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Episode 218 - Open Source Blues

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Apr 28, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Home Pin's Blues Brothers criticized for open-source rules, poor art, and theme waste despite lowest MSRP on market.

Summary

Tony and Dennis from Eclectic Gamers Podcast discuss Home Pin's new Blues Brothers pinball machine, criticizing its open-source software approach, simplified design, poor artwork, and lack of multimedia assets as unsuitable for a licensed theme. They also speculate about Dutch Pinball upcoming Back to the Future reveal and engage in a 'theme dream' segment imagining ideal band and movie pinball licenses.

Key Claims

  • Home Pin's Blues Brothers has a recommended retail price of $4,950 USD, the cheapest game on the market

    high confidence · Tony states directly: 'Cheapest game on the market. It's recommended retail in US dollars is $4,950'

  • Blues Brothers uses open-source software where community members can develop custom rule sets via a forum

    high confidence · Dennis explains: 'people will go to a forum that I guess HomePen will have for the Blues Brothers... people can develop their own rules'

  • The prototype has no LCD or DMD display, only a numeric display similar to Gottlieb System ADA

    high confidence · Dennis: 'This has no monitor. This has no DMD. This has what appears to me from the back box shot to be numeric display, not alphanumeric'

  • Dutch Pinball is planning to reveal Back to the Future at Pinball Expo

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'Dutch Pinball is purportedly going to do their reveal of Back to the Future at Pinball Expo' (sourced from NAP Arcade article)

  • Home Pin designed Blues Brothers for non-pinball people rather than the pinball enthusiast community

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Mike has in interviews... really emphasized his desire to have something... Mike has... to have people that are looking to put a pinball machine in their game room who are not pinball people'

  • Home Pin is also planning to have Blues Brothers on display at Pinball Expo

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'Jason actually notes that Home Pin is also planning to have Blues Brothers at Expo'

  • The playfield art appears to be placeholder artwork from a poster

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'The play field art is definitely from a poster... I really don't understand putting in placeholder play field art'

  • Dutch Pinball took 10 years to release only one game (The Big Lebowski)

    high confidence · Dennis: 'a company that has spent 10 years only making one game, the Big Lebowski'

Notable Quotes

  • “Open source. The Linux. Why do you hate Linux?”

    Tony @ mid-episode — Humorous rejection of open-source approach; indicates strong skepticism about community rule development

  • “Rules and the balancing of rules in the game... good rules can make even a bad game fun. That doesn't come from having a million cooks in the kitchen.”

    Dennis @ mid-episode — Core critique of open-source model; emphasizes need for expert rule design over crowdsourcing

  • “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.”

    Tony (Wesley Snipes quote from Blade) @ late-episode — Metaphor for Home Pin's approach; suggests the strategy is fundamentally flawed

  • “When I first heard about the game coming out, my thought was, oh, open source. So people are going to be able to go in and stick in the assets that they want. Well, but there's no screen.”

    Dennis @ mid-episode — Highlights contradiction: open-source software cannot add multimedia assets without hardware to display them

  • “It is just flat depressing.”

    Tony @ mid-episode — Emotional assessment of Blues Brothers' design philosophy; summarizes overall negative reception

  • “Anytime I see somebody saying, I'm not making this game for pinball people... What I hear is, all of you guys have told me that you don't like my game and that I've done something wrong.”

    Dennis @ late-episode — Interprets Home Pin's market positioning as defensive response to community criticism

  • “If you want a single level game with numeric displays, you can find games like that under $2,000 pretty easily... especially if you're going to the early 80s.”

    Tony @ mid-episode — Contextualizes value proposition; argues Home Pin's price advantage negated by superior used alternatives

  • “Blues Brothers as a theme in my mind should be treated almost as a music pen... there's so many good dancing and singing scenes that not having an LCD... is a travesty.”

Entities

Home PincompanyBlues BrothersgameTonypersonDennispersonMike (Home Pin founder)personDutch PinballcompanyBack to the FuturegameThe Big Lebowskigame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Open-source rule development model unlikely to attract non-pinball casual players (stated target market); requires forum engagement, file downloads, and installation—barriers incompatible with casual user expectations

    high · Dennis: 'His market of non-pinball people are going to go to a forum and wait around and hope programmers are going to develop alternate rule sets... I doubt you'll find very many that have rules that are even halfway enjoyable'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Back to the Future license disappointment among enthusiasts that Dutch Pinball (smaller/slower manufacturer) secured it rather than Stern (higher production quality/speed expectations)

    medium · Dennis: 'it's a little bit but it's mostly when it's a beloved theme people want a major company to do it because they think the odds of it being done well are higher... there were there was a lot of speculation that Stern might'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Home Pin positioning Blues Brothers for casual/non-pinball players; community interprets this as defensive reaction to poor reception of previous titles

    high · Dennis: 'Anytime I see somebody saying, I'm not making this game for pinball people... What I hear is, all of you guys have told me that you don't like my game and that I've done something wrong.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Blues Brothers music licensing (Aretha Franklin, Hooker, Cab Calloway, etc.) prohibitively expensive; likely explains absence from prototype and reliance on open-source community for asset development

    medium · Tony: 'Imagine how much you have to spend to get Aretha Franklin and Hooker and Cab Calloway and all the rest. I just don't think it's going to be in there.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.239

