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Arcade Trip! Jaws and Popeye Battle for the Seas

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·31m 28s·analyzed·Apr 24, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Jaws disappoints with art/perspective issues; Popeye surprises with engaging Williams-era design.

Summary

Two Bash Pinball podcast hosts share first impressions from playing Jaws (Premium edition) and Popeye Saves the Earth (1994 Williams) at Super Bari Arcade in Charlotte, NC. Jaws disappointed them due to weak artwork (googly-eyed shark, Impact font), confusing playfield perspective mixing beach/ocean, missing art blades on Premium tier, and underbaked code (v0.87). By contrast, Popeye surprised them positively with engaging shot difficulty, unique mechanical features (upper playfield with flippers, spinning carousel), and excellent Python Angled art style creating a cohesive 'world under glass' theme.

Key Claims

  • Jaws Premium edition they played did not include art blades on the sides, only the LE version has them standard

    high confidence · Direct playfield observation: 'The Pro and the Premium, there's nothing... You gotta pay that big money... It's just kind of lame that they make you do that. Because the stickers are like less than $100.'

  • Jaws code version was 0.87 at time of play, which is underbaked and caused unclear shot lighting and mode progression

    high confidence · 'the code was underbaked and it was like .87 I think was the version that we played... Things weren't happening the way you would expect them to... sometimes you just didn't even know what to shoot at.'

  • Godzilla has been number one on Pinside Top 100 since its 2021 release (three+ years running)

    high confidence · 'it's been number one since it came out in 2021... Yeah, and it's still number one... based on 1,672 ratings for Godzilla... And it's been the number one game for three years running. Yeah, and it's still number one.'

  • Jaws was briefly #1 on Pinside but has since dropped to #23 based on 345 ratings

    high confidence · 'I think Jaws was number one. Actually, the last time I looked on Pinside, Jaws was number one... No, I got to look right now... No, I'm up to 20 and there's still no Jaws. So let's see. Oh, there it is, 23.'

  • Popeye Saves the Earth (1994 Williams) features a right loop shot that is extremely difficult with near-zero margin for error

    high confidence · Direct gameplay experience: 'hitting those shots could have kept me there for like another hour trying to hit that right loop thing... yeah that shot was insane... exactly zero percent you know allowance for error.'

  • Stern released Bond (recent) with poor code initially that was hated, but improved significantly with code updates

    high confidence · 'like bond like the last bond that came out everybody hated it until the code was finished... the first time i played it i hated it... most recently i loved it... the code makes such a huge difference.'

Notable Quotes

  • “He's not very menacing compared to the real Jaws. He looks like he should be busting out of the side of a seafood restaurant. Right? Like Captain D's. Come eat me.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:03:30 — Encapsulates primary criticism of Jaws shark toy design—googly-eyed, friendly appearance undermines theme

  • “I thought it was some weird like contrast of color. Yeah. And I thought we were in the ocean, but then I realized, no, I'm looking at the ocean from like a side. It's very odd. The perspective is weird.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:07:00 — Identifies core design flaw: confusing playfield perspective/layout fails to communicate beach setting clearly

  • “It's just kind of lame that they make you do that. Because the stickers are like less than $100. So it's just put them on the premium for crying out loud.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:09:30 — Criticizes Stern's three-tier pricing strategy: withholding minor $100 art blade cosmetics from Premium to push LE sales

  • “It's almost like they designed it as a game, like the play field, without really considering immersing you into the world of the cabinet, right? If that makes sense.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:32:00 — Encapsulates key design philosophy difference: Jaws prioritizes mechanical/gameplay goals over cohesive thematic world experience (contrasts with Popeye/Labyrinth)

  • “There's a huge demand or maybe demand is significantly increasing for pinball and interests and people demanding themes and there's a lot of money to be made... so then companies like Stern that kind of already have the infrastructure, right, can easily say, well, we can do it. And then they do, but you have to make certain sacrifices, right?”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:34:00 — Industry insight: high licensing demand + Stern's scale advantages pressuring creative/mechanical compromises; 'designed by committee vibe'

  • “We just want to see it looking like the Popeye game or something like that. Yeah, man. You know, just something interesting.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:35:00 — Expresses frustration with Jaws' aesthetics; uses Popeye as gold standard for cohesive, interesting thematic design

