open use would approximately take 44 weeks of full-time use to recoup the startup costs, or if an 8-hour day open use would take 218 8-hour days to fully pay startup. So you can imagine why we didn't figure any of this out. Yeah, this is a little bit more detailed than probably we imagined. It's really interesting to see the numbers though. If I ever set up a business, I'll be dropping him a line saying, right, could you crunch the numbers for me and actually make sure this is going to be commercially viable? Because honestly, based on those numbers, it's a tough sell to make a pinball truck, right? Yeah, he says this is, of course, not including gas, wear and tear of vehicles, not hiring extra help if need be, nor permits, nor taxes, nor grift to locations. I like that that he threw that in. Grift, I like it. Yes, and his take is that, well, you better sell some sodas and snacks along with it. But otherwise, he thinks you could make a good go of it. Recouping the startup cost of a small business in a year or less is not bad. And if one is selling chip soda, water, coffee, candy, et cetera, like a three-time markup, he thinks it can be done. Well, that's if you can handle a year's worth of loss or just trying to break even.
    6:12
    Yeah, that's what you have to do. Actually, when you do a business, you have to go, right, so what's the total cost of that truck? $120,000, right? Yeah. So you'd actually have to get about $250,000 as a loan so you could actually wait out the first part of the revenue issues. So that's how you'd actually do that, get a loan of like $250,000 large. Yeah. And then you'd be all right. You'd probably have a bit of buffer because you're right. In the first year, it's tough because you've got to establish yourself as a business and you've got to get to the point where people know what you're about and get the concept. Well, not only that, but going off the idea of it being eight hours of play a day.
    6:56
    I mean, if you took this around to any of the food truck places and park yours with all the food trucks, you're looking at maybe getting two hours of business. And that's for lunch, and then you go for dinner service, and now you're getting maybe three hours. So there's like five. Not to mention on top of that, that was all to recover the costs. That had nothing to do with paying you. That's right. You've got to make an income. You've got to make an income out of this for a year. Yeah, that's pretty rough. Yeah. So I think it raises an interesting question of just how tough in general it would be to set up a business. because you could pretty much translate those type of sums, perhaps, into setting up a small leased area, even if it wasn't a truck, like just a small lease in a building somewhere, more than likely, and maybe factor out some of the things like fit-out. Well, probably fit-out would be a little bit more, unless you were going for a very basic fit-out. But $250,000 or maybe $200,000 would be about the right amount you're looking for if you're going to fit out of just a basic place. And that's somewhere without any, you know, like any sort of complimentary business, like a small kitchen that you can prepare sandwiches and stuff like that in to sell at the same time. So it really adds up. Well, it's also if you start selling food itself, well, now you've got to have the health board involved. Yes, which is why you would do the food truck because you'd park a food truck outside and absolve yourself of that responsibility. Not in California. Oh, really? We have letter grades for any place that serves food. It's basically alerting people about the conditions of the things that's preparing your food. And even food trucks are subjected to that.
    8:51
    At least your good, above-the-board food trucks. A taco truck is not necessarily going to be doing that. I was more talking about the fact that if you were for example just setting up a space where pinballs were available and then at the back you were offering a food truck ability for a food truck to pull up Oh okay If you sell food that is pre-packaged then you're fine That's where the vending machine kind of thing Then you're fine, you don't have to worry about that kind of action Because all the food safety is done by the provider of the food Right. And of course, the obvious attraction of having an actual space is you can hold more machines. But that's now you're back to the idea of getting people to come to you. And I think coming to them. Right. And I think people that have tried arcades are, you know, obviously they've come to the same conclusion where you need to have something else. But if you were going to the public, I think it's an interesting proposition. So it is. Obviously, I'm not going to attempt it because that's not my deal. but I think anybody that is thinking about it, those are some basic numbers. I'd love to hear if anybody has any counter numbers. Go ahead and email us at blahblahblockade.gmail.com. Yep. Or at gmail.com. Excuse me, I'm thinking too many things. But anyway. And I think that's why you'll find that most people try and co-locate their machines in bars and other areas that are already set up. So that's why they pay the grift, basically. because it's easier to just dump a machine on location and not have to worry about anything except the machine.
