Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the flip side podcast. I'm your host retro Ralph and this is episode 13. I am so excited for this episode because I am so hopped up on caffeine. It's not even funny. It's Friday. We're going into the weekend. People are getting their uncanny X-Men, so there's a lot to talk about. And I'm going to be a little all over the place in this episode, I'm telling you right now. I know the episode is titled The Shark is Broken, and that's going to be our main topic. We're going to talk a lot about that, but we're also going to talk a lot about other topics. So I just want to let you know, just setting the stage, we're going to be all over the freaking map in this episode. So first thing I want to talk to you guys about, I'm pretty proud of this. So you know I've been kind of exploring tournament pinball, and it's been a rough road. I'm not going to lie. Playing tournament pinball is so different than playing pinball at home. I mean, at home, it's all set up perfectly. I got the invisible glass. My machines are all angled the way I want them to. I'm like, yeah, throw in a little 6.5 angle. You know, the perfect setup for me. Not too fast, not too slow. Then you go on location, and who the hell knows, right? This glass is dirty or the machine pitch is too high. And all of a sudden it plays completely different. Like it will play different. But the good thing about or the thing you should know is I think playing on location, the thing I've sort of discovered is every machine is slightly different anyway, right? Just slightly. And there's so many factors, the amount of plays that are on them, you know, how well are they maintained. So anyways, back to what I'm talking about here with the tournament play. So I started doing the tournament play, and I had played in a tournament probably over three years ago, one time, at my buddy Danny's place, Ready Player One Games. I always get it wrong because the place I normally play at is called Player One Arcade, and that's in Surprise, Arizona. And then Danny's place, which is Player One Arcade, I think, or Ready Player One Games or whatever, is in Glendale. So anyway, so I played at one of his when he was running tournaments. didn't do very well because I really wasn't playing pinball, then hadn't played for years. So because of that, my ranking on IFPA was, by the way, that's International Flipper Pinball Association, was really low. It was like I was like 40,000 or 44,000 or something like that. Really, really low. But I moved up a ton because I started playing tournaments all of a sudden. So I won the Big Movers Award for August. I think it was August. So they just announced that not that long ago, which is really cool because it comes with some perks. I'm able to get a discount on a game or even some accessories, I think, which is pretty cool. So I'm pretty proud of that, even though really, like, it's kind of one of those things. It's sort of a participation award, so I shouldn't be too proud of it. But it was still pretty cool to be recognized in that way. And as a matter of fact, this is pretty cool because I went to that Stern Factory Tour thing. I kind of email I'll email or text Zach Sharp back and forth every now and then and he actually was really cool he sent me an email he's like hey man like congrats for being on the big movers list like so cool seeing you get into tournament pinball and I am I'm really into it I'm really into as a matter of fact I here's my here's my thing that I'm really excited about so my buddy Danny that owns that arcade he stopped doing tournaments a while ago uh he's got a really cool store I actually did a video I did an arcade video in there before but he's got a really cool collection of pinball machines. I mean, holy crap, he's got really cool stuff. He has like Spooky's first game that America's Most Haunted. He's got really, really cool stuff. And he's a collector. So he has half of his store is Jesse James comics. So it's comics and table games. And the other half is an arcade with arcade machines and pinball. But he really likes pinball and he has a very good collection. So the games you're playing are sort of his collection. But he's so into the collectible side of the things with comic books. All his Marvel games are like signed by everybody, like all the cast members and stuff. So he's, he's a really nice guy, but here's the cool part. So I've been talking to my buddy, Rudy, and I'm like, man, I want to like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing at all, but I kind of want to host a pinball tournament. Like, I don't know what I'm doing. Like maybe we should start one. And he's like, yeah, there's no place up here. Cause we live like very far. And we live like central north. So if you don't know Arizona north, you're going to hit like Flagstaff, Flagstaff and Prescott and all these other places, right? A lot of people go to Sedona. It's not a lot to do in Sedona, by the way. If you're into outdoor stuff, it's