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 28th. This is episode 218. I am Tony. And I am Dennis. Oh, you know what? I'm not today. Tired? No, I'm not tired. I am high energy. I am good to go today. Yes. And you know what? I was sitting there just randomly thinking, you know, all those talk show hosts that make millions of dollars a year, they never say they're tired. And we should be held to that same standard. You would think. So here we are, full of love, life, energy, and rain. So much rain. Because normally with thunderstorms like this, one would probably be tired because one couldn't sleep. But you know what? That world doesn't exist for us. Not here on Eclectic Gamers Podcast. So what have you been up to?
1:11
I have been doing nothing overly different than my normal day-to-day stuff. But I did finish the Fallout series. The TV show? The TV show. We'll talk about that in the video game section because I think that's where it fits best. Yeah, I mean it is a video game based series And there's a lot of Fallout news Immediately following the release of the show So I think it'll segue together really good there Otherwise, I've just been doing the normal Playing some video games, reading Doing a lot of work around the house and stuff So nothing super special What about yourself? Well, I started and finished a game that I will cover in more detail, I figure, during the video game segment as well, is Double Dragon Gaiden, Rise of the Dragons. And that's kind of how they say it when you start the game. So I've been doing that in terms of different stuff that I've been playing. That was a Christmas gift that I finally started up, and I just kept kind of plugging away at it because it was a fun little beat-em-up. And other than that, yeah, it's been mostly just work stuff and things with my wristwatch YouTube because getting away from the Watches and Wonders, big E3-esque event. But there's been a lot of kind of post stuff to cover on that. So when I've had downtime and I've invested in the hobby, I've done that. Though I did play some pinball last night before the rain got really bad. Oh, nice. Yeah, I did some Walking Dead. It's been a while since I played Walking Dead and Iron Man as well. Nice. Because those games, the old Sam system games, they just boot up faster than the Spike system. So I'm just like, I'm going to turn it on and it'll let me play in five seconds. Yes. The other ones is more like 35 seconds. And you just don't have that kind of time. I don't. And that's, you know, it's like two games that don't go long either. Right. So the series is you power on Walking Dead. Then you step over and power on Godzilla. Then you step back and play a game on Walking Dead. Then Godzilla is powered up by the time your game on Walking Dead is over. Maybe. Walking Dead is very short. It is true. I did actually get like over 130 million on the game. I only played one game on each. And then I was like, all right, now it's back to doing some other stuff. Like I, oh, I'm not going to labor it here. But I finally, I had to order. I could not get any watch straps to fit my Spiro Agnew watch that I was gifted. Not the one you gifted me, but the one that yours triggered me getting a second one on. And so I finally ordered from a watchmaker site some ultra-thin lug spring bars. And that worked. Now I was able to thread a NATO in. So it finally has a strap. I think they stuck on just some spring bars they had around as my guess because they're just way too – I finally looked. I'm like, there's nothing that's going to fit through this. So I find some really ultra-thin strap. And then I was like, oh, they make thinner diameter spring bars. So I ordered. I spent like $10 and ordered like 50 of three different sizes. I didn't know which thickness was best, so I just ordered a whole bunch because they're super cheap. That was finally came. So I had to go up and power on my lights because sometimes you need a magnifier and stuff to get that stuff lined up. Talking about like annoyance type things, that does remind me. I started reading a novel series that I had read previously the first three books of. And at the time, it was only three books. Well, now there's eight books out. So I read the first three books again because it had been a decade or so. And then I read all the way up and I finished book seven. And then I started book eight. and I was completely lost at the beginning of book eight. I'm like, but I just finished book seven.

Tony @ mid-episode — Argues theme requires multimedia to justify licensed IP; open-source rules insufficient compensation

Pinball Expo
event
Loser Kids Pinball Podcastorganization
Meteorgame
The Pinball Showorganization
Scott Deniseperson
Spinal Tapgame
Godzillagame
Walking Deadgame
Iron Mangame
NAP Arcadeorganization
Joe Kamikawaperson
Pinball Magazineorganization
Juliet Prison Museumevent_location
Data Eastcompany
Spike systemproduct
Sam systemproduct
Gottlieb System ADAproduct

personnel_signal: Dutch Pinball pursuing Back to the Future license after 10-year Big Lebowski development cycle; community skepticism about production capacity and ability to execute within reasonable timeframe

medium · Dennis: 'they're going to be concerned about the speed of production... people that have just watched Dutch from a distance... are people willing to let them... are they forgiven'

  • $

    market_signal: Home Pin's $4,950 MSRP advantage negated by availability of superior used machines under $2,000 with same layout simplicity; price positioning insufficient without quality execution

    high · Tony: 'If you want a single level game with numeric displays, you can find games like that under $2,000 pretty easily... The thing is you don't get the theme. If you don have the assets what the point of the theme'

  • ?

    product_concern: Blues Brothers prototype features poor placeholder artwork on playfield and translight that appears unfinished; numeric displays and lack of multimedia fundamentally misaligned with Blues Brothers as music-heavy theme

    high · Dennis: 'The art on the layout... looks pretty awful. It's really awful, especially the Translight. The Translight is so terrible, AI cartoony, weird.' Tony: 'It is just flat depressing.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Home Pin planning to display Blues Brothers prototype at Pinball Expo despite stating game is not for pinball enthusiasts; suggests contradiction in marketing strategy

    high · Dennis: 'Home Pin is also planning to have Blues Brothers at Expo... if you fly into Midway... it's just if you fly into Midway, they have statues of the Blues Brothers... I think is an interesting choice when you go around saying you don't want pinball people to buy your game.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Previous speculation that Stern might develop Back to the Future as Kapow or standard release (unfulfilled); indicates ongoing demand for this license across community

    medium · Dennis: 'There was a rumor last year about that... people being excited for that... there was a lot of speculation that Stern might'

  • ?

    business_signal: Home Pin's open-source software strategy may be cover for inability to secure music licensing; allows community to add assets post-release while company avoids liability

    medium · Tony speculates: 'This is open source because they couldn't get the rights to the music. But by doing the software open source, if they set it up right, people can add it themselves afterwards, and they get to say, we didn't do it. Not my fault. Don't sue us.'

