Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 31st. This is episode 253. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And I do want to go ahead right off the start and thank Brandon L., who upgraded his Patreon membership level at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We appreciate that. And also for Jason F. and John L., who gave us some feedback on our video version. We did that for intermediate here and above. And both basically noted that it helps video they find helps keep people better connected with podcasters. That was their interpretation of it. Yeah. However, we didn't see any widespread demand for video version per se. A lot of the commentary also indicated that most – what we heard from was we listen. We listen. It's a podcast. So we're not doing video this time because it requires a whole bunch of additional setup. So we might do it as an occasion. So sometimes we're just cooking. So sometimes. Yeah. So what's going on, Tony? I have been watching inordinately a large amount of video game Let's Plays. Specifically, I found, like Friday I found it, there's a game out called Beyond All Reason. What Beyond All Reason is, is a fan-made modernization of my all-time favorite RTS, Total Nuclear Annihilation. but it's specifically designed for like massive multiplayer stuff. As in, I recently watched a 25 v 25 and a 50 v 50 matches. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of people. It has a max unit count of 32,000 units. and it's just insane to watch and they've done a very good job of from what i've seen of taking all of the classic stuff uh from Total Nuclear Annihilation and bringing it together into a something that can be played on a modern machine and has the ability to be multi-played online and all that. Okay. Interesting. So I've been watching a lot of videos of that. I've also been watching some videos of Broken Arrow, not the movie. Okay. Because YouTube has Broken Arrow for free right now. It does. And it's recommended. Yeah. Because I've recently watched K-19, The Widowmaker, and Crimson Tide. So it seems to think that means I want to watch Broken Arrow. Yes, another possible nuclear incident. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it's got some really good lines in it. But, well, I have played some more Yakuza. I hadn't for quite a while. I took a Yakuza hiatus. It's like a dragon is becoming more like a drag on because it's testing me forever. But Vampire Survivors had distracted me. Is that what that game was called? Yeah, Vampire Survivors. I was like, that are slayers because I kill them too. Anyway, so I've been distracted by that. and then the battlefield beta and, and, you know, of course, I'll play Marvel rivals and, and some overwatch as well. So, um, Oh, we did also get an email that I thought I'd plug into the intro here from Sean M who wrote, uh, for you regarding your Chicago trip. Yes. So he wrote in saying, recommend pin grounds, coffee to Tony on his Chicago trip. So there you go. I, I, I saw it in the notes. I looked it up. There's no way I'm getting there. Okay. Sorry, Sean. Uh, but Tony does not like your idea. No, It's not that I don't like the idea. Never liked it. It's just that my hotel is like walking distance to Navy Pier, and Penn Grounds is way out there. And I'm already getting cut down. Right now, my current – I'm not even going to go so far as to say plan. My current hope is that I can get free Wednesday to go to Gallop and Ghost. Okay. But even that, I don't know yet. because some of the other people I'm going with are putting stuff together that's work-related. Well, I always say, do not trust a hope. It has forsaken these lands. Yeah, yeah. But Penn Grounds is more like Penn Out of Bounds. It's pretty far out there. Yeah. It's pretty far out there. Sorry. Technically, it is part of the Chicago metro area, but it is definitely – Because, like I said, at this point, I have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday completely full. Wednesday, I'm full up until late afternoon for sure. And then it's just going to depend upon if this other thing comes together or not. And then I fly out at like 9 a.m. Thursday morning. Okay. Well, but we appreciate the suggestion nonetheless. Yes, thank you very much. All right, so transitioning over into the pinball section formally. There is one quasi-announcement. Of course, Stern has gone back to their old ways. It's an announcement of announcements. Yes, of not timing with us. So there was a teaser trailer, as Stern loves to do, regarding their next Cornerstone, which it is the time of the year that we would expect a new Cornerstone. And it is called, so we know the name of the game. It's Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Now, you are more versed with, like, Star Wars books and stuff. This didn't sound like it was anything. My guess is this covers the period in time that happens after Jedi. It's the collapse. That's where a lot of people are all over the place on maybe what it means. The name would suggest that to me. Or it could also be, though, I could see it as early as maybe after the Empire strikes back, where things start to slide. It could be that early, possibly. Again, I don't know. But I know there's a lot of games and a lot of books that take place in that period after Jedi and well before the new sequel trilogy stuff. Right, right. So here's what we do know. It is going to be, as was announced by George Gomez, it will be a Spike 3 system. Now, Spike 3 has already surfaced in the wild in one of the Costco games, one of the newer ones there. So we do know what Spike 3 is, and it's essentially a version of the Raspberry Pi is driving a lot of the stuff, which would also help with this make sense that all signs point to that there is not going to be a price increase with the Spike 3 changeover. and I would say nor should there be given that the architecture didn't really require R&D, not in the main sense of designing an entire new board set. The LE version of Fall of the Empire is supposed to be at a total of 770 units. And so, again, about the – oh, we did get invited to the media showing, but I did not RSVPS, Tony, because, I mean, we both have work trips in September anyway. September is a terrible month for me. Literally, I have like currently in the entire month of September, I have two days that don't have at least one meeting scheduled for the entire working month of September so far. I've had two things I've wanted to schedule. I had to schedule, I think, both of them the last week of September because I've got a work conference. It's in Kansas, but it's not in town. and then i also we have it's time for our strategic plan so we have a multi-day retreat for that too so