beautiful. Or you want to go to like a spa and get a massage or just look at beautiful red rocks or power stones or whatever the hell. Yeah, it's cool for that. But it's not really like a party atmosphere. There's not a whole lot going on up there. But anyways, I live further north. So I only live like an hour and a half, maybe an hour and 45 minutes from Flagstaff. But I'm not that far from like other stuff, right? I'm kind of close to Scottsdale and some other places that people when you say arizona like oh scottsdale like because it's kind of like the fancy area whatever but anyways so i live kind of tucked in this little hills area uh but danny the back to the whole point so you told to be all over the place he's moving this this joint arcade comic book store somewhere and he's not telling me where but he's like it's really close to your house so i was like dude i got super excited i texted him i'm like danny just an idea i'm just throwing it out there like could i start your pinball tournaments again and he's like dude i was going to ask you about that. By the way, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm probably going to have to ask Cale and Rachel over at Electric Bat, like, hey, help me get started. I don't know what I'm doing. Or maybe even Ian from Nudge Magazine. I'll ping them and pick their brain a little bit. But I'm so excited at this idea that I can build a little community up here because Electric Bat is so far away from my house. And although I do support them heavily, I love Cale and Rachel. It's just it's really far for me to go on a Tuesday night when I get out of work, even to get there on time for when they start, which is at 630. But anyway, so the big movers list was news item number one, really cool to be recognized by IFPA. And if you don't play tournament pinball, or you don't play pinball at all, or you only play at your house, I would urge you to go out, go out, join a league, like, get into it. It's really fun. So go to pinball map or just go to IFPA, go to the International Flipper Pinball Association website, you can go to tournaments, and I think there's a tournament calendar, and it'll tell you, you put in your zip code, where there are tournaments. And guys, there's going to be people at these tournaments that are really, really good. Don't get discouraged by that. If anything, most of them are cool, and they'll even teach you along the way if they see you struggling, so really cool. Anyways, so that's that topic out of the way. Now, let's go to The Shark is Broken. So this is so cool that Stern continues to add additional modes of play for all their games Like they added the King of Monsters across the board for Godzillas no matter what You know, I think before it was topper only. Now, keep in mind, Jaws is actually, this Shark is Broken is a topper only mode. You have to have the topper for it to work. Although, you didn't hear this from me. Okay, if you go to my latest video, right? in this video is about the Electric Playground topper, which, by the way, I urge you to go watch it. The video is so highly produced. It's probably it's probably close to my I mean, I did a bunch of video series called Chasing Nostalgia and stuff like that. Those are very high produced, too. This is probably the most produced thing as far as like animation and Adobe After Effects type stuff. So thank you, Mason, for for hooking this up. I had sort of a vision of it, but he took it to the next level. He took it to the very next level. It's so cool. Uh, I've been working with Mason for over, gosh, it's gotta be, we've been friends now for over five plus years. So, uh, so he's very instrumental in my YouTube channel. A lot of times I have these ideas and I go to him, but I'm not, I'm creative with the camera, but I'm not so creative when it comes to like, I mean, my talent isn't, I can, I can edit, I can edit my own videos if I want, but doing the After Effects and all that other stuff. I really rely on him for that, but I can come to him with like a vision. Hey, I kind of want this. And he, now that we've been working together for so long, he gets me. And sometimes the vision comes from him. Sometimes it comes from me. Sometimes it's just both of us trying to hash it out. So he's become like, he's as much involved in the channel as, as like I am in a lot of cases. So very grateful to have him, uh, not only as a friend, but someone that really helps me out when it comes to YouTube. And my day job is so busy now that, it's crazy. So anyways, The Shark is Broken. Super cool, guys. If you have not checked it out, please check it out. It's so neat. You step up to the machine, you put that mode on, and it starts with this glitchy VHS-looking video footage on the backbox. It kind of explains how the game works, but it's all super ominous. You just see The Shark is Broken, and it's all crazy, almost 80s horror movie type thing. I'm not necessarily a scary movie guy, but the whole aura that it sets and the tone it sets is so fun. It's like this creepy