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Fadgeting with your Dinner Sausage

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·48m 25s·held·Feb 19, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

BlahCade hosts rank licensed pinball tables vs. their source IP and discuss Pinball Arcade backglass tech challenges.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss pinball machines based on movie and TV licenses, comparing which tables are better than their source material. They cover Williams/Bally era machines like The Shadow, Congo, Demolition Man, Judge Dredd, and Doctor Who, then discuss technical challenges Farsight will face implementing custom backglasses for The Pinball Arcade, particularly with alphanumeric and non-DMD displays.

Key Claims

  • John Wick 2 had 128 kills, 104 by headshot, compared to 77 kills (49 headshots) in the first John Wick

    high confidence · Chris discussing John Wick Chapter 2 movie kills statistics

  • Keanu Reeves trained with actual live ammo on competitive shooting courses for John Wick films

    high confidence · Chris describing Keanu's real-world shooting training for the films

  • The original Doctor Who pinball table's DMD effects are actually better than many episodes of the early TV series

    medium confidence · Jared's opinion on Doctor Who table vs. original series effects

  • Farsight will need to create custom backglasses for The Pinball Arcade that handle non-DMD displays differently

    high confidence · Discussion of Farsight's upcoming backglass feature based on forum user Relaxation's technical observations

  • Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball is considered the worst Bally/Williams licensed pinball table

    medium confidence · Chris nominating Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball as the worst licensed Bally/Williams table

  • A user on eBay sold a single sock with a ball on the ankle for $99

    low confidence · Jared describing someone's eBay selling strategy with unusual items

  • Bunnings (Australian hardware chain) opened its first UK store and is continuing the sausage sizzle tradition there

    high confidence · Jared discussing Bunnings expansion to UK and sausage sizzle fundraising events

  • Dread and The Raid are virtually the same plot, made at the same time independently

    medium confidence · Chris discussing how Dread and The Raid tell the same story with different action styles

  • Terminator 2 is being converted to 3D for theatrical re-release with James Cameron supervising

    high confidence · Chris discussing upcoming Terminator 2 3D conversion and theatrical release plans

Notable Quotes

  • “It'd have to be Drop Target City. But also he's doing it in combination, so you'd also have to have ramps and combo moves of doing these things.”

    Chris Friebus — Chris speculating on how a John Wick pinball machine would be designed given the movie's emphasis on headshots and weapon combinations

  • “Terrible movie. Fantastic pinball. The Shadow.”

    Chris Friebus — Core premise of the episode—identifying licensed tables better than their source material

  • “I think the pinball machines are slightly worse I think... it's a tough call right”

    Jared Morgan — Jared's hedging on Gilligan's Island table vs. TV show, showing difficulty in direct comparisons

  • “I would nominate it as probably the Bally and Williams worst licensed table out there.”

    Chris Friebus — Chris declaring Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash the worst Williams/Bally licensed table

  • “They're probably all done on Silicon Graphics workstations which no longer exist anymore. Right. So, yeah, that'd be a bit of a challenge.”

    Jared Morgan — Technical discussion of challenges converting Terminator 2 CGI assets from legacy systems to 3D

  • “I'm kind of of the opinion of just not redesigning the back glass at all, just squishing it all onto the 32 inch, faking the speakers and making the speakers look like they're there”

    Chris Friebus — Chris proposing solution for Farsight's backglass implementation for non-DMD tables

  • “What do you do with a back glass that's, say, for an alphanumeric table? Or what do you do with a table where the information is in between the speaker grill and not actually up on the back glass?”

    Chris Friebus — Highlighting technical challenges for Pinball Arcade backglass implementation on older machines

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonKeanu Reevesperson[name withheld pending review]personJames CameronpersonBlahCade Pinball PodcastorganizationFarsight StudioscompanySpooky PinballcompanyWilliamscompany

Signals

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Chris speculates whether John Wick would make a good pinball license and discusses potential gameplay mechanics (drop targets, ramps, multiball)

    low · Chris discussing John Wick as potential license: 'would John Wick be a good license to make a pinball table out of?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of how licensed pinball tables can exceed or fall short of their source material, with examples of strong table design despite weak IP

    high · Extended comparison of licensed tables vs. source material across multiple Williams/Bally machines

  • ?

    technology_signal: Farsight Studios is implementing custom backglass features for The Pinball Arcade, requiring technical solutions for alphanumeric and non-DMD display tables

    high · Chris and Jared discussing forum user Relaxation's technical questions about backglass implementation for alphanumeric and specialty display tables

  • ?

    product_concern: Technical challenges in emulating older pinball display formats (alphanumeric, speaker-grill displays, light arrays) in modern digital implementation

    high · Discussion of F-14 Tomcat, Circus Voltaire, Taxi and how their non-standard display layouts will require custom backglass solutions

  • ?

