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Episode 42 - Die on this Hill: Sega Godzilla

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·37m 44s·held·Aug 5, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Sean Irby defends rare 1998 Sega Godzilla as superior to Stern's version for its addictive multiball stacking and thematic design.

Summary

In this Die on this Hill episode, Sean Irby defends the 1998 Sega Godzilla pinball machine against widespread criticism, arguing it has a unique and addictive multiball stacking ruleset, thematic playfield design with an enormous Godzilla sculpt, and engaging risk-reward gameplay. Despite selling only 510 units and ranking #200 on Pinside (vs. Stern's Godzilla at #1), the hosts and guest praise its focused design, superior captive ball mechanics, and appeal to players fatigued by overly complex modern rulesets.

Key Claims

  • Sega Godzilla sold only 510 units, making it one of the lowest-selling games Sega/Data East ever produced

    high confidence · Sean Irby states this directly as documented fact; contrasts with Stern Godzilla's 27,000+ units

  • The game was designed by Joe Balcer and Joe Kaminkow with software by Neil Falconer and Orin Day

    high confidence · Sean Irby credits the designers explicitly

  • Joe Kaminkow was an early adopter of the shaker motor technology after Williams' patent expired, influenced by playing Earthshaker

    medium confidence · Sean references Pat Lawlor's TopCast episode discussing this; speculative on exact motivations

  • Sega Godzilla was released in 1998 to coincide with the Matthew Broderick American Godzilla reboot

    high confidence · Sean Irby states this as historical fact

  • The game's ruleset is primarily about qualifying and stacking five different multiballs with minimal other gameplay modes

    high confidence · Sean Irby describes the gameplay mechanics in detail; confirmed by other hosts

  • Modern players may prefer simpler ruleset games like Sega Godzilla due to fatigue with overly complex modern rulesets

    medium confidence · Alan and Sean speculate on trends in player preferences, not confirmed market data

  • The Sega Godzilla has no moving mechanical parts except the captive ball mechanism and magnets

    high confidence · Sean Irby describes the mechanical simplicity; confirmed by hosts

  • Sega used clear plastic stand-up targets in this era that felt worse to hit than traditional targets but allowed backlighting

    high confidence · Alex and Sean discuss the tactile difference and suspected design rationale

Notable Quotes

  • “It's all multiball. It's just chaos... if you were to make a game that Godzilla would like, this would be it.”

    Sean Irby @ ~10:00 — Core thesis of why the ruleset matches the Godzilla theme thematically

  • “This is for when you want that bite-sized, shorter pinball experience... It feels much more like a solid-state game almost with ramps.”

    Alan @ ~18:00 — Articulates the game's design philosophy as retro/focused vs. modern complexity

  • “This is a game that I was going to defend... we always call it like we call it at the top of the episode we call it Goodzilla because this is the godzilla game that like I'm really excited to play.”

    Alan @ ~22:00 — Personal passion for the game; signals deeper community divide between the two Godzillas

  • “The music for this game is perfect... it's like 10 seconds of Master of Puppets on repeat... I think it matches just the theme really well and you're not gonna be playing it for that long.”

    Sean Irby @ ~45:00 — Defends criticized audio by contextualizing expected play duration

  • “If the music's annoying you, I feel like you've been playing the game too long and needs to be set up harder.”

    Alex @ ~45:30 — Frames music complaints as symptom of improper machine difficulty tuning

  • “We're as into pinball as anybody right... if we don't want to learn or care to learn these deep rules then who are they making them for?”

    Alan @ ~35:00 — Challenges modern design philosophy; identifies core audience tension for complex rulesets

  • “I played a Godzilla that had all regular targets... I really liked that. That was actually the first Sega Godzilla that I had.”

    Sean Irby @ ~28:00 — Admits even the defender prefers modified version over original hardware

Entities

Sean IrbypersonAlanpersonAlexpersonJoe BalcerpersonJoe KaminkowpersonNeil FalconerpersonOrin DaypersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Sega Godzilla designed around multiball stacking mechanic with minimal alternative objectives; forces player to qualify all five multiballs before starting any, creating risk-reward decisions especially in tournament play

    high · Sean Irby extensively describes qualifying/stacking as core mechanic; comparison to Medieval Madness' stacking and Dracula's multiball focus

  • ?

    design_innovation: Sega Godzilla features one-of-a-kind captive ball mechanism in horseshoe configuration requiring six hits (three per side) with distinctive ping sound effects and sonar audio feedback

    high · Sean describes mechanism in detail: 'probably my favorite captive ball mech in pinball'; affirms best implementation of this feature type