thing. And the idea is that it was a play on basically how in the movie Jaws, when they filmed it, the freaking shark kept breaking, right? So it was this idea like, could we create a pinball mode that kind of pays respect to that history of them filming the movie? So your pinball machine starts at power level zero. So the shark is effectively not operational. And to get the shark operational again, you've got to hit a series of shots to bring the power level back to 100. But then quickly thereafter, the power level goes back down again. So there's like almost various waves that you've got to go through. There's a couple of different multiball events you can get. But the cool thing is you really just play one ball. So it's very quick to like let's say you want to just play a quick game. You can jump in, play it, and in between like just throughout the day just jump on your machine and play. it is so cool. And this is the kind of stuff that it kind of goes up my ass when someone's like, oh, Stern's not innovating. They're not doing anything interesting. I'm like, dude, this is so interesting. And they do a lot of this stuff. It's just that not many people report on it. And I don't understand why, like this stuff is cool. It's adding additional value. Now I want to say I'm not, I'm not like numb to the fact that you have to have the topper. But if you go to my video, the video that I just did, this is my way, like, wink, wink, I can't even wink, wink, wink, if you go to the video I just published on the, on the Godzilla 70th, someone might have given a hint of a way you can play it without the topper, now, I'm not trying to cause any problems, you know, but I'm just saying, you go there, it's like when arcade people are like, where do I get the ROMs for this game, and everyone's like, oh, I don't know, ROMs, I don't know, talk about those, this is illegal but uh but anyways this this is just go check it out go check it out there's a comment there just read through it i didn't tell you nothing i didn't tell you a damn thing okay all right so shark is broken check it out super badass stern continuing to add value through code updates i freaking love that all right next topic game room goodies got avatar last week maybe it was the week before i don't even remember now and i texted my buddy aaron down there he's the owner I was like, Aaron, dude, did you get it? He's like, I got it. I was like, I'm coming right now. I moved some meetings around just so I could do it, just so I could go down in there and play it. And I really like it, man. I really, really like Avatar. Do I like it enough to want to buy it? Not for me personally, but that doesn't mean it's not a good game. That doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it. It just means for me, I'm like, not really into wanting to buy it. I'm also not a a gigantic avatar fan boat this is what it did do for me it gave me hope that i might own a jersey jack game someday because this was a step in the right direction for me just like elton john was not in the theme but i always felt something different about a jersey jack game i've shared this with you on on other podcasts the flippers just feel different they just hit different stern games the flippers are really strong now i'm not saying that just because sterns are that way and jersey jacks are another that those are bad but it's what i grew accustomed to so for me if i jump on a game and the flippers feel kind of weak like that it doesn't work well for me i don't know it's just so when i played elton john at expo last year that i could see it i could feel a considerable difference in the flippers they whatever they did there they done again in avatar and i'll say just real quick because this isn't going to be a review on avatar and all the things I love, but that under play field is cool. Like, so the first sort of the first, um, cause there's that like scoop thing. I don't know. It's like a scoop, but it can be a, I don't know. They have a name for it, but it can be like a ramp and a scoop. And so anyways, when that little ramp goes up and you put the ball down in there, you're now in that like lower play field. And there's two lower playfields. But the first one has this sort of like, it reminds me of, it has, I don't know if they're slingshots. I would call them slingshots. They're like a variation of slingshots. So there's no flippers in that first room you go in, but your flippers are controlling these like slingshots via these lights. So you kind of know when you're hitting a certain flipper, like what slingshot or whatever they are in there is going off. It kind of reminds me of, um, there's that WWF game where the ring, the ball ends up in the ring and you're kind of like bouncing it around, but you're not, there's no flippers in there. Same kind of deal. So you kind of do that for a little while. And then if you kind of like traverse through that, you'll go down and fight the crab. Excuse me, I'm all hopped up. You go down and fight the crab. I