those right i mean just anyway but we appreciate the invite um so regarding it being fall of the empire there has been some speculation i've seen online about that maybe that this is going to be a unique story in the star wars universe uh kind of like when stern did the jurassic park game and you know it was animated and it told its own story in the park uh and that that might be the approach here i um i like it's logical given that it's not clearly like saying oh it's this is going to be the uh the prequels or the original trilogy or the the last three of the you know right that they haven't declared anything like this however i don't think this is i don't think they're going to animate it in that way i don't think they're going to do a totally unique thing from Jurassic Park. And the reason why is they took a lot of blowback for that. And the amount that their animation team can do, they can't make a cartoon. They don't have the wherewithal or the time or the money to make a whole. It always looks a little, I'm trying to find a nice way to say it, it always looks a little cheap when they have to rely on it a whole, whole lot for everything. I think it makes sense to do the animations for extra ball and achieving and achieving certain things that are game-related, but otherwise occupying the screen with pre-existing content makes a lot of sense for them. And the consumer, the people who are buying the pinball machines for their home, they just prefer that format. Yeah, there's enough comics and stuff set in that time period that it's entirely possible that they could pull completely from comics or the like. And I'm also, again, there have been shows that have taken place during this, like you mentioned, this sort of fall. So if they were – what if the theme was around just defeats that the Empire suffered? So you could see stuff from Rogue One. Again, they work with Disney all the time. They could get from TV shows and movies and comics and all the rest of it and integrate it in some interesting way. So what I'm saying is I think they're going to use existing properties, and that will populate a lot of the content that you view on the screen. That is my guess. I can see it. I think they know that they just get blowback when they don't do that. Well, and I wonder how much harder it would be to get licensed or signed off with how the Star Wars license goes. Yeah, I don't know. Older stuff, it's always trickier with older licenses where you sometimes have to approach each individual actor and such when you're doing actual footage content. Newer stuff, usually that's all baked in is my understanding. Like when they sign the actors on to a modern movie, they already agree that their likeness from that film can be used in other stuff. Right. So it's usually cleaner when they use the new stuff. So anything that was made for Disney+, I don't imagine it would be hard for them to get. But we'll just have to see. So that's really it in terms of pinball news. We do have a few emails that came in, though, related to the world of pinball. So I will go ahead and I will start with Doug. So Doug wrote in and said the following. Hey, guys. A lot of talk lately about pinball live streaming with Jack Danger's job change at Stern Pinball. I am just going to say it. Live streaming pinball sucks. I know I may not have the popular opinion here with your audience, but I'm sure there are some that agree with me. It's as someone comes up with a camera rig that captures the perspective of the player, where you can actually see the ramps, stand-up and drop targets, toys, and other features of the game from where the player would stand, streaming pinball is a two-dimensional experience. Ever watch a football game, baseball game, or golf on TV? There's a reason the camera angle isn't from above the players. The third dimension is critical to understand and experience gameplay. Unless you are very familiar with the machine already, and know all the shots, ramps, targets, etc., streaming pinball from directly above the playfield just doesn't really work. Fire away, Doug. Well, thank you, Doug, for the ammunition, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that may be thrown at you. However, I'm not really going to criticize the take because I've brought up not so much this angle in the same way, the literal angle way, but I have there are two things I kind of want to mention I'll have you start because obviously I'm kind of tripping over my words and I'm trying to think how I'm going to explain my two streams of thought here I mean I don't think he's wrong it is a very much a medium that I don't think actually translates very well to streaming I know there's a bunch of streamers who do it we've done it We've streamed the Kansas City Pinball Championships on multiple occasions. We've streamed your games. We've streamed all sorts of stuff. And I've watched all sorts of streams. And one thing that I've noticed is even with me, with a deep interest in pinball and knowledge, especially of the older machines, I tend to get out of it and be less entertained very quickly compared to a stream of somebody playing like Satisfactory or some other game. I don't know that it tends to hold anything but the most hardcore of a hardcore audience. audience. And I think you could be completely right, Doug. It could be because it's so flat with the views that are required based upon physics, basically, because there's not anything you put that's mounted to the player is going to be moving around unless you've got one of those rare players who does not move their upper body at all, which is going to be problematic and make everybody sick. Or it's going to be, it's going to have to be like mounted directly to the machine, in which case it's going to be interfering with the player. So I don't know that there's a good answer to it, but I think something like that would definitely make it more interesting. Yeah, I've seen instances where they have some people, some streamers have tried to kind of address some of this, like putting almost like a GoPro down on the lock bar to try and give you the angle, almost the player's perspective. Obviously, it's a little different because most people don't literally put their head down on the lockdown bar in order to see their shots. For me, the issue with the live stream or just the streaming of pinball in general is the aspect ratio. The problem I feel is more driven by the fact that you think about a television and you think about the way modern high definition televisions are They are giant rectangles from side to side is the length pinball machine it top to bottom that where all the length is because we do not just readily swivel our monitors and our televisions