    10:34
    So I was actually talking to an operator in the subject of pinball news. We had our Brisbane Pinball Club second half final last night, and we went over to a very generous pinhead's place who had a spectacular collection of pinballs. I think it's really the only way I can describe it. and I'll talk about that in a little bit but what I wanted to touch on is we had an operator there who does the pinballs for the bowls club that we do our monthly sessions at and I was just having a beer with him and talking about stuff and talking about the machines that were doing really well for him and he was saying surprisingly his D'Aterice Tommy machine has been a really consistent earner for him Like, it's done, it's paid for itself, and he got it for about, I think, three grand. So there's money to be made in pinball if you know where to put it. So, like, and he said that machine has not caused him very many troubles with maintenance or anything like that. So it's been a bit of a workhorse, according to him. But the pinball tournament was really good. And I'll tell you the lineup that this guy has in his house. maybe not quite as impressive as your friend who has all the protos, but still a pretty good collection. So he had a fishtails, which did have a little issue, being that it was taking out the whole electrical gang when you turned it on. So that remained off for the tournament.
    12:14
    Next to that, he had the Indiana Jones that I was talking about the first time we had the tournament. Although I found out that because it had the colour DMD and it looked in really good condition, I thought it was the same one. But it turns out there's another Indiana Jones floating around Brisbane in someone's collection that has a beautiful colour DMD and almost a flawless play field. And this thing played so well. Like it was suffering a little bit from resets, which means that it needs to have the high voltage circuit rebuilt. But it actually held up for the tournament.
    12:44
    And it was pretty cool because what they've done with the Path of Adventure is they put on, instead of having the normal incandescent lights underneath there, they put on LEDs underneath the plastic rails. And boy, it was just like epilepsy alert when that thing was actually trying to, when you're trying to get the ball down that, because it was just so blindingly bright. And everything else on it was beautiful. It was just so fun to play. I got a billion on it. Unfortunately, not in the tournament. but I got I think 250 million on that during the tournament which gave me a second place on it which was pretty good then in the other main room he had a Revenge from Mars He had an Addams Family with colour DMD and LEDs
    13:31
    Then we moved on to... It was... I'm trying to just picture them in my mind. He had a Monster Bash, which was evil.
    13:43
    It was evil, evil to play. It didn't have a ball save, and we didn't really know that he didn't have a ball save until he stepped up to it and played it.
    13:52
    And he lost your ball after like 100,000 points. He went, oh, where's the ball save? And he had a medieval madness, which was just in flawless condition. And I managed to get about 76 on that, 76 million, which was pretty respectable for a medieval madness.
    14:10
    Then moving over from that, there was a Circus Voltaire, again in very good condition. and then he had two stands, he had a Tron with the EL wire on the ramps and all that sort of stuff, very nice looking my first exposure to Tron, I never played it before, it was really nice and he also had a Batman the Dark Knight which I hadn't had a lot of time on either, so a really nice collection and we did it in sort of, we continued off from where we left off and it was four rounds of play, four rounds of three tables. So we got a good 12 tables playing there and in between that we just sat down on his deck and had some beers and it was a really hard way to spend an afternoon.
    14:58
    You know it's funny how these guys with their collections obviously I've been to a bunch of people's houses for our league and it's like for as expensive and apparently hard to get a hold of, everybody has a Monster Bash. everybody has circus voltaire um medieval manis is one of the ones that is kind of rare to see but that's because most of these guys wind up having sold theirs so they could afford two more pins you know they saw the money and were just like you know what i like the table but who cares you know i'd rather have two other pins um yeah yeah it's it's it's strange how you come across the same machines time and time again. But then it's things like when you see a Fishtails or Revenge from Mars. Those are kind of the, oh, okay, you've got something quirky in your collection. Quirky for that.
    15:54
    So yeah, it is kind of interesting to what the collectors like. They all seem to like the same ones. Well, that's right. This guy, the guy who invited us over, his name is Dylan. He's on Aussie Arcade. It's Walker is his username, which is Aussie Arcade. There's a forum here, a little bit like Pinsight, but it's the Australian version of kind of like Pinsight, if you want to call it that. And he probably has been, I asked him how long he'd been sort of amassing his collection. He goes, probably over 10 years. He's been buying and selling tables up to the point that he's at now to actually afford them. So he would buy a, find a decent table that was like in okay condition and then just hold on to it until it became popular and then sell it and use the profits to go and buy another table and have a bit of change. And he was using it as like commodities basically to trade up. And he did a great job because his collection is wonderful and his machines are in flawless condition. And it was a joy to play on them. So I was, yeah, it was a bit of a trip for me to get to because it was quite literally on the other side of the city, almost halfway down to the Gold Coast. So it was a bit of a journey, but it was worth the trip.