don't know. I've heard various people. Some people say they don't like the crab fight. I thought it was really cool And then I think if you successful at least what happened to me when I played again I don know the rules Joel at Flippin Out did like a crazy deep dive on it And I was like man Joel is like the absolute like I can remember all that stuff So if there's anything negative about Avatar, I'm like, holy crap, the rule set looks so deep. But if you buy it and it's for your house, like maybe that's cool because the replay values are there because it's like, oh my gosh, there's so much to learn. But Joel did a really good job. If I remember, I'll put a link in the video description where Joel's talking about how to play it. And the game does come with this big sheet of how to play it. But the limited time I did go down there, the machine is beautiful. And you know what? People talk about, oh, well, just because the game has foil artwork and looks beautiful in a beautiful back glass, who cares? Or translate. But that's part of pinball. It's everything. It's art. It's music. It's the gameplay. It's the artwork on the play field. To me, pinball is like this multimedia thing, right? It's bringing all these things together. So like an amazing machine checks all of the boxes, right? And some boxes are more important to you and some boxes are more important to me. That's why I think it's funny that being a content creator in this space is interesting, right? Because obviously I'm just here sharing my opinion and you can agree and disagree. And I like that because in the comments, if you're watching this on my YouTube side of the house, we can agree and disagree and not argue, but like have a healthy conversation about it. Right. I'm not really down to argue. Some people just see it only one way and that's it. Like, I know there's a couple of things probably for me that I see one way and don't have a lot of leeway around. But for the most part, I like to think that I'm pretty open to hearing other perspectives. Right. But that's the cool thing about it being a content creator or just being a human being in general. We all have we all have opinions. I just happen to have built a big audience so I can share my opinion. And when I hit that publish button, it goes out to a lot of people, right? But I also don't want everyone to just agree with me. You know what I mean? Like that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to kind of share my thoughts. And I'm very interested in hearing the counter arguments if maybe something I say someone disagrees with. You know what I mean? But the other cool thing about being a content creator is naturally you watch other content creators. And then because their opinions are public, you can comment on their opinions, right? But there's nothing wrong with that. I just – I think – I haven't done as much of that. I'm not really – because I think sometimes it comes across as you attacking them or doing whatever. That's not – if I ever bring up another content creator, I will absolutely say who their name is and who they are and what they said, and then I'll kind of bring up my counterargument, which leads me to my next thing. and this is something that another content creator is all about i mean almost obsessively about it and i don't get it i don't get it i do not get it but i'd love to hear the counter argument i've heard the counter argument for like six months now because he won't stop with this this this mantra on that that like toys and mechs are just the way you see value in the machine and if there's less toys and mechs the machine it's almost as if like it's not worth your money and that that's sort of the litmus test for a good game. I don't get that. To me, I mean, keep in mind, my experience is different. I joined the hobby three years ago or so, and I don't know, there are games that I like that have very little toys and mechs on the play field, and it doesn't necessarily make me enjoy those more or less. For me, it's more about the overall experience, the overall thing, because I'll bring a game in mind that doesn't have a lot on the play field, but I love it, is James Bond. James Bond does not have a lot on that play field. Now, I know I wasn't around for the early code, so I did not play the early code releases of James Bond where a lot of people were like, oh, my gosh, this game sucks. And now I know there's been a newfound love for it because of the code getting better. I love that game. Venom, probably a little light on things, right? It's a fan layout. I like it. That one I think a lot of people just don't like. The Pro on Venom is absolute trash, though. It's just not good. Like, I do not like Venom Pro. That's my opinion on Venom Pro. I have the limited edition. I had the premium. Long story. But I really enjoy Venom. So I guess, but then you go on the other side of it and go, man, Godzilla's got so much stuff on it. Would I like Godzilla as much if all that stuff wasn't on that? Well, I don't know if I