into that format the problem that i think ends up happening is no matter how big your tv is you end up having a very small section of it actually showing you the game that's why when setting up a live stream you end up sticking giant logos and face cams and and a huge thing for the score way bigger than it really needs to be but what else can you do you've got you're you've got the wrong shape you've got the right angle is formatted it's oriented the wrong way for what you really want to do and i just think it means whenever you you see that it's it's just really hard to follow the ball i mean you have to have a really big tv before you start to be like, okay, I can still make everything out. I mean, really big. It's why digital pinball games give you the option. Do you want to see the entire play field or do you want it to kind of follow the ball so you can actually see the details of the inserts and such as it goes along? Now, I get too motion sick with that format because it's not how the eye actually works, but they're trying to solve the problem that this doesn't look right on a TV because the TV's turned the wrong way for it. So that was my first point. My second was actually, he didn't bring this up, but he hinted at it with the whole, unless you're familiar with the machine, it doesn't really work to stream from above. The fact that all pinball machines have different rules is why competitive pinball as a spectator sport ain't ever going to happen. Like, as much as they want it to, like, because you have to know the game, and you have to have the announcer be able to explain to you the rules of the game. But the problem is whenever you come in and these games can go over 30 minutes, as you and I will know from our own experience, that unless – because people can drop in and out of baseball, football, basketball, cricket, whatever. The game is the same no matter what. So as long as you know the baseline rules, you can drop in, drop out, and you don't have the announcers of football. They don't go and explain to you what the difference is between the nickel and some other position or what the dime even means. They don't talk about that. You either go and learn it or you don't. But you have the same – it's not like it's going to change from game to game. The value of the drop targets in Stern Star Trek is totally different than the value of the drop targets in Walking Dead. And they can't teach you the game, but you also can't just learn pinball. I'm air quoting. learn pinball and then you'll know what all that stuff is so pinball pinball is terrible from a competitive perspective for a whole host of reasons it is not the least of which is it's it's hard to uh to show on screens because the screens are the wrong direction versus what the pinball machine is the fact that the game goes longer the better you are at it which doesn't help matters like different than every other bar game that exists incidentally and that unlike all the other traditional bar games like darts and pool and uh and foosball and air hockey the rules are different for every single game it's part of the reason we like it but it's also part of the reason why it is super unfriendly to casual understanding on a nuanced level that would matter for watching and so it's the same with a stream jack's not going to sit there every five minutes and re-explain how the game works it's not they would never make sense it would be terrible it would be terrible for anyone into the game of pinball to watch that. Pinball is one of those things that it's watching experience. Even if you know the game and you're there in person, it's so rough. You couldn't even get pinball on the Ocho. They stick it on on occasion in a highly edited format to try and make it interesting. And I had these conversations with Zach many over at the pinball show about, because he said ideas on ways to grow the spectator sport of pinball, and I'm like, none of it will really work. Some of his ideas would work better than what the current world has, but it will never be a thing, not a big thing, never. It is very niche. So I think there's a desire. There has been a desire, and there's probably still a desire with some people. So, Doug, you think you're going to get some heat. I'm going to get some heat. I think there are people that really wish that you could actually make a living playing competitive pinball, and they're trying to get competitive pinball to that plane of existence. It will not happen. It will not happen. Because fundamentally, it is not that fun of a watching experience. It's just not. Well, and here's the thing is, outside of the major, major sports, you can't make a living playing competitive anything, really. Or if you do make a living, it's not. it's still very much hand to mouth based upon your day to day actual plane. Yeah. Anyway, it's I thought it was an interesting point, Doug. So thank you for sharing it. Another email. This one's from Scott V, who has noted that if I were to read this on the show that he wants me to use my best Saskatchewan accent, specifically the moose jaw area, as if I was a beaver trapper who lives in the bush. so this is so great he then suggested that just destroyed you at this point they suggested uh scott suggested me me to use uh any character from strange brew which i don't know what that is so uh it is a canadian uh comedy with who was in it uh Is it new? No, it's like from the 90s. Maybe. Hmm. All right. I don't remember the actors now. It doesn't matter. Okay. I don't know it, so I can't say it. Say a boo to Bunch. Well, that's what he's... Well, I mean, but I have to quote his lines. Actually, he's worked... He's actually woven them in. What are the worst looking modern pinball game, eh? Turned off, eh? In a well-lit room, eh? my top five are Stranger Things pre-aboot and a P3 multimorphic aboot dialed in aboot Game of Thrones premium aboot Walking Dead aboot alright thanks Scott so you know that's not a terrible list for things that look bad worst looking modern pinball games turned off in good lighting okay gosh alright I P3 for sure. Yeah. No, unfortunately, P3 has – That's a hard lock. Yeah, because it's basically a TV. Right. I mean, it's sort of like – it pretty much happens. It's like having a virtual pinball machine in your collection. You go down and go, ah, it's a TV laying down. Yeah. It's sleepy. Sleepy. It's sleepy. It's sleepy. Okay. So four others. I I do agree with Dialed In so I'm going to also have that even though I like that game a lot the art on that game is pretty and it's got the giant screen because it's JJP and the back of it doesn't look that good either so there is that alright I have to hedge this one by noting I have not seen it in person I've