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Episode 261 - 2025 Year-End Review

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 28m·analyzed·Dec 22, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers reviews 2025 pinball releases, calling it a strong theme year despite economic concerns.

Summary

In their 2025 year-end review, Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers Podcast provide a comprehensive recap of major pinball releases across manufacturers. They discuss 2025 as a strong theme year despite perceived economic headwinds, walking through Stern's four releases (D&D, King Kong, Star Wars, Walking Dead Remastered), Multimorphic's Portal, Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade, Barrels of Fun's Dune and Winchester, and Jersey Jack's Harry Potter. Key themes include code/QA concerns, theme selection impact on sales, and the surprising success of niche titles like Winchester.

Key Claims

  • 2025 was the strongest theme year maybe since they've been in the hobby

    high confidence · Dennis states: 'I would say this is probably the strongest theme year that maybe we've seen since I've been in the hobby.'

  • More games came out in 2025 than the March surge years (GTF/Scooby era), distributed across the year

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'This year i think there were even more games that came out they didn't all come out in the same month which helped but there feels like there might have been even more games this time around'

  • D&D is Stern's best theme integration and everything this year

    high confidence · Dennis: 'That is definitely Stern's best theme integration and everything this year, for sure.'

  • Star Wars Fall of the Empire had a Death Star shot that narrowed as it went up the ramp and escaped QC

    high confidence · Dennis: 'they released a game where the shot narrows as it goes in up the ramp. And so it was Brick City. And how it escaped QC is one of those.'

  • Walking Dead Remastered isn't ready to come out with code placeholders and unable to show everything

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Then they weren't showing the screen. And then you find out it's not actually clips from the show...They couldn't show everything. There were placeholders. It's like, it's like the back to the old bad days of stuff getting rushed.'

  • Portal was the biggest crowd winner at TPF 2025

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Portal was really good...I still think Portal is what won TPF, in my mind. That's what the crowds liked.'

  • Winchester Mystery House sold out in about a day and a half

    high confidence · Dennis: 'sold out super quick. Like within a day and a half, they were all gone.'

  • Dune started to sell better after Winchester sold out

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'And I've heard after it sold out, Dune started to sell.'

Notable Quotes

  • “This is probably the strongest theme year that maybe we've seen since I've been in the hobby.”

    Dennis @ ~11:30 — Frames 2025 as exceptional for IP/theme selection despite economic headwinds

  • “How did it escape QC? Is everyone there too good of a player?”

    Dennis @ ~24:15 — Highlights QA concerns with Star Wars, raises systemic question about Stern's testing methodology

  • “It's like the back to the old bad days of stuff getting rushed.”

    Dennis @ ~42:00 — Criticizes Walking Dead Remastered launch readiness, comparing to historically problematic releases

  • “I think it's really Carl. Yeah. And given that we're talking just over 500 units made, that people just turned to it, and they're like, I have to get it.”

    Dennis and Tony @ ~67:45 — Attributes Winchester's rapid sellout to designer/streamer Carl D'Angelo's reputation and limited production

  • “Barbecue is never silly unless it's a pinball machine.”

    Dennis @ ~54:00 — Humorous callback to Barbecue pinball's QA failures, demonstrates community in-jokes about problematic releases

  • “Unlike Star Wars, I don't think this one recovers.”

    Dennis @ ~40:00 — Expresses stronger concern about Walking Dead Remastered's viability compared to Star Wars issues

  • “Portal was really good...I still think Portal is what won TPF, in my mind.”

    Dennis @ ~60:30 — Credits Multimorphic's Portal as strongest crowd reaction at Texas Pinball Festival

  • “It's a remaster. Why'd they have to rush it? I just, I don't understand.”

    Dennis @ ~41:00 — Questions strategic decision-making around Walking Dead Remastered timeline

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonStern PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyBarrels of FuncompanyTurner PinballcompanyDungeons and Dragons: The Tyrant's Eyegame

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Portal won crowd favor at Texas Pinball Festival despite being overshadowed by D&D in critical evaluation; described as impressive for shot placement and video game IP adaptation

    high · Dennis: 'Portal was really good...I still think Portal is what won TPF, in my mind. That's what the crowds liked.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Barrels of Fun established as premium boutique manufacturer through Dune and Winchester releases; theme immersion and mechanical toys becoming signature differentiator

    medium · Dennis: 'Barrels of Fun is known for their theme immersion...it just feels like a haunted house.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Merlin's Arcade criticized for clunky foosball shot mechanism despite clever rules and nice animations; 8-Ball Deluxe layout not compelling enough to overcome playfield concerns

    high · Tony: 'The foosball shot are just like they're clunky...they just create a clunk factor to the game that makes it [unappealing]...I didn't have fun playing it.'

  • $

    market_signal: 2025 characterized as strong theme/IP year with more quality releases than prior peak years (March surge era), but distributed throughout year rather than concentrated

    high · Dennis: 'This year i think there were even more games that came out they didn't all come out in the same month which helped but there feels like there might have been even more games this time around'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Walking Dead Remastered unable to use original show clips; forced to use stylized AI-drawn versions instead, unclear whether contractual or creative choice

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.265

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 20th, episode 261. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. How are you doing, Tony? I'm not too bad. I'm, you know, getting ready for them there old Christmas times. Oh, I guess I should clarify. It's the 21st. Is it the 21st? See, it is the 21st. My gosh. This is what I get for writing the date down without actually looking. I think that happened on a prior episode. It has. I don't correct those things normally, but I just realized.
0:50
I wrote something down yesterday, and I had to put down the 20th. So I was like, I thought the 20th already happened. No, I'm sure what it is is I looked at the calendar. It's because when you wrote the notes. Yeah, yeah. Because you worked on yours last night, and I was very lazy and worked on mine this morning. Well, to be fair, most of my notes were written because I like to write notes in the two weeks between when I catch something. I've got a OneNote file that's not part of the podcast OneNote because I just throw notes into it. It'll have like three times as much stuff as I actually talk about in it. And then like on the Saturday before we record, I curate down to just the things I want to talk about.
1:33
Because otherwise, anytime I see something, I just copy and paste it and throw it into there. So a lot of times it's just links and stuff. So I know what I remember. Because otherwise, I don't remember nothing anymore.
1:46
Yeah. I got a pen. An ink pen? No, no, like a lapel pen. Okay. When me and my daughters went to Meeple-a-thon, I talked about several episodes ago we'd gone to Meeple-a-thon. I got a pin that says, bear with me, I was born in the 1900s.

King Kong theme integration is good but the game didn't generate as much hype as expected

high confidence · Dennis: 'It just feels like it just didn't generate as much hype as maybe they wanted.'

  • Stern no longer puts machines on location for QC before release due to theme leak fears

    medium confidence · Tony: 'I don't even think they put them on location anymore before they release...I think the fear of the theme leaking is so pervasive now that they just avoid it outright.'

    • King Kong: Myth of Terror Island
    game
    Star Wars: Fall of the Empiregame
    The Walking Dead Remasteredgame
    Portalgame
    Merlin's Arcadegame
    Dunegame
    Winchester Mystery Housegame
    Harry Pottergame
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Elwynnperson
    Carl D'Angeloperson
    Zachperson
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Lymanperson

    medium · Dennis: 'you find out it's not actually clips from the show. It's kind of like stylized, like AIFI drawn versions...I think they couldn't because I don't know why you would do this otherwise.'

  • $

    market_signal: 2025 perceived as strong theme year domestically despite economic headwinds; international sales likely dampened by tariffs and retaliatory tariffs

    medium · Dennis: 'I don't think domestic sales have honestly seemed to me to necessarily be all that dampened...this was a very strong year for themes that people really wanted.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern QA methodology relies on in-house high-skilled players and tournament-ranked testers; lack of location testing before release due to theme leak fears may mask casual-player difficulty issues

    high · Tony: 'I don't even think they put them on location anymore before they release...I think the fear of the theme leaking is so pervasive now that they just avoid it outright.'