  • ?

    product_concern: Sega's clear plastic stand-up targets from this era feel poor tactilely compared to traditional targets—lack of give, similar to hitting plexiglass—though allowed for backlighting effects

    high · Alex and Sean discuss extensively; Sean notes playing modified version with regular targets felt better; speculate on design rationale for translucent targets

  • $

    market_signal: Sega Godzilla sold only 510 units; described as 'very rare game' and possibly lowest-selling game Sega/Data East or Stern ever produced; extreme scarcity differentiates from competition

    high · Sean Irby states '510 units' explicitly; notes Stern no longer releases sales figures post-public company status

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Game appears to have suffered critical panning at 1998 release (likely due to movie's poor reception) but hosts argue it deserves modern reevaluation, especially among players fatigued by complex modern rulesets

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.113

0:00
You signed your real name? Of course I did. If you believe in something, you sign your name to it. Alright, I'm gonna tell you right now. I ain't crazy.
0:08
This is the ground you'll die on. Are you sure? Oh my god, are you serious? Son, people can see you. I don't tell you what to do with your money. Don't fucking tell me what to do with mine, okay? I'm not as dumb as you think I am. I will defend myself. He means it, sweetheart. Well, that's because you're an idiot. I will fight and win because I am the most intelligent. You sure about that? I got something I want to say. Well, you motherfuckers think you know who Teddy Powers is. Well, I'm here today to tell you all you don't know shit. Oh, I give up. You're going to get yourself killed, and this time I won't be able to save you. I make you laugh. I'm a clown. I amuse you. I'm here to fucking amuse you. Come on, don't bullshit me. Go ahead and go, but I'm not going to stop yelling, because then that'll mean I lost the fight. So, please leave a T under the mat. I love you all very much. Peace out.
1:10
Serenity now! Serenity now! What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. Okay, a simple wrong would have done just fine, but this makes no sense.
1:41
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Alan, one of the owners of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon, for which the podcast is named. We're doing another special series, Die on this Hill series. But first, let me introduce you to my co-host. It's our normal Alex, the water boy. How you doing? I'm doing okay. I'm still getting over a cold, so I sound a little funny. But that's okay because we have someone else to carry the show today. That is the most widely known homebrew expert, the greatest in his field, Sean Irby. from Seattle. You know him. You love him. Everybody knows the name. Household pinball name. Sean, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. We're happy you could be here. I know on our other episode with you, you were, you know, happy to have a glowing introduction, so I had to do it even bigger this time. What game are you here to defend? I am here to defend Sega Godzilla. Oh, yeah. Godzilla, as we call it around these parts. Yeah, the one you see all over with the building and it moves up and down, right? Stern Pimol? Number one machine ever made? oh it's the other one the other one i gotcha other godzilla godzilla 90s not quite number one on the pin side yeah maybe some listeners don't know this but sega godzilla was the first godzilla pinball machine it was released in 1998 to coincide with the matthew broderick american reboot of the very popular japanese godzilla movie franchise while keith elwynn's godzilla is currently ranked number one all time on the pin side top 100 list this game is way lower coming in at number 200 if you were alive in 1998 the marketing for this movie was insane dave you gotta consider raising your advertising budget they have this pinball machine but notably they also have i think taco bell must have spent like a decade of their advertising budget do you remember that tie-in advertising for this movie like they had godzilla cups kids meals toys they had this like weird ads they had like special ads with the taco bell chihuahua in them that were like high budget ads yeah he's like trying to trap godzilla with the little box it's the little yo quiero taco bell chihuahua yo quiero taco bell it was a wild time the late 90s were a wild time this was still the era of pinball where they would be developing a pinball machine concurrently when a blockbuster movie was in development which is something companies today wisely no longer do because sometimes you end up with a movie that ends up being a turd and you're stuck with the pinball machine now that nobody wants to play this game was designed by the two joes balser and kamikow with software by neil falconer and oran day it only sold 510 units which makes it a very rare game and after looking through the company's history this was made by sega but it was previously the company was data east and then they became stern pinball which we know today i think it's the lowest selling game that data east sega ever made It might even be the lowest selling game that Stern ever made, but they don't release their numbers anymore since they are no longer a publicly traded company. Yeah, 500? Not very many. Yeah, 510 units. More than there are Ultraman, which is, you know, another Kaiju game. Yeah. We're not here to talk about Ultraman. We're here to talk about Godzilla. Yeah, we want to talk about what is clearly the best Godzilla pinball machine of all time, 1998 Sega's Godzilla. Give me one good reason. Why not? So, Sean, tell us why this game is great. This game is good for a few different reasons. I think the reason I like it is because it's just got a really one-of-a-kind rule set that you won't see in many other pinball machines, where the whole game is just about qualifying and then starting these five different multiballs. There's like a Super Pops mode in the game, but that's the only other mode, I think. It's all multiball. And I think, I don't know, I think if you were to make a game that Godzilla would like, this would be it. It's all multiball. It's just chaos.
Pat Lawlor
person
[name withheld pending review]person
Morgan Weistlingperson
Zoeperson
[name withheld pending review]game
[name withheld pending review]game
Wedgeheadvenue
Georgetown Pizza Arcadevenue
Data Eastcompany
Williamscompany
Wedgehead Pinball Podcastorganization
[name withheld pending review]game
[name withheld pending review]game