only seen it online and in photos, but Dutch Pinball's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Yeah, but it looks bad turned on. Yes, but he didn't say it had to. It couldn't count if it looked bad when on also. The art for that game, I'm just like, no, no, no. So I'm going to put Alice, that Alice in as my number three. um oh gosh more all right modern only modern games um i mean he he did go back to the dmd era with game of thrones and and walking dead uh i hmm i don't do you have anything coming to mind while i'm trying to think but uh barry it was barbecue that is a really good pick oh my gosh it what a clown vomit color scheme that it it's it's not like taste the rainbow skittles style it's there was a lot of brown on that one yeah i remember that's a really good i i have to adopt that one too that one yeah barry was that was rough i was also thinking uh highways full throttle yeah because it had the massive back Mac box LCD. It's got the big LCD in the thing. And honestly, it didn't have a lot going on on the play field. It was colorful-ish, but. Yeah, that one. Okay, I can see you going with that one. I think my fifth one, because I'm going to also do the barbecue. I'm actually going to go with, and this one's going to sound a little weird. The play field's going to do a heavy lift on it, but Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie has a great back glass. Rob Zombie's back glass is the best thing about that game. The sides of the cab are okay. The play field is terrible. It's like I just felt bad that it had such a good back glass because everything else. And I'm saying it's like gameplay. But it's super like gray is what I remember. It's just dark. It's not. The colors don't pop. So give them credit for not popping all the colors like everyone does all the time now. But it's super drab. Right. Right. And when it's off, I think it just looks really just vacant. So more so, I'm going to put it up. I'm going to say even worse than the full throttle did. So I'm going to go ahead and go. So mine would be the P3 platform dialed in, I agree with. Barbecue, I agree with you on. And then Rob Zombie. Was that five? That's four. One, two, three, four. Okay, I need a fifth. Did I already have a fifth that I failed to mention? No, I guess not. Okay, well, now I have to think of another sort of really, really rough art package. Yeah, that's a little – it's very, very tricky for me. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Most of them just aren't that bad in the – well, I guess since he did Sam games, 24. okay it's 24 uh yeah no it's it may not actually be one of the worst but uh the i think even off it's super easy to see just how photoshoppy that game is so i'll do 24 as the last one all right that's my five i don't know if you had any you wanted to add um it's hard i should have thought about this ahead of time because most things aren't really that awful right most of them are at least that's fine most of them once they're turned off they're just big blocking objects that make it hard to vacuum yeah um but i i do agree dialed in shut off is weird um P3 you had the barbecue barbecue um let's see what else I can think of I mean CSI was boring too well I was actually thinking um um WWE I was actually going to say Guns N' Roses turned off as boring as heck because the whole thing is designed around being a a concert yeah that's a good point I also almost named ACDC because he just had the giant Angus face that one I didn't ever think the art was very good on period so there are a few others I think this is an area that several of the music pins would really grab Guns N' Roses does hide behind its light show a lot. It does. And, I mean, like, at least Rush has some interesting, more interesting stuff on the field. Yeah, I thought Rush looked okay turned off. And Foo Fighters looks great turned off. Yeah. Metallica looks great turned off. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of them. I mean, nowadays, they're trying a lot harder lately in many ways. So, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll go with that for right now. If I think of something else. Yeah. We gave him enough. We gave him enough ideas. So thank you ever so much, Scott, for writing in. And then finally, Skippy wrote in to us regarding our that game we played where it was Kansas versus Dungeon Crawler Carl. God, I cannot say. So this is the only person who wrote in about this. Everyone else listen to me about don't even bother writing it because I lost according to the rules that we engaged by. But he did write in and Skippy wrote, the answer is Dungeon Crawler Carl. Anyone that says Kansas is a certified grandpa and proof this hobby is dying like its followers. I mean. Thank you, Skippy, for writing it. Thank you for breaking it down Barney style for us, Skippy. All right. All right. Video games. All right. We actually had an email, and I'm going to have to part this one out across several episodes, but Richard A. wrote in, and I'm not going to read the email to you because he has a whole lot of different pieces to it. So here's what I need to note in this particular episode. What Richard said is he really would like us to spend more time discussing digital pinball in the video game section, and he's provided enough material for us to kind of eat at that, kind of nibble away at it over the next few episodes. So I'm going to part that in myself as we go along, basically focusing on what I consider the three biggest digital pinball platforms that are in play. And he also said he does plan to go ahead and email in when there are recaps on new releases so that we can insert that sort of information in. So I wrote him back and told him that's great because I don't think the sites that you aggregate your news from probably cover the digital pinball side at all. And we're not planning to start just going out and finding it. So I didn't mention that part, but I mentioned it now. We're not planning to go and find that part. So given we going to save the discussion of the specific platforms for future episodes Richard did give us three general topics to cover Okay The first isn actually one that we really have to cover other than that his wife says hi to us Hey how are you doing I hope you having a good day Okay Thank you Yeah, Tony has answered that one. I was just going to say hello back, so hello. All right. Second discussion. You told my wife I said hello. Yes. General. Oh, wait. No, that's not the right. That's hello there. Hello there. Second discussion topic. Do we have any favorite digital pinball tables? So across any of the... I will say, as should be no surprise, the digital pinball table that I've put by far the most time into is