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonGodzillagameJawsgamePopeye Saves the EarthgameSuper Bari ArcadeeventStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern facing market demand/licensing pressure forcing infrastructure-driven compromises on game design quality and creative cohesion ('designed by committee')

    medium · 'there's a huge demand... for pinball... companies like Stern... can easily say, well, we can do it. And then they do, but you have to make certain sacrifices... It's got a little bit of a designed by committee vibe.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Godzilla maintains #1 position on Pinside Top 100 with 1,672 ratings across 3+ years, establishing high-bar benchmark for Elwin design quality

    high · 'it's been number one since it came out in 2021... And it's still number one... based on 1,672 ratings for Godzilla... it's been the number one game for three years running.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jaws shark toy features googly eyes and friendly appearance, undermining horror/menace of Jaws theme; compared unfavorably to toy design precedent

    high · 'He's not very menacing compared to the real Jaws. He looks like he should be busting out of the side of a seafood restaurant... baby shark... He shouldn't be called jaws he should be called like baby shark.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jaws playfield perspective confuses theme: mixed beach/ocean imagery with ambiguous sight lines makes it unclear whether player is viewing beachside or underwater scene

    high · 'I didn't realize where i was... The perspective is weird... there's no... I didn't realize there was also beach on... one side and maybe ocean on the other or something.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jaws designed with mechanical/gameplay goals prioritized over thematic world immersion, unlike Williams-era games like Popeye that create cohesive 'world under glass' experience

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.094

0:00
Jaws? Hated it. Spoiler alert! Yeah, so Don is once again not on this intro, unfortunately. He was walking out to his fancy hybrid the other day. I guess he hadn't driven in a while because he lives like 10 feet from where he works. So I guess he just didn't notice the wasp's nest when he opened the door. And they were big and they were sting crazy. Picture sloth from Goonies, but with a full set of teeth and hair. And that should give you an idea. Anyway, real quick, this is a two-part episode. and just for context, Don and I took a trip to Super Bari Arcade in Charlotte, North Carolina. They had a few new games that neither of us had ever played before, including Jaws, Labyrinth, Pulp Fiction, and a new game to us, Popeye Saves the Earth, the 1994 Valley Williams game. So this one will be largely Jaws and Popeye, and the next one will be Labyrinth and Pulp Fiction. Now I just got to pop in the tape for episode three. Hold on to your butts.
1:23
come on in welcome to the theater of magic welcome to the party zone welcome to my home welcome to the bash yeah are you feeling any better after the whole like you know when you realized jaws didn't didn't eat the ball no really no no i'm still um i'm still thinking about it actually and i was just thinking about the picture of what it looks like in my head that was posted online yeah and it's got googly eyes he just looks like a happy googly shark like he should be he shouldn't be called jaws he should be called like baby shark baby shark baby shark See, it works. Look at the picture and listen to how it works.
2:21
He's not very menacing compared to the real Jaws. He looks like he should be busting out of the side of a seafood restaurant.
2:31
Right? Like Captain D's. Come eat me. But that was legit. I literally had that thought today of what it looks like. And then the font right below with the curvature or whatever. It's got like the PowerPoint stretch effect with the same – I think it's impact. I think that's what the font – but I don't know. I mean that's – so between those two things, it's weird. It's like I can't let it go.

  • “Popeye, really fun. We have to check it out some more... Once I get better at the upper play field, is that even fun? Yeah. Once I get better at the other thing, is that even fun? So when you're figuring out a game... there's so much to figure out.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:23:00 — Highlights appeals of Williams-era design: emergent complexity and discovery mechanics that modern games lack

  • “It was probably the game we played the most while we were there, maybe. I don't know. I mean, Jaws maybe, but for me, Popeye felt like the most organic game that we played a lot.”

    Bash Pinball host (unnamed) @ ~0:24:00 — Popeye engagement exceeded expectation; natural, organic replay drive suggests superior design

    • Labyrinth
    game
    Pulp Fictiongame
    Donperson
    Barry Orslerperson
    Python Angledperson
    Michael Bernardperson

    high · 'It's almost like they designed it as a game, like the play field, without really considering immersing you into the world of the cabinet... Popeye... you knew exactly what it was, where you were, the theme.'