    17:07
    As far as standing goes, well, I certainly didn't make the final, but it was a good effort. I'll just bring up the tournament thing now because we use a thing called match play. I don't know if you guys use that over there, but it actually is pretty good. My standings were, out of 24 people, I was 12th, so halfway down the field. That's about how I usually place. Yeah. The point split was, I was going to say, the point split was 72 points for me, and the highest, our good friend Peter Watt, who always is the winner, was 108 points. So 72 to 108. But the one below that was 84 points. So Peter Watt is a very good player. He was getting about 100 million on Black Knight. Not Black Knight, Dark Knight. And that's the huge score on that game. So I think he managed to get the Ringmaster three times in one game with a score of 108 million on CV, which is pretty high as well. So this guy knows how to play a mean pinball.
    18:16
    And that was a tournament wrap-up for me. All right. Well, enough of this real pinball talk. Let's get into what we normally talk about, digital pinball. Digi-pins. So we're going to, I've got a full review of the new Zen Pack that just is about to drop the Alien vs. Pinball. But before we get into that, let's talk about the ho-hum news. So Farsight dropped some things.
    18:43
    So Last Action Hero just came out. You know, my thought is it's Last Action Hero. I'm not impressed by the table at all. And, you know, Farsight did their typical job on the machine. so nothing against Farsight and what they produced. It's more just, why that table?
    19:03
    I don't know. I have to wonder if they did... Because of how long ago Bobby had mentioned that they were going to do Last Action Hero, I'm wondering if they did score another deal with Arnold at the same time they negotiated for Terminator, if they didn't negotiate for that in addition. It'd be silly not to. Try and future cast all the tables that Arnie's been in, because there's been a few. that he's appeared in, hasn't he? There's like Last Action Hero, T2. And T3. That's it.
    19:34
    Yeah, that's true. He hasn't been in any of the other movie titles. No. That's still a fair few for one actor. Well, yeah, for one actor. Yeah.
    19:44
    I was just thinking, gee, does John Goodman have, he's almost caught up because is he going to be in the Big Lebowski table?
    19:51
    And he's already got the Flintstones table. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's interesting to see which actors go into these pinball tables. It's almost like, which is a popular pinball actor to put into a table? That's what I was just wondering, but anyway. So like I said, Last Action Hero came out, and I had a go on it during the beta, just with the DX9 version. Oh, yeah.
    20:21
    Yeah, and like I say, it's just kind of like, eh, you know. DX9. That too. Farsight then came out with their newsletter. They gave the hint for the next table, which I believe, from what I'm gathering, this is the closeout of Season 5. I think so. Which is... TX. I never played it, actually, so I can't judge.
    20:50
    I'm judging it off the fact that it's a Gottlieb. I had to Google the clue because I had no idea what it was. It sounded vaguely Star Trek-y. And I went, uh, no, it doesn't, no, because we've got all the Star Trek tables that would theoretically be released through the Far Side brand, or like the Pimple Arcade brand. Of course, the Star Trek was Stern, but we won't be seeing that for maybe a year and a bit.
    21:12
    Then they'll never pay the money for the EM Star Trek. I mean, it's just not worth paying the license for that. No.
    21:22
    So, yeah. kind of a lackluster closeout of the season. I mean, again, I say lackluster because Data East and God Leaps does nothing for me.
    21:35
    No, it's an early solid state. A very popular one, apparently. And apparently it looks beautiful. So I'm sure that with the right lighting and everything like that, it's going to look really nice. But I can't comment on it because I've never played it. Yeah. I will wait and see in the next beta rolls around. Now, a word to the wise on that table. Fastlight couldn't get the rights to ACDC's Big Guns which is the title track that plays on Last Action Hero so they fessed it so if you're wondering why it sounds a bit different the reason is because it's being composed and not ripped from the game I don't understand why because let's face it it's MIDI sound so it's not like it's an original performance of that but I know that as part of licensing goes, if you change it 10% or something like that, it's now considered original or something like that. So you can get away with it that way and that's what they've done. They've tried to make it sound as close as possible to the original MIDI sounds that were used in the game, but it kind of just comes across as a bit spaghetti western. It's more authentic sound, but I guess it's what they had to do. So can't really do much about it. At least we have a title track music in the game as opposed to nothing, which would have been probably what would happen. That's interesting because I'm not really familiar with what Last Action Hero should sound like. I think I would recognize the ACDC tune, maybe not in MIDI form. When I played the beta and was listening to the music, to me it sounded like all the other Data East tables of that time. It sounds very close to Jurassic Park, which sounds very close to Starship Troopers. which, I mean, they had that overly loud rock music. Yeah. And an overly loud bass line. Really chuggy bass line to it. And they certainly captured that in the redo that they've done, but honestly, it's not original. You can tell if you're used to the game. Yeah. It was confirmed in the beta that it wasn't, because they just had to get licensing for it. So, yeah, they had to fester it, which is now the commonly accepted term in people's fast-fighting circles for when they have to alter something on the table. They fester it.