    product_launch: Spooky Pinball's Jetsons table is in development as an entry-level machine with simplified System 11-style gameplay

    high · Jared describing artwork for Spooky's Jetsons table: 'looks like it would be a fun machine to just have in a mom and dad's playroom'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.145

0:00
This is the Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me, as always, Jared Morgan.
0:40
Good day, Chris. How's it going? Things are going smashingly well, considering that yesterday at work we got to hit the four quadrants of... Oh, God.
0:53
Really? Yes, yes, which were working exterior at night in the rain on a Friday. Friday is when your Friday goes into Saturday and you're still working. Oh, God. I can see why it's called that. So, yeah, it was like, really? Oh, misery.
1:19
Misery and despair. Yes. For me, yesterday, it was all barbecue. It was barbecue all things. Yeah, because over here we have a large hardware chain called Bunnings, and Bunnings let you raise money for your local community group or charity by doing a sausage sizzle. I don't know if that concept's a thing for Australia only, but a sausage sizzle is basically a sausage cooked on the barbecue and then put in a bread, a slice of bread. Are we talking bratwurst or sausages? No, just barbecue sausages. Not morning breakfast sausages, but evening sausages, I guess is what you would say. I don't know what evening sausages are. I don't either. Do they wear a waistcoat, and do you have to, like, buy them dinner first or what?
2:10
Well, like, we have things called Louisiana hot links, which are technically a sausage, but they're kind of spicy and hot. Oh, okay. They're not a bratwurst, which obviously are a completely different thing. So, I mean, I guess we have different types of sausages here. But I don't know. What is your sausage comprised of? Well, they're actually, you know, lips and assholes.

  • The Jetsons pinball table by Spooky is designed as an entry-level pinball machine with System 11-like layout

    high confidence · Jared describing the Spooky Jetsons table as simple System 11-style entry-level machine

    • Bally
    company
    The Shadowgame
    Congogame
    Demolition Mangame
    Judge Dreddgame
    Doctor Whogame
    The Jetsonsgame
    Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ballgame
    Rollergamesgame
    Twilight Zonegame
    The Pinball Arcadeproduct
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Bunningscompany
    Relaxationperson
  • ?

    design_innovation: The Jetsons table employs deliberate simplification for entry-level players while maintaining engagement, using thematic plastic ramps styled as spaceship paths

    medium · Jared noting Jetsons is 'basically almost like a System 11 layout. Very basic rule set, but still fun and engaging' with 'massive plastic ramps that actually look like the paths that the spaceships take'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts soliciting community feedback via email and forum posts about licensed pinball tables, indicating active audience participation strategy

    high · Chris: 'go ahead...Drop us an email, blahblahblockade at gmail.com, or hit us up on Twitter...We'll collect them, and then we'll discuss that next time'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Discussion of how licensing strategy and quality varied across Williams/Bally era machines, with System 11 era (Bugs Bunny, Elvira) showing particular quality variance

    medium · Chris noting Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash is 'of the era of, say, Elvira and the Party Monsters' System 11 tables with quality issues

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade using TV Tropes as reference source for comprehensive licensed table lists, directing audience to external resource for extended discussion

    high · Chris: 'the site that I was getting this list off of is tvtropes.org...and Jared will post the actual link'