  • $

    market_signal: Winchester Mystery House's rapid sellout (~500 units in 1.5 days) attributed to designer/streamer Carl D'Angelo's reputation and limited scarcity; Dune sales accelerated post-Winchester sellout

    high · Dennis: 'sold out super quick. Like within a day and a half, they were all gone...And I've heard after it sold out, Dune started to sell.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Walking Dead Remastered shipped with placeholder code, unfinished features, and unable to display screen content at launch; described as rushed and not ready

    high · Dennis: 'They couldn't show everything. There were placeholders. It's like, it's like the back to the old bad days of stuff getting rushed.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Star Wars Fall of the Empire shipped with a Death Star shot that narrowed as it went up the ramp, causing balls to brick on casual players; required removal of dozen+ screws to fix

    high · Dennis: 'they released a game where the shot narrows as it goes in up the ramp. And so it was Brick City. And how it escaped QC is one of those.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: King Kong's hype significantly lower than anticipated despite good theme integration and rules; possible nostalgia advantage for Godzilla IP in player preferences

    high · Dennis: 'It just feels like it just didn't generate as much hype as maybe they wanted...I think Godzilla triggers nostalgia more than King Kong does.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Walking Dead Remastered may have been rushed due to short/limited licensing window rather than annual release cadence; licensing constraints may explain inability to use original show footage

    medium · Dennis: 'My guess is that they...had maybe they grabbed a shorter licensing deal for doing the remaster and kicking it out So they were trying to work within a time crunch'