    • 4:48
    There is like a five-year time jump in which there are two side stories of their own book series, which are each trilogies that cover all the stuff that happens in the time jump between book seven. Like characters, like they were talking about characters from the other books that were dead, and everything was completely different, and I'm like, what happened? What? So I went online, and that was annoying. I'm mildly annoyed that I had to stop reading book eight because it made no sense and go back and read two side stories to know everything that happened to slide back into book eight, which is the last book.
    5:36
    Or at least the last book so far. Yeah, that probably, I think that would annoy me as well. Yeah. So I sympathize with this. It was just, okay, let's go do this now. So.
    5:50
    Well, you know what? It won't be hard for us. It'll be talking about pinball because we love to talk about pinball. And, you know, we have some stuff. We have some pinball news that we can discuss. So I'd say the first thing I want to do is we do have an email, and it's pinball related. So remember, you can write in to us at collectivegamerspodcast at gmail.com. and this was from Steve, and Steve wrote, he just titled it, Great Episode, and the message body said, Great episode from the beginning, let me do all of that again, because I'm going to give you a good voice, Steve. Great episode from beginning to end. I admire your stance on DPX in particular, Steve. Well, thank you, Steve. Thank you very much. I think it was your stance, because I mostly just sat there all the time going, DPX, PX, PX, and you were like, Rant. Guys, I had three Instagram live reels. They were all too terrible. They were bad. And we did have comments on our social media and stuff where people were like, Tony published the unpublished episodes. I've deleted every single one of them. And you're like, I've deleted them. No, they were terrible. And they're like, no, they deserve it. Destroy them. I don't disagree that they probably deserve it. Cast it into the fire. But no. Yeah. Do it. I think that someone's saying let the hate flow through you. If not, I thought it after I was reading their comments. But we did have a lot of good social media engagement after this last episode. Yeah. So we appreciate that. But just the whole throw it in the fire, the no thing, it reminds me. I saw a little animated meme thing where somebody was like, throw it in the fire. And he turns and goes, no.
    7:30
    And Elrond just pulls up his bow and shoots him through the throat with the arrow and the whole body drop. And his whole body drop. It's like, there you go. It's like, okay. The whole third age all of a sudden became nice. Suddenly everything's okay. Leave it to the elves to mess things up. But the alternate timeline can fix it. Yes. All right. Everything's better with an alternate timeline. So, all right. Thank you again, Steve, for the email. Now, we have a topic. I mean, actually, I have a topic for us to have some fun that I'm poaching a little bit from the Loser Kids. So, thank you, Loser Kids, for having an episode because it gave me an idea. And by an idea, it means basically your idea that I just did a little differently. But we're not to that part yet. We got to talk about a new release. It's Home Pin time. You know Home Pin. You remember Thunderbirds? Do you remember This is Spinal Tap? You know, I hate having to, I have to load the whole sensor, beep, and everything into the episode. Do you want to just cut it off? No, because then I still got to use the little scissor tool and everything. So, okay, you've got your little bad words in. There's my bad words for a minute. Gosh darn, Huckleberries. They'll probably be able to tell what you said because I don't have a beep that long. So I have to stack the beep and it sounds stupid, but that's just how it is because I ain't getting a longer beep.
    8:43
    Beep, beep, beep. There you go. Now you can just beep me myself. But we're not here to talk about Spinal Tap or Thunderbirds. We're here to talk about the Blues Brothers. Dennis, you know how much I love the Blues Brothers. I mean, I know you like music. and I remember that you really were very positive on Blues Brothers 2000's performance by John Goodman. Yes. Which I think, because he can sing, actually. He can. So I didn't know that this was like a beloved theme of yours. I really enjoyed Blues Brothers. I listen to the soundtracks all the time.
    9:19
    I mean, I've seen the movie multiple times. It's a very good film. Oh, definitely. Me too. I just Well now you can get one I don't know that it's a theme that necessarily Needed a pinball treatment But if it did need a pinball treatment It needed to be done by somebody Competent Okay Well it's been done by Home Pin I know And there are a few things to note I mean first of all let's note the price Cheapest game on the market It's recommended retail in US dollars Is $4,950 I mean it's been years since Stern Pros traded at that rate MSRP. That's true. It's very true.
    10:04
    They've gone with an interesting approach on the software. It's been described as open source software. And incidentally, I have a link in the show notes to the article with Pinball Magazine, which has like a newsletter thing that I'll just call it an article that goes into detail about HomePen for this title. But anyway, so for the open source software, the way it's been explained is people will go to a forum that I guess HomePen will have for the Blues Brothers. And that's where they can talk about software changes. And people, even if you're not a programmer, you'll be able to find the other like different versions there. And I guess the moderators are supposed to test them out and whatnot, I assume, to ensure they don't make the machine explode into flames. and anyway so there can be people can develop their own rules because one of the i don't know if this is the motivator but we do know that one of the criticisms of home pin has been people don't really like the rules very much on the two titles that they're somewhat familiar with so there's that tony does that does that help open source blues brothers no no that doesn't That's the last thing I want. Open source. The Linux. Why do you hate Linux? Rules and the balancing of rules in the game. We know. We've seen this time and time again where good rules can make even a bad game fun.
    11:23
    That doesn't come from having a million cooks in the kitchen. Do you really think there will be a million, though? Oh, no, no. There will be like 12. but that doesn't mean that it's going to turn out anything decent. It is going to be a hot mess at best. I doubt you'll find very many that have rules that are even halfway enjoyable, but the very concept of an open-source rule set for a game just makes me shudder. well if you're curious about the game actually going on right now while we are recording is the taipei gti arcade machine show and so an early prototype version has been put on display there i've included an image of the game that's i believe in the booth so you can kind of get a sense of it and i think it's kind of interesting because if you look at this and you can see it Tony and the listeners cannot unless they go and check out the check out a new source on it. However, the to say simplified is perhaps an understatement. The I don't have a great close up here for us right now of the play field, but you can see the play field. I saw someone once basically loosely compare it to Meteor's layout does appear to be entirely single level layout. and there is no there's no monitor there's no like lcd display they added an lcd display for those that don't know to spinal tap but all it does is i understand it on spinal tap is randomly play clips from the movie spinal tap uh and then there's like a another screen i think it's a dmd to show score or whatever maybe it wasn't i apologize it's been a while since this isn't about Spinal Tap. This is not that. This has no monitor. This has no DMD. This has what appears to me from the back box shot to be numeric display, not alphanumeric, numeric displays. The size of these things, to me, the best analogy I can give you is this looks like a Gottlieb System ADA display set. That's what it looks like. It reminds me of the displays I had on Super Orbit and Jaxx to Open. That's what it looks like to me. But they look like they're just numbers, large numbers, not alpha. So it's going to be basic.
    13:56