medium · Sean speculates: 'I wonder if this game was like maybe panned more back in the day because the movie didn't do so well'; Alan agrees game 'compares more favorably' now

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Sega Godzilla has strong tournament appeal due to risk-reward multiball stacking decisions; players must consider opponent's stack progress before starting their own multiballs

    high · Sean: 'especially to play with other people... you don't want to start two if your opponent can get three stack because you're gonna lose right like so it's such a fun dynamic'

  • ?

    community_signal: Alan and Sean demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for defending Sega Godzilla; Alan calls it 'Goodzilla' affectionately; hosts note Stern Godzilla Premium was so popular at Wedgehead that customers complained when temporarily removed

    high · Alan: 'we call it Goodzilla because this is the godzilla game that like I'm really excited to play'; personal nostalgia (toys, commercials, character design)

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Sega Godzilla represents design philosophy prioritizing accessibility and focused gameplay over rule depth; hosts argue modern complex rulesets may alienate even dedicated players who don't want to learn 30-page ruleset documents

    medium · Alan describes downloading/printing 30-page Stern Godzilla ruleset; questions 'who are they making [complex rules] for if it's not for us'; cites preference for games with single clear objectives

  • ?

    product_strategy: Sega Godzilla was developed concurrently with 1998 Matthew Broderick film release; hosts note this was common industry practice in 1990s but is now avoided due to risk of movie flops leaving unsellable machines

    high · Sean: 'pinball machine concurrently when a blockbuster movie was in development... sometimes you end up with a movie that ended up being a turd and you're stuck with the pinball machine'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Data East became Sega (which produced Godzilla) which later became Stern Pinball; represents key industry consolidation point showing company evolution through Godzilla era

    high · Sean: 'sega but it was previously the company was data east and then they became stern pinball which we know today'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Homebrew community actively modifies Sega Godzilla with LED kits; Sean played versions with standard targets replacing Sega's plastic ones; suggests ongoing collector interest despite age

    medium · Sean mentions playing modified units; references tabasco_man review noting 'somewhat saved when modders add in leds but that's too little too late'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Sega Godzilla's rarity (510 units) and cult following position it as collector item; scarcity contrasts sharply with Stern's 27,000+ units; hints at long-term value retention despite #200 ranking

    medium · 510 unit production; explicit comparison to Stern Godzilla's massive sales; hosts treat game as special/rare acquisition