    23:50
    Final bit of news from Farsight. They finally came out with the Wii version, or the Wii U version. Yay!
    23:58
    Congratulations, guys. Me having a Wii U, I was like, well, I better check it out. Downloaded it, got the good old Tales of the Arabian Nights as the free table, and we're all excited and booted it up and I'm underwhelmed.
    24:18
    Alright, describe what you saw. Well, what I saw was oh look, it's the user interface that's about to be replaced on Steam this week. Oh, really? They haven't pumped it into the Wii U. You would think they would do that. That's right.
    24:36
    I'll get to my comments. You asked what I saw, this is what I saw. That's what I saw right there. Okay, fine. You got the user interface.
    24:45
    Good news, it has up to Season 5. And with Season 5, it goes all the way to Judge Dredd. I'm assuming, I really thought it would have been nice if they could have had everything up to Last Action Hero.
    25:00
    I mean, I understand there's lead time for, just like all the other consoles, they're going to have to deal with pumping this stuff in. But I really thought that they would get right up to date. But no, they're a little bit behind. But hey, that's better than what happened when they re-released finally on Xbox when I don't think they had nearly any of the tables or that many. But anyway, so that is the good news. They've got all those tables. I already read somebody dropped $130 on it to get all the tables. Boom! Just like that. That's a bill. Obviously they've been waiting for a while. They must only have the Wii U.
    25:37
    Hopefully it's worth the wait for them. I hope. Then booted up the game and two things. One, it's the basically it's a PS3 port. It looks just like the PS3. So no dynamic lighting, which doesn't entirely surprise me because I didn't think the Wii U had the chops to do it. Yeah, it's not PS4 or Xbox One powered.
    26:00
    But I was really hoping that, I mean, it is a little bit more powerful than the PS3, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not sure about my numbers there, but anyway, I was really hoping that they would figure something out to crank that up. somebody informed me that, because obviously I only had the one table to mess with, but the physics 3.0 is implemented across the board on all those. So that's a positive. That's good. Yep. It'd be interesting to play some of the season ones with those physics implemented. We're still waiting for it to roll out incrementally on PC and mobile, aren't we? Yeah. Some people are reporting that a few of the tables are rather dark.
    26:37
    Huh. Which, again, somebody was saying, oh, it's the same way on the PS3. So again I can really comment on it because it tables that I only have the first two seasons on PS3 And these were tables beyond like Roadshow and Adam Family And things had to pick up. Yeah. But the biggest disappointment for me was I was expecting the DMD to fill up the gamepad. Yes. And then have the table just on because you can turn on and off the HUD on the screen.
    27:09
    Yes. No, not the case. just a mirrored image on the gamepad. What? So the whole table is mirrored on the gamepad? Yeah.
    27:20
    Wasted opportunity. Very disappointed about that. That's the only reason why you'd buy it. To have the DMD right there in front of you so you could glance down at a moment's notice and look at what's going on. Surely that's obvious. Somebody PM'd me and informed me that it is Farsight's intention to eventually implement that. Basically, this was you know what, guys? We need to get this out before Nintendo announces their next system, which is apparently imminent. They've actually stopped making Wii U's for the Japanese market.
    27:56
    Just in time for console abandonment. Exactly. So I think this was a you know what? We better put something out, otherwise there's no point in putting anything out.
    28:09
    I really, really hope that that does transpire. But then again, I've got too many years of experience with Farsight, and we all know their best of intentions are only even able to be attacked if they have extra time in the month after finishing a table. So if that month's table build is rather easy and goes really smoothly, then all of a sudden they have extra time to do side projects. if those side projects don't get finished in the time it is to start the next table, well then it gets to the side and you've got to wait for the next opportunity and then as has happened a few times, the person that's working on that winds up leaving the company and now they're back to square one so, you know like I say, best of intentions I really, I just want for once Farsight to step in with the best product possible that they can and to me that would have been having the brand new UI having tables almost all the way up to date having the DMV on the display and then you're done really you're done if they're going to release something just release it properly don't half bake it just frustrates me it's very underwhelming to me it's the same quality table that people on the PS3 and Xbox 360 get to play but those people have been playing it for four years now. Well, three people have. Sorry, Xbox people, you've been playing it for maybe a year and a half combined. Yeah, that's right.