could make that comment, only because, believe it or not, I've never played the Pro of Godzilla. So I don't know. I don't know if I didn't have the building if I would like it any less or if I didn't have Mechagodzilla and it was just a plastic because those things are pretty cool. I mean, I got to admit, like, Godzilla is pretty damn awesome. And it has some real cool things that happen where you're like, wow, that's that's pretty awesome. So but but also if Godzilla shot like crap but had all that stuff on it, I think I'd be like, I don't think those those things wouldn't make up for bad gameplay is what I'm saying. So anyways, I just think that whole talk track is interesting. I don't put, I do like when there's something cool that you interact with, but it's not like a game, it makes or breaks a game for me. And I think Kaneda's whole talk track around that is very much about the amount of money you spend and like popping the play field and observing what's underneath it. And then like, if there aren't a lot of mechs, that means you're not getting the value out of it. I don't really agree with that. so I don't know I just I'd look I mean I don't even need to hear his perspective because I've been hearing his perspective over and over again it might be interesting one day if he wants to come on this show to talk to him about pinball because in my I don't I know there are people that buy pinball machines and I'm not saying this is him but they buy them just for the art like they're kind of just like dust collectors like they look cool in a room and they play it very very infrequently uh that's not me I play them every day uh and I mean when I travel for work. I typically those are days that I don't play unless I'm somewhere where I can get out of a customer dinner or something when I'm traveling and then go go and play. I've done that a couple times, by the way, but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes I'm just tired and I'm like, I can't make that happen. So I try to play every day if I can. So I would view myself as a pinball player, not a collector of like just just want them to collect dust, you know. So I'm not saying that's him, by the way. So don't don't take it that way. But I think we I think he plays less. So his opinions are kind of more based on like maybe the collector that's not as much of a player i don't know i'm confused sometimes by his takes on certain things because i don't i'm so different in my takes on a lot of things so but yeah that's what's cool about being a content creator i can comment on his you can comment on me and uh yeah i hope one day we can actually be on a show together and i think it'd be kind of interesting actually so if if anybody is a kaneda fan and you're listening to this um tell them that uh you'd like us to be on a show together and see see how that goes over you might be like screw that who that who that peon who just started he doesn know anything He a noob whatever I don know if he say that He probably would but all right now I getting now I getting drama No no no no no I didn say that I don know what he would say to be honest. All right. So let's go on to the last thing. So, uh, okay. I wanted to talk about things that trigger me. Um, and I, I don't even know, I wrote it down and I, shoot did i lose it oh i don't here's a okay this is just my opinion guys again i i do not understand and this goes from being a youtuber for oh almost six years right so i've been a youtuber covering arcade content for for for a while now and then uh nostalgic things content like that uh i have and i weaved in pinball a little bit but but pinball has become more my primary focus over the last, let's say, the way it is right now, the intensity of the coverage has definitely been amped up over the last year or so, right? Because I've really got into it. It's been something that I'm really enjoying. So I tend to kind of move the channel to the things that I'm most interested in, right? It doesn't mean I don't like those things anymore. I know a lot of people, I've gotten, not a lot, but I've gotten some people that got a little upset that I've sort of haven't been covering as much arcade content. Doesn't mean I don't like arcades it's just or arcade gaming it just means i'm more interested in pinball right now so um so yeah i don't see that going away though i feel like that's going to kind of continue just because i'm so entrenched in it like i listen to all the shows i i read all of the articles nap arcade puts out like i'm really interested in it but a lot of it's because there's something always new changing there's always something going on that's what makes it exciting and then the ips that these companies are acquiring to make games is freaking exciting so what's the thing that triggers me why okay did youtube for six years it took me it was a very short time period where i was like oh i gotta do it i'm gonna use my voice well hey guys i'm gonna do an unboxing video it's gonna be awesome but it's like but i