    • 5:46
    Yeah, that does actually kind of match the Godzilla ethos, I feel like. Just multiball. It's fun because you're trying to qualify all these different, and to qualify each multiball, you have to hit different shots all over the playfield. And you can start them at any time. it's kind of like the madnesses multiball in medieval madness if a player's played that very common game where you hit all the different shots and you can light a madness and you're trying to stack more of them together you're trying to stack them all that's 100% godzilla is absolutely just about the stack and it's so addicting because the first time somebody tells you you can do it you're like oh okay well i had like half of them and if i wasn't even trying so like it'll be no problem to do that then and it is a problem if you're playing one that's set up properly yeah it's not easy the game's substantially less friendly or less long playing i should say than stern's godzilla which is why me and alan are so partial to it i think because it can be an ass kicker when it's set up right in doing that full stack can be a bitch but it's so addicting yeah it almost reminds me a little bit of of dracula and that's also like a very well regarded game but it's also pretty much the same thing you're you're a good point you're just playing you're playing the multi balls right 100 even has like the big right or well i guess it's on the opposite side but like your big kind of hard ramp that's kind of you know it is a little dracula the stacking though yeah it's all about the multi ball it's risk reward it's like if you're playing it in a tournament do you have enough the thing is is like you don't want to start two if your opponent can get three stack because you're gonna lose right like so it's such a fun dynamic especially to play with other people if you're playing it by yourself over and over i think that's where some of the criticism comes into this game but no that's where the game really shines i think it's a blast by yourself over and over you know i think it's a blast like it's always fun to me to try to get all of them before i start because even if i get four of them and i start it and i get a decent score i'm not happy it's like i want to press start again and i want to i want to do it right it's also got just some amazing like just this huge clear green ramp in this massive massive Godzilla head and kind of claw like he's like coming out of the playfield at you like he's like coming through the playfield it's really cool really thematic huge sculpt I can't think of a bigger sculpt than pinball right like it's insane yeah it feels appropriate again it feels appropriate for Godzilla that is the thing like this feels like Godzilla as a pinball machine whereas like sterns you're kind of like you're playing in a city and there's a little godzilla back there and the ball is godzilla yeah it's a very different feel you're like running from godzilla whereas sterns you are godzilla i guess so it really has its own vibe the ramps are cool too like just looking at the plastic ramps you feel like you're puny as the ball and like godzilla is huge even the inserts on this game are huge dude every part of it is huge like it's awesome it really is yeah it seemed to be a game that maybe suffered from some budget cuts at the time oh definitely because there's like there's no moving parts in it at all right there's the right like the captive ball mech which is really really fun to hit by the way it has like the best my probably my favorite captive ball mech and pinball yeah it's really good because normally with rants like you'll miss and hit like a standout target which is pretty boring compared to this where you smash these captive balls and you get a really good like ping sound effect You get the cool sonar sounds Yeah it got cool sounds and for the listener that hasn played it they basically a captive ball on each side in a horseshoe and then you can kind of hit a ball that will hit another ball that will kind of bink it back and forth on each side and you have to get three hits on each side to qualify so six hits total yeah you're right man very cool the ball will come out of godzilla's mouth there's like a diverter back there and he'll spit it out there's some magnets in the game but yeah there's not a lot of like moving parts really cool sound effects there's no bad ones only good sound effects we're never going to talk about the bad call outs that are here all the time just the cool sonar sound effect yeah basically it's just better in every way than any other godzilla pinball machine that's been made that basically sums it up correct we're all in agreement on that yeah for the listener out there come fight me um no i don't know when i'm in the mood to play an epic like long game i'll go to stern godzilla This is for when you want that bite-sized, shorter pinball experience. It's perfect for that. 100%. It feels much more like it's like a solid-state game almost with ramps. It's not, I guess, because it's multiball and everything. Well, maybe like System 11 era. Yeah, it's like that. It's not. It's just kind of like do one thing. If you fail, try to do it again. It's not like the epic adventure. It is a definitely do one thing game. But to qualify that one thing, you have to hit all the shots, which I think is an important distinction on some of these kind of older games or these older rule sets. Yes, it's not chopping wood kind of one thing. It's chopping a forest.
    11:00