    29:46
    So, yeah, anyway, that was that. Now, part of my disappointment probably is because the other thing that happened this week has nothing to do with Pinball Arcade instead it has to do with Zen Pinball FX2 and that is the release of the Aliens vs. Pinball pack.
    30:05
    I got my review code so that I could tease it early because this comes out on April 26 which is 4-26 in honor of LV-426 where all the aliens are. See Jared, it doesn't make sense to you Europeans because you don't do your dates the same way. That's exactly right. I had no idea what the significance of that date was. That is why. 4-26, LV-426. So that's Tuesday, which is probably the day this podcast is out. So ta-da! theoretically so as I may have mentioned before the Alien franchise is my absolute favorite movie universe I eat those movies up even the crappy ones there's something about it that just really grabs me so I was going to be hypercritical yes you had your they better not screw the sunglasses on exactly and Jared and I have been obviously we took our guesses at what we hoped they would put in the game, and then we saw game trailers, and we were like, oh, it looks like they put those things in the game. And with trepidation, I loaded this thing up, fired up the aliens table first, and let me tell you, all my fears dissipated within moments.
    31:21
    Yeah. It is... It just starts with a close-up on Ripley, and I'm blanking because now I've just fast forwarded right through it, but I want to say she's basically saying something to the effect of, Burke, just tell me that we're there to kill these things, not capture them, or something of that effect. Anyway, direct quote from the movie. So that, oh, that Sigourney's voice, sweet, right? And then it pans over to the queen alien at the back of the table, and just, yeah, oozing and everything, and it's just like, oh, that's wonderful. So you start the game, and I'm noticing that there's what Jared dreads, which is the spelling ramps. Spellerama. Well, I've got good news for you, Jared. Even though there is Spellerama, the Spellerama is really only to give you enhancements during the game. So, for instance, you have basically a lane that says Vasquez, one that says Hudson, one that says Hicks, one that says Burke. When you do the Burke ramp, that's what increases your multiplier. When you do the Vasquez ramp, that one, I believe, it quickens the reload time of the turret, gun turret, that you can eventually have pop up on the screen. Another one is for your health when aliens attack. and I forget what the final one is for. But anyway, so it has nothing to do with advancing the game. It has everything to do with basically buffing up your stats.
    33:04
    Until you battle the alien, right? Exactly. So it's basically you have to fight up until you battle Xenomorph. Yes. The main thing that the table does is it follows very much like what they did with the Star Wars tables, where you bash a particular block. In this case, it's a magnet. and you hit that three times on the third time, that'll open up the mode. You get to choose whether you want to follow the story as it plays out. Linearly. Or you can select which mode you want to just jump into. I selected to go linearly, which is awesome, because remember what you were saying was, oh, it's going to be a really slow build? Yeah. If you follow the... This is great. It is the weirdest thing, having a pinball machine actually give you that sense of dread. Really? Wow. They achieve it in two ways. First off, by having all of the voice call-outs or direct quotes from the movie. And so you hear it in the actors' voices, their sense of tension, and where they are in that stage of the movie is obviously, it starts off with confusion and what the heck is going on, and then slowly builds into, these things are coming, you know, that kind of thing. The other thing is the music or the lack of music, too. So they clearly didn't get the actual rights to the true movie score. But they did a very good job of, again, like what Farsight had to do with Last Action Hero. They had to appropriate it and kind of do everything. But what happens is when you first launch the ball, you get a little bit of music, and then it just goes eerily quiet, and you get those long, drawn-out string notes that kind of give you that sense of impending doom, and then the low bass notes that are kind of doing... Oh, wow. You know, a little bit like they did with The Walking Dead. Like, they really toned down the music in that to just sort of atmospheric sounds during gameplay. Not only that, but the music... And this applies to all three of the tables. The music isn't the typical electro music that Zen likes to put on their tables. This sounds more orchestral, and it fits the theme of the tables beautifully.
    35:25
    So Aliens, it gives you that sense of dread, and the first mission is you're finding Newt, and so you're shooting all the ramps to try and find her. Once you find her, then you can lock it into the scoop, which puts you into the APC which becomes video mode, which is your typical, you want a DMD, they would have done it with three lanes.
    35:50
    Except for this is straight up a lift. Right, and you're just avoiding debris. If you manage to avoid the debris long enough, you get attacked by aliens.