  • $

    market_signal: Jaws ranked #23 on Pinside Top 100 (345 ratings) after briefly being #1, suggesting hype cycle deflation post-release

    high · 'I think Jaws was number one... No, I got to look right now... No, I'm up to 20 and there's still no Jaws. So let's see. Oh, there it is, 23.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern withholding $100 art blade cosmetics from Premium and Pro tiers to force LE upsell, despite minor manufacturing cost

    high · 'You gotta pay that big money... It's just kind of lame that they make you do that. Because the stickers are like less than $100. So it's just put them on the premium.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jaws art blade cosmetics available as optional add-on purchase, suggesting post-release monetization of design elements

    high · 'the art blades... the premium one we played didn't have them... Only standard on the le... You can buy those and add them on.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern's recent pattern of shipping incomplete code before completion, evidenced by Bond reception improving dramatically post-update

    high · 'like bond like the last bond that came out everybody hated it until the code was finished... the code makes such a huge difference and they... just have these contracts with the licensees... and it's a shame that they can't finish the games first.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Jaws shipped with underbaked code (v0.87) featuring unclear shot lighting, confusing mode progression, and lack of feedback on gameplay objectives

    high · 'the code was underbaked... Things weren't happening the way you would expect them to... sometimes you just didn't even know what to shoot at. Like nothing seemed lit.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Popeye Saves the Earth exceeded both hosts' expectations despite initial dismissive attitudes, becoming most frequently played game of arcade visit

    high · 'I was like, whatever... I guess I will play Popeye... it was probably the game we played the most while we were there... for me, Popeye felt like the most organic game that we played a lot.'