    The layout, and again, this is a prototype. Art Sainz said the layout. Well, the layout's obviously an old-school simplified layout. The art on the layout is actually, I'm going to include the translate. This does not look good at all. This actually looks pretty awful. It's really awful, especially the Translight. The Translight is so terrible, AI cartoony, weird.
    14:30
    So here's the thing. Once I saw this and I saw that. So it's open source, but with a game like this, who cares? I mean, here's the thing. When I first heard about the game coming out, my thought was, oh, open source. So people are going to be able to go in and stick in the assets that they want. Well, but there's no screen. So people want stuff like if they want to basically not have to worry about copyright issues and they, as our own personal collection device, wanted to throw in movie clips or whatever. It's moot. There's no place to do it. So all you can do is fix the rules, but you could just buy Meteor instead, which they made plenty of. Here's – Blues Brothers as a theme in my mind should be treated almost as a music pen. Well, it's a musical. I mean there's musical numbers all throughout the whole movie.
    15:26
    Like Rocky Horror. Right. Rocky Horror would be great being treated basically as a music pen. That's probably Home Pin's next game.
    15:34
    Of course it is. But, I mean, in my mind, there's so many good dancing and singing scenes that not having an LCD to have those scenes activate when you're in modes based around those certain things is a travesty to begin with. And then when you combine it with all of this art and that play feel, it's just, it is depressing. That's what it is. it is just flat depressing yeah and i mean again i understand that it's a prototype like you can see like the slings don't have plastics over them yet and stuff but that i can't imagine unless that is total here's the thing i don't understand if this is play i want to say the playfield has to be placeholder art because it's horrid it's horrid well i wonder both the playfield and the trans light have a piece of paper across it with stuff written on it in these pictures and i 100 wonder if that's not just saying this is placeholder stuff what i think is going on here tony is the i tried to blow up some photos to see what those strips say i and i couldn't make it out but it's probably the art is subject to change labeling because there was when pinball magazine's article came out they did have it like watermarked all across there saying that this is just like a I'm assuming these are some elements that were something akin to from the poster or something. I'm not. It's been a while.
    17:13
    The play field art is definitely from a poster. I really don't understand putting in placeholder play field art and not just doing a white wood if it's not ready.
    17:20
    Okay, you put a big sticker on it to give – I guess to give a – but, I mean, you could still have – Remember Scott Denise when he had total nuclear – or when it was total annihilation as a white wood, and there was stuff written on it. Like saying these are the Elwynn drops and these are the Jake drops and stuff. I get that part. I just don't know the point in just putting a whole bunch of blue all over it. Anyway, it's not a good impression. No. But even saying aside, if they got the art right, would you – I mean is this going to have audio elements from the film? I'm going to go out on a limb with that price point and open sourcing the software. There's no way they have the assets for audio. I do see where Mike with HomePen, the strategy, and there was a – I didn't include it in our internal show notes, but there's a thing. You can kind of see it in the photo that I provided on the wall, a little picture. It sort of explained kind of like the flyers that machines usually have. A lot of this really emphasizes like cheapest recommended retail price of any pinball machine on the market and stuff like that. Mike has in interviews that I've heard with him before really emphasized his desire to have a have something like he wants to produce games for people that are looking to put a pinball machine in their game room who are not pinball people, which is weird looking for people. I get it, but it's also weird because he's not established, not in like he's not a major player. So I agree with him, and I've talked about it before, especially pre-pandemic, about that I do think there is a market for lower-priced gaming that is simplified. But it still needs to leave a good impression. Right. And I don't – where I struggle is when a lot of people are trying to fill out their game room, and maybe it works a little differently in Australia than it does in the United States. But there are plenty of distributors and such who deal in both new and they take trades. They have used games. You can get used games. That's my long story short. There are used games that are well under $5,000. Yeah. Especially now that the market has cooled off more. Of an era that this is clearly in the realm of. Right. If you want a single level game with numeric displays, you can find games like that under $2,000 pretty easily. especially if you're going to the early 80s, which is what these displays look like. The thing is you don't get the theme.
    19:50
    If you don have the assets what the point of the theme Yeah unless this has a bunch of call and the music and stuff But given the whole open source thing I am assuming this doesn have the I mean imagine how much you have to spend to get Aretha Franklin and Hooker and Cab Calloway and all the rest I just don't think it's going to be in there. Let me put on my tinfoil hat. That's the tin sound. I made the wrong sound. Go ahead, though. This is open source because they couldn't get the rights to the music. But by doing the software open source, if they set it up right, people can add it themselves afterwards, and they get to say, we didn't do it. Not my fault. Don't sue us. That could be right. That would be the best potential for them to get the sales to pinball people. I don't think his market of non-pinball people are going to go to a forum and wait around and hope programmers are going to develop alternate rule sets that then they are going to download and install on their machine.
    20:53
    100%. Anytime I see somebody saying, I'm not making this game for pinball people. I'm making this game for people outside of the hobby. What I hear is, all of you guys have told me that you don't like my game and that I've done something wrong. It's not for you. I didn't make this for you. I made this for others. Which, by and large, we don't hear that come up too often. But you know what? Since you already made me pull out the censor beep, I'm going to give you a quote. I'm going to give you a Wesley Snipes quote from Blade. Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill. Awesome. Perfect. And that's what I feel like this is right here. This won't be funny to a lot of pinball fans. But maybe some of you will love it. I don't know. We'll see. But per NAP Arcade, I have a link to this as well in the show notes, Dutch Pinball is purportedly going to do their reveal of Back to the Future at Pinball Expo. Now, this is not DPX. This is proper Dutch Pinball. Right, this isn't DPX. This is proper Dutch Pinball. Yes.
    21:55
    They're not putting out new builds of Zidware games. I think in the same article, Jason actually notes that Home Pin is also planning to have Blues Brothers at Expo, which I think is an interesting choice when you go around saying you don't want pinball people to buy your game. But I mean, it's pinball Expo. But it's just if you fly into Midway, they have statues of the Blues Brothers at Midway because the Blues Brothers is very much a Chicago thing. yes it's very chicago i mean the blues such a big part of chicago i mean and and they're they're just four blues brothers interested people not the pinball game there is a blues brothers convention being held at the old uh uh prison that's a museum now in like august and and uh A lot of the people who've done stuff with them before are going to be there and actively performing. Oh, interesting. So like Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi, who kind of took over after John Belushi died. See, that came up on the Pinball Show, and I couldn't remember that part because I just remember John Goodman. Yeah. Jim Belushi did a lot of stuff after John died, like in the 80s and stuff.
    23:28