Attack from Mars. Oh, yes, in Pinball Arcade. Okay, and let's be fair. In all reality, it's probably Space Cadet from the old windows days but of like real digital pinball i know i played a lot of attack from mars when that table first came out yes um i would gosh so pinball arcade yeah i played that one a lot i again those are all based off of off of existing physical tables so um i'm trying to think if there's any other that really stand out to me that i put a lot of time and i put a lot of on Black Knight in that game as well. So that'd probably be the other one there. In terms of Zacharia, Robots. I really like Robots because I always thought the feature of the Robots, and again, that's based off of a real game, but Italian company, so I've never, actually, I think I have played a Robots physically. I finally got to, but I played it digitally first. So Robots is one of my favorites from that game. And then Zen, gosh, I've put a lot of time on Excalibur. one of their, their early tables. I've also put a lot of time on the one where, gosh, I, I can't remember the name. It was the free one when they came out with, um, pinball FX to the one and the kids are going through the haunted mansion. Oh, whisper isn't here yet. Yes. I played that one. Yeah. I actually, when it comes to that, I would say the one I've played the most of those is, um, star Wars star fighters. Okay. Yes. Uh, I also put a decent amount of time on the Aliens one that they have. Actually, I like that layout quite a bit more than the physical one. Yeah. I played a few other. I mean, I played a number of the other ones. The thing is, some of the really early ones, I played a lot of Mars because I played more when it was an older game. I actually, though, that one, it has corrupted my mind in a way that I quote. from the like like if i'm watching like historical stuff for example rome rome must always be said as rome like the like the game and of course are you a knight or merely a squire squire i don't actually get to quote that one because uh people aren't knights or squires around here but squire but um so there's those pieces so i um that so i always remember a little bit from the from the dialogue from those, from those early ones, but I played a lot of the early ones. Uh, uh, but yeah, I still, yeah, I don't know. Excalibur is always really, really hard. I could never get as far as I wanted to. I liked the whole concept of the layout. So that's one of my favorites that they, that they did. Uh, the third and final discussion, uh, topic for today from Richard is, um, I guess someone had planned to have a conversation at one of the expos at once upon a time on this topic about the notion of the coexistence between digital and physical pinball. So what are our thoughts on can they coexist? They kind of have to. Not that there's a requirement for them, like there has to be both. But let's face it, I think digital will die before physical from an interest standpoint. Because physical pinball is a niche hobby. Mm-hmm. Digital pinball is a niche hobby within a certain subset of physical pinball players. Because I'm sure there's not a whole lot of people out there playing digital pinball that don't also play physical pinball. Unless they have no option, I guess. I mean, I'll be fair. But they can coexist. I don't think they wipe each other out. I would be amazed to find out if the tables modeled after actual physical tables did worse than the all-new tables. I don't really know. In my mind, the ones modeled after actual physical tables would probably do better, but I could be completely wrong. I mean, yeah, there's no – yes, my answer to the discussion topic is yes, they can coexist because they do coexist. It's physical pinball was around first. Digital pinball came out. And so now both are are with us in a very in various capacities. You know, video may have killed the radio star, but digital pinball didn't do anything to physical pinball. Physical pinball's problems stem from entirely different things from video games in general, not from digital pinball specifically. What I think, though, is and where you were kind of at, Tony, is digital pinball is not at its apex here. It's probably declined from whenever it was at its peak. And I think it made more sense when physical pinball was more popular in that people were playing it in arcades. And so there was a reason to offer a home version. People didn't have pinball machines in their homes. and pinball machines being in a home are still so rare for the general public that it's just to me it's like schmups like it's it has this little niche but it is a niche digital pinball is not going to become like a major genre it's just it will not because it's not it's not good enough and i don't mean the physics or anything else it's just this is saying it's it's a type of play it well again like schmups digital pinball even though they've gotten better about having you having you do modes and play through things. The experience is very different than when you have the whole physical machine shaking and blaring, and it's showtime, and the magnets and all that. We get all of that with haptic feedback and everything else in every video game that we play. So all it is is a genre about high scores. That's old-school video game. That is. And that's why there are still people that love shmups and about min-maxing your abilities and avoiding all the shots and the challenge of it, but the goal is to blow up the leaderboard, and that's what pinball fundamentally still is, is about blowing up the leaderboard. That style of video game is not the majority desire of play, and that is why you will probably only see one, maybe two, notable companies doing digital pinball, and most of the others might do it as a sideshow. Like, I could see a new Sonic game bringing back Sonic pinball as a minigame, but that's all pinball will mostly be in the digital format to a lot of people is mini games, because I just don't think there's enough market. Like it seems that Zen studios dominates the space. Uh, and I don't think anyone else wants to try and take much. Like, I don't think they could. It, it's like when everyone was trying to still do an MMO and world of Warcraft was out, it was like, why are you even trying world of Warcraft controls so much of the space, right? You will never be as big. And so, So and the only people who did carve a niche were people who carved a very specific niche that did not directly fight World War. Right. The difference there was there was a huge audience for MMOs. That doesn't exist for digital pinball. Just like, well, schmups were huge in the 80s. They're not big today. There are still a few companies that do. There are. But it's just not this is