don't know why i had to use that voice but it's like i don't get unboxings unboxings were cool when i when i thought when i first started doing youtube and i thought that was something that people really wanted and even then when I started YouTube, I think unboxings were becoming less popular then. Like, I just don't get, I get me being, I'm personally excited when I unbox the game, but how many times can you see someone take a game out of a brown cardboard box, and that's exciting. Like, if you notice when you watch my videos, if I do show content like that, it's usually very fast, and I'm voicing it over to get to the other stuff, because ultimately, you've seen it. You've seen it a million times. I just don't get that content. I don't watch other people's content when they unbox stuff, usually, especially if it's a pinball machine. Or if I do, I fast forward to the gameplay part because I really, truly don't care about the unboxing part. I think it's wasting the viewer's time, to be honest. If I did that, I'd be wasting your time. I don't get unboxings. I don't even really get putting the machine together on, like, because a lot of times with pinball there's a couple of tweak things you have to do before it's playing the way you want it to anyway so it's very rare that i take it out of the box jack it up put the legs on because the code needs to be updated immediately why am i i'm not going to stream it for you guys with the old code so there's always like a day one update so it's like all right guys hold on we'll be back in 45 minutes it's like it doesn't make any sense i don't know maybe call me do you guys like unboxings. Like, seriously, I'm not, I'm not dissing people that do it. I just don't personally get it. It's not interesting to me. And I feel like if I was doing it, I'd be wasting your frigging time. So anyways, but to each his own. All right. So the last thing that I wanted to cover here, we're at 25 minutes. I'm actually past my time. You know what? I might have to save, I'm going to save this last topic for the next podcast because I don't, you know, we got, we have friggin' Pinball Expo coming. There's so much stuff, so the content's going to be off the charts. But yeah, so I appreciate you guys listening. I don't really... Oh, the one thing I did want to plug is if you do watch the podcast, like if you're watching this right now and you're not listening to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can... You can... Oh. I thought I was hitting the exit music and it's this. What the hell? Sorry, sorry, wrong button. there we go i forgot what i was even saying okay no no i'm such an idiot sometimes uh what was i even talking about oh if you're if you're watching the podcast right you can also listen to it uh on spotify and apple podcast so just know like if if you don't care about the video portion of it you can totally just listen and that's that's great too so i'm trying to work both angles at Pinball Expo. I'm going to have stickers. So come see me. I have Flipside Podcast stickers. So if you go into Pinball Expo, come to me. Hopefully I have enough for everybody. But yeah, I'm going to bring a whole bunch of stickers with me. I'll give you one of those. And then I also have a sticker with the QR code that takes you directly to Retro Ralph Live for the video version. And then there you can find links to the audio version. So I hope you guys are enjoying it. I know I was all over the place in this episode. Sorry, I'll try to be a little bit more focused on the next one. It took me forever to put this out because work has been just so incredibly busy. But yeah, that's it, guys. X-Men is not here yet. It should be here next week. So what I will do, what I will promise you is I will do a live stream of X-Men as soon as I get it next week. I will set it all up, make sure the code is up to date, and I'll probably mod the hell out of it for, like, I'm going to put, I'm going to do, I have like a Ralph, a Retro Ralph new pinball kit, which I'm going to do a video on. I'm going to show you guys all the things I buy that are like, you know, stuff that isn't mods. Like, well, somewhat mods. Like my kit. My new game kit. Because it's changed. It used to be Boom Boom 3000. I was like, get out of here, Boom Boom. We don't want you anymore, Boom Boom. It's all about Pinwoofer. There's nothing wrong with Boom Boom, by the way. But Dan over at Pinwoofer opened up my eyes. He's like, you want dual voice coiled? you want to shake your freaking teeth out of your mouth when you play? Yeah, yeah, you do. All right, so anyways, oh, and by the way, go watch my Godzilla 70th Topper video. Rob over at Electric Playground was super fun to work with. I think the video is fun. It's very, very highly produced, but very fun. So yeah, I definitely pushed Mason's limits on that one, but he did such a great job. All right, guys, that's it. That's all. If I don't talk to you before Pinball Expo. I hope to see you there and I will see you on the flip side. See you guys.