    But he's going to be there. Some others are going to be there as well. A lot of the old band members who are still with us are going to be there. They're doing a whole one-day thing at Juliet, because Juliet's a museum now, apparently.
    23:43
    But it's going to be a whole one-day Blues Fest concert thing. okay well if they have cosplay someone could try and go dressed as a machine what do you think i would win if i went dressed up as the home i don't know that's funny i did consider doing the whole black suit thing when when i did the uh when i did the meatloaf cosplay for the oh yes i i had considered doing the whole black suit thing but you didn't no i went with meatloaf instead yeah well it's one of those things so uh back to the future a lot of people it love this license i've heard it's been done before every time we've talked about it people are and and we've said we don't understand why people want this we hear from tons of people that they're excited for it and that they're really interested for whatever reason yeah i but anyway um this has been a heartbreaker for a lot of them i know they just it's and this isn't so much a statement about dutch specifically it's a little bit but it's mostly when it's a beloved theme people want a major company to do it because they think the odds of it being done well are higher and i would agree they are they are statistically they are higher wasn't there a rumor like last Last year that like Stern was going to do it as like a Kapow or something like that. There was there was a rumor last year about that, because I recall people being excited for that. Yes. Yeah, there were there was a lot of speculation that Stern might. In part, I think that was driven by the fact that Data East so early in its history. And Joe Kamikawa has such a relationship with being involved with Data East since they had done Back to the Future before that it would make sense for Stern, and which is just a continuation of the Data East line at this point really, would go and revisit it. But obviously that's not been the case. And I just think it's sort of surprising slash shocking that a company that has spent 10 years only making one game, the Big Lebowski, got such a prestigious license. Personally, I think that this hobby is such an insular bubble that the demand for Back to the Future broadly, like as a license in the community isn't nearly where people think it still is it's just not the same anymore right but regardless i i do think as a license it would it would do fairly well or has the potential to do fairly well but it'll be it'll be interesting to to see because like as a game the big lebowski wasn't a bad game it was maybe very 90s and how it handled a lot of things but it shot reasonably well i think the rules were reasonably appreciated and so it's i don't think that Dutch is going to inherently, it's not going to look like the home pin Blues Brothers. It's not going to be like that, but they're going to be concerned about the speed of production. And, you know, there've been a lot of people that have just watched Dutch from a distance and it's all well and good when it's not you waiting 10 years for your game, but trusting to give them money at this point, are people willing to let them like, are they forgiven and do they get to linger on i i have no idea okay so tony this leads me to a topic that i thought would be kind of fun i was listening to the latest loser kid pinball podcast and they started talking about like themes and what people would like to see and we've done this before i know but but there ain't a ton of news so hey low-hanging fruit so i'm calling it theme dream dream dream dream dream dream dream I know we have different feelings about band pins versus other type of pins and all that, but I just thought it would be kind of fun. You don't need them in any particular order, but just kind of going back and forth.
    27:34
    I thought given we've talked about music pin here with Blues Brothers, what are three bands that we would like to see just as a theme, not having to worry so much about – I think the way they did it is they tried to pick company and designer and all that. I don't care about any of that. Just sort of – yeah, just like this would be a good pinball machine. So I'll tell you one of my three bands that I would name would be Fleetwood Mac. The Rumors album could be the focus if you wanted to pick a specific album. But honestly, it's such an iconic rock band. They have a very unique sound. They really should have a pinball machine. It's sort of surprising that they haven't. I think it probably has to do with a lot of band conflict. But now that they lost one of their founding members,
    28:17
    if you're going to do it and you want to have access to people doing call-outs and stuff, We've seen this, like, with Rush and stuff. After they lose a bandmate, sometimes the motivation seems to be there. So I think it would do fairly well. And they have quite the catalog to pick from. So I'd say Fleetwood Mac. What's one of your three bands that you would name? The Boss. Bruce Springsteen. Now, that could actually, I think his style of music in particular could work very well for while you're playing pinball. Because it is very rocking. Yeah.
    28:49
    Second one I'll name is Journey. I mean, come on. I think we've talked about Journey before. We have. Don't stop believing. You've got to hold on to that feeling and hold on to that pinball machine. I think a Journey machine could print money. So I've always been surprised that they did. It's such fun rock. And again, it's one that when people think about that they want upbeat, high-speed song styles to rock out to, it's widely appreciated. I think it would do very well. What's the second one that you might name? Huey Lewis and the News. I should have known you'd bring up Huey Lewis. you were you think it'd sell no well i didn't ask you if it would i didn't think that was what we were it's not it's not i'm just asking i'm just asking the no it's yeah it's themes but i'm i'm asking the question is like is that just a that's a well you just need an leo one for tony or is it no no i i mean it would sell i don't think it would sell huge i don't think it would sell springsteen huge i don't think it would spell sell uh you know like journey huge no it would sell but not in the same level i just really like hugh lewis yes yeah no that that makes a lot of sense uh you know for my last one i would other than i because there was controversy towards the end of his life i'm gonna i'll name it anyway i still think michael jackson would sell very well it would uh it's michael jackson would sell game i mean he was the king of pop for so long The songs are so well known. They're fun. I still have a couple in my playlist that I like to listen to. I do, too. So I think it would perform very, very well. It would. And I would like the music, so I'm going to name it. Yeah. What's the last one you would maybe suggest?
    30:33
    Getting harder now. No. I'm just trying to think if I want to be that Mimi. Yeah. Taylor Swift. That was almost what I named. Honestly, she's done so well for so long at this point that she doesn't have a machine. Yeah. The only excuse is, well, it's not nostalgic or, well, not enough guys will buy it. Right. But she's so big across so many demographics. I don't think it would matter. I don't think it would matter either. I think that would be the machine that non-penball people buy. Because my original thought, I was going to go with something, again, that falls into the normal thing. But it's like, that would be huge. That would sell gangbusters. I'd probably sell more than any of the other ones we've suggested. Probably sell more than all of them combined. Yes, probably. Probably. I can't wait to see Dutch Pinball when they have Taylor Swift.
    31:21
    All right. So then I thought for a theme dream, we could jump to movies. So I know I've said it before, but it's still a great idea, I think, is Die Hard. The only problem is who's, you know. All right. So custom call-outs at this point, because we can't have Alan Rickman and we can't have Bruce Willis doing custom call-outs at this point. But it doesn't have to have custom call-outs. Yeah. And you can get some weird side character, some Nedry version. I just imagine, like, I want a thing where there's a big tower kind of like in Godzilla, but instead of it lowering, the ball has to fall off the top of the tower.
    31:54