    • 3:05
    So we played – at Super Bari, we played Jaws LE. No, no. I'm sorry. It wasn't the LE. It was the premium. Boxcar now has the LE Yeah so This is kind of Keith Elwin's next Big game after Godzilla Which is seemingly regarded as the best game of all time So how do you follow that up?
    3:32
    Jaws is how you follow that up Best game of all time Get out of here I mean it's been number one on Pinside Yeah because it's a great game But best of all time Get out of here That's like a totally different I don't know Okay, like 20 years from now, it's still part of all time. Do you think Godzilla is still going to be number one? I think it's still going to be pretty high. It'll be like top 10 maybe. It'll still be top 10 in 20 years, I bet. Or top 20. I don't know. Unless pinball evolves dramatically. But to say it's the best game of all time. I mean, it's been number one since it came out in 2021. But yeah, just based on the Pinside rankings Which aren't, what does it mean? They're different on different websites But on Pinside, based on thousands of reviews That's been the number one game for three years running Yeah, and it's still number one So based on 1,672 ratings for Godzilla A lot of new games come out and you get 50 reviews and it is immediately number one because it's the first 50 people that bought it. I think Jaws was number one. Actually, the last time I looked on Pinside, Jaws was number one. No. It was. No. I got to look right now. And so it's now not number one. Oh, you're looking at it.
    4:52
    Yeah. No, I'm up to 20 and there's still no Jaws. So let's see. Oh, there it is, 23. And that's based on 345 ratings. But yeah, that seems like a common trend though. Like when a game first comes out, It's usually within the top 10 and then it'll like slowly move its way out. Yeah.
    5:11
    I didn't like the deep ocean sliver of beach. More ocean. Yeah. Or sky. I actually played that whole night and I didn't even realize until the next day. Oh, my God. This is supposed to be a beach.
    5:27
    You mean like that little bit? Yeah. The little yellow. I thought it was some weird like contrast of color. Yeah. And I thought we were in the ocean, but then I realized, no, I'm looking at the ocean from like a side. It's very odd. The perspective is weird. I don't know why they chose to do that. So they could have the big jaws at the bottom rising up through the flippers, but it's not worth it. I don't think it's worth it. I would have much preferred just the whole bottom third being the beach. Bottom third is the beach, and then the deep ocean is over there where the big shark is that you have to hit. Yeah, that's what I was hoping for. More like the world under glass kind of overhead view kind of thing. Yeah, like Baywatch. Yeah. Is that what Baywatch does? It kind of looks like that. Yeah, that would have been... I mean, you know, maybe not exactly, but I remember like, you know, there's like the little, some of the toys or little like elements that are in there make you feel like it's a part of the beach. Like the ball, the playfield is the beach. Yeah, yeah. um it's the it's the python angelo art style like uh popeye another oh man wait spoiler alert no not necessarily we don't have to get into that but it's just that like overhead view of a little world it's cool i like that and on popeye it's like a boat yeah it's all very similar in this case it feels good like you don't think twice you just know where you are you know and then jaws is the opposite yeah there's no i didn't realize where i was yeah i mean not i guess not every game has to be that because not every game it would make sense to have you know star wars you wouldn't want the whole play field to be like tatooine or something but you probably also wouldn't want the whole play field to just be like space right right because neither of those things are that interesting but a game like jaws it just seems so easy and obvious to do the little world under glass thing with the beach and the water and yeah and you the art i guess the art blades if you get those which the premium one we played didn't have them i guess it's only standard on the le because heaven forbid they put a ten dollar sticker on a 9500 machine um what what What do they have on the other Art Blades There just nothing It just black Wait what The one we played is just black on the sides I didn even notice that Yeah, the sides, there's nothing The Pro and the Premium, there's nothing What about the back? The back had a little town Yeah, there's artwork on the very back Not on the sides by default Wow You gotta pay that big money You can buy those and add them on It's just kind of lame that they make you do that.
    8:18
    Because the stickers are like less than $100. So it's like, just put them on the premium for crying out loud. I get if you want to strip the pro, but the premium doesn't have them? That just seems lame. And now for an important message.
    8:38
    There's one thing all magic has in common. Illusion. It's making people think they saw something that they didn't. The point is this Things aren't always what they seem In magic and in life There's always something more that meets the eye If you don't get the message You will Take it from me Mr. T And now back to the show Um Yeah so now it's raining a lot And uh hopefully Our And there's a tornado watch And there's a thunderstorm warning and we're in our... What is this like? What are the dimensions? I'm trying to remember. This building is like 20 by 14. It's actually bigger than I thought. Yeah, it's bigger. I mean, there's just so much stuff in here. Yeah. It kind of makes it look a little small. It's actually a pretty big space. Yeah, that's why I keep saying, let's just get some of this stuff out of here. It's going to feel so much better. Yeah, so right now, just to set the stage a little bit, In the pinball shed, the shedcade, as it's affectionately known. We have four pinball machines. They're all in places where they can be played, although not all currently functioning. And then we have a commercial coffee roaster beside me to my right. We have a AKG BX20 vintage reverb unit That's about the size of a small refrigerator And then we have a 1987 Neotech Elite recording console That is about No, I take it back This building is 12 feet wide Not 14 feet wide 20 by 12 Because that console is 11 feet wide Oh, I bet that was funny Yeah, so the console is on one end the 12 foot end and it fills up the entire width and it's about four feet deep um so that's taking up an enormous amount of space and then for pinball you do the math folks there there's uh you know standing room only in here you know what's funny as you were describing all the items in this room yeah like i realized how this just became normal like i'm like oh yeah you do have a recording console oh man yeah i mean i totally forgot that was over there yeah like yeah three feet away four feet away maybe yeah so the recording console is destined for uh the studio which is currently in need of drywall it's being built right now once the drywall is up then we can move the console um to the studio yay get it out of here and have more room for more pinball machines.