    • 2:09
    Oh, yes. It does make one sound very old. It does when you put it that way. But we're in our prime. We are. We are in the prime. Prime universe.
    2:21
    Gosh, maybe. I don't know. So tell us about printing. Oh, yeah. No, I've been playing with that. I don't remember. I think I mentioned last episode that I had ordered a resin printer. I can't remember if it was on air or not. I don't either. Well, just in case, I ordered a resin printer on Black Friday sales because I've been eyeballing them for a while. You want to get into the pinball mod making game. that's longed for it yes i long for the you've longed for the minds i long for the mods uh so yeah i i got a resin printer and uh a bunch of the accoutrement for it and it all finally arrived and i've been playing around with it for the last couple of weeks um and were you able to set it up in the main area or is it too stinky i don't notice it it's it's not in like the main part of the house it's over in my little computer it's over near my computer desk and everything i don't have it near like the wife and kids and everything it's over in its own the only people that are over there is like me and and when the dogs wander in and out But I did a, I've got it all, an air filtration system and all the other stuff for it. So I would like to have it somewhere even farther away. I just don't have anywhere to do it right now because it's winter. Right. And my garage is one of those old school garages that they used to build that has absolutely zero insulation in it. And whatever the temperature outside is, is what it is in the garage. so that is not very conductive to setting up there so i've just been using it a little bit like so i i have a whole rig to take care of the fumes and and and vent everything um so but yeah it's been fun i've been i've been playing around with it i've made uh so just some random minis just testing stuff out uh learning how to make adjustments and and stuff and I know like I made some for one of my daughters I made her I printed we found a character that was semi that was close enough to her D&D character for her D&D thing at school that I went ahead and we're going to print it up or I already printed it but we're going to paint it up so she can take it to play as her D&D character and then my other one my other daughter is not found anything that matches her mental image so she is now talking about trying to learn blender so she can make it oh wow she's like i'm doing myself dad that's literally myself i was like you know there's like five websites that you can go on and you design all the stuff and you can buy the stl that's like five bucks and she's like i played around with it i can't get it right i need to learn blender like okay there's only one answer go for it you do it you you you teach yourself how to do So, like I said, mainly I've just been making stuff for – this is going to come as a surprise. I want people to hold on to their seats. I understand. Roll the weight. This is going to be completely shocking.
    5:43
    Potato. I've been making some Battletech stuff. Oh, that's my third guess. But mainly I've made some D&D and stuff and some Battletech stuff. And I found a really cool model of a Miranda class from Star Trek that I made because I wanted to try making.
    6:01
    Basically, I was able to size it. It is literally the largest single model I can make on my print bed. I sized it to my print bed and had to angle it to make it so that I could make it in a single print instead of taking it into pieces and making it. just because I wanted to test out the full height, full capacity, just see how it did.
    6:26
    And it worked pretty well. So now I need to make a stand for it. Kind of. I mean, it actually stands up on its own, so it's pretty good. But, yeah, I've been playing around with that a lot lately. And I went to – I was like, let's dig out some paints so I can start doing some painting. I haven't pulled out my mini paints in so many years that they're all, I just threw them all away. They're all bad. They're all dried up. They're all. Oh, no. It's because I haven't painted. It's probably been, I don't know, five, six years since I painted anything. So time to get more mini paints and start painting again. And I also realize as I'm looking at all these minis and trying to figure out what colors I want to paint them and everything. It's like my eyes aren't as good as they used to be. And I say that as a person who's worn glasses for 20 years.
    7:24
    So, yeah. But it's been fun. What have you been up to? Not a whole lot. I've been ill the last week. I did the recording of the pinball show and then later that day. So that actually I sound okay on that because I was still all right. But that evening I started to feel bad. So Zach made you sick. I mean, yeah. He gave you a digital virus. He had us do game awards for pinball, and that was very draining. No, I understand. That weakens your soul. It weakened my systems. So I took Monday off. And I'm mostly better, but I'm still not 100%. So I made some more progress in Battlefield 6 campaign, video game-wise, but not very much progress. And that's really the only thing of note that I've done. And otherwise just end of year work stuff has been keeping me kind of busy. I had a conference I went down to, uh, the week before I got sick. So, uh, went and did that. That went well. Uh, but I was just running on fumes cause that was, we, I'd put it, I wedged it in really tight. So it was like, get up at five, go down, stayed the night down there, got up at five, came back to hit meetings. And so I'm just been trying to catch up on everything. Uh, But it's a slower time of year right now anyway, so it's not been too bad. So things are going all right. And all my Christmas shopping's done. Everything is pretty much, I think, the last gift I needed arrived on Friday. So I think I'm good to go. Nice. So speaking of being good to go, pinball. This is our 2025 year-end review episode because this is the last episode we're doing in 2025. So since there's often not a pinball announcement to make, we generally go and cover a lot of this sort of like recap. I've kind of laid it out by company, Tony, by company and then chronologically so we can kind of just give our thoughts on these big releases. Because this has been a pretty interesting year for a time period where my understanding is a number of people in the community have felt like it's a down year. Like maybe sales wise they think it's down. I can see that just because that seems to be the overall feel of generally everything. I know, and I didn't include these notes for the video game segment, but I know compared to two years ago, hardware sales are half compared to two years ago. And that's what the numbers buoyed by the very good launch of the Switch 2. The numbers are half of what they were a couple of years ago. And I've heard that just straight-up video game sales are down 30-plus percent.
    10:14
    Yeah, so I understand where the narrative may come from because of the general economic unease that exists in general. plus things like tariffs and retaliatory tariffs have had impacts on foreign markets purchasing pinball machines. However, all that being said, I don't think domestic sales have honestly seemed to me to necessarily be all that dampened. And I think that may be because this was a very strong year for themes that people really wanted. I would say this is probably the strongest theme year that maybe we've seen since I've been in the hobby. and in terms of there's a lot of games that came out uh i mean it was a couple of years ago when we had that i remember that march surge when gtf uh and and scooby and all that like just like texas pinball festivals oh yeah it was overwhelming yeah this year i think there were even more games that came out they didn't all come out in the same month which helped but there feels like there might have been even more games this time around so anyway i just thought we we'd walk through uh by company and then by game, uh, and then just kind of give our thoughts on, you know, as a recap, it's a, cause you're in review. So we'll start with the big dog. We'll start with Stern pinball. Of course, the first game of the year that people really got to experience was the first one they put out, which was dungeons and dragons, the tyrants. I, uh, we first played that at TPF. Um, I actually, I think this might be their best game that they put out this year. Personally, granted, And I need, like, some of these I haven't played. Right. So there is that. But just if you are into D&D, I just thought the way Dwight approached the code with the leveling and stuff, it was a big step up from what he did with Venom. Coupled with, like, let's just get, like, all of Vox Machina's voice cast. Yeah. Oh, and let's get Worf to do the dragon. It's just, it's like, if you're into it, they, like, nerded out this thing. There's a gelatinous cube on the game. The dragon, the articulating dragon on the premium version in particular. Very impressive. I just thought it really did D&D justice. I will say of everything they put out this year, just theme-wise and integration-wise, it's the best. I'm not necessarily going to comment on play because I've not played everything they've put out this year. Right. Yeah, and I don't have even enough time on D&D to say. Right. That I would think it's the best shooter of the year.
    12:45
    That is definitely Stern's best theme integration and everything this year, for sure. I thought so. The next one of theirs was King Kong, Myth of Terror Island. So an Elwynn, an Elwynn that a lot of people had been anticipating.
    13:00
    I have heard a number of people say the theme integration on Kong is actually really, really good in terms of where they've gotten it to. the rules are pretty popular again it's an Elwynn layout so I've not really heard a lot of criticism of it I've just not heard a huge amount of this is like the most awesome thing ever I think I know some people a lot of people actually think this is the best game of the year which again as an Elwynn it wouldn't surprise me but it doesn't feel like a lot of people necessarily think it's his best game but I don't know I've seen others that disagree I've seen others that say this is better than Godzilla.
    13:41
    I can't say. I've still not played it. Me neither. So I can't say. What I like about Elwin is every time he puts out a game, the layout looks different.
    13:53
    Of course, he has his own tropes, but his layouts all feel very unique from one another. And I think the way that they did the toy worked out really well with this game, the Kong toy specifically. But I don't know. It just feels like it just didn't generate as much hype as maybe they wanted. I don't know. What are your thoughts? I mean, it's not one of my assumptions, just that it's going to be good. But it does. I agree with you. It feels like the hype wasn't as big as we've typically seen in the past.
    14:25
    And I don't know if it was theming or what. But I said, having not played it, I can't I can't judge. I did wonder about the theming because I would argue of all the four games that Stern put out this year it might be the worst theme I don't know Kong obviously has stayed relevant in some ways you might think Kong would have the potential to be more popular than Godzilla but I don't know I don't know if that's true I don't know if it's just that Godzilla really benefited from the pandemic and people were just like, let's give it a shot, and then they saw how good it was? I think that's part of it. I also think that in reality, the whole fandom, even the casual fandom and the good memories of Godzilla movies is much larger and more widespread. I think Godzilla triggers nostalgia more than King Kong does. I would agree with you on that. I also do think it is important to note that King Kong does a lot of custom animation work, whereas Godzilla had the films. It used the films. I don't think Kong really does that. It's telling its own story, actually. So that might be part of it, too, is just like Godzilla really embraced Godzilla movies and Kong avoided it while still trying to tie in. right uh now i think the last two are actually the ones that are going to get more controversial in terms of as you think about their impact on the on the year so star wars fall of the empire was their third uh and final cornerstone of 2025 um it's what a mix uh there in terms of like reaction wise so the fix to the death star is going out now i've heard it works very well it It does require you to remove over a dozen screws, but they released a game where the shot narrows as it goes in up the ramp. And so it was Brick City. And how it escaped QC is one of those. We often have this question with games, especially Stern Pinball games, where it's like, how did you guys never notice that this is an issue? Is everyone there too good of a player? That's literally what my assumption is, is when they do QC, for a lot of it, they do the QC having their in-house people who are all really good players, and the ones who play in tournaments are high-ranked. And then if they put it out in arcades for people to try, it's in places in Chicago, which is a huge pinball town. so you see the really good players are the ones who play it. They don't have the problem. It's when it starts getting down to little Timmy playing at pinball or at a pizza bar or me playing at a pizza place or something like that, when you start seeing the whole people going, wow, this shot's almost impossible. Yeah, I don't even think they put them on location anymore before they release. It used to happen in pinball, but I think the fear of the theme leaking is so pervasive now that they just avoid it outright. So it's really only people in the shop that are doing it. So I don't even think they get the Chicago audience anymore.