    And there's magnets on the side of the tower to try and pull it into the tower. Yes, yes. And on the pro version, it still has the tower, but it'll just use this little, like, when the ball is dangling, It can use a magnet or just a regular magnet. But on the LE version, they will use an actual Rolex.
    32:16
    A magnetizer Rolex. It has to have its little clasp on there. And then it will fall. This is all for the final wizard mode. So most of the time it just sits there doing nothing. But it's worth it. What's a movie you'd like to see done as a pinball machine that has never been done before? I should add these are – I felt this was obvious, but listeners, these are things – I know Back to the Future has been done before. This is the only stuff that hasn't had a pinball machine. That's why I can't say Kroll technically had. Because it's technically had – It technically had a – I mean, I guess I could because I never went commercial with Kroll, but I won't name Kroll, even though I do enjoy it. It's a guilty pleasure. The Hunt for Red October. Some things don't react well to bullets. Sorry, I can't do Scottish and do shh, shh, shh, shh all at the same time. But just because there needs to be a shot where you get one chance at it, and if you hit it, it sets off the ping.
    33:14
    Oh, I want the ping. I love the ping. So you sit there, you're playing, and when you activate the shot, it can be one of those where it traps the ball and it warns you, and it shows the shot, and you have one chance at it. and if you hit it it just goes bing oh and get Sam Neill to do the call outs that's silly now I hate to digress again but listeners have to deal with it did you see the April Fool's joke from like Naval News media fell for it they said we had invented Caterpillar Drive oh I did see that people had all these things picked up on it And they had to go back and put this huge disclaimer.
    34:03
    We had correct caterpillar drive. We had stealth technology for our subs now. And all these people were reporting it as news. It's like, this is straight out of a Tom Clancy book, guys. Come on.
    34:17
    I'll give you one. Obviously, I like Baldwin played Dr. Ryan in Red October. Then eventually that role got well known for a couple other movies from Harrison Ford. I'm going to do a Harrison Ford movie, but not a Clancy version of it. Air Force One. Oh, Air Force One. Get off my plane. That would be great. And that line has to be used like all the time. Of course it does. Every time you drain, maybe you're the villain, and every time you drain, it's him telling you to get off the plane. But that one's fun. It'll be really fun when you have to activate the fax machine to send the alert message to the ground. Because people will be like, what's a fax machine, Dad?
    34:53
    But there's some fun things. little escape pod. You could have a little toy with that. Obviously, there's stuff you can do with the plane itself. I think it has a lot of potential. That was a very well-received movie, too. Yeah, it was. That movie was very good. So that'd be my second one, I would think. That would be a good one. I'm going to go with The Martian.
    35:12
    Oh, a weird book. Right, and you could have the entire... What's Taters? the entire journey it would lend itself to being one of those uh deeper pens where you're collecting the stuff you need and you're making the journey and you're solving problems and and all of that yes it's also one of my favorite films of all time well it's i mean it's a good book yeah and it was a good movie i haven't seen it in a while I should rewatch it.
    35:47
    It's actually It because I own It and Master and Commander digitally and they both just stay on my tablet so that I always have them with me because it's my I've got some down time to kill or whatever and I will just start one of them because I can watch them from pretty much anywhere and be fine.
    36:08
    Well, for my third movie, I'll throw a bone to Spooky, Event Horizon. oh let's do here's the thing you know i actually went there and the first time i saw event horizon didn't like it and then i i re-watched it's one of those movies where it's like uh pulp fiction you know i came around to it over time though i don't remember what was so off-putting to me about it was just so different i think i think it was the psychological hallucination part and i was having trouble getting around it one of the things it's not like a top tier rated horror movie which somewhat surprises me i finally read someone probably on reddit that did kind of an analysis of Event Horizon about why so many people that end up going in and watching it end up liking it other than I mean it's it's very scary in fact that that movie got toned down there was originally a lot more of the uh the people all slashed up and stuff in the going into the alternate dimension sort of thing that was I mean I think it got for for like gruesome nudity reasons got scaled way back but but here's the thing that someone pointed out that i had never really thought about but it makes a lot of sense the thing about event horizon that works that makes it work more than how just how scary it is the atmosphere all the rest of it the science of it it's by and large all of the characters in it act as normal people would react to something like this like they're making all the right decisions and it's just not working because they don't understand this sort of supernatural natural element from this parallel dimension. So it's like they're going and checking certain things, and they're doing things in order, and they're going in groups. And it's like they're smart. They're being smart, and they're losing anyway. That's really good. That's a very valid point. Let's run for the cemetery and hide in the room with a chainsaw sort of thing. That's not Event Horizon. Event Horizon, everyone is basically making the right decisions, and it's just not working because they don't understand what they're dealing with. So that's what I would name. And there are some really fun set pieces just with the spinning dimensional gate thing that could be a great centerpiece for it. Kind of think like the Lord of the Rings ring. They do something like that with the triple spinning rings and the gravity well in the center. There's some stuff you could do, I think, with it. So that would be my last movie I'd name. What was your third one? What would it be? See, number three is always the hardest. It is because I have like a couple of ideas and I've got some of them are sillier than others. Yeah. But, you know, War of the Worlds. Which one? The 50s is my preferred. Okay. Though, in all honesty, the Tom Cruise one isn't as bad as some people pan it to be. But I think the 50s one is better.
    38:59
    Well, I would say it's definitely more iconic. Yeah. And it's got so much iconic sound. You can hear a lot of the sound effects that they created for that movie in stuff nowadays even. Yes, very much so. But I'll go with that as a much more out there. Again, it's not going to sell a lot. Well, no, probably not.
    39:22
    Video games. So I thought, all right, obviously there's been a lot of talk about how we need to have more video games in pinball because we so rarely see it. and there's so much stuff you could farm i will go ahead and say and again i'm going to stress the video game not the tv show halo halo can work as a pinball machine it's got iconic sound effects there plenty of of elements you can it doesn have to be themed around one specific game doing stuff with like the power for your power armor things like the sticky grenades you could use the action button for I just think and the music with the chanting We got to have the chanting the old bungee music and all of that I think it would resonate really well. There are plenty of people now that can buy pinball machines that grew up on Halo or remember Halo from starting up in their college years. I mean, Halo was, I didn't play the first Halo when it first came out, but I was really introduced with Halo 3. but I mean it's iconic and it's got some really good scenic elements that I think it would do fairly well especially if you wanted to make a pen for location I think you're right so I would say Halo what's one you would say never done before sorry Mario that's really the only one you have to avoid and Qbert well and the truth of the matter I mean I think the obvious one is Legend of Zelda of, but I mean, there was one that was supposed to be that, and it just got changed because they couldn't get the rights for it. I think Legend of Zelda is the obvious go-to.