    • 2:33
    And all the other random stuff. Exactly. All the mystery bags, mystery bag of bread. Now, well, the sausages we actually get, we get them from a pretty good butcher here. So we don't just go to the supermarket and buy them in bulk. We actually go to a butcher and he does us a good deal on the price of them per kilo and so that's all right. But they're, I'd imagine, how would you describe them? They're just basically a beef sausage. So it's ground up beef with seasonings and all sorts of stuff in it and it's just like that. Okay. Yeah, it's very, they actually call them here barbecue sausages is what they're referred to as. they don't have a time of day attached to them, they're just barbecues right, I was going to say sometimes we just call those hot dogs but I know what you guys eat for hot dogs and they ain't hot dogs here are weird they're like red cased mostly cereal based sausages filled with goop that basically you can eat them cold without even putting them into hot water because they're basically already sterile and you can just eat them. They're really terrible. They're gross.
    3:48
    But there's a real art to doing. The funny thing is that Bunnings is they've opened up their first hardware store in the UK.
    3:57
    And Bunnings is owned by a company, a large company here called Wes Farmers. Wes Farmers own a whole lot of supermarkets as well here and bottle shops. So, you know, a place you can buy liquor at. Okay. And they thought, well, okay, well, we'll open it up over there in England, and we will also continue the tradition of the sausage sizzle to raise money for community groups over there as well. Okay. But, you know, it's okay in Australia because, generally speaking, we don't really have winter here.
    4:29
    But in the UK, it's sort of snowing at the moment. so these poor people are just like huddled around this little barbecue just trying to keep warm and going why are we doing this this is stupid but they need to make it a little bit more regionally specific i think i think they need to make it so it's um i don't know bangers and mash you can buy fish and chips yeah and basically a big deep fry with fish and chips that you can buy I reckon that would be the winner of the day. Yeah. Probably.
    5:04
    So obviously this past week also Valentine's Day happened, and my wife is trying to kill me. Oh, really? Yeah.
    5:18
    Are you familiar with Heelys? Yes. Heelys are the shoe that kids wear that have a skate wheel in the heel.
    5:29
    Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen it. That's what they call they. All right, Heelys. Yeah. I've seen those. Yeah, so she got me a pair of those in adult size.
    5:41
    That'd be easy to zoom around the same time. Let's just say kids have a much lower center of gravity.
    5:50
    Have you gone your ass a number of times now? I haven't yet, but that's because I haven't even ventured outside the house. I've just been trying it back and forth in our hallway because I feel safe and not stupid in public doing it yet.
    6:05
    But you can easily see... See, I've seen kids on the way to school go down on them, and it does not look... It's very painful, it looks like. Like I said, they're already low to the ground. So, yeah, I'm trying to be extra cautious.
    6:23
    Yeah, that sounds fraught with danger. but also, once you master them, I think it'd be like riding a bike, right? Yes. Once you get it, you get it. And then you can just go zooming around the sets on these things and make everyone jealous, and everyone else will get one of those, a pair of Heelys, as well as a Fidget Cube, so they can actually be as cool as you. I'm pretty sure I would be mocked for wearing Heelys to the set.
    6:47
    Also, they wouldn't be safe in the set. It'd be so cool. Yeah, yeah. But the fidget cube, yes, everybody keeps on asking about the fidget cubes, and everybody loves the fidget cubes. So those are definitely a positive on the film set. I can definitely say that I love my fadget cube.
    7:10
    It's excellent. It contains most of the features of the fidget cube, but it's a little bit different. It's a fadget cube. I learned how to take mine apart finally because one of my fidget items, the little joystick that flicks back and forth, kept on getting stuck. And I was looking online for how to take them apart and all anybody had instructions for was for the actual fidget cube, not for the stress cube.
    7:38
    And so I eventually pried mine apart and figured out how to unscrew it and unscrewed it. My whole thing is done by magnets. I know the fidget cube actually doesn't use magnets at all. so that'll be kind of interesting if I were to buy an actual genuine fidget cube to see what it would be like and the what was happening was the joystick was kind of grinding on the magnet itself and so I wound up dropping a little WD-40 in there and now it rotates really nicely and flicks back and forth wonderfully. I was almost thinking, should I make a YouTube video on how to take apart your stress cube?
    8:25
    Somebody will watch it. Somebody will watch it, right? Exactly. People are out there watching people fold clothing up on YouTube.
    8:34
    They'll watch anything, right? People are out there also buying whatever's on eBay. Somebody was just talking about how they sold a single sock that had the little ball on the ankle for like $99.
    8:51
    What? Right? The guy apparently sells a ton of stuff on eBay and just posts whatever, all sorts of manner of junk. He doesn't care, and sometimes the thing hits and will go skyrocket. It doesn't cost him a dime to post it, so he's like, what the heck, I'll throw up anything and everything and see what flies. So he's basically got this huge inventory of junk, and he just lists it and sees what it'll go for. Right. Okay, sure.
    9:24
    I guess that's one way of selling things. Very weird. Okay, hey, let's move into other things. Now, warning. The following contains little to no actual talk about pinball. normally Jared would probably be blaring up the warning clacks on that we're about to talk non-pinball which we've just spent the past five minutes doing but trust me it'll come around to it so just bear with me last week I mentioned that I'd seen the Lego movie and I was about to go see John Wick chapter 2 so I went and saw John Wick chapter 2 holy crap so it was terrible oh terrible but 180 degrees from that yeah it was all right it was all awesome it's it's everything i love in an action movie especially just you know rock solid camera work and uh stunts that make you go oh i mean there was at least three moments in the movie that the entire audience gasped because of a particular painful way somebody went out.