    17:48
    Regardless, I don't want to diss it too much in the sense that there are some positives. I've seen a number of people who own the game say that they do feel it plays, it shoots better than the Steve Ritchie version. And I didn't really like the Steve Ritchie version, so it wouldn't shock me that this is a better player. That's one aspect. A lot more clip integration. So if you really want the movies constantly dumping on you, this one will again. But there's more of it here than there was in the Richie version. So, yeah, I've heard a lot of positives. But that Death Star shot really soured a lot of people. And then, of course, there was the concern that you brought up when the game released, which was a, we just got Star Wars five years ago. Why are we doing Star Wars again? well and I'd be fine with doing Star Wars again if we did something new with the franchise why are we getting the same thing again why is everything always just the original trilogy don't get me wrong I enjoy the original trilogy but there are so many more facets to that universe that are out there now that could be played on and they've touched on it once with the Mandalorian. Yeah, we got Mando. Yeah.
    19:11
    Well, I hear it sells well. And I've heard that it's, again, this is one of those games where as the holidays have approached, it sounds like those units move because it's Star Wars. Of course. Just like the home edition Star Wars. So I think from a, it's a very commercial decision, but I suppose it made a lot of sense for them. And I think with the physical fix, that's the biggest complaint at this stage, aside from theme selection. and then the last game from Stern Walking Dead Remastered and this I thought Star Wars might have been strategically the most questionable move outside of the money side which makes perfect sense so really strategically it made a lot of sense Walking Dead still makes no sense to me everything pretty much everything about this launch I feel was wrong in some way and unlike Star Wars, I don't think this one recovers. Like, they picked... The funny thing is, it's such a good game. Right. It's such a good game. And basically, everything they've done with it is an improvement. But, big but, the theme... You know, I mentioned Kong might have been the weakest theme, but honestly, Walking Dead is so far past its prime. It is. It's so far past. I know that there's still spinoff shows going on. maybe they're popular i don't know i haven't seen them but this isn't the spinoff this is the original it's not yes is the art an improvement over the original art yes it is but it's not the graphic novel because this is still amc's the walking right uh great they got the voice cast awesome but for a remaster when metallica remaster came out they were able to point to these new modes that got added on top of lyman's code walking dead didn't have that yet it will but They don't have it. Then they weren't showing the screen. And then you find out it's not actually clips from the show. It's kind of like stylized, like AIFI drawn versions of it because they needed to, for whatever reason, they couldn't use the clips of the show or they chose not to use the clips of the show. I think they couldn't because I don't know why you would do this otherwise. It's just like, why revisit this theme this late in its life cycle? And it's not ready to come out. It's the code's not ready. They couldn't show everything. There were placeholders. It's like, it's like the back to the old bad days of stuff getting rushed. And I, but it's a remaster. Why'd they have to rush it? I just, I don't understand. My guess is that they, it's one of two things. It's either they wanted to get one more thing out this year, or it was once again falling under uh they had maybe they grabbed a shorter licensing deal for doing the remaster and kicking it out So they were trying to work within a time crunch I could see that. That does make a lot of sense, actually, and I hadn't thought about that. I still don't know why they picked this license. I don't know. This game never did well for them. Right. I mean, it's a great game. I love The Walking Dead. I really do. But the decision to have this be a game that came back, I thought was kind of strange.
    22:32
    So that's Stern Pinball's kind of recap for 2025. We'll go ahead and touch on all of the kind of the overall landscape after we get through all of them. But let's jump to Multimorphic next. So they had one big release this year. That was Portal. Correct. I don't hear it discussed as much now that we're late in the year. but not surprising because there's always a recency bias, I think, in discussions. But this was so hype at TPF. I still think Portal is what won TPF, in my mind. That's what the crowds liked. Yes, D&D maybe overall impressed me the most, but Portal was really good. It looked good.
    23:11
    The way they went ahead and got shots lower on the play field, okay, yeah, a little. you know there was a lot of rattling and stuff in terms of how they had to accomplish it but they did accomplish it right and it did shoot like it didn't shoot bad it shot uh and the theme integration was top notch yeah so i thought that i think people might easily lose sight of it but but portal actually was super impressive for a lot of a lot of folks i um it took a while i I think they're shipping them now, but there was a big lag between – making TPF, I think, was really smart for them so that they – if they had to, quote-unquote, rush to get models to TPF, I still – in their instance, unlike The Walking Dead, I think this was smart. Right. Because people need to get their hands on Multimorphic, I think, to be able to decide whether or not they want to buy a P3. But I don't know. Overall, I just thought this was a really strong offering from them. It is. I felt it was stronger in almost every way than the Princess Bride was. I think Portal's the best thing we've put out on Multimorphic of their major releases. Yeah. Theme-wise, I could see maybe saying Princess Bride and Weird Al should have broader overall appeal, you would think. But Portal was so popular. Plus, kudos to someone finally doing a video game again in pinball. because it seems like everyone's just afraid of it, like it's anathema or something. Right. Or they can't get the rights to any of the good ones, like Mario. Right. But hey, yeah, I thought that turned out really, really well for them. So I think that one will be a decent seller for Multimorphic.
    24:52
    Another TPF thing that we both got hands on was Turner Pinball's release this year, Merlin's Arcade. So, Tony, what's your recap of Merlin's? It's a pinball machine. Very yellow. Yeah. I remember. It was very...
    25:12
    I didn't like it. It was a game we played. I didn't like it. I wished I did because it's an 8-Ball Deluxe style layout. It is, yeah. And so much about it I thought should appeal to me, but the sum of its parts just doesn't appeal. No, it wasn't. It was the definition of nothing special. Yeah. I thought the idea of the rules was clever. The animations are nice. The play field is my problem. The things like the foosball shot are just like they're clunky. Like it's it's I get it for the theme immersion, but they just create a clunk factor to the game that makes it the EBD layout is really hard as it is. So I just it just didn't resonate with me, not nearly as much as Ninja Eclipse did. I thought Ninja Eclipse was a lot more interesting of a game than than their take on Merlin's arcade. But but it is fun. I just didn't like it. It's a fun idea. Yeah. I didn't have fun playing it, if that makes sense.
    26:13
    As I recall, I think that's the one where I actually had the best score on. You probably had the best score on a number of our games, if I remember. Well, no, no, no, no. I remember, because we were playing it, it wasn't just the two of us. There was a bunch of us. And I had a surprisingly good score, as I recall. I think we played that with Joel and Travis. Yeah, but it was definitely not. I mean, here's the thing. What's the thing? It could have been worse. It wasn't barbecue from the year before. No, no, no. This is a competent pinball machine. Yes. It just didn't work. I didn't like it. It worked, though, unlike barbecue, which constantly didn't work. Oh, my God, barbecue.
    26:54
    I didn't tell you. This is an aside. So Zach, my co-host on the Pinball Show Who got you sick? He got me sick Well, for Christmas, I asked him what he wanted And he said he wanted some barbecue stuff Like he was like, can I just like some Kansas City barbecue stuff So I sent him Joe's Yeah Like the meats of Joe's Right So I mean, if you're going to pick a place, it's all right But yeah, well, that's my favorite. But when he said that to me, when he mentioned to me, he goes, I guess that sounds kind of silly. And I told him, barbecue is never silly unless it's a pinball machine. So I sent him the barbecue But then I also sent him I had AI Schlock up A pillow design And I sent him a pillow, a custom pillow Which shows like a barbecue grill And a pinball machine of barbecue With barbecue theming on it And it just says In like an old lady font Barbecue is never silly Unless it's a pinball machine So now he has a little throw pillow He can put on his couch and remind him of the truth of it. That's funny. So, anyway. I thought I was clever. But, yes, no. Merlin's is no barbecue. Another thing that's no barbecue is Barrels of Fun. They actually put out two games this year. They did, and that's impressive when you look at the game count put out by some of the other companies. And they're a newer company. Labyrinth was their only game. Right. Dune. That's the first one. Mm-hmm.
    28:39
    That game has legs. Unlike the worms. I was going to make a worm joke, but I figured you might make it, and you did. There were some issues, though. They weren't able to launch the game in time for TPF. Right. Which I think, in their instance, kind of hurt them. But they wanted to get it out in front of JJP's game, I think. Or at least they did. But it came out with pretty bare-bones code. very cool design really cool worm mech um lighting system really impressive because it does a day night cycle uh since the launch so i think they had a pretty rocky launch and i don't think the sales were where they wanted it to be but since they launched their second game they had already gotten the code updated quite a bit uh well before then that helped a lot from what i had heard from people who owned it and then when their second game launched and sold out a lot of people have been ordering dunes now they've actually done a last call on dune we actually got an email i didn't put it in our notes but we got an email from barrels noting a new topper for dune and then also that they were going to do the final call for dune production now i haven't played dune yet but theme wise i thought this was a really strong get it is it's that is a really strong get i i i I don't know that Dune needs a topper. I think it needs a box that attaches to the side where the flipper buttons are. So you have to put your hands in, and then when you do... It electrocutes you. It electrocutes you, but you have to keep your hands in to keep playing, or else when you pull your hands out, the machine shuts down, and you just lose your ball. You have to play the gum, Jabbar.