    40:57
    Exactly. I mean, that's the sound. It would have to have that sound. It would have to. I think video games are a lot harder, because there's so much stuff that I like, but how much stuff is really sort of transcendent? I play 4Xs, like almost, like, that's a huge portion of what i play in 4x's do not translate to who no nobody wants to play age of empires 3 the pinball machine no no not necessarily though you know i wonder if something like civilization could work again kind of require real special rule set yeah yeah but again it'll be it'd be more focused on like the resource allocate you know the allocation and stuff or something like that same you know like an x-com style game that would be a good one so so but yeah i don't you know i don't know if i would necessarily name name those per se but uh well yeah one of the things that i was thinking of again going off of something really iconic could be donkey kong just donkey kong as a not maybe the original donkey kong but maybe something more themed around donkey kong country uh i'll go and name that as a second one that's not a dennis pick i actually didn't play those games i've watched them uh speed run but i think there's some elements where you could take something very simple like you know get these bananas to gain your you know the points and uh you know hit these shots to convey a platforming section or something i think there's some room there uh but you could also just sort of go back to the more earlier format and say yeah you're just trying to stop someone from getting up and stealing your your wife who very deliberately chose to marry you and is not being rescued sort of thing so i guess yeah something with donkey kong i think would and he's so iconic that's why it would sell so that'd be my second would be something with donkey kong yeah no i i can see that and notice we've been we've been sticking very much with a a theme here uh i will go with you'll have to let me know this might not count this might be a little too treading on toes but um mario kart all right that's i think it's different enough that racing game i mean the high speed games well that's what cosmic kart racing yeah i feel wanted to be right but no one wanted to pay for the license that would have made it great right and i i think you could do especially with all the all the toys and all the stuff they've got nowadays you could do so much with it it would be a lot of fun yes i think that's a i think it's a really uh really solid solid pick um let's see So I've done a shooter. I've done kind of a platformer. I feel like I want to do, and you've done a racer, and you've done an action adventure. I'm trying to think if there's something where I want to be a little bit different. Maybe I should go hack and slash and say something along the lines of, well, I think Bayonetta is too niche. Maybe Devil May Cry. Maybe a Devil May Cry game. That's going really Japanese, but it's still mainstream enough a lot of people would recognize it. Doing shots and comboing in pinball is huge, and that's what hack and slashes are, is about comboing things. So I think you could have just a lot of sort of fun display, a lot of sound effects from the game going on. As long as there's a high flow thing and it focused on combos, I think Devil May Cry could work really well. I could see that. I'll say that as my third pick. I would say that or maybe God of War. I consider God of War, but then I thought you might want to pick that for your last one. I mean, that's... It would probably sell better. It would. I'm sure.
    44:34
    But I was thinking of something very weird, and the only way I think you could make it work. Roll the waves.
    44:47
    My favorite part is when you have to shoot the left or I have to open your Excel spreadsheet. True. You have to simulate me left clicking on this spreadsheet.
    45:01
    It'd be interesting to do. I don't know how well you could make it work, but Tetris. I've wondered about Tetris, too. It would be. Yeah. The rules would have to be very careful. That would be a programmer's challenge to figure out a way to really make it feel like Tetris and be pinball. But it would be so cool to see. Right. It would be worth it to see it. So someone do it. I mean, because if you did a thing where, like, you're aiming for shots to basically summon pieces in. Yeah. Or if you want to get real crazy, so crazy, four buttons.
    45:43
    The two of the buttons flip the flippers. The other two buttons move the pieces on the back, on the LCD left and right. but you have to hit the targets to rotate them right yeah no you could make this a nightmare yes it's the only way that would it would be so unique though and it would sell nothing I don't know it would be a big gamble but I would love to see it just as an intellectual exercise right so for the final dream themes I thought we could do some TV shows so So, all right, low-hanging fruit, I know. Breaking Bad. It should have had one. I mean, 24 had one. Breaking Bad should have had one. Pizza on the Roof Multiball. Yeah. There you go. It's a gimme. I mean, it makes complete sense. Some of these are going to be low-hanging fruit. Right. We've grabbed some low-hanging fruit so far. We're not too proud to do that. Yeah.
    46:40
    I'm going to go with Babylon 5. Oh, I would like Babylon 5. That would be fun. Yeah. It's one of the first real kind of before, you know, Lost gets all this credit for telling this long story over seasons, but Babylon 5 was their first. And its story was like put together before the show was started filming and it actually makes sense. It didn't feel like you were dartboarding like Lost felt like the last two seasons. Right. But it is what it is. Yeah, but no, Babylon 5, what a good pick. I'm going to do a much newer pick, Strange New Worlds.
    47:12
    I mean, there's already Star Trek pens, but it is a different Star Trek pen. I'm saying specifically Strange New Worlds. Only Strange New Worlds. A mini Wizard mode that's just the musical episode.
    47:27
    I don't know if I'm going to include that one. They did all right. I liked it. There were a couple. Of course you did. But what about the Lower Decks people actually being in their universe? I enjoyed that episode more. That one was better. and you know you could do well like setting up wizard board stuff with the Gorn and you know kind of like that so yeah okay I'm quasi you could argue I'm quasi cheating because there have been Star Trek pins but I allowed Mario Kart so it's going to just be Strange New World so we ain't going to slip in any Captain Picard into this or anything so that's going to be my second pick we're going to go a little interesting slightly older diversion Iron Chef I'm assuming the Japanese version not the one with William Shatner hosting no no the Japanese version just because it to me it lends itself to the idea because you would activate shots that are you fighting certain Iron Chefs there would be shots and combos that you did to get and do certain ingredients so it is a it just to be in my mind it lays itself out as the classic uh chase the light style uh playing to go through it and build your dishes and choose who you fight and all that yeah no actually that would work really really well i'm gonna go a little more obscure for my last one though in that vein uh also going with a japanese theme uh ghost in the shell standalone complex specifically season one nice going to focus i laughing man we can get away with two if you want to but and i know there's a homebrew that's done ghost in the shell but really with uh with the tachikomas and everything else uh going on with it and the major and all that it's a fun cast uh and it would sell terrible but i just you know there's a there's a story there that you can go through the season just like any movie pin would be and i just think it's it's colorful and bright and you get that uh that kind of creepy dystopian cyberpunk going on elements that you can throw into the game. Kind of like what we, the kind of pieces we'd see with like Final Resistance and stuff. You'd do some stuff with power-ups and things of that nature that would allow you to have certain scoring opportunities or you maybe at the start of every ball you pick your character from the police force that you want. Like, do you want to be the major or do you want to be the guy without any tech upgrades or, and I don't know what his advantage is other than having an awesome mullet but, you know, just all that sort of stuff.