    11:24
    So yeah, it's thunderstorming, and you might be able to hear... The whole reason I started talking about that is because you might hear some thunder. I think my software can remove the rain probably, but I don't know if it's going to get all the thunder without me doing excessive amounts of editing, which I'm not going to do. Don't do it. But yeah, anyway. The moral of the story is it sounds okay now, and it's probably going to sound better in the future. because we're going to record it in the real deal studio. Definitely sound better. But it sounds great.
    12:01
    So I agree that on Jaws, the artwork and clip art. The beer cans, man. What the fuck? Yeah, all of that, it seems underwhelming. Like everybody said. But I, other than all of the things that you said, I did enjoy just the shots. I enjoyed the shots. And I think I enjoyed the shots more than you because I've been playing a different modern Stern game a lot. And I'm just dialed into the Stern flippers. It just felt. It feels similar. Exactly the same. Yeah, it feels similar. The shots weren't the same, but it was close enough that I felt like I could just hit everything pretty quickly. you know what was cool though just a little like um flipper the little mini flipper on the right yeah and it was cool once you kind of figured out what it could do yeah i i never actually i think i saw you do it once where you trapped the ball yeah it was useful for the two ball multi ball because you could kind of trap it up there and and maybe there's like some better combo shot you can get from hitting like two shots like maybe that left yeah well i don't know i would assume I don't think I did it, but I would assume you could hit those drop targets a lot easier if you trapped up first. I think so. I'm not good with the mini flippers because I've never – I don't think I've ever owned a game that had the mini flippers. I feel interesting. So, yeah, I'm really not used to the timing on those because there's a couple other modern sterns that have – like Iron Maiden has some mini flippers. Oh, yeah. I don't like those, man. I like the game. I don't like those flippers. I think I just don't really like mini flippers in general. This one was cool, the Jaws one. I thought that was kind of interesting and the little shark fin that pops up right behind it yeah the plastic drop target shark fin thing yeah I mean the play field changing color I think was the coolest part of that whole deal that's cool but the problem was like also just the code was underbaked and it was like .87 I think was the version that we played yeah so I felt like the yeah, like we were just nothing. Things weren't happening the way you would expect them to. I felt, yeah, I felt a little off. Like sometimes you just didn't even know what to shoot at. Like nothing seemed lit. There was some oddities like that that seemed code related. I kind of got the similar feel where like I'm hitting stuff. Yeah. I don't know what's happening. I'm not sure how I got to this mode. But you know, that kind of is the trend with Stern games lately is they release them before they're done like bond like the last bond that came out everybody hated it until the code was finished yeah it's funny because i didn't know that and the first time i played it i hated it yeah most recently i loved it yeah yeah i mean the code makes such a huge difference and they you know i'm sure they just have these contracts with the licensees to you know release them at these certain times and it's a shame that they can't finish the games first so yeah we should mentioned we played at super bari in charlotte and you know we were there was it a saturday or friday it was it was a weekend yeah it was a saturday a bari is like an old school arcade essentially and when there's a lot of people in there it is loud not a lot of like sound deadening or anything and they have the games just wall to wall in there yeah anyway so our impressions of these games are limited somewhat because we can't couldn't hear them very well wait you know what's funny matt is this is actually a good this might be a good time to play that clip that we try to record which one the the jaws and a little bit of you playing Jaws Oh right right right Because you could actually get an idea of the noise floor Right, right, right, right. So insert clip here.
    15:54
    You just got Jaws multiball, man. How does it feel? It feels amazing. I just always try to give 110%. You know, every time I play pinball, sometimes you try to give 110% and you just can't quite get there because, you know, you just don't have the mental capacity at that time. All right, now I'll let you get back to the game.
    16:18
    Reporting live from Super Ibari Pinball in Charlotte, North Carolina. And now for a word from our sponsor.
    16:29
    Olly, Olly, I'm so pretty! Hey, where's John? What's all the excitement? Recondo, we can't find John. He was heading that way. Oh, no. Check that old refrigerator.
    16:45
    Thanks, Recondo. Remember, never get in anything that could close up and trap you. Like an old trunk? Or an abandoned refrigerator. Now we know. And knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe!
    16:59