there's just not the demand for it. I don't play digital pinball very much anymore not really because I own physical pinball machines but rather they're just other video games I want to play more than I want to sit in for me pinball, digital pinball was always like almost like a chill same with shmups for me like if I play a Geometry Wars style shmup I don't want to think, I don't want to advance a story I want a small arena where I'm doing something and that's what digital pinball is for me I'm like, I'm going to try and make this shot. I'm going to try and go through and do something here or try and get the biggest score I can. Usually with digital pinball, I'm driven by the achievements to try and guide me on, hey, what have I not done on this game yet? And then once I do all of those, I don't really revisit that table. But they're usually so hard, I can't do them all. So that's kind of the rub. But that's how I did a lot of pinball arcade, like going through and playing Black Hole and Black Knight and Attack from Mars. I was trying to hit those achievements and be like, start Total Nuclear Annihilation. Start multiball. Start Martian attack. That sort of stuff. Anyway, thank you for the discussion topics. Tony, more video game news. I know you've got a lot here. I always say that, and the R is like, hey, forget about it. The notes look longer than they probably really are. Why they were like, do Saskatchewan, like Beaver Trapper. Because you do New York all the time. You got to go do something different. You got to do something a little different. On the yacht, I'd do Massachusetts. What's in the yacht of video games? Chowda, chowda, chowda, chowda, chowda, chowda. So the big thing, the big announcement, they held it to the last minute. Finally. Hollow Knight Marc Silk Song. I still haven't won Hollow Knight. Can't beat the last box. And they gave a date for it. And the date is the 4th of September. May the 4th be with you? Yes. The date is two weeks. They gave the announcement two weeks before it came out. What's humorous to me about this is that a dozen plus other indie games, including every single Metroidvania slated to come out in early September, have all pushed. Oh, it's the GTA 6 of platforming. Yeah, they've all pushed. It was hilarious. One of them literally pushed, and his thing was, yeah, I'm going to be playing Silksong, so I'm just going to go ahead and push this back three weeks before our release. It probably was. And another one was, why, yes, I did hear what else is releasing on that day, so we're going to go ahead and release in October now. so because that early buy-in that early grab is so important especially for indie developers unlike the triple a where triple a player or companies they put something out they're like man it'll our sales will get there for for the indie players it's really all about that initial big burst grab to grab it or you end up with something like among us that suddenly shot to popularity thanks to streaming like years after it came out and suddenly it became huge years later but that type of thing is so hit or miss that going up in a fight against Marc Silk song was is just like why people have been begging for this game forever and waiting for it and dreaming of it uh the announcement has driven up the actual concurrent play of hollow knight as people have and played Hollow Knight again to get ready for it. And their actual total concurrent record of players hit 66,000 Friday night. Wow. Which, compared to like, you know, the million players of the Battlefield 6 demo is not a lot. Yeah, but this is an old game. But this is an old game. And their previous time was like 14,000 people. And that was from like a couple of years ago. It has made me think about going back and trying to beat that last boss. Right. so that way you're ready you're ready to get ready to get on the track for years get silky with it yeah i don't know even that until it finally was one of those things it was just like no i'm done i'm just i i used to do it every weekend um that was before i had my watch channel yeah so before you had that eating all your time i was like i don't not very many people want to watch someone just lose over and over again i found that also uh didn't resonate very well no it doesn't lessons learned so uh also uh there's a big interview with the makers of path of exile 2 it had that huge early access rollout um it was looking big they were planning or at least hoping to have their 1.0 release this year it's not going to happen oh uh it'll be next year or sometime they'll do the 1.0 release because they don't want a 1.0 until they have all of their story chapters, so the whole story out and done. And they don't think they can get it done. Their other big goal is they really want to get the servers very stable, and they've been undergoing continuous DDoS attacks since launch. They said it's still ongoing that they're getting attacked constantly. So they're still working to overcome that. They think with the next patch coming out, They'll have solved a lot of the issues where that's been causing problems, but they're still actively working on it. Then the big thing from this two-week series of time since the last podcast was GamesCon happened. Yes, with announcements. With so many announcements. Not like earlier this summer where there was like no announcements on it. Yes, there was like so many announcements. and the thing is there was the opening night announcements which were so many announcements and huge and then there was like lots and lots of little announcements and things that just showed up at GamesCon itself that weren't part of the opening night announcement live thing so there's a lot out there so everything I'm covering is like just the crust. It's nowhere near everything. So if you don't mention donkey kong no one write in to a clicker game go ahead and i will i will i will go and take a look at it specifically because i didn't so uh they released the cinematic trailer for black off seven um what i find interesting is they're doing the story mode uh so you can play kalam there have been some games that have done that before i don't know that's a first for call of Duty. I don't remember if it was for Call of Duty or not, but I always like the concept of being able to co-op a game like that. Lords of the Fallen was a real big game. Yep, I remember. I never played it but I remember No I remember but it was everywhere when it came out And they did announce Lords of the Fallen 2 and it supposed to be bigger harder and bloodier So it definitely not something I probably going to end up playing Sekiro is giving an anime adaptation. I'm sure you'll have to get good noob to watch the anime. It's on