    35:59
    Let me tell you something. These aliens, they ain't slow. They haul butt towards your flippers. and the closer that they get to your flippers the more likely you are to center drain which I have yet to complete the mode and survive the ball always winds up bouncing down but it's great because your proximity meter is just pinging all over the place and you hear the screams of the aliens coming down and it's brilliant I have played with headphones but I've also played it with my speakers up nice and loud so I can get my subwoofer going. That's a good spatial separation of aliens if they're coming down the left side and right side. Yeah, I believe so. Well, because I only have... My headphone is a single channel. Oh, I'm not wearing the right ones today. I'm wearing the ones I use for broadcasting and the ones I play with. Anyway, I only have a single ear for that. But then I got stereo with a bass for the regular speakers. the next mission is setting up the sentry turrets and what that helps is then if the aliens attack and you have a sentry turret set up it'll help shoot those two and then Ripley's up the top of the machine and she's firing her plasma or her pulse rifle at them so that helps knock down some of the targets so you're not having to do them all with your pinball the third mode which I have unlocked once is basically you being locked in the med lab with Newt, and the Facehuggers have been released.
    37:37
    And so you need to start a fire to alert the Marines to come and get you. And when you do that, then the whole table glows red. It's like the lighting all changes. It's great. That's as far as I've gotten. I haven't gotten through any of the modes. I have yet to play it out of order because I'm like, you know what? I'm keeping this one. I don't want to. I want to play this because it's just, like I said, It's really, really good. On top of that, the pinball mechanics, the physics are wonderful. There's a nice bounce to the ball. You can do dead passes pretty easily.
    38:11
    So they've got the, I guess, the Zen 2.0 physics that they've been introducing in some of the newer tables, depending on the designer, because it's all down to the designer who actually makes a table about what physics package they want to put in. So it sounds like they really can't put the right one in. Well, again, I would say it's the same for all three. All three of the tables have the... Oh, good. It's not that dead leaden ball people complain about. There's bounce to the slings, bounce on the flipper itself. That's awesome. That will make me want to play them more, basically. Yeah, and shooting the ramps, it's not the... They're not super steep. Super fast. Yeah, but they're also not super steep, so they're not kicking them down constantly.
    38:55
    I don't know. You can get a flow. You can really get a flow on the table. So that's really pretty sweet. But for the Aliens table, I've got to say, I mean, they just knocked it out of the park for me. They hit every note that they should be hitting on it.
    39:10
    It's probably the best that I've seen Zen put out. Wow. Pretty easily. That is pretty impressive. Yeah. I can't wait to play it. Of course, the review codes aren't available for Android because they don't have that system. So I have to wait until it releases. but I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, very much. Yeah, so moving on to Alien Isolation. Well, this is a game that I've never played. Like we mentioned the other week, I've watched the first 10 minutes and that's it. So I can't tell you if the voice acting is from the game or if it's Zen doing their voice acting deal, but pretty good, pretty good on the voice acting.
    39:52
    Again, a table that just gives you a real sense of dread. This one, the storyline is basically you're trapped on a ship and you have your android kind of talking to you, talking you through the game as if he monitoring you from somewhere And uh it great because the alien will come on to the top of this table and he be like, Ripley, you're being tracked. I don't know where it is. It's not showing up on our thing, but you better hide. And sure enough, there's like a, uh, an equipment locker on the screen to the right. And if you, you bash at one and that flips open the locker and then you throw your ball in there and that hides. Cause eventually if the alien discovers you or finds out that you're on the table and how he finds out you're on the table is if you shoot the pinball too near him, he looks down at the bottom of the table and sees Ripley down there. I should say this Ripley is Ripley's daughter.
    40:46
    So in terms of timeline of when this takes place, basically Ripley was in stasis for 50 some years or whatever. So her daughter had gone out looking for her. So her daughter is in her 20s. Ripley is still a crispy popsicle on the Neskipmo.
    41:05
    So it's kind of that lower-tech alien vibe. But yeah, so if the alien discovers you, he's going to jump down to the bottom of the screen and start attacking Ripley. And if you have not done any of the methods of saving yourself by shooting certain lanes or whatever, it will attack you, and all of a sudden your screen will get this kind of red glow around the outside, for which eventually you can actually unlock health packs on the table. and if you get a health pack, then that'll kill you, basically. But yeah, the alien can kill you.