    You have to hit the shots around the playfield, which I think is important. We talked about it on Gilligan's Island when Zoe defended that game. And what made me come around on that game is realizing, yeah, it is all about doing Kona. Kona is the thing to do in that game. It's what scores points. But to get to Kona, it makes you hit all these shots for no points around the play field. And Godzilla is kind of that same way. Like you have to do all these things that aren't going to get you any points, but you've got to stack all your multiballs. And you've got to accidentally not reflex flip into the multiball start before you've stacked them all. I do like that you can bail out and get your multiball whenever you want along the way or whatever. So it kind of gives you that option. It rewards you. It's like you were saying earlier, the risk reward. I think that's what makes it such a fun game for me. I can't think of another game that has that from this era that has that kind of Stranger Things style left orbit that turns into a return to the right flipper kind of ramp around the back. That is a very cool ramp. Sunlight, Stranger Things and Bond. But I don't know of any other game before Godzilla that had that. That's a good point. That's a very good point. You know what I just realized? What also has that is Hot Wheels, the American pinball Hot Wheels, which is also a Joey B game. Joe Balster. Yeah. And it has the ramp. It has the same ramps in both places. And Hot Wheels also kind of a banger. That's kind of a sleeper, I would say. That game's fun. That game is fun. You don't see it very often. We're all in agreement. This game rules for every reason. It hits on all levels. Alex and I actually, we argue about this quite a bit because, like, this is a game that I was going to defend. uh unless we found a guest like sean who would come on and defend it and i we always call it like we call it at the top of the episode we call it goodzilla because this is this is the godzilla game that like i'm really excited to play no joke i know people are listening to this right now and freaking the fuck out like they're like how what the hell are you talking about like the best game of all time was godzilla made by stern like there's no shade to that game that game's amazing Like we've had a premium on the floor forever at Wedgehead. We took it out because somebody wanted to rent it for a weekend for a party and people flipped out because it left for a couple of days.
    13:20
    It's a great game. Nobody's denying that. I just, for me, it's like, I really love playing this game. I was a kid when this movie came out. I had some of the toys from Taco Bell. Like I remember the commercials. It's just fun. It looks different. I just love the big Godzilla head. I love the ramps. you also love alligators right i love alligators so i like zilla the yeah the 98 zilla is very much just like a alligator t-rex kind of godzilla so that might be part of why you know you're so drawn to it i like the zilla character design the movie yeah not so yeah but yeah i kind of agree with you yeah the only thing i don't like about this game is this is the era of sega where they're doing like clear plastic stand-up targets and i just think that they're they feel terrible to hit like they feel like hitting like plexiglass or something like they just they have like no give yeah they're weird it's such a weird thing to say right because normally you you talk about stand-up targets are like the most basic like they're just there nobody even thinks about them i don't even think about them as like a tactile feeling in a pinball machine until you give me these targets i'm like well these are trash right like these are absolute trash i guess there was an art in a stand-up target before that i wasn't fully appreciating it seems like a weird one that they felt compelled to redesign you're like why did we have to go back and touch these but i think the reasoning behind it and i'd love to talk to somebody that worked there at the time but i think what it is is that you could put lights behind them and the light glows through it Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Like a normal target, you don't have that. You can have general illumination behind it, but these you can put lights behind them. So like the red targets can be glowing red. I wonder if they ever considered molding half spherical translucent balls instead of these. Yeah.
    15:17
    Because I know a guy that can do a pretty bang up job of those and they feel a lot better than the Sega targets. You know, they can glow too. So nowadays I wonder, well, maybe you could probably get replacements of those too, but there was a while where you couldn't get those. And so people were replacing them with just kind of regular standup targets. And I played a Godzilla that had all regular targets. And like, I really liked that. That was actually the first Sega Godzilla that I had. Cause I was like, Oh man, I really don't like those real plastic, the proper Sega ones, but that's a small grape. I love this game. I just find it fun every single time. If I don't get to five, it's like start again, start again, start again, over and over and over again. And that's a common thing for my favorite games of all time. Like what makes a favorite game for me is do I want to keep playing it over and over again? It's like a compulsive thing to me. You know, I like a simple game. As long as the game has a good hook. Godzilla has one for sure. Well, guys, not everybody feels the same way as you do. What?
    16:20
    We're going to get into some bad reviews here. All right. The first, are you ready for him? You ready for it, Sean? I'm ready. Charlie Brown 2417 says, I hate this machine, to be honest. The layout sucks, and some shots are just impossible without a perfect situation. Thank you, Grace. I think you're wrong.
    16:41
    There are no tough shots on this game. Some shots are impossible. I'm like, I don't know which one. That one underneath the Godzilla head, that's like medium difficulty. It sounds like Charlie was playing a badly set up Godzilla. I bet it was just a dead on route Godzilla with weak flippers. That could be. Yeah. So I played one of these when we were in Japan, maybe that was 2019 or whatever. And there was one, there's very few pinball machines. There's kind of more now, but at the time there were very few there. and an arcade we happen to be at had this Sega Godzilla there and it was literally impossible to make the right ramp because the flipper was so tired and needed to rebuild which makes the game very sad yeah so maybe Charlie Brown 24 17 was just playing the copy at Mikado Game Center in Tokyo and that's why he can't make any of the shots the layout sucks and some shots are just impossible without purpose I'm like dude this you should