    10:36
    Read you one of these stats. So in the first John Wick movie, there were 77 kills, of which 49 were by headshot, which is just insane. That's a lot of headshots. It's a lot of headshots. And I always used to joke that the difference between a good action movie and a great action movie was a bullet to the head and a dismemberment. Well, although there are no dismemberments in John Wick movies, the ample amount of headshots more than makes up for it.
    11:12
    Yeah. What do you think the ratio is? What do you reckon the ratio is? Well, in that movie, obviously, it's 49 headshots of 77 kills.
    11:23
    I'm talking about how many, what's the ratio between headshot versus decapitation? How many headshots do you think we need to actually equal a decapitation? Three?
    11:35
    Yeah, I don't know. Hard to equate, I guess. I'm not sure. But it was one of those things that when I remember when I watched that first movie, it took me quite a few moments before I finally was like, my God, every single person he's killing, he's making sure he taps them in the head too. And it kind of made me laugh. And then I started watching for it and it was like, yeah, every single one of these guys he tapping and making sure they down I like that awesome So I was hoping for more of the same in this movie Well let just say they upped the ante
    12:12
    So they put in a decapitation. No, no, no, no. Still no dismemberments. But somebody had posted an infographic. They broke down all the major action scenes and broke it down for what kind of kills, what kind of weapons were used. I mean, it's nuts how people go into it. because what you've got to realize is that it's kind of like competitive shooting, the way that Keanu runs through the victims, in that he's these actual competitions where it's all these targets set up, and you're running through trying to get a good time as well as get a good accuracy percentage, and you're also switching up weapons constantly and having to reload. and there's video out there of Keanu doing this for real with live ammo on a course, and it's insane. You're just like, okay, this dude's really a badass.
    13:04
    So it's part of his training. He had to actually do the shooting. Wow. Yes, because they do these extended long takes with minimal cuts, so there is no faking it. You've got to be able to do quick reloads and fire the weapon and stuff. So anyway, in this movie, according to the infographic, it has 128 kills oh jeez 104 by headshot that's pretty impressive and yeah it's pretty impressive and that's just the stuff with the guns not to mention people that he takes out with cars people that he takes out with a pencil it's really awesome just how much carnage he does. And as one of the characters says in the beginning of the movie, if we only had not killed his dog.
    14:01
    Yeah. All would have been right in the world. Yep. So anyway, I got to thinking about, and here's where we come back around to the pinball aspect of things. You know, Keanu has been in two other tables or two other movies that have become pinball machines. And I was thinking, I was like, would John Wick be a good license to make a pinball table out of? And I was like, well, with all these headshots and everything, it'd have to be Drop Target City. But also he's doing it in combination, so you'd also have to have ramps and combo moves of doing these things.
    14:41
    So that's where it kind of was starting. I was like, would it be multiball? Would it only be a single ball game and everything? But then it got me thinking about pinball tables where the license, the machine, is better than the actual movie or TV show it was based off of. Again, I was thinking about that because I was like, yeah, Johnny Mnemonic, terrible movie, but a pretty good pinball machine. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah. Dolphins. It wasn't really that much reference to dolphins in the pinball, so that's fine. Yeah.
    15:16
    You know, and then you look at Keanu with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which is a pretty good movie despite Keanu's acting and pretty good, you know, pinball machine. So it's not so much fun, though, to point out machines that are equal to or maybe even less than the license. But I just want to talk about the machines that the movie or TV show sucked in comparison to the table it was based off of. Okay. I don't know if you have any in mind that might qualify. I've written down mine, so I'll get us started and see where you can go from there.
    15:56
    Terrible movie. Fantastic pinball. The Shadow. Oh, by the way, I should mention, we're going to stick to purely Bally's and Williams at the moment.
    16:07
    We'll talk about what we can do with the other ones after this, but we're just going to stick with Bally's and Williams because it's a rather large list otherwise. yeah it is actually pretty big when you think about it yes yes so like I said The Shadow terrible movie but obviously very high ranked pinball machine I can't actually I have not even seen The Shadow and I think that's probably a good thing because I think the pinball is good yeah that seems legit to me I was thinking in the same vein because I think there's a couple of actors in this movie that's the same it's Congo is I don't know the movie is a little bit sort of average but I think the pinball is quite a lot of fun yeah a little average I hated that movie and hurt I just wanted to slap that monkey yeah the pinball machine I gotta be honest I've played the pinball a couple of times I'm not that enamored by the pinball machine, but it's definitely heaps better than that craptastic movie. Yeah. I played it a fair bit. I know my way around it. It's very flowy, and it's quite good to play. there is, of course, there is Amy in it, because she's a big thing, but it's like one of the quotes in there is, Amy, very crazy.
    17:32