Crunchyroll. It's a Crunchyroll exclusive. Oh, okay. But you'll probably have to get good noob just to watch the anime. you'll like turn it on and if you're not a good enough watcher the screen's just blank yes i i've the world building in those games has always been so incredible i just wish i could we're just i've been able to play it we're old and not very good at games anymore i guess so it's sad for me there's a new lego batman coming out i'm batman legacy of the dark knight that's my legacy it'll be great i'll be made of they always are it's interesting because this one is supposed to basically cover uh like all of the major batman arcs from like origin up through all the big things that have happened like so so but done in the like normal lego humorous way get to the brick mobile yeah yeah so we'll we'll we'll see how lego the killing joke works out Warhammer 40k announced Dawn of War 4 the Dawn of War games are the Warhammer 40k real time strategy games I've played two I think I think I played the second one I've played the first one and the second one I never played the third one I heard it wasn't nearly as good but I'm excited for a fourth one coming out maybe they'll fix the problems maybe we'll see the Final Fantasy 14 and Monster Hunter are doing a crossover because Final Fantasy has started doing crossovers with just about everything lately, I've noticed. Interesting. Well, you see how you survive as an MMO. Yeah. Well, I find it humorous here because everybody one of the big things I remember hearing about Monster Hunter Wilds is that the rideable bird thing that you can ride is everyone's like, oh, look, they ripped off a Chocobo. And now they actually have Chocobo. They're going to have Chocobo skins, so you can skin it as a Chocobo. That reminds me. You talked about Black Ops 7, the Call of Duty game coming out. Apparently there's been some blowback about skins. The Fortnite-esque skins. Yeah. So, again, I'm not a Call of Duty player. I don't play online. And I wasn't aware that this was a whole thing, but I guess there had been a plan to allow the skins to transfer over. And I believe that has now been walked back. And I saw it. I've read an article that had pictures. And I thought it was a mock-up, like AI at first. Like there was the dad from American Dad holding a gun. And I guess it was from Call of Duty. And I saw another one with Beavis and Butthead. And I'm like, oh, my God. Because one of the things I guess that came up with the demo Battlefield is Battlefield when everyone was playing it. They were also, the developers were like, oh, by the way, we're keeping our skins grounded in the real world. And apparently that resonated very strongly with a lot of people who were like, please don't become stupid like Call of Duty did. Yeah, Call of Duty went full on Fortnite with skins. Oh my gosh. But it's probably a great way to make money. It is, because people will do it. People will dump tons of money on it. There was a new trailer, should have given us more a better look at Onimusha Way of the Sword. The game still looks awesome. I'm not going to play it. I'm not going to be any good at it, but it looks cool. Yeah, you're the way of the RTS. I'm old and I The way of the waves. I'm the way of the turn-based combat at this point. You're the way of the Brotato. Brotato! You know, I have not played Brotato. I regret now mentioning it. It's been too long. It's too long. There's a big trailer for Damon Cross mocking a Titanic Scion. But what I found interesting was there is this big JRPG with all of these standard JRPG tropes going on. But it is going to be on the Switch 2. And I just, even with the increases in the Switch 2's capacity, I wonder at the Switch 2's ability to handle it and how well it'll go over. Well, the only real way to put it to the test would be with like an Indiana Jones game or something. Right, definitely, which is also coming to the Switch 2. I mean, that game's popular. Yeah, it was huge. It's coming to Switch 2. There was more information on their new DLC that's coming out. That game was huge at the end of last year. I should play it. I've heard really good things about it. Zero Paradas had, like, no information. It was, like, some, like, concept drawings and a few other little minor things. The interesting thing here is it's from the same people who did Disco Elysium. Oh, okay. So with the caveat that a lot of the people, a lot of the original programmers and stuff are no longer with the company. I don't know if it means anything. So I don't know how much it'll cross over. I don't think they lost the entire team, but they've lost big chunks of the team over the years. But Disco Elysium was an enormous, like, out-of-nowhere hit. So there was a new trailer for Ninja Gaiden 4. That game looks so... I was so shocked when we originally saw it. We were like, oh, there's a Ninja Gaiden. Was it the Xbox or one of the earlier... Ninja Gaiden 3 was a near, or if not near, it may have been a release for the 360. Right. It was an early title, though. Yeah. I don't remember. And there's been nothing. And then we suddenly, like, late last year or early this year. Yes, I saw a prior trailer for this. I thought, oh, wow. Yeah, we've got some more. It looks good. It looks good. Three was hard. They've all been hard. Yeah. There's a new Silent Hill coming out, Silent Hill F, for those horror game people. I'm not a horror game. I think that's the grade that the last five Silent Hills were given by the community. I didn't know it was that high. it's been struggling it's been real bad i i love the concept though yeah i have played uh one or two of them um i've played a couple of the early ones i like a really good horror game um i really liked evil within when it came out evil within 2 was pretty good as well yeah i think that was the resident evil a guy who had gone and shifted to that maybe maybe it was silent hill i don't remember right anyway it's not that i was never no more no more resident evil person i've played it but i was never huge i didn't get into it until uh they switched to the style of resident evil 4 my first game was actually resident evil 5 but because a friend of mine wanted me to get a 360 so i would play it co-op because it was the first one with co-op right yeah yeah it's all right but it's not as it's not i just horror games don't really grab me you know i guess the most horror game that i've really enjoyed is like alan wake i still need to play the second one i own it i need play it i was gonna play it after i finished yakuza if you could ever like a drag on i'm like on chapter 13 or 14 now uh oh they put out a companion trailer for outer worlds 2 all the everybody who was at games con and got more bigger looks at outer