    30:21
    And it's shocking you the whole time. It sounds great. This sounds like a great idea. That pain video game in Never Say Never Again. Yeah. Knock Off Bond. Right. With Connery.
    30:32
    Yeah, that's clever. Yeah, no, this one I think should have gotten more attention than it did. And that it's gotten popular in the wake of Winchester, I think, has helped things. It's just I felt the launch was clumsier than what they had planned it to be. But they were in an unenviable position because they're wedged. I think they wedged it between Kong and Harry Potter. It was not a good – this was not the year to launch, basically. Right. But they had to. They're done building labyrinths. They had to get it out. So their other game that they put out this year was arguably the surprise of the year, and that was Winchester. Right. The Street House.
    31:19
    Weird theme choice. Carl D'Angelo, famed streamer, first design produced, sold out super quick. Like within a day and a half, they were all gone. And I've heard after it sold out, Dune started to sell. So I don't know. It's weird to me. I don't know. I'd never heard of the Mystery House. No, or have I? But I don't know. It had legs somehow. Yeah, I think it's really Carl. Yeah. And given that we're talking just over 500 units made, that people just turned to it, and they're like, I have to get it. I've heard since then, not a lot of people have gotten experience with it, but the sound's really good. The rules are good. And like Elwynn, he's kind of overseeing the rules here, too. The toys are, again, Barrels of Fun is known for their theme immersion. And so it just feels like a haunted house. And so people who might not really be into Winchester, but err into the idea of haunted mansions as a theme, which has been done in pinball before. Right. Like that, that really clicked. Now on the dune sales, I don't know if this is a bunch of people that got Winchester and then decided, holy crap, I like what barrels is doing. They bought a dune or it was dang. I didn't get Winchester. I guess I'll settle for dune.
    32:37
    I know I made that sound kind of mean, but, but it's like, it's like, well, maybe I'll get close on the experience. You'll get the Lamborghini I guess I'll get a Ferrari Well yeah Or Ferraris I hear are hard to buy So maybe you get a Porsche instead Oh man It's the Taurus of supercars I actually like their shapes a lot more than Lamborghinis and Ferraris are pretty nice I don't know that's big boy money I'm a simple worker Simple working man They do have an interesting design lineage that they've actually sustained the looks of for a while. All right. J.J.P., when released this year, Tony? Harry Potter. Everyone likes Harry Potter, except those that don't, of which there are apparently a lot. Yeah. But the biggest license maybe in the history of pinball next to Star Wars. I think people would argue that. Yeah. I think that's a safe call. And the joy that it all brings to people's homes, pretty high. A lot of people have reported. I haven't played this. Nope. A lot of people report it's either J.J.P.'s best playing game, or some people think it's beneath Elton John, but close. That's pretty high praise. Elton John is a great game. It's a solid game. The controversy, there were several involving this title.
    34:14
    First and foremost, of course, was the Derpy Dragon. Most people have referred to it. The AI Dragon, they gave it like a third eye.
    34:23
    And then the analysis that there was AI used extensively throughout the Playfield art package in particular.
    34:30
    But you might remember the name of them. The people that do the book art, the Lumi Numi, Loco Moco, I don't remember.
    34:39
    Not their art. Not their art on the CEs, which have done very well sales-wise for JJP because they didn't cap the CE count. It's time-limited, which I think for them was a very smart move for this game. It was a better art package. Launch. Another bad launch, though. This was a drip-feed launch. like when Kong came out you have like people from Jersey Jack saying Harry Potter it's coming the dragons they're coming it's like what is this Game of Thrones? that was real bad but the whole save your money Harry Potter's coming it'll be here soon we promise I got a dollar you want a dollar?
    35:21
    it was so tacky that whole up until the official day of the launch Every step they did on this was just like, why are you doing this? They even cut their legs out from under Avatar.
    35:35
    Because Avatar was at, that was their prior game, it was at TPF. That was the first chance a lot of people had played Avatar, us included.
    35:43
    But even there, they were like, yeah, save your money. Save your money. Potter's coming. And I'm like, you got a little Kung Fu Knife guy on the sling over here looking all sad. because you're busy slinging a wizard that's going to sell the game himself you're slinging the wizard but people love the game so uh ultimately you know it it was a big hit uh it could have been a lot worse of a game and still sold really well but by all accounts it's a very good game the stairway mech extremely popular it's i want to play it it looks like a lot of fun so uh i i overall launch aside jjp recovered just fine yeah from all of it uh so that worked out and their second game this year oh oh that's right no there was no second nor should there be though there's still they're like production they're not keeping up like you have to wait a while if you order this no do be fair as long as jjp can maintain one game a year i am proud of them pride i'm proud of them if they can maintain one game a year because that's not something they've been able to do over the long haul yes but they do make it some statements that then they don't really follow through on like oh yeah we're gonna do two games a year they did it once yeah i guess that maybe that counts enough I mean it's yeah one game a year that's all one game well you know that's kind of the spooky model yeah which speaking of spooky now we're going to talk about two though because of the reveal but right so spooky pinball late last year was when they revealed evil dead but the games got built and shipped and most people got to experience it this year which we did at TPF and they were the spooky crew was so excited because they had just sold out of all their evil deads before the official tpf show had opened that may be the responsible like well let's talk a little bit about i thought evil dead had a great launch i know it didn't instantly sell out but i thought that solid launch trailers uh featurette all of that like it was good and it was it was good to play theme immersion was great yes it was doesn't play like a wide body but it is a wide um yeah i think it helps with that movie those two movies because it's the first two Evil Deads.
    38:14
    It's basically a one-set movie. It's all really just the cabin. So the whole play field feels like the movie because it's all about being just, you know, it just looks like the outside of that cabin area.
    38:30
    So they're able to, it doesn't have to feel like a montage. It feels very committed to what it's trying to do in terms of the theme. bruce campbell for um voice call outs all that just really really well done and yeah and it plays well right i really like how it shot i would say maybe setting tna aside i think evil dead is the best shooter of what i have played that they have produced i think that's safe that's Safe to say. Now, they more recently revealed and basically immediately sold out of Beetlejuice. Right.
    39:12
    Better theme immersion, do you think, than Evil Dead? I don't think so. I agree. I would say, I think I like the art better. Yeah, I can see that argument. But my reason for hesitation on the overall theming is that montaging. They had to montage Beetlejuice because it's got multiple big set pieces that need to be incorporated. And I think they incorporated it well. But Evil Dead being so much more focused, it feels more lived in, in a way, if that makes sense. It doesn't feel like, oh, well, this shot is the stairwell, and this shot is the waiting room, and this shot is that. that but i just that's beetle just had to take a more traditional approach um now i think beetle juice's launch was way worse than evil dead it was it was you had a dealer that like started taking orders early uh then other dealers started saying stuff and so everything kind of sold out before anything came out other than the one spooky was selling but by then uh when the launch is all said and done all the stuff's dropping like you have the interview over on loser kids you have the featurette uh that zach and greg did was straight down the middle and like it's all good stuff but like the game's already sold out so like all of it feels pointless in a way because everything sold out sold out so it's like why are we why are we going on media tours and doing this big uh i get it they already did it so it's like yeah you might as well but i'm just i'm just saying like from a from a sales standpoint like none of that was necessary that was all a waste of time because the game was already gone. So I thought the launch was quite a bit worse than Evil Dead. But of course, I'm sure they were very happy with how quickly and well it sold out. I think they could have made a number more units.
    41:02
    How much of that sellout do you think was that it's Beetlejuice? How much of it do you think it was?
    41:09
    Look at what happened with Winchester Mystery House. and or how much of it was Evil Dead did end up selling out pretty early in its production run. And so now it's kind of like it's spooky back on the, oh, crap, if we want a spooky, we can't play it. We got to buy it right away or else we're not going to get a chance to buy a new. I'm sure it's probably a combination of them all. But I think the primary driving factor was going to be the nostalgia hit for Beetlejuice, especially since the second Beetlejuice movie had so recently come out and had kind of primed the pump for the nostalgia and the memory of Beetlejuice.
    41:52
    I think that's probably what was the big driving force. I think a lot of it. Yes, it's not Harry Potter, but the production count is a lot smaller for Spooky.
    42:02
    Beetlejuice is probably, next to Potter, the best theme that was revealed this year, I think broadly speaking. I don't know. Dune's pretty good, too. Dune's pretty good. See, here's the thing. And Star Wars is Star Wars, but I'm saying that. Right, but, I mean, I don't know. I know there is this whole, Beetlejuice has this whole cult following thing that is large enough that I don't know if it really even counts as a cult following. But for me, it's always been, yep, it was Beetlejuice.
    42:32
    Yeah. Yeah, it's, again, I have to, we talked about this a couple episodes ago. I just we both just don't have that tie to it. Like, I liked it as a movie. I don't rewatch it. I don't seek it out. And that's true for most Tim Burton stuff. And here's the thing is, I think, honestly, when I think of Beetlejuice more often than not, I think about the animated series that had come out there in the 90s over the movie even. Yeah, that makes sense. Last notable manufacturer to have a release that I wrote down, at least, was Pinball Brothers with Predator. I saved the best for last what a mess of a launch this was in some ways I do want to give them credit Predator should have a pinball machine in the theory of nostalgia cells and all of that Tony's making his head go side to side in a sad kind of snarky Dennis's wrong way I feel like the nostalgia goodwill interest in Predator has been kind of diluted and burned out by all of the new Predator stuff that has come out over the last decade plus because none of it was good.
    43:49
    Arguably, this new TV show some people like, from what I've heard, I've not seen it because I gave up on Predator stuff after Predators.
    43:59