    They just go, yep, that's great. Yep, you can say it. Oh, okay, let's go with another one. Terrible movie. Pretty decent pinball machine. Demolition Man. Oh, yeah. That's a top pin. I don't know. The movie was okay. But it wasn't as terrible as Congo, put it that way. But, yeah. Demolition Man is a great table. Wide body. You know, heaps of flowy ramp shots. A big crane. It's got all you need, really. It's good. Yeah.
    18:07
    Let's see. Oh, well, we'll stay on the Sylvester Stallone front. Now, this wasn't based on the movie, but it came out at the same time relatively to the movie. That'd be Judge Dredd, which was a terrible movie, except for one scene that I particularly love. But the rest of the movie with Rob Schneider was just like, really? Really?
    18:32
    It was horrible. It was really terrible. And yeah, I think that's a pretty... It's a strange pin that doesn't have any pop bumpers, but it's a good, again, good table to play. As we said last time, I think it needs a mini playfield, though.
    18:49
    A dead world mini playfield to get rid of that stupid spinning thing that doesn't actually do anything.
    18:54
    Yeah. For those wondering, the moment in Judge Dredd that I actually do like is when he's in the wasteland and he comes across the three inbred brothers and there's the one I don't even know what his name is but he's got a dial in his head that he dials it and it makes him just like jacked up but it's one of the best practical effect makeup jobs that I've seen I mean it is spectacular makeup effects and that's purely the only reason why I watch that scene is because it's just like you know in an age before CG this thing looks flawless just how they did the makeup on that yeah it is I don't remember that scene but that would be pretty cool to see this dude turning a dial on his head to make him freak out and get enraged I'd also like to point out just as a side note that if you are somebody that rather enjoys John Wick do check out Dread which was with Carl Urban being Judge Dread it's really good and it's virtually the exact same plot as The Raid which is an Indonesian movie that I particularly love.
    20:06
    But whereas the raid is all martial arts, dread is all gunfire and explosions. So it's kind of pick your, pick your poison as to what you will. We once did a double feature night of watching both dread and the raid. And that's when it was like, Oh, these are the same movies. Yeah. These are the same movies, just slightly different, but they were made at the same time. And so it wasn't like one of us copying the other. Oh, So they were just one of those perfect circles sort of things. Literally, yeah. It's really strange. And the reason why Dread did it the way it did, because it's a budgetary concern. It made the movie much cheaper to make by having it all centered in one scene. And that's again, the raid did it because hey, we want to spend all of our time on martial arts and not on all this other stuff. Now if you watch the raid 2, then you get all the other stuff. But anyway. Ah, right. Side note. Sorry. Get sidetracked there. You got any, by chance, another table that you might want to mention? Well, I have to say, probably from a TV series perspective, I've got to go with Doctor Who is much better than the series. Really? Yeah, I think so because the effects are better. Are we talking about the Doctors 1 through 8, which the table is based on?
    21:28
    Oh, yeah. The original. Yeah, definitely original. I'm trying to compare it to most episodes of the early Doctor Who, you know, where they have Boxman from the Planet Box, basically as the aliens, right? So, you know, the effects, the actual DMD effects actually improve upon the show's effects in some cases. and I think for that reason alone it actually wins out with the old series I'm sure there's a whole lot of Doctor Who fans out there now just like throwing their phones down and disgusted at what I'm saying but I said it send your hate mail to Jared on Twitter at Jared Morgz or you can send hate mail to blahblahblockade at gmail.com I'm going to go with and I hesitate because I don't really know the table that well, but it has to be better than the movie, which was of the Flintstones.
    22:36
    Yeah. Because you could not pay me to watch that movie. It's terrible. Rick Moranis and John Goodman. John Goodman, yeah.
    22:50
    Yeah, it's pretty bad. That's one of those machines that I truly wish that they had of just... They could re-theme it. They could just base it off the cartoon and get rid of the movie. That would be wonderful.
    23:03
    That would be such a good one for a bit of a Stern-Vault treatment, if it was a Stern. Especially since I just saw art for somebody who's doing the Jetsons table. Yeah, it's a spooky pinball contract job. Ah, there you go. They're doing it on behalf of somebody else. Yeah, it's basically they say the Jetsons is actually a table that's like for the entry-level pinball player. So it looks... Yeah, it's very simple. It's basically almost like a System 11 layout. Very basic rule set, but still fun and engaging at the same time. But the art looks great. I mean, I really like the artwork on it. And just the theming in general looks great. Like the big, massive plastic ramps on there that actually look like the paths that the spaceships take and all that sort of stuff. I think that really nailed the art on it. It looks like it would be a fun machine to just have in a mom and dad's playroom, like a rumpus room or something like that. Right. Yeah, I would like to see it in the flesh.
    24:07
    Okay my last table which I have to mention at every opportunity possible but it sure as hell is better than the TV show of which it was based on Roller Games
    24:18
    Oh, Roller Games. Yeah, that's true. It is a TV show. You said that nobody's seen. Yeah, I haven't seen it at all.
    24:27
    I think my first exposure to Roller Games would actually be the Pimble Machine, if it ever makes it to TPA, which I hope it does, because it's a good System 11. Yeah. And it's got great music. You know, can't wait to hear that. All right. Let's see. Belly and Williams ones. I'm trying to think of some other ones that are. Well, let me let me go through the I've got the list in front of me and I can rattle them off. And how about this? As I rattle these off, if you think that the table is actually worse than the property is based on, let me know.