play some games nowadays dude I think it would blow his mind like these shots are wide open especially that yeah that left orbit it's like yeah these shots are hard not to hit i think captain adam 21 says the rumbler is fun but that's about it for fun with this stinker the rumbler the rumbler does it have a shaker motor yeah i didn't realize yeah it's it's used really well it is because i don't know like when you're making those right ramp shots the godzilla footprint inserts light up on the play field and you get a little subtle like yeah from the shaker motor that is pretty sick actually i remember it rumbler yeah it has a name joe cam and cow who designed this game was working at sega he admittedly right away when williams didn't get the patent for the shaker motor for when they built Earthshaker, Joe was like, this is awesome, and he put it into a lot of games because he was like, no, this game is rad. That why a lot of those Data East Segas have even games that you like how does this even here Godzilla makes 100 of sense but he was sort of like the first guy Now all these home collectors that what they all do right They all like I need a shaker motor for my rush And you're like, do you? I guess. But everyone does now, and it's like a popular home collector mod. But Joe famously took that, and I remember listening to an old episode of TopCast with Pat Lawler, and he was talking about, yeah, it was a great idea. of all the things we patent on every game and sue other companies for trying to use back and forth that's sort of the pinball industry we didn't do that and then you know joe over at daddy you say good like just took it ran with it yeah all right i got the next one nimble pin says other than the rare factor this game could have been so much better clear red teeth targets give me a break i'd rather see gojira trashing a building in a corner somewhere or possibly eating a ball a la Jurassic Park. Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I like that the thing not eating a ball has been a thing for like, oh, yeah, it's still happening. You like every game need eat a ball. You're like the ball comes flying out of Godzilla's mouth. You know, it's like his atomic breath or whatever. That seems pretty thematic and cool. I don't know. When was that review? Oh, this was probably 10 years ago. 10 years ago. Yeah. I wonder if this game was like maybe panned more back in the day because the movie didn't do so well and without like stacked next to other games at the time it it didn't really compare but you think it compares more favorably against games like godzilla now a little bit yeah yeah um i because i i think maybe with players now i i sense a little bit of rules like deep rules fatigue godzilla looks a little bit more appealing uh bare next to all of these really complex games yeah i can see that hopefully that's a general sentiment growing because it's certainly how we all three seem to feel it's interesting to hear sean say that because you're a top tournament player but i i talked to my friend zoe who we've had on the show before and she's a great excellent tournament player as well and i remember we were talking about funny enough stern godzilla when that game had come out when it was the pro we had and we were doing it the high score chase it was brand new the code was brand new but it was really far along like keith owen games are always fully cooked by the time they come out they add so much to them and they rebalance them and they change things don't get me wrong but like you never get the keith game that's like not a game yet like they do with some of their other titles yeah you don't get a stranger things yeah but i remember talking to zoe at the time and being like she's like i don't know what i'm doing and i'm like i was asking her to get her like quick tips because i didn't want to like really learn and then i realized she didn't know and then i downloaded the 30 page rule set or whatever and printed it out and then learned the game and i was teaching i was like so isn't it weird that like we're as into pinball as anybody right like if we don't want to learn or care to learn these deep rules then who are they making them for if it's not for us who is this for like we are we are pinball dorks like i own a pinball home buyers it's for the home buyers that's who wants deeper deeper deeper rules it's just insane sometimes yeah that kind of leads me to like thinking about godzilla sega godzilla rules it i would like to see something like this is like the multi-ball stacking like the one objective i could totally see that as like an alternate rule set for a game. You know how you can choose like a co-op mode or an impossible mode? Well, like Beatles lets you do the see-witch mode. I bring it up on this podcast a lot because I think it's awesome. It makes the game way better. And it's like, I really wish they would do that on more games where it's just like a single objective mode would be very fun. I famously, I don't love Stern's Jurassic Park. I'll put that out there on the podcast because everyone knows that um but like i like the escape nublar mode so when i have to play that game that's what i usually do like if i have to rebuild a flipper and i have to play test it i'm gonna just put it in escape nublar because it's like i like having just like collect these right like like it's giving me like clear objectives lit like and i was like okay this is fun i i just don't want i don't want to keep track of dna and different dinosaurs and different like it just in my pathway i'm just like i don't want this in a pinball machine but i know that's a beloved game that's currently ranked number two in the top 100 so uh what do i know yeah the examples of games we're using maybe aren't the best and i'm arguing for number 200 here i'm like really like sega godzilla guys yeah all right the next one tabasco man says sega's godzilla wants so badly to be a contender and it's just flat released at the end of pinball's second renaissance it's a movie tie-in for sony's ill-conceived badly botched american godzilla movie from 1998 it does show promise the huge godzilla toy just shoved into the left-hand