    Yeah. I liked Predators It just kind of I mean it was better than Alien vs Predators Alien vs Predator and Alien vs Predator 2 especially were really bad Yeah but No, I understand. But it's just, I don't know. I think it's hard to taint a classic. I, like, Matrix 4 I don't think has poisoned the well on the original Matrix movie. That's just my theory. But this shouldn't have been done. Like, when they realized that they could not have Arnold because of a weird mix of rights stuff going on with it, they should have walked away and said, you know what? It's just not going to clips where all you see is his bicep because we have to zoom in. We can't show close-ups. Right.
    44:44
    Having to do a sound alike, and apparently their sound alike doesn't sound anything like him. It sounds like me doing it. Like, these were, this is the one game that, like, feels to me like of 2025 was just a flat-out mistake. Like, this one shouldn't have been done because they couldn't do it right. Yeah. Well, it's like prior to Pinball Brothers, honestly. When Alien came out, but you couldn't see Sigourney Weaver. Right. It's the same feeling.
    45:16
    It just, it takes everything away. It does. At least there, though, they were able to, I mean, there were ensemble casts in those two films that, like, she wasn't, like, in the first Alien, you don't even know she's the main character, actually. So they were able to obfuscate some stuff, I feel. And then ultimately they were able to get her in, and they put her in a whole lot and solve the problem. But yes, it's... I mean, but not having Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator, it's like making a Columbo game, but you don't get Peter Falk. Yeah. I mean, the only other thing that they could have done that would have been about the equivalent on Predator was to have Predator without the Predator.
    45:58
    It's just killing commies in the jungle. That's all it is. It's just like, he's the hunter of men. Who? We don't know who. Oh, look, Soviets. Get him. Just, what? No. so overall what's killing commies in the jungle i mean that's i mean let's be honest they already put they've already they already put that game out that was uh uh uh raven oh yeah that's true raven raven you were just killing commies in the jungle uh the 80s so overall 2025 i don't know um what are your thoughts my my big takeaway is this was like the year of the little guy like yeah star wars is a big license but stern as much as i like it dnd kong walking dead it's like these aren't like a-list themes whereas multi-morphics got portal one of the most iconic video games of the last 20 years uh barrels of fun has dune a legendary story right and the movie ended up being really good yes so jjp harry potter yeah the most wanted theme that has never been done in pinball yeah and then spooky having evil dead okay cult classic but beetlejuice very famous cult classic yes and pinball brothers as bad as the game is predator like one of these companies not like the others right and i mean i think that's valid the the big thing is like in all honesty Actually, Kong only has the kind of material or consciousness of people thinking about King Kong recently because of the new Godzilla movies that have Kong in them. If it wasn't for those legendary pictures bringing Kong in, nobody would care about Kong. Yeah, the last thing everyone would think of was the Jack Black one. Right, which was darn near a shot-for-shot remake of the original with Jack Black. and made three hours long somehow yeah uh um walking dead yeah i mean that show has made its thing you know it'd be totally out of left field here i'd almost been happier if instead of doing a walking dead remaster they just rethemed it to shawn of the dead that'd be funny um and i mean dnd is huge nowadays unlike when we played dnd originally and back in the day when we were the nerds and and and all this stuff because we played dnd and all that stuff it is impressively huge nowadays thanks to shows like critical role dimension 20 Dad's in a Dungeon all of those I think it's Dad's something like that all of these like Let's Play have these huge followings and they've really driven up D&D to heights of popularity that quite frankly it's never seen before but I do think all the big wins were from the smaller companies this year you're right that's anyway that's the thing that stands out the most to me yeah here all right that was our year in review we do have a couple uh pinball related emails okay the first one is from anonymous this is the same anonymous who uh wrote in last time or at least they claim they are this they claim they are i might be able to tell since there was the same anonymous email but address unless maybe there was a slight variation i couldn't tell uh and the anonymous request to debut is please have dennis reed using his best vecna voice okay now here's the thing dennis has not seen stranger that's right so let me explain vecna's voice to you um do you remember the main character from lollipop chainsaw no like valley girl cheerleader voice i don't think that's right because i did a search to say what is the vecna voice and that is not what it said it basically was uh orson welles doing uh galactus or whatever or alter whatever the transformer that thing was it was like a deep low voice yes uh uh uh the the giant uh planet yeah evil thing basically i have to do something like really low i found a thing where the show the the cast of the show was all trying to do their impersonations of Vecna. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, that is correct. But you tried to trick me. I did because I thought it would be f***ing hilarious. It would have been. Oh, pardon me. I thought it would be really funny.
    50:56
    Okay. Well, I'm not going to do that version. Like, totally. I'm tempted now. That'll probably come in the next request, though.
    51:08
    I'll try and do an actual Vecna without actually knowing because I didn't actually hear his voice. These were all just like really bad versions. So I'm basing my version off of other really bad versions.
    51:21
    Keep my name out of your mouth. Yes, I'm anonymous. What do you think of Galaxy Quest for a pinball theme? While in the upside down using TrueSight, I see this being made. I don't know what any of that meant except Galaxy Quest. But thank you, Anonymous, for writing it. Galaxy Quest would be an awesome pinball theme. I think it'd be great. By Gropthar's hammer, by the sons of Wutan. Worvon or something like that. Yes. You shall be avenged. What a savings. But here's the thing. There has to be an option to make all of the call-outs be in the Thermian language. You hold down the button, like for Godzilla, but instead of going into Japanese, it goes in Thermian. Yeah. That was actually an option on the directors on the DVD. That's why I said it. Because I have the DVD. Yeah. You can listen to it. There is a Thermian language track. I did not get all the way through listening to that version, but I did try it.
    52:15
    I have one job. I'll do it. One job. It's stupid. I'm going to do it. That's what it was. Oh, yes. I actually reference this movie a lot.
    52:30
    If there's a nondescript way when I'm playing video games, and there's some monster that is an amorphous monster, I just call them Grignacs. Yeah. It's like, it's a Grignac. It's a little pig thing. It's a Grignac. If it's a rock, anything with a rock is a Grignac. Sigma in Overwatch is a part Grignac because he throws rocks. Right. So it says, Galaxy Quest is great. What a fun movie. Yeah. No, it's great. And here's the thing. Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, I bet you Tim Allen, you can get Tim Allen pretty You know, there's a story that I read about how they were filming a scene. I think it was one of the latter scenes where he's explaining to the Thermians or whatever about what they're actually actors and all that. Anyway, I guess Tim Allen got really emotional doing the takes and stuff. And he said he needed a moment. He needed to go to his trailer for a little bit because he didn't understand how he was feeling. And Alan Rickman said, it's what we call acting.
    53:37
    It's just like, I guess this is the first experience you've had with this, but it's called acting. It's actually feeling emotionally invested in the scene itself. Like, here you go. That's what it really is. I miss Alan Rickman. Oh.
    54:01
    No, no, it's fine. I gave them both barrels. Yeah. No, that would be a great theme. This is like corn fed Iowa beef. That would be great. That would be a great theme. Actually, that's now like I could move. I'll move that very near the top of my dream themes. It's so awesome because it celebrates so much of that Star Trek nerd culture. Yeah. But it's fun. It's got a great cast. John Allen does a good job in it. It's got an amazing cast. I mean, you've got, what, Tony Shalhoub. Scorny Weaver. Alan Rickman. I mean, let's face it, the worst member of the cast is probably Tim Allen.
    54:46
    Oh, what a fun movie. Our last pinball email comes from Tom H. And Tom wrote in to say, hello, not sure how it would work, but could there be a theme? Could there be a theme be just an actor slash actress? I already did it. It's called Elvira. Oh, good point. I'm picturing a, oh, no, the AI robots got loose. You've got to collect the different personalities for the modes. For instance, a Harrison Ford game, the robot that thinks he's the president and doing quotes like, get off my plane, and having some animation of him kicking a pinball off a plane. How close do you think you can get with it without having to get the IP for each movie? Guessing no Millennium Falcon on the play field. in a game for Arnold you could do other scenes for Predator that his face was cut out I don't think Chris Elliott has big enough catalog but just to hear more caretaker when you bring this up with Zach what actor or actress would you want to see to have a game I enjoy the podcast Tom well thank you Tom but since Zach excuse me Tony's been putting him over my cuffs the whole time I've cut most of them out but I'm not cutting that one so we had a we had a screaming goat Patreon level member. We give them all nicknames. We had one who was the caretaker from Scary Movie 2 with Chris Elliott. Do you remember that? Yeah. That's my tiny hand. That's my strong hand. That's right. That's what he meant about that. Tony knows the reference too, Tom, so it all works out. I think it was Ben Heck did one that I thought was brilliant with Bill Paxton. It was Bill Paxton Pinball, and it just did a bunch of his own movies. as long as you're doing like a spoof you could get away you know if you do it like your AI robot idea Tom I think spoofing it you can actually get away with a lot of doing things similar without having the rights to do it I'm thinking like space ball style here this isn't 3-3-3-0 it's dot matrix and here's and that sort of thing but what a fun idea it's a super fun idea hear me out Tom Selleck The topper is a mustache The topper is just a mustache That's a requirement There is a scene Where Magnum P.I. Is in his Ferrari Racing down the road With Quigley From Quigley down under Like hanging out the window With his sharps rifle Shooting at the robots from Runaway chasing them down. I need this more than anything I've ever needed. You know what? Galaxy Quest has moved down a level. I just need a Tom Selleck thing.
    57:35
    I had to look it up, by the way. I could not remember. The robot movie? No, I remembered it. I couldn't remember the bad guy. I was thinking it was Rutger Hauer. No, no, it's Gene Simmons is the bad guy. Well, tie in to Galaxy Quest, Alan Rickman was the bad guy in Quickly Down Under. He was. Yeah, he was. Yeah. I mean, there's no – there's no understanding. For those that don't know, Quickly Down Under – I love that movie. Yeah. Western.
    58:06
    Tom Selleck is in Australia, been brought in by Alan Rickman because he's a sharpshooter. He doesn't know why.
    58:13
    You find out very early in the movie. It's because he wants Tom Selleck to kill Aborigines. Yes. like they're dingoes. Yeah, just straight up. No, it is a full-on genocide movie. And Tom Selleck punches him in the mouth, and then zany antics ensue. Yeah. It's a fun movie. I don't remember who it was. I had a conversation with somebody, and we were talking about favorite Westerns, and I put Quigley Down Under in my top five. Oh, okay. and they argued that while Quigley Down Under is a good movie, since it's set in Australia, it doesn't count as a Western. It was set in Western Australia.
    58:58