    24:59
    Addams Family. Which I would argue is probably about equal to. I'd say about equal yeah Dirty Harry again I'm almost going with equal yeah equal Gilligan's Island I think I mean it's a terrible TV show and I've only ever played the machine in visual pinball so I'm not quite sure geez I think oh it's tough I think it's the pinball machines are slightly worse I think I don't know it's a tough call right the Indiana Jones pinball adventure no way is that better than the movies well I think it's actually all you can say about that pinball it's not worse but it's homage to the pinball machine I think it would be very hard to actually it captures the spirit of it very well it absolutely does Star Trek Next Generation again captures the spirit very well this one is up for debate Star Wars Episode 1 I vote that the movie's crap and so is the pinball table I actually think the pinball table wins I don't know there's no Darth Maul lightsaber battle in the pinball table so that's the saving grace of that movie true I think actually there is a Darth Maul mode in it where you actually have to battle him so yeah there is technically but I think it's good it's visually appealing at least and unfortunately I wish they had a Jar Jar off mode where you just got to water the mode and you didn't have to go through it yeah that'd be really good Terminator 2 I'd say probably the movie's better yeah I would slap you if you said different yeah well speaking of they're supposedly doing a conversion of that into a 3D and then going to do a theatrical release and I'm rather looking forward to that because it's been years since I've seen it on the big screen and I'm thinking about a couple of moments in the movie that I'm like oh yeah the gun and the pointing the shotgun pointing straight into the audience or the finger extending out as it goes. There's some really good stuff that could be awesome in 3D. How could they apply those effects convincingly after the fact? They'd have to have the original. The same way that they do it today. Most movies are not filmed native in 3D. They do a conversion. They've gotten really good at doing the post-conversion.
    27:48
    Cameron himself is supervising this one. It's not going to be a slouched job and the only tricky part is if they still have the computer, the CGI files. Yep, which I'm sure they would. Then they can actually make those do a true 3D extension rather than faking it through a conversion process. They can actually do it like they would do with modern effects today. I reckon they'd have to. They would have those assets surely in some way. You'd hope. The question is could they open them? That's the big thing. They're probably all done on Silicon Graphics workstations which no longer exist anymore. Right. So, yeah, that'd be a bit of a challenge. But, you know, I'm sure there's a way that they could do it. And I reckon they should do it that way. It sounds like they're not going to do a bodge job on it. So that's definitely good. Yeah. So I'm really looking forward to if they do that. But anyway, moving on. Twilight Zone.
    28:52
    Oh, I think it definitely captures the theme of the original show. I know when Sean Don Carlos was talking about that in these Lost in the Zones in early episodes, they have packed so many different references to that show into that pinball. It's insane how much they put in there.
    29:09
    Definitely on par with the series, I would think. Popeye Saves the Earth. Is that a movie? No, it's based on the cartoon, though.
    29:21
    Oh, definitely I haven't even seen the movie. I can tell you for a fact that the movie would be better.
    29:31
    Yeah. It was one of those tables that everybody just goes, ooh, bad job, bad job. Yeah. I think mainly because it wasted so much space. With that stupid boat. Yeah. It was terrible.
    29:48
    Now, this is one that I wasn't sure if I should include or not. but I'm going to Creature from the Black Lagoon. I don't know if it's necessarily based on the movie. It's more about based on going to the movie. It is. It's the experience of going to the movies.
    30:04
    I think it's a little bit too transient. A little bit too meta. It could actually be a direct comparison.
    30:11
    Here's one where I will hands down say that the table is worse than the product of which it was based on, which is Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash. is that a movie no just bugs bunny cartoon all right i've never played that one is it gross oh it's it's terrible it is a it is a hideous on every level machine i mean even the artwork is bad that means how do you make bad bugs bunny looney tunes things it's the color palette it's the table isn't off it's an off-white or just white play field with images on it it's just ugly to look at, not fun to play.
    30:51
    Oh, that doesn't sound good at all. No. And if I'm not mistaken, it's a ballet table, and I think it's of the era of, say, Elvira and the Party Monsters.
    31:02
    Oh, right. Okay. So it's like a System 11 sort of table. Sort of, yeah, but the sound effects are terrible. It's just everything about it is dreadful.
    31:13
    I would nominate it as probably the Bally and Williams worst licensed table out there. Right. Yeah, that sounds pretty bad.
    31:25
    So, hey, gang, if you want to play along, the site that I was getting this list off of is tvtropes.org, and Jared will post the actual link to licensed spin tables that you can look on every page, and basically what they break down is what are the various, when I say a trope means cliches or whatever that are included in many TV shows. They break down each table. You click on a table and it breaks down a list of all the features that it has that are related to TV, not related to pinball, you might say. But anyway, go to that site. Check it out. Because what we're asking of you, there is a whole mess of Stern and Data East and Sega tables that are based on TV shows or movies. And we want to hear from you guys. What do you think are the license tables that are better than the product or, yeah, better than the product that they were based on?
    32:28