    49:58
    So that'd be my third pick. I think that could be a good one. Are you going to pick an anime having to do with weightlifting? No.
    50:12
    Because you know what? It hasn't had a pinball machine. It hasn't. At least I don't think it has. Maybe that will be Home Pin's next game. It's an incredibly large amount of fun as an anime. But no. No. No, I'm going to continue my little oddballish segues.
    50:36
    Man, there's two warring in my head. I'm just going to go with the one that I think will sell better. That would be Sherlock. I haven't seen that.
    50:47
    Good BBC series. Benedict Cumberbund. as Sherlock Holmes. A lot of fun. Well regarded overall. I think it would be fun.
    51:00
    As everything else, it lends itself to kind of having the journey with solving cases and everything. So I think it would work pretty well.
    51:09
    Though I will throw out a little extra addition. They're at the point, I don't think it would be terrible to have an updated version of Doctor Who.
    51:23
    Because that's what I originally was thinking, but I felt just saying an updated Who would be too... Strange New Worlds is a completely new thing. Right. If you wanted to say Doctor Who, but they don't go back to any of the old Doctors, I would have allowed it. Yeah, but I think the... So you want it updated. You can do it as a sequel, I guess. I was saying updated with all the new Doctors and the old Doctors, but I mean, either one. that's why it was i was on the fence with it yeah i think sherlock was a better pick for for that reason well folks if you want to tell us your theme dreams you can email us eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com all right video games tony what do we got we got a whole bunch of stuff i guess we were going to open with our discussion things so i'll i'll opine a little bit on on Double Dragon Gaiden Rise of the Dragon or whatever the name. They say it all super excited when it starts. So I started just saying it wrong when I turn on the game. So I'd be like, Double Dragon Dragons, Dragon of the Dragon.
    52:27
    So I have to remember the name, but the name is actually Double Dragon Gaiden Rise of the Dragons. So they do say dragon a couple of times and they say double as well. I'm assuming it's a combination of Double Dragon and Ninja Gaiden, right? Unfortunately, no, it is not. I guess there was like an arcade Double Dragon Gaiden at some stage, so maybe it's sort of a play off of that. So if you ever own a NES, you have to have played Double Dragon. Of course. And if you ever saw or played video games in that era, you probably saw the terrible Double Dragon movie. Yeah. This is not any of that. This is a beat-em-up.
    53:01
    Well, it better be a beat-em-up if it's a Double Dragon game. So I did not play it co-op. It has that option. I played it as tag team single player. So I could hit a button, kind of fighting game, certain fighting game style, and I could bring in my backup character. And you can pick any of the characters to be your primary, any to be your backup. You gain tokens by cashing out money, kind of roguelike style. Like any money, it costs money to buy upgrades as you go along. Every time you beat a sub boss or a boss, you can do upgrades. They're random that you get to pick from. So think kind of roguelike, though the levels never change. Like the order of the enemies and all that is fixed. and the way the game works is there are four sub bosses that are i should say four bosses that control regions and you can play them in any order but they upgrade the other regions every time you beat a region so like i did this on xbox so there was an achievement for beating all four bosses as level four being the fourth one that you would pick so like one guy you have to go deeper in the level every time so every time they you go up a level there's like a new sub boss stage and then you have to go further into the level so like there was a there was one guy who's a he's a nubus and he's just there with his like little staff and you fight him he shoots lightning and stuff so like you fight him right at the near the start of the of the stage if you pick him first and then like if you pick him third he's at the top of a pyramid and if he's the fourth boss he's not even in human form anymore he is like a floating anubis head that's spewing toxic gas and stuff. So there's a guy with a machine gun. His final form is he's in a helicopter shooting at you. You have to actually shoot him out of the helicopter to fight him on the ground. And so there's all those little elements. If I shoot you out of the helicopter, I shouldn't have to fight you on the ground. You're fighting on the ground on top of a skyscraper because it has to be epic.
    54:58
    And you can unlock with these. So when you cash out, it depends on how you can adjust your difficulty settings. The easier make the game, the more money it takes to get a token. The default settings are $1,000 lets you have a token at the end of the... You can quit any time and cash out.
    55:17
    So you go along, you pick your characters. You can use those tokens to unlock other characters, including the bosses. You can play them, not as helicopter version. So you go through.
    55:31
    I got every achievement. So actually, I full cleared it. It was pretty well balanced. It was just on the edge of feeling a little tedious like it was going too long. Given how long the stages get later, it can actually be a significant time investment to go through and play it. You beat the four bosses, and then you have a – not much of a spoiler, but then the mayor will basically let you – you can join the mayor who sent you on this run. He'll give you $10,000, and then you can enforce your new police state reality. or you can go and try and fight the mayor and beating the mayor will let you have twenty thousand dollars because i did i beat him once uh i i ran out of money one time i had him down to like 14 health left and i lost well because before i fought him i had to fight all four of the bosses sub bosses at once so i was is one of those games where hey fight all these guys again oh no all together though they weren't in their helicopters at least but anyway so so yeah it was so it's pretty straightforward very classic beat-em-up style like there there's one attack button for a regular attack you have one regular attack plus like you know if you jump and whatnot then you have like three special attacks and those are how you can get food to get health if you kill at least three baddies with a special attack it gets you a hot dog and you get cheeseburger with four you get a chicken dinner it's more some fortnight reference there probably and so it's just it's kind of like It's doing that sort of thing.
    57:04
    Anyway, yeah, it was very throwback with enough modern elements. A little long, but it did let you save at checkpoints so you could come back later and stuff. So it's a good mix of modern accruements to let you navigate the game. So if you like beat-em-ups, I would say, yeah, it's worth a try. It's not particularly deep. Probably is more fun in co-op would be my guess. I would bet.
    57:27
    And that's an option you can toggle. You can do local co-op or online. so well that's always nice not everything has local co-op no it's it's fallen out of favor as more and more people play remotely yeah so anyway those are those are my quick thoughts on double dragon gaiden rise of the rise rise rise of the dragon rise double dragon dragons dragon of the dragon with a dragon how to tame a dragon gaiden taming fallout fallout i I really think the makers of Halo, Wheel of Time, The Witcher, they need to sit down and watch Fallout and figure out how you do an adaptation correctly.
    58:16
    Step one, make stem packs make the right sound effect. It's the little things. And it's not like Fallout just faithfully adapted something that was already done either. It's its whole own thing. But it made the world feel like the world in the games. It kept the feeling and it made you. I mean, because it's one of those things. The whole premise of Fallout and everything, it's a shtick. it's so zany in reality that it's you gotta take everything tongue in cheek but they did it and made it good like really truly amazing yeah it's fun I felt watching the arc it's already renewed for season 2 which is good I did as a show nailed the tone did feel it dragged a little bit. It had a moment here or there. I