    And now, back to the show. And I don't know if you want to talk about this, but you know what inspired me recently? What? Popeye. Oh, Popeye, yeah. Yeah, that was kind of the other end of the spectrum in terms of classic pinball that just is interesting and makes you say, what the heck is that? What does that do? The artwork is weird. and you know it was for me personally it was it was kind of it was kind of hard to hit some of those shots i don't know why i was having the hardest time well i know it's like the hardest shot in the world but you know it seems like such like a uh like an older it's like oh it's gonna look an older game and it's kind of you know it's probably lame and boring and whatever and dude just hitting those shots could have kept me there for like another hour trying to hit that right loop thing that was like a weird drop thing that went up that far right shot where it's like exactly zero percent you know allowance for error yeah um yeah that shot was insane and and that was the first because you mentioned previously that um you know the that era of um games as williams games tended to be kind of a little wider shot compared to the modern games and you know i think i commented that I hadn't ever seen any super tight shots on Williams games either. And that was the first one where I was just like, holy cow, that's just impossible. Do you, do you remember when we were there, when we recently played it right at Super Barney? Yeah. Do you remember there was a ball where I, I, I caught it, I had it and I kept trying it. It was like, it fell for like five minutes. Like it was like, maybe not, maybe like two or three minutes, but I literally kept getting the ball like it kept coming back and i'll try it again it would come right back now you tried it like seven or eight times it was crazy and i looked at you and i said are you serious yeah no you were you were just like i don't think this is possible and i was i was looking at it from the other angle you know the like facing you and i was like i don't think it's possible either yeah but we got it i mean i think i got it once bouncing off of something else and then maybe maybe one other time i remember that it kind of like floated in yeah it like hit something and then it floated kind of like and i was like oh maybe that's how you're supposed to do it well yeah also the only the first time we hit it it was an accident it was like maybe the only way you can hit it is you know by accident like on uh like the dracula shot with the uh with the renfield oh yeah renfield that's exactly what it reminded me of yeah it just kind of falls in there sometimes if you're lucky it'd be a super hard shot to try to make yeah right yeah well it's impossible you can't hit it yeah yeah i was wondering that too but then eventually both of us did hit it yeah and it seems like it's a pretty um important part of the game because that's what loops around and comes to the left side of that interesting right right the little upper deck that has all the animals or it's got that weird yeah the upper play field with the two flippers and and um the extra two flippers up there that's how you get it up there right right but both times i think we got actually got it up there oh it just drained immediately got it got it got it didn't know what was happening got it got it you're right you're right yeah so we have to go back and play and actually get to the upper play field and then actually continue to hit the ball before it drains that's the goal either way right as we were playing it and figuring all these things out yeah i was having fun like that this is this is kind of what makes that game yeah fun you know it's like as you're you're figuring these things out and it's it's not that easy it looks cool you realize oh man i'm on this upper deck of this boat and then all of a sudden you know like the ball's already fallen yeah i i'm unsure about the the mechanism on the upper left if that's actually fun or not because i just haven't done enough times to do anything because it seems impossible currently yeah i i love that thing it's cool i like the idea of so so here's the question right like this little you hit the flipper as the ball's looping around right yeah so in Popeye there's probably most people haven't played Popeye yeah so it's uh you hit you hit it and it goes into this upper area that looks kind of like a weird ramp on the upper left and it has all these notches in it yeah and then each one has like an animal or something right it's like some kind of character like an animal yeah and then when you hit it up there it enables these additional like plunger things that push the ball um into one of the notches right but you can only hit it like twice it was three times three times so yeah and then it would just not you had three three chances to hit the ball as it's coming kind of quickly down this rampage thing um into these slots and And it's very hard timing because – so I couldn't figure out if you actually have to hit the ball into the notch or if you like wedge it out before so the ball bounces off. I didn't figure that out either. I just – it was hilarious because every time I would flip, it would be right in between, right? And then the ball – I wouldn't hit the ball. And I would flip again and the timing was perfectly to where we're in the next gap and then the next one. Yeah. It seems hard enough that you could – it will have to – it will be something that takes a while to get good at. and then maybe it becomes fun. That was a lot of fun, man. Actually, I thought it was fun. Yeah. No, I thought the game was fun. It's another Barry Orsler game, like Whodunit and Dracula and some of your faves. Yeah. No wonder. Yeah, no wonder. That'd be a cool game to have just as a small collection in your house just for aesthetic appeal, too. Because it has a cool blue. oh yeah yeah the art the red it's like the red and blue it's like a deep red and blue and uh you know it's got the big bluedo like yeah it's weird like the color clearly they had like a limited color palette they could use yeah yeah and it's kind of odd but it's kind of cool it kind of stands out like in the corner of a space or a room or something or yeah um you know like a semi semi-lit spot it would be cool like especially like at a party or something or at night yeah um you'd be at your friend's house you see this thing on the corner you're gonna play it Yeah I thought For a game that not that highly