    And we've left you with all the good ones because there's a whole pile of Dagger East and Sega, which are super license heavy. Yeah. And there's even Gottlieb ones if you want to torture us. So go for it.
    32:39
    Yeah. So go ahead. I'm looking at you, Order World. Feel free to torture us. And suck, Ace. Drop us an email, blahblahblockade at gmail.com, or hit us up on Twitter at Blockade. Let us know what you think. You can even, once Jared posts to the Pinball Arcade fans forum,
    33:05
    you can post your comments there. Whatever, we'll collect them, and then we'll discuss that next time. and it'll be fun to see what you guys think because yeah, there's some in here that I'm looking at where I'm just like, ooh boy.
    33:19
    Yeah, there's some killers in there for sure. Boy, sure. Hey, last time we were talking about all the Arcuda features and news that we could kind of speculate on and know about and one of the things we were talking about was how with Farsight, they're going to have their own back glass to play with. Yes, that's right. We were saying that we believe that Farsight's going to have to create these back glasses because obviously they're going to need to do functions that they've never had to do within Pimble Arcade.
    34:00
    Yep. And one of the users on the forum, he goes by the name of Relaxation, he brought up an interesting point and that is what do you do with a back glass that's, say, for an alphanumeric table? Oh, yeah. Where it's not in the DMD. Or what do you do with a table where the information is in between the speaker grill and not actually up on the back glass?
    34:26
    Yeah, true. What about Circus Voltaire, which actually has the speakers built into the back glass? and the DMD is on the table and not on the back glass at all that's right that's going to be tricky that's the question, what do they do? what do you think? I'm kind of of the opinion of just not redesigning the back glass at all, just squishing it all onto the 32 inch, faking the speakers and making the speakers look like they're there and then squishing it all up there yeah they could do that I guess I mean take it for instance F14 Tomcat the alphanumeric is right in between the two Williams speakers yeah that's true now another option I guess you could do is since this isn't a dot matrix it's not dot matrix it's LCD so they have or LED they have a lot more control over what they can do you could, I guess, simulate the alphanumeric on the DMD screen.
    35:37
    Yeah. I mean, that's kind of what they do now, really, with some of the tables. They've actually got the alphanumerics already emulated and displaying on some of the tables within the area. But I know on mobile they've had to turn a lot of that off because it introduces a performance impact. But, yeah, they can do that now. So they'll probably just do that. but adapted for the different types of displays. The other thing that's interesting is, what about those displays like, for example, Taxi, that have the little lights below the alphanumeric to you know Right Then what do you do Because that going to Yeah well it just another pain really isn it See I think what they going to probably have to do is they will take the static image of the back glass and they'll have it in its off, probably maybe lit state with just the general illumination on. And then what they'll do is they'll map in effects like flashes and stuff like that and blinking lights. So they're actually controlled lights. they'll actually map those in as light points behind the back glass. And the same with the, you know, the arrays of lights below the alphanumeric displays, same sort of technology. They'll just like turn those on and off. They sort of represent those now in the game, you know, with the DMD or so with the alphanumeric display anyhow in game. So it's not a big stretch to think that they'd actually be able to do that in the sort of remade version, I think. You know what would be great is if they allow the tables to do a track mode.
    37:23
    Oh, yeah. And then it would be even also pretty cool is if you kind of put it on shuffle so that, say, every, I don't know, every five minutes, the whole back glass and play field change and do a different table in a track mode. but it's just constantly changing what is displaying. On the screen. Yeah, on the screen. That'd be a pretty cool feature. That'd be cool. It's built sort of like a different pinball every five minutes. Exactly. That sort of thing. Because within five minutes, you're going to get the entire attract mode, all the call arcs that you do on stuff and all the lighting pattern changes, all the information that would pop up on the DMD or on the alphanumeric, all that's going to be displayed within a five-minute time period. so I think that would be pretty cool. I'd like that.
    38:10
    I think it'd be good, yeah. That would work really well. That'd be a good value add to the whole Arcuda package, I think. Who do we send that request to? Arcuda or Farsight?
    38:21
    That's a good or probably both, I think. Probably Arcuda mainly. Arcuda I would think would be the people who would drive it because they'd have to want the feature and then they'd have to request the feature knowing what they can do. And pay for the feature. And pay for the feature, exactly. Yeah.
    38:43
    So, yeah, I think it's a very good question. And I think relaxation brings up a good point. In the thread, the previous thread, he actually gives some backglasses as illustrations of the point. And there's definitely a good variety of ways that they've done DMDs in there and speakers. Yeah. So yeah, it does pose interesting challenges. And he also brings up a valid point where sleeve form factors and crazy back glass sizes, that's going to be very interesting to see how they do that. It'll definitely involve. Yeah, because not all back glasses are the same shape for the artwork at all. No, because you look at some of the things like bone busters and some of the earlier tables, they actually did have larger back boxes. so they're going to have to be scaled and they're going to have to do some crazy stuff to actually make it work so it'll be a challenge for sure it's not going to be easy something interesting to think about and look forward to seeing maybe you've got to think about it too because in the Arcuda platform the area below the LCD screen with the DMD in it is actually just a panel, like it's a plastic panel. It's not like the full screen isn't actually like an LCD.