    Actually, I don't know. It was in the western east part of the continent. I don't know. But that was their argument. That was their only reason to not. They did not say that they didn't like the movie. Well, that's a bunch of crap. They loved the movie, but they didn't think it counted as a Western because it wasn't set in the old west. It was. it was set in the old west it was not in the u.s they as far as they were concerned that meant it couldn't they're using old west guns they're using horses they're the whole genre is western it's that's the genre if you look it up it's not going to say the genre is australian i i agree with you and you're saying the exact arguments i had to him did you win i'm gonna go with no gosh darn it it was one of those it was one of those that ends up in And agree to disagree. This is like when people try to argue Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie. Just like quit. No, just because a movie happens at Christmas doesn't mean it's a Christmas movie. It's a part of the dialogue. It's like the entire, it's based around a Christmas party. I mean. That's right. I heard someone say that Die Hard would work just as well if it was St. Patrick's Day. No, it wouldn't. He couldn't gift wrap this pistol behind his back with St. Patrick's Day. What's he going to do? Stick it to his back with beer?
    60:11
    Not going to work. you're not going to have Han saying it's the time for miracles and no it's going to say what top of the morning to you that doesn't make sense when you're trying to break into a safe wow change the whole thing so instead of German terrorists it's IRA terrorists then it's that oh what was that movie it becomes the movie Patriot Games no no not Patriot Games they're trying to assassinate the royals the other one that was set in Boston Michael Collins yeah no not Michael Collins oh the one with the bomber The one with the bomber in Boston. With Harrison Ford? Yeah. Was it Harrison Ford? No, no, no. It was Jeff Bridges. Jeff Bridges, yeah. Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones.
    60:53
    I don't remember the name of it, though. Yeah, but Blown Away? It might have been. Huh. Let me, let me, here, this is great podcasting. We're about pinball and we're talking about. It's the end of year review. And we're talking about. They don't care. They've already turned it on. You know, Jeff Bridges would also be a good actor to have a solo actor. He's done so much diversity. He's done so much. So much.
    61:21
    Including Westerns. Now the Quigley music in my head. Man, when was that? That was an old movie. That came out a long time ago, didn't it? I think it was early 90s.
    61:39
    Hard to say, though. But, um, yep. Blown away. Okay. Yeah. I've seen it a few times. Yeah, it's pretty good.
    61:50
    Anyway. So yes, uh, it would work, Tom. You are correct. Oh man. I didn't remember the Lloyd bridges and Forrest Whitaker in that movie. I, uh, I forgot about Forrest Whitaker. I remember Lloyd cause I remember his death in it. Um, I think Forrest Whitaker is one of the other police officers who works with Jeff. Um, so. Man, IMDb only has that movie a 6.2. I mean, it can be a little slow at points, but I like it. I'd rate it higher. I'd put it at maybe a 7, 7.5. I was thinking 7 range.
    62:25
    Anyway. So thank you, Tom. Tony, video games. Video games. We do actually, Richard A. did write in to us to let us know that this actually applies to a lot of video games, but there's a Steam Winter Sale going on right now. It runs through January 5th. And so if you are into virtual pinball and want to try some stuff out, there are some pretty significant discounts. Pinball FX and Pinball M have a lot of the table packs are 50 to 75% off. Zachary is doing some similar discounts.
    62:52
    Also, he wanted to note there's a game. I guess it used to not be supported and they've done updates to it, but it's called Pinball Wicked. It's a pirate-themed table. It's 40% off. It's, I guess, separate from those other regular, you know, the main game stuff. But it's another one that he thinks is actually pretty decent. So, FYI, if you want Steam stuff, now is the time to buy Steam stuff. So, what's going on with Sony and Tencent, Tony? You know, we've talked about this, like, multiple times this year. Yeah. A bunch. It's been kind of a big thing. And it's over.
    63:26
    It's over. It's over, over. The case has been dismissed. They reached a confidential settlement over light of Mothram or however you said it. The report from the court is that all pending motions are withdrawn, and this action is hereby dismissed with prejudice. All parties shall bear their own fees and costs.
    63:49
    Since it's confidential, obviously we don't know what the settlement was, but the game has been delisted from all store pages. Okay. But their website's still up and their Discord's still active. Okay. And with prejudice, so they can't bring the suit again. It's all settled. Yes. Forever. All right. So they lost. Tencent lost. Yeah. It was one of the things where, in my mind, their lawyers went and looked at everything and then walked up to the bosses and the lawyers just go, settle. But we want to, trust me, just settle.
    64:25
    So. They should be pleased that they don't have to pay Sony's legal fees. Yeah. So our video game year in the review is it's the Game Awards time. Yay! Did you watch it live like I did every time? I didn't. You never did. I never do. But I always do. You know what? We should talk about that for next year. We should talk about doing the Discord, doing voice chat on the Discord live while we watch. That's an interesting idea. So if anybody's interested in that Remind us like November next year So we can remember That we wanted to try Because I'd probably be willing to watch it live Because I'll be honest I watch it at like Two times speed or two and a half times speed Because it takes forever And I don't care about 90% of it But It was very popular This year 171 million active views while streaming we'll just hit the winners out real quick won't take long because we're not going to talk about half of the stuff because most of it's little tiny things we'll hit the big ones Claire Obscura they had the most nominations going in nominated for the most awards ever 12 they won 9 of them is that the most that any games won? yes So not only are they most nominative The most won ever They got the big one, they got game of the year They got best narrative, they got best score Best art direction, game direction, RPG Independent game debut indie game Performance So they did very good It was a very good year for them and they were all dressed to the nines Like baguettes. Yes. They like put on the most stereotypical French clothes. It was the most stereotypical French mime clothing. Yeah, it was weird.
    66:27
    But they had fun. Some of the other big, which shouldn't be surprises, for most of these. Hades 2 got Best Action Game. Silksong got Best Action Adventure.
    66:39
    Fatal Fury got Best Fighting Game. I thought that was kind of a surprise, honestly. Yeah, but it might have been the most legitimate one, actually. The way they do fighting game in the game is odd. It is way broader than you would think.
    66:53
    Final Fantasy Tactics got Best Strategy Game, which weirded me out because that's a remake, reimagining whatever modernization of the original game uh so i was surprised to see it get best tactics um mario kart world got best sports racing game no shock uh arc raiders got best multiplayer i remember there was a huge bit of argument that it should have been game of the year that argument is probably wrong quite that argument is wrong in my opinion but there is a surprisingly large number of people online who seem to think that if a game's not multiplayer it shouldn't even be a eligible for game of the year because obviously if it's not good multiplayer it's not a real game somehow strange uh no man's sky got best ongoing i i think it's won that award like three times now i'm more impressed that not only is it still they're still pouring the time the effort and the energy into it but it's actually gotten really good considering just how terrible the launch was um and then the player's choice award uh-huh went to worthering waves which is one of the gotcha games yes uh because most of the games in the player's choice awards were gotcha games i do think i have to point out because i know you psychologically had to avoid it that the best family game was donkey yeah there was a there there's a game that won from being a good family game. Yeah, something about a monkey.
    68:26
    Amy, bad gorilla. Yes, Congo won best family game. I don't know what part of it was. I think it was the giant stone paddles crushed in the guy's head. It just made for... It was the latest in satellite communications technology, which equals laser. Right.
    68:45
    But people don't watch the Game Awards for the awards, don't they? They watch them for the announcements. The announcements are the important thing. I'm just going to get it out there right away. The most important announcement of the entire night. Ace Combat 8 Wings of Thief. I've got to admit, when I saw the footage kick on, I was like, is this an Ace Combat game? Are we going to fly down the barrel of a giant gun? We did not fly down the barrel of a giant gun, though. That might be in the game. It could be in the game. It's Ace Combat. Here's the thing.
    69:16
    I love Ace Combat. I know you do. I love all of the Ace Combat games. They're all amazing. They're all great.
    69:23
    There was a hint, like a tease thing, like a year and a half or two years ago. Because in an interview, one of the staff at the USS Hornet Museum, USS Hornet, it's an Essex-class aircraft carrier. it's the one that is closest of all the Essex that are in museum status of which there are one, two, three, four. It's the one that's closest to the World War Two standard. OK, compared to all the others. The others have had much, much larger upgrades over the years than Hornet ever had. And it's in.
    70:05
    Oakland. they in an interview in another thing they mentioned that the bandai namco ace combat team had been there doing 3d scans of the entire ship like two years ago okay a year and a half two years ago so so they're everybody's like oh are they making a new ace combat game but that was forever ago nobody ever said anything in the trailer that is very clearly they use the scans from hornet to make an accurate representation of an essex in the game so as a naval geek uh who likes to nerd out about that kind of stuff i think that's awesome okay so um uh other games uh and you can throw in anything if i don't mention dennis because i'm there's too many to come your list was pretty comprehensive yeah this honestly my list is pretty comprehensive but it's only the ones that caught my attention special uh tank rat is a kind of a sci-fi um tank game where you're like an ai robot salvaging and building tanks i've actually watched um uh A streamer that I watched was given a development portion of it to try out like six months ago and stream.
    71:30
    And it looked neat. It looked really neat then. So seeing that it's coming along and coming up for release I think is interesting. It seems like it's the kind of game I would enjoy.
    71:41
    Also, there was the one for Bradley the Badger. That was weird. It was one of the most crack-induced fever dream trailers I've seen since maybe Conker's Bad Fur Day.
    71:54
    With the whole, oh, it's a badger and it's jumping genres and now it's live action. It was weird. Yes. I honestly have no idea what this game is going to be other than a platformer, which means I'm not going to play it.
    72:09
    Because I don't have the skills to platform anymore. I downloaded a number of years ago I got on a sale The collection of all of the Mega Man games Those are pretty hard I don't have it anymore I don't have it I can't There were two Star Wars games come out Announced Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic Huge cheer from the crowd Because Knights of the Old Republic was huge here's the interesting thing to me um the studio behind it arcana studios was founded in july yeah so this is way out there this is way out there i mean this is going to be like 2030 yeah yeah there's no way that it's any sooner than that and we didn't see any gameplay no no it was just a cinematic uh so i was surprised for them to have announced especially because they have a real bad habit of announcing Star Wars titles that never, ever come to fruition. And this could be one of those. But the studio was founded by Casey Hudson, the former BioWare GM. And BioWare has always had a good reputation for this style of game. The other one was Star Wars Galactic Racers because somehow pod racing has returned. Now, that's what I call pod racing. Because that's what we've all been clamoring for. Yes. It's a new Star Wars pod racing game. I hope they have a cow you can play as.