    41:39
    Oh, wow. There's been times where it's jumped down and just then I hit a lane to do the escape and there's like this tunnel that she pops in and out of and so she goes to dive in it, but the alien's got her by the ankle and she kind of shakes it loose and then goes in. But I've had other times where I missed it and the alien pulls her back down. So, again, it's a really good, good sense of what is going on, get me out of here,
    42:08
    just really ramps up the tension. It does the same thing with the aliens table in terms of music, where it's very low-key, not there for a lot of it. You get a lot of steam hisses. You get the alien crawling up and down the side of the machine. You don't want the top rail.
    42:24
    Just a lot of really cool stuff going on there. I have played through all the modes that are on that. It's a lot of hurry-up kind of pressure shots. Which, again, it kind of works for this type of table, because you're already feeling the pressure of the story, and then you get the pressure of not hitting the ramps, and I guess you're keyed up. That mechanic's the same as The Walking Dead, isn't it, really? Because a lot of the shots were timed, or pressure shots in The Walking Dead as well. Yeah, but The Walking Dead did not grab me. Yeah. This one really has.
    43:05
    Again, I don't know if it's just my... Is it because of your romanticism of the license? That's what I'm wondering. It could very well have to do with that.
    43:13
    Yeah. But final table is... It's a good one. It's Alien vs. Predator. This one, it's like the average Marvel table that they put out. Okay. For starters, it's got terrible voice acting. I mean, horrible. horrible these people the story I'm gathering is you are the predator you're playing as the predator you're a young predator apparently there's a girl and a guy that are doing all the voiceover talking and they're sitting there like if you make a couple combo shots they're like oh wow he's really good and you're like what the heck there's no fear in their voice they're almost I don't know.
    44:00
    It's almost like they're talking to somebody who they think speaks a foreign language and has no clue that the person actually understands every word they're saying. So it's like, oh, good job. Oh, you're really powerful, aren't you? And you're like, you know what? I'm not going to talk to you. You're an idiot. I'm going to keep on pretending that you don't think that I know what you're saying. Or like, you know, they're talking to you like you're five. Right. And you do a really good thing. That's an amazing painting you just did. Oh, my God. Yeah. So there's that.
    44:33
    The layout is a little funky, but it's certainly not the funkiest that Zen has ever done. But the starting of the modes is a little tricky to discover. There's an alien hiding behind a wall, and the only way to hit him is with a side flipper. Hitting him twice is what starts the mode. Basically, he winds up capturing the ball, sucking it down, and then you get your choice of what mode to do. Okay. Now, the modes in this are pretty cool. So there's one called Vertigo. It flips the entire table upside down. Oh, cool. So now you're playing upside down, which they've done in a previous Zen table also, I believe. Doctor Strange? It's either Doctor Strange or the Gauntlet one. Infinity Gauntlet, yeah. Infinity Gauntlet. Yeah, it's one of those two. Yeah.
    45:20
    So that was kind of fun to play with. they also do camouflage mode. So camouflage mode, you've got to keep the predator, because there's a predator on one side of the screen and an alien on the other side of the screen. You've got to shoot the center shot. That puts the cloaking on the predator. And then you are trying to hit lane shots that are lit. And if you don't hit the correct shot, then you come uncloaked.
    45:47
    Now, I'm a little bit confused as to if it's this mode or if it's another mode that is not activated by doing in that mode, it's more by hitting a certain lane four times and it starts happening. But your flippers can get cloaked.
    46:01
    So you can imagine how it is playing when you cannot see your flipper. Yeah, that's really awesome. Which is kind of cool. And then the third mode that is awesome is you go into Predator Vision. And apparently it's because, oh, he's using his wrist blades. I mean, literally, that's how the quote sounds. You're like, wow, you should be like, holy crap, he's using wrist blades! Instead, it's like, oh, good for you! What a good boy! You know.
    46:31
    Oh, dear. That's unfortunate. I'm still trying to work out, too, there are certain modes where all of a sudden, moving targets of the alien will pop up, and then there'll be two targets of the humans, presumably the two humans that you want to kill because of how they're talking to you. They will alternate between being green and being red. If you hit them when they're green, I think that turns them into your ally or makes the Predator like he's going to be on your side. But if you hit them when they're red, then the Predator is trying to kill you. I'm very confused as to which that is. Unfortunately, the game doesn't really give you much inclination. Or if it does, it's doing what Zen loves to do, which is, hey, we're going to throw a whole bunch of words up on the DMD, but at the same time, the ball is rolling really quickly towards your flipper.