corner of the table is attractive and i like that he interacts with your shots but in the end it becomes an eyesore after the novelty wears off the playfield's far too wide open and there are two generic ramps which don't offer a lot to do they're not generic we're just stacking multi-balls into the name of the game and that's all well and good for a bit but becomes apparent that there isn't a lot of depth after that the play field looks like an afterthought something thrown together at the last second and ugly to boot plus the table is dark as hell and that doesn't help things it's somewhat saved when modders add in leds but that's too little too late this is a sega table and with it comes Sega, Sega's crappy grinding 16-bit rock noise that was also present on Starship Troopers. It'll have you begging for mercy long before the giant lizard does. Tell you what, dipshit, if you don't like my policies, you can just come on down here and smooch my big old white butt. All in all, it's fine, but if it's in the middle of several other games, I'm not giving it much of my time. The music for this game is perfect. Yeah. it's like 10 seconds of master of puppets on repeat like i i think it matches just the theme really well and you're not gonna be playing it for that long yeah i would kind of agree with that i'm like if you if the music's annoying you i feel like you've been playing the game too long and needs to be set up harder yeah shout out to anyone listening in the seattle area they have one at georgetown pizza arcade it's dialed it's dialed in when we played it and it was set up hard as shit and it was awesome i've played a lot of these and that's the best one i've played i think by that i mean that i remember anyway yeah yeah highly recommend that place that's the that's the pinball spot that's down the street for me so i was playing on that godzilla a bunch over the past week yeah that's awesome you're not gonna find our next reviewer at georgetown pizza imaginary he says you look at this game and it's gorgeous it begs to be played i agree with him so far he says you think it's gonna be fun but by the third ball you just want it to end the plunger shot and skill shot is there a skill shot are weird even when the ball spits out of godzilla's mouth it's boring just like the movie ferris bueller you're my hero very rude i don't think it's boring at all i disagree i do agree it's gorgeous and it begs to be played because i think it's very cool very cool looking bin wall machine gorgeous is maybe a stretch i don't know if the playfield art is great the translate though is the translate just lifted i think that was the godzilla poster it's a really good looking translate i gotta say oh yeah who is the artist for this game i don't know i think they straight up stole that from a movie poster oh you think so i think so because i've seen that poster outside of the bin wall machine it is basically the movie poster if you go to the pin side um page the promo photo that pops up first is the german flyer and it has a godzilla yelling voist mind flipper which flipper is what they call pinball machines i just think that's funny a german godzilla is just fucking terrifying to me for some reason i mean it's already american godzilla artwork was by greg pro and morgan weaseling which i haven't heard of either of them before so well they fucking crushed it do the things beautiful well yeah it's gorgeous imagine here he agrees gorgeous yeah he he just wants to walk away on the third ball i had no idea that was a movie poster i thought this was some like i think so one of a kind andron illustrator i'm just i'm just a pinball podcaster i don't actually check facts for anything all right the next one we got henchman one says not a good game The audio is annoying after a few plays. As with a lot of Sega-slash-Data East games, play seems to be dominated by the same shots. Too many big plastics? Shaker okay? The one I played gave out many free games, and I left it with about three after playing for a couple of hours. Whoa, okay. Wow. You played it for a couple hours. Life moves pretty fast You don stop and look around once in a while you could miss it sensing some hyperbole here a couple of hours if he hated it that much like the shaker okay in the review he like yeah shaker's okay it's a pretty shitty game but the shaker's okay what score did they give it yeah what henchmen one say i don't even remember i don't usually include their like overall scores but they're these are all like they liked it you know he says not a good game like that's the first name he's like not a good game audio is annoying after a few plays play seems to be dominated by the same shots i don't think so that's the lowest rated review for it he gave it a 4 out of 10 a 4.08 2 that's the biggest godzilla hater in the world and he's like i've only played it for a couple hours straight it's he's not playing it right either you do have to shoot all the shots you You do have to. Yeah, exactly.
    29:08
    He's just sitting there shooting the left orbit over and over again. He's like, this is easy, guys. I bet what happened is he figured out some way or he was just slapping around to figure out the easiest way to set up one of the multiballs. And then he just hit start. Right. Like he starts one single multiball. You get that Matthew Broderick call out. Go, go, go, get it, get it, go, go, go, get it.
    29:30