    73:52
    Last time, or last episode, we talked about the weird statue that appeared in the desert. Oh, man. I mean, this, I don't, I don't even know what to say. This trailer probably should have had a trigger warning before it happened. Maybe it did have a trigger warning, and I just didn't see it because I didn't watch it live. But the trailer for Divinity, the new game from Larian Studios who did Baldur's Gate 3, wow. That was some straight-up, like, torture porn. Yeah.
    74:35
    With some actual porn mixed in. Yeah. So it's like an orgy going on person being burned alive. Yeah. Uh, uh, self-flagellation is, yeah, we're whipping themselves everywhere. It was, that was, that was a trailer. That was definitely something.
    74:57
    Uh, we'll see. I don't know. It had like live action stuff where it had like people in, like come down into the audience, dressed up as peasants and then get ripped up into the air.
    75:10
    I forgot about that. I mean, it was a whole thing. Yep. So we'll see. I don't know. I know that it was very much – I felt like I was watching a trailer for a Saw movie. It was just so violent.
    75:28
    Other ones that caught my eye is Matthew McConaughey's movie, Exeter movie, Game Exodus. this all right all right all right all right yeah it's i literally have it written down as it's a matthew mcconaughey thing now i did i have read that this game will deal with time dilation which i mean that's something that most sci-fi games don't touch on so depending upon how it's done that could be interesting uh that game's also from wizards of the coast the second game announced also from Wizards of the Coast is a Warlock Dungeons and Dragons game it was just cinematics we know nothing about it we're not going to see gameplay reveal until next summer and the game itself is not slated to come out until 27 but I put it down because yeah you get to play everybody's favorite edgelord class, the Warlock and they used Tool as the soundtrack and it was great.
    76:39
    It threw me right back to 96 when I saw them in concert. I'm just like, yeah. So Tool is what got you on board. That's what got me on board. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, I have rolled a couple of Warlocks in my day. Yes. But Control Resident, which is the new Control game. Yep.
    77:00
    I'll admit, it looked good. Yes. It looked really good. I liked Control. I don't like it as much as Alan Wake, but I did like Control. Yeah. I thought the trailer looked really fun. So we'll see how that ends up going.
    77:16
    And then Gang of Dragon, which is we've got Yakuza at home. Yes. I kept saying it. I was like, the studio wasn't Yakuza's studio. So I'm like, this looks like Yakuza, but I know it's not because it's not the studio. The main developer is a Yakuza developer who left. Okay. So we've got Yakuza at home. Okay. Well, I mean, it might be good. But it looks hilarious, and it feels like a game that I kind of want to put it on. I just want to read the story and watch it like a movie. Just because the trailer starts out with the main character just like sitting at the bar, ignoring people pointing guns at him and talking on a flip phone until he just destroys everybody yes it's like okay i i saw uh somebody online had said uh uh it how did how did they put it um it's like yakuza if you were bruce wayne so um we saw the trailer for this street fighter movie yes now live this was painful because we had to wait for them to basically bring the entire cast out on stage like it was just it was like guys no they had a really good dig at mortal combat which was the only funny part i mean if the trailer embraced the camp of the old street fighter game so much that you know they tried too hard it's just going to be terrible it's not going to be like it's not going to be like the raoul julia jean-claude van damme's street fighter where it's so bad but enjoyable because of it this feels like they they tried too hard it's It's going to be bad, bad. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not going to see it in theater, that's for sure.
    79:15
    The way it's primed. That one's going on. They announced Total War, Warhammer 40K. I never thought a Total War 40K game would happen. I mean, there's been three Total War Warhammer games, but they're all based around Warhammer fantasy. Does that make sense? 40k being you know like galaxy spanning giant thing I never thought it would translate into the Total War setting very well and I don't know that it did but they definitely are doing it and I guarantee you it's going to be enormously well selling because the Total War Warhammer games are already the best selling Total War games by a lot so Resident Evil decided to bring Leon back. Gotta bring him back.
    80:07
    Everybody's favorite character. If he doesn't punch boulders, I never respected him quite as much as Chris.
    80:18
    Highguard was announced. It was like the last trailer for some reason. It is another party or PvP raid game because we need more pvp raid games the main character who was like seen front and center of the trailer through most of it was looked as bored as i felt watching the trailer i i just expected so much more from the creators of titanfall yeah maybe the gameplay will be there maybe it'll be there maybe it's just that there's so many yes it's like over summer when everything was just other souls like yes it's just i've stopped caring about this type of game and that's why you've turned to donkey kong now it's your only no yeah just wait just wait until you see my game replay of the year there's good there's going to be all sorts of kong in there yes rule the bananas we'll be in the number one game um there there there was uh uh pragmata which was escort quest the game yep it's like my very first thought it's like oh oh look somebody thought that that death stranding i'm walking around with a fetus yeah wasn't hard enough so instead i'm literally going to be walking around with like a 10 year old girl hanging off my back for the entire game yep but sometimes she'll do magic sometimes she does magic stuff sometimes and yeah i don't know I'm sure it's probably a game that people will enjoy.
    82:01
    Yeah, because escort quests are everyone's favorite. Yeah, exactly. It did not seem like anything I would be interested in.
    82:09
    And the last thing I've got down is the one that I think they should have closed with. Mega Man Dual Override, because we need a new 2D side-scrolling Mega Man. Which you won't play because it's a platformer. Which I won't play because it's a platformer. but it still would have been a better ending than High Guard. Yeah, people were pretty hype about it. I'm pretty sure I'd have to be high to play High Guard at this point.
    82:34
    So that was all of that out of the Game Awards. Interesting thing with Claire Obscura winning nine of the 12 awards they were nominated for, they also won Game of the Year at the Indie Game Awards and then had it stripped because of their use of AI. Robotech is back now. Because Claire Obscura used AI in the early game production, and apparently some of the AI stuff was still in at launch and was replaced in the first patch. Okay. So that made them ineligible for the Indy Awards. No word on if that's going to change if they get all nine awards stripped from them. That'd be huge news, wouldn't it? That ain't going to happen. There's no way Jeff is stripping it just because somebody used AI.
    83:33
    Jeff wouldn't strip the award if it came out that the entire game was programmed by AI. Unless Kojima said it was bad, then maybe he would.
    83:42
    Yeah, okay. That's a valid point. That's a one exception. He'll do whatever Kojima tells him to. Yes, basically.
    83:48
    And then I'd close the night and the year following up on the big story we've been following, And again, for a couple of months is the rock stars, controversial union busting, union busting terminations.
    84:00
    This has moved up to the point where the prime minister of the UK has now commented on it and has called the terminations deeply concerning and is having his staff look into it. so it's gone from going to having mps look at it uh local mps talk about it in the house of commons to the prime minister is having people look into it and i'm sure that's not going to hurt rockstar in any way shape or form no they'll be fine uh rockstar put out another statement the day after that announcement uh uh saying uh and i quote rockstar games took action against a small group of individuals across the UK and internationally who distributed and discussed confidential information, including specific game features from upcoming and unannounced titles, in a public forum in breach of company policy and their legal obligations. Claims that these dismissals were linked to union membership or activities are entirely false and misleading.
    85:00
    Let me translate for you. Dear God, we weren't union busting. Please don't sanction us for union busting and violating the law. Please ignore that we only fired members of the union. Yes, please. Thank you very much. And that we're calling a private, closed union server public. That you have to be a member of the union and Rockstar to be in. But not run by them. I get their angle. No, I get their angle. But yeah. Now, the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain responded that the Rockstars' latest statement is littered with falsehoods and disinformation. They have given multiple conflicting reasons to explain why the workers were fired as of attempting to reverse engineer a rational dismissals. Once again, they have chosen to mischaracterize workers speaking about their working conditions in a private forum as leaking information. It is hard to understand this statement as anything but a desperate attempt to deflect from the global scrutiny that they have come under over the last month. From the UK Prime Minister and the House of Commons to the game developers across the world erupting in protest, all eyes are on Rockstar and their lawless attack on the people who make them billions.
    86:17
    That's pretty well phrased, Doc. I really like the part about the reverse engineer. That's very British of them. When I read these, my first thought was, you know what, Rockstar should probably hire the union's PR rep because it's obviously better than theirs. And then I realized that, oh, no, they couldn't. He's in a union.
    86:38
    Alas. Well, will Rockstar survive? Will people look past all this for Grand Theft Auto? Rockstar will survive. The Magic 8-Ball says yes. Most everybody will look past it for Grand Theft Auto. The question is just how big of a fine are they going to get with? That's what this is going to boil down to. Or can they argue themselves out of a fine? And my guess is – I don't know with the UK. I think they're stricter about it. They're super strict about it over there. So I don't know. We'll see. Yeah.
    87:08
    Unlike Sony Tencent, which I expected to be our January drama and now isn't going to be our January drama,
    87:15
    Rockstar will be our January drama. combined with our normal January drama of all of the companies that decided to lay off a quarter of their staff because they only made record profits but not as high record profits as they expected the year before. So we have that to look forward to. Coming up soon. In January. Two weeks.
    87:38
    Well, until then, if you want to reach out to us, you can email us at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're also at facebook.com slash collectedgamerspodcast. we do appreciate support for the show and the best way to do that is that patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we've got three tiers with one as low as a dollar a month yep we're all on twitch and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we'll be back in two weeks with maybe more rock star drama maybe the new cornerstone announcement from stern might be ready by then hard to say but until then my name is dennis i'm tony goodbye see ya