regarded relative to other games of that era I was pleasantly surprised by that game I was too. I didn't think I – it was funny because you were like, hey, we should play Popeye, and I was like, whatever. Yeah, I was kind of – I was saying it in sort of a dismissive way. I was like, I guess I will play Popeye. I guess I will too because it's the only thing that's open. Yeah, yeah. And then it was probably the game we played the most while we were there, maybe. I don't know. I mean, Jaws maybe, but for me, Popeye felt like the most organic game that we played a lot. Yeah. Right? It felt like because it was fun, we just naturally stayed there. Yeah. Yeah, that was a nice surprise because I didn't even realize that they had that game newly. Yeah, so Popeye, really fun. We have to check it out some more. I mean, it remains to be seen if all of these things that are in that game that are current – there's a lot of unknowns right now as far as like is this going to – once I get better at the upper play field, is that even fun? Yeah. Once I get better at the other thing, is that even fun? So when you're figuring out a game – I mean that was one of the cool things about all those Williams games is there's so much to figure out. you could play it like a hundred times before you even like did just all the things you could see yeah it always felt like there was some secret stuff that you weren't seeing yeah and you just wanted to be like oh what's that do what's that do you know and they were always adding things that had never been in any other game before like those things in pop are pretty unique it's cool yeah what about when you when you uh plunge or you start there's like a little spinning yeah yeah there's a little chance chance carousel thing that you have to kind of try to land in yeah it's a load of stuff it's unique yeah that would be like a fifteen thousand dollar game now it was funny and and uh oh man the uh even the the python angelo artwork with that like overhead world under glass thing it's so cool a boat like the whole play field is a boat yeah it was incredible man yeah and i remember we had this conversation too about um how you You could see it. I mean, you could play. You could see it. You knew exactly what it was, where you were, the theme, what was going on. Yeah. With Jaws, it was weird because it was like, oh, wait, we're in the ocean, deep ocean, because Jaws is coming up out of the dark ocean. Yeah. But then there's the beach, right? So he's going to... But then there's more beach. So where is the ocean? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And then if you have the art blades, there's also beach on, I think, one side and maybe ocean on the other or something. So it's almost like, you know, here's my kind of quick take on it, right? It's almost like they designed it as a game, like the play field, without really considering immersing you into the world of the cabinet, right? If that makes sense. If you could make the cabinet a small world, yeah this is kind of a different more like technical slash yeah goal driven slash like yeah game making uh yeah instead of like providing an experience that really like labyrinth right where it kind of has all these little things that make you like feel like you feel like you're in this little world yeah you know what i'm saying it feels more like a yeah for sure yeah i mean Jaws is definitely lacking in that regard it's just it's not really cohesive like the when you move from like one area of the play field to the next like you said it's like water and then sand and then more water and it's just like a little strip of this and it doesn't and what's funny is I looked at when it came out we watched the trailer we tried to record that episode whatever that first episode was whatever I played I finally played it with you right yeah that was when i finally realized what i was seeing oh this is a beach and this is him coming out of the water but then the beach is also straight ahead yeah so i didn't realize i didn't even know like to me it was just like graphics you know like my brain just said graphics you know i didn't really comprehend whereas with popeye yeah oh what it oh cool oh my god look we're like in this in the sea on a boat and we're literally it's like the boat is coming it's 3d yeah yeah that was really cool you know it kind of it's like a different yeah it's it kind of is more like that photoshoppy yeah like 10 years ago stern kind of thing impact farm man yeah i don't know i don't get it i it i'm sure it's functional it's just maybe function over form in this case but i mean it seems like tell me you know maybe this is my opinion but it seems like there's a huge demand or maybe demand is significantly increasing yeah for pinball and interests and people demanding themes and there's a lot of money to be made and like a lot of themes maybe maybe companies or themes themselves wanting to make pinball machines, right? And like, it seems like there's a scarcity of people that are able to capitalize on this, so then companies like Stern that kind of already have the infrastructure, right, can easily say, well, we can do it. And then they do,
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    but you have to make certain sacrifices, right? Whether it be creatively, you know, mechanically, graphics on the screens, right? It's like... Yeah, I mean, it has a little bit of a designed by committee vibe to it. Yeah. You know, and I think that's, it's unfortunate because... We just want to see it looking like the Popeye game or something like that. Yeah, man. You know, just something interesting. Like, let the shark pop out. Let me get the ball in its mouth. Can I put my balls in your jaws? Your jaws. Balls in your jaws. Can I? So next week, Don and I will have our first impressions of Pulp Fiction and Labyrinth. New episodes come out Wednesdays. Don also says he's working on something. I don't know. I haven't heard it yet. I don't know. Could be good. Might be terrible. We'll see. So send us your brain drippings to pod at bashpinball.com. Don's also been posting some stuff on Instagram. and that's at bash pinball i think that's it oh there is one last thing
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    Return to your role. Evacuate all personnel.