    Just so good. OK, next one. Winkski says, many, many games later, and I'm sorry, but I can't get past that notorious clunky plasticness. I tried, I really tried. The fabulously tactile rumble of the shaker and some hectic and frequent multivol, can't overcome questionable art, bad call-outs, and the overall feel that this was made for pre-teens. Pros, the translate. Cons, no class. Frowny face. He gives good kids bad ideas. no class no class it also had like questionable art prose translate again yeah i can't get over how many of these dudes are like that shaker is pretty sick though like they just fucking love the shaker motor well i mean it is well integrated like sean says it is well integrated you give a guy's shaker man you can see why uh joe kamikawa is like fuck we got to put these and everything. The old guys love them. He knew it. He knew it, man. What would a classy Godzilla game look like? Ah, well, you'd put him in, like, you know, a black tie. Black tie Godzilla. But also, what's the notorious clunky plasticness? I'm like, I don't really understand. I don't know how to make it that. Maybe the stand-ups. Maybe it's the Target. There is a lot of plastic on the game, like the molded green plastic and stuff. So, I don't know. Okay. Last one. This is a biggie. It's from a guy with a very good username, Windball Pizzard. and he says if i was asked to describe the game in one word i would say godzilla is abysmal at least nobody's ever been in love with him the game is easily the worst pinball machine i have ever played hey you can never go too far the playfield is uninspired there's one shot in particular on the left where you might expect an orbit to be instead of returning the ball to the right side of the playfield or something interesting but it drops into the shooter lane oh okay he's having a problem with the game there yeah but says i've never seen this and it seems like laziness on the part of the designers more than anything anyway i'm gonna keep going uh this is shocking to you after doing this show for this long it's hard for me to get past that but then to keep going there's the big godzilla toy in the center of the playfield that sits over some targets i wouldn't care about hitting i thought hey jurassic park has a cool toy with a dinosaur and this is kind of dinosaur-ish. Maybe he does something cool. You get to Godzilla by shooting the right ramp and then nothing. It just sort of falls out of his mouth. Blarg, or whatever sound a Godzilla makes when it's just lying there motionless and coughing up a hairball. To make matters worse, there's this horrible, horrible music going on in the background that makes you want to stick a screwdriver in your ear. This is the first pin I wanted to just walk away from. Here's where Cameron goes berserk. But realize that someone else might have ended up playing another game next to this one and killed themselves or someone else by chapter being driven insane by the sewage coming from godzilla speakers so i decided to finish my game instead the one redeeming quality of godzilla is that it ends and luckily the arcade is really stingy when it comes to match replays whatever destructive laser beam shooting human devouring japanese city destroying rampage godzilla has performed in the movies. Sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads. They all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude. Is nothing in comparison to the twisted abomination that is Godzilla pinball. Oh my God. This was like the most dramatic. That's going to be one of the biggest ones we've had. Pardon my French, but Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you'd have a diamond. worst pinball machine he's ever played i think it's hilarious that he's shooting that left orbit and not realizing that's supposed to feed to a ram yeah that's a that's a broken game i wonder what he thought of the movie other than that though how was the movie if you're saying he'd rather shove a screwdriver into his head i know dude he's like he felt obligated he didn't want to leave the game because he wanted to walk away but he didn't want someone to end up playing another game next to this one and kill themselves or someone else after being driven insane the one redeeming quality is that it ends is amazing i'm like that's a pretty good line man there's a lot of sega games that i wish would end when i'm playing them but this is like i think one of the best ones they made one of the best like Sega pens. This is easily my favorite Sega pen and I actually like quite I think a lot of them are fun but this is probably the most well-rounded one where like I it doesn't need any major adjustments or anything it just plays good. It's not broken it's like a lot of them have kind of broken rule sets which will ruin the game this one is just it has a do the thing rule set yep and it's fun it is fun and it's gorgeous and it has a has a rumbler you know yeah that beautiful art package every piece of it is gorgeous stern should be they should stern should be oh dude the throwback oh my god dude that's what they're gonna do for the 50th anniversary yeah instead of bringing back tron or like any of the things that people keep bay lord of the rings they're like ah we're gonna do another run of 98 zilla i'm sure that they'll be looking at it and they'll be talking to gary and they'll be like, what do you think, Gary? And Gary will be like, well, we only sold 500 of these. It's pretty much the biggest failure in our company's history.
    35:10
    Yeah, let's go ahead and re-vault this one. We're like, this is the best Sega. And it's like, it was the worst performing. It was a terrible performer. And they've now made another one that everyone loves and calls the best game of all time. So there is zero chance of this ever being remade. it's a shame it is a shame but like i said earlier in the episode if you're in the seattle area there are a couple on location in seattle uh we have one out at next level here in the portland area and for everyone else that's listening seek this game out use the pinball map there's not a lot of them on location but if you do have one on location go play it go for the multi-ball stack it's super fun earmark it to play at a show because these do make it out to shows quite a bit since it's such a rare game and give yourself a chance play a different version of godzilla arguably a better version i'm just saying that but for everyone else we want to thank sean once again for joining us on this episode coming back on the show to defend sega's godzilla and we want to thank you all for listening until next time good luck don't suck
    36:29
    I will be king. And you, you will be queen. We're nothing, we're nothing, we're nothing, we're nothing.
    36:51
    We can be heroes. Just one thing. We can be us Just for one day I remember Standing by the wall The guns Shut up with our hands And we kissed As though nothing could fall