worlds 2 they're talking this is like fallout new vegas level of the everybody's very is very good word of mouth on it. But the Companions trailer is great because it kind of introduces you to all the Companions and talks about them all a little bit and then make sure that you know that you can't have sex with them. It's not allowed. Just in case you wanted to. Okay. It's good to know going in. World of Warcraft has a new expansion coming out and the cinematic trailer was like I was like, remember when the cinematic trailers to all of Blizzard stuff were amazing? Remember that? This isn't that. I've heard they're looking forward to it because it brings them like a housing system. Okay. But do people still really play that much World of Warcraft? I have no idea how popular the game is. I do have a friend who still plays, but he plays on all the classic servers. Resident Evil 5 was the game that I left World of Warcraft to go play because I bought the console and I was like okay I'm going to get out of the because you know in game stuff it's like I need to let them know that I'm not going to commit anymore yeah I remember I remember the sad days because that was when I was working overnight so I couldn't do late night raids whatever speaking of Resident Evil February of next year Resident Evil Requiem. I have liked the recent Resident Evil. They've done very well. They've done very well. Another game that did very well was Black Myth. Wu Kong was huge. The sequel is coming out. It's Black Myth Zhongku. Again, based on an ancient Chinese legend. If it's anything like the first one, they're going to sell a million copies. because it was super popular. And then here at the end of the list, I saved a couple games that are of particular interest to me. One of them is Battlestar Galactica Scattered Hopes. So this is a Battlestar Galactica roguelike that is set during the time of the TV series, and you're basically commanding a smaller combat ship within your own small group of survivors. And it sounds like you're basically attempting to join up with the Galacticas. Oh, okay. So you're not Adama. You're not Galactica. You're not the big group. You're a much smaller group. But it's a roguelike and it's all time. So you're in and you've got so long before the Cylons show up and to do everything. So you're grabbing tellium for fuel or stuff to make food. and you're doing repairs on your civilian ships and all your stuff and trying to get stuff upgraded. And then the Cylons jump in, and it's very much an FTL-like combat system where they're coming, and you're trying to protect the ships as you start jumping out. And it looks interesting. So I'm really excited by it. And they did the very smart thing with the trailer when the trailer came out, is they took it and played it like the opening to the new Battlestar Galactica. So it's the kind of jump cuts and shaky cams with the theme song playing over it. It looks really good. And then there was a big trailer release from The Expanse, Osiris Reborn, or as I've heard more people referring to it since this trailer came out and you got a much better look at it, Mass Expanse. Oh. because it is mass effect set in the world of the experience that's a good setting though and it it looks really interesting there there's some interesting um companion characters apparently they have gone the the visuals like the stations and the and everything looks beautiful and apparently a lot of it is very destructible so i i really enjoyed the expanse TV series. Yes. I've only ever read the first three books. And I'm actually in the process of going through all of them. I'm on book two now because I was like, well, I'll start over. But I've decided I'm going to read all of the Expanse novels because I've only ever read the first three. So Leviathan Wakes, Simola, Burns, or whatever it is, and Abaddon's Gate. so those were the only I never went any farther in the series than the first three books so which means the TV series even went farther than I did though like not half as far as the books do so I'm in the process of working my way through the books so we'll see how it goes but that's what I've got for video games there's a lot of stuff coming so much stuff so much stuff so much excitement so much excitement I said the Battlestar Galactica game came that was like out of left field for me it's interesting that's a roguelike. It makes sense though with how you've described how the gameplay would be. Right. Because when I first saw it, I'm like and I saw things saying it takes place after the silent attack. I'm like, oh. So is this an RTS like Deadlock was, but it takes place after? It's not. Right. We'll see. Hopefully it'll be good. Hopefully. I mean, I won't be good at it. You might be. I might be. With all your Brotato skills, you may very well. I need all the Brotato skills. You may be ready. It's like it's like Vampire Surviving but Cylon Survivor. I do like I do like the recent additions they made to Vampire Survivor. After you told me about all the stuff they changed and you playing it I have played it a little bit and the new modes and stuff are a lot Yeah. It's pretty clever. Because I haven't played it since they added all the new modes. I've basically done everything so I just Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing left to do. So. But that's what I've got. So for now. Okay. Well if people have stuff for us to talk about, they can always email us at CollectedGamersPodcast.gmail.com or go to Facebook.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast though we do prefer being reached out to via email. It's just much easier for us to integrate that into our internal show notes. We are also available for support via Patreon. Patreon.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast for as low as a dollar a month. You can support the show. We do appreciate that. Occasionally we do put out Patreon only content. Nothing for this week. We do need more ideas, so you can always email those in or post them over on Patreon when I share the episode to let us know what you would like us to discuss as a side topic. We usually do stuff that is not pinball or video games. We do other stuff for that. But we can really go anywhere you want to go. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we'll be back in about a couple weeks to talk about more stuff. Well, we'll have the new Stern game. For sure. We'll definitely have that. So there will be some more meat to that, to the pinball bone on the next episode. It's not actually Star Wars Fall of the Empire It's Fall of the Empire But it's about Empire Records It's Rex Manning Day Gwar why don't you join the band Until then my name is Dennis I'm Tony Goodbye everybody