    40:14
    So sort of mirroring the art on the panel is something they couldn't do. They could only really capture the glass itself and do it, which is fine. So that does make Class of 1812 as an example of a real challenge because they do have those cutouts right in the glass. But I think for those ones that have like 8-bolt deluxe that have the little windows in there, they still, for those ones, of course, they didn't have a panel with speakers on it because there was only one speaker and it was in the base of the machine. I think they're just going to have to make it so it's that sort of displayed on the screen and just turn off the DMD when they do it. Yeah. and just read from a full scoring up to the back glass. Yeah, definitely on things like that or like firepower. Yeah, any of those early E's tables where the four scores were split up in four different corners of the back glass, basically. Yeah. I mean, that's part of the look of the machine. I really think that the way they'd have to segregate it is for those ones that actually have like a screen back glass with the holes cut out for the scores in the back glass area itself. They're just going to have to default that to the display area. But for those that have a speaker panel that contain the alphanumerics, then that would still be where they display it for sure. It wouldn't make much sense to actually have the sort of speaker grill and everything displayed because it's going to make all the perspectives completely screwed if they do that.
    41:52
    So pretty much take it as it is, and then if it's got score panes in it, and just play the calls on that. Sounds like a plan. Implement it. Yeah, make it so. Make it so.
    42:06
    Hey, I think you got anything else you want to gab about before we close this down? Well, I'm pretty excited because this Tuesday is our first tournament at the new venue, which is Netherworld. And it's a barcade. The first one in Brisbane that has opened up. I think there was one previously, actually, but it closed down. But this one has opened up in a different place. And 14 Pinball Machines, thank you very much for coming.
    42:40
    So there's a good range of early to early solid states to alphanumerics to DMDs all the way up to, I think they've got a brand new Batman 66 there as well. so I think that's what they have there I'm not sure but if they do then that'll be pretty cool to play so I've heard, interestingly I've heard on Pinball Podcast they were saying about all the issues they've had with that game basically balls get stuck everywhere on it must be a, maybe just that table that they've got is bad or I don't know but it doesn't sound like one I'd want to be putting on location yeah that'd be a nightmare so I think they've got Ghostbusters there too I don't know if it's Elliot I think it's just a standard so there's going to be a whole lot of new pinball machines that I get to play on Tuesday that I haven't yet played because of course these tables really they only the only place that really had them before Netherworld was down at the Gold Coast and that's like a good two hour trip away so there's no way I can get down there so this opens up a world of pinball to me that's a lot closer sweet hey you saw the announcement looks like Zen is doing Samsung Gear VR now for the Oculus 3 you don't have that right? you don't have Gear VR? no I kind of don't do Samsung products so that rules me out but I did actually say something interesting was um uh when they made that announcement i said oh that's really cool i hopefully the next step would be uh google daydream um and they liked the post so i don't know what that means but if they are going to be first to market on google daydream um then i think i'll be getting a daydream in my near future because I would be all over that playing on my Pixel, which is a Daydream-compatible phone, and just seeing how it all was. I would love to give that a go on that. Or Samsung could just send me a Galaxy S6 and a Gear VR headset, and I could just test it for them. Exactly, yeah. If anybody out there wants to let us experience the virtual reality of Pinball. We're more than open to that kind of thing. Yeah, we're happy to help. Just send hardware to North Lakes in Australia and the greater area of California, and we will gladly help you. Yes, yes, because we're whores like that.
    45:35
    All right, well, hey, why don't we wrap it up for this session? And again, if you want to contribute in any way to our show, whether it's by commenting on anything that we have talked about, like we said, we'd love to hear what your thoughts of.
    45:55
    Licensed movies and TV shows where the table was better than the actual movie itself, or if you have a show topics that you'd like to throw our way and see if we can use in a future episode, please do so. Our email is blahblahblockade at gmail.com. Our website is blockadepinball.com. That's where all of the past shows are, as well as show notes and show timings and links to various websites that we mention in the shows. Be sure to follow us on Twitter. The show is at Blockade. Or you can follow Jared at JaredMorgz or myself at ShutYourTraps. well I think this next week I might actually play some pinball because I have most of the week off oh lucky you get into it get onto those new zen tables mate I really gotta check those out but I'll be jealous of you if you get to get your hands on Batman 66 because I don't know what that is believe me I'll be taking photos like a boss on Tuesday and if there's anything interesting they have videos as well and I imagine you'll post those on Twitter oh yeah, they'll be going to Twitter so yeah, keep an eye out, they may not be on the day because I'd probably have to upload video when I'm back in work because they have a very fast upload speed as opposed to me that doesn't yes, that doesn't alright gang, well that's what you have to look forward to we will talk to everybody next time in the meantime, thanks for listening bye bye
    47:32
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    48:06
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that WildPay is delivered to. We can't approve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and place it in ball.