    47:24
    And it's not one of those instances where you can just hold the flipper up and catch the ball and then go ahead and continue reading. No, it's hauling button if you don't flip. So I haven't been able to read the DMD to figure out exactly what is what. So like I say, it's more on par with your average Marvel table. It's not a bad table. It's certainly, when compared to the other two, it's the weakest of the lot. But I'm sure you're going to play it anyhow. Once you tie it together. You know, I'm sure. Yeah, no. Like I said. Just with the sound calls off. With any of the... I wish you could turn the voices off, like as a separate slider. You can't on mobile. But it's hard to mix. One of the weird things, though, too, with the Alien vs. Predator table is the in-lanes. The words that you're spelling when the ball comes in the in-lanes. Yeah. Now, on all three tables, there is no mention of Weyland-Yutani. Which I kind of found strange, right? Yeah, that's a bit bizarre. So specifically on the Alien vs. Predator table, the in-lanes spell out Y-A-U-T-J-A. I have no idea what that is. Y-A-U-T-J-A. Right. Now, it should spell Yutani as far as I'm concerned because if I'm not mistaken, in AVP, I believe it was Yutani that was in it, not Weyland. because Weyland was who was in Prometheus. But again, I'm a little sketchy on, I haven't watched it in a while. But anyway, it is one of those things where it's like, what the heck is that word? I don't even know what that word is supposed to mean.
    48:59
    Maybe you have to see your strategy guide on what those actually are for. Well, yeah, the in-game guide doesn't give me any indication.
    49:06
    Okay. So I looked at that. But anyway, point being, I think it's a phenomenal pack. It's going to be well worth the money. Definitely purchase it on Tuesday. Do yourself a favor. Yeah, because I firmly believe this is some of the best work that Zen has put together yet.
    49:26
    And the Aliens table alone is just a home run. Absolutely amazing. Insta-buy that and do yourself a favor. Yeah, yeah.
    49:35
    Cool. That sounds awesome. I can't wait to play it when it comes out in Australia. one thing that I forgot to mention at the pinball tournament was that they had a Wizard of Oz that was the one I missed out Wizard of Oz Down Under Limited Edition because I found out that there's actually a Limited Edition set for the US and a Limited Edition set for Australia so each of them have their own unique numbers and this was a Limited Edition Land Down Under Edition which is really cool and I happened to have my headphones with me and decided to plug it into the headphone interface in the coin door. And wow, wow, that sounds amazing. A little weird, though, to be playing with that sensory deprivation of not hearing the physical noises.
    50:23
    No, depending on your headphones, you can still hear it, but it's so well orchestrated. Everything is very stereo separated, so if you're on the pop bumpers, which are on the left-hand side, you get all the pop noises over on the left-hand side, and there's no delay. It's instantaneous and in sync with all the action on the play field. It's just superbly orchestrated. If you haven't tried it and you do have access to a Wizard of Oz, you've just got to try it. It's amazing. It changes the way you play. In fact, I got a better score by playing it with the headphones in because I could concentrate on the sound effects. In a noisy room filled with six or seven pinball machines, you can't hear the subtleties of the audio, and it's really fantastic. like it's yeah you got to do it you have got to do it all machines should have a headphone port on them because that's the way you get drones with headphones and uh but they were noise canceling so all you heard was what was coming through the speakers and so that's where it was weird not hearing you know the ball roll and the the slingshots you know firing you know you you weren't hearing any of that noise so it was this kind of interesting uh dynamic of sound effects a turn off.
    51:34
    Kind of, yeah. I said it was going to be all pinball. We had a ton to talk about. We are done. I'll hit you with everybody with the usual information. Check us out on Twitter. Jared is at JaredMorgz. Myself, I am at ShutYourTraps. The show itself is at Blockade. I have posted some Twitch videos of Aliens vs. Pinball. if you want to look it up on Twitch. Use your name. Shut your trap with an underscore right after it. You can find a couple of the videos. I put up videos of each of the machines.
    52:16
    T-shirts, go to represent.com forward slash blockade dash shirt. Get on that. Buy something. Beyond that, I think those are all of our things we like to pimp out. Well, gang, we will talk again next week, probably. more than likely so we look forward to doing this again and hope you all enjoyed thank you for listening catch you next time see ya wizardamusement.com the west coast leader in classic pinball makers of custom pinball shooter rods and buyer specifications swap out your standard ball plunger with something themed to your specific table installs in less than five minutes with no custom tools even if you don't own a table looks great as a pinball memento to admire. Prices start at $39, but mention Blockade Podcast and receive 10% off your order. WizardAmusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization.
    53:16
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that Blockade is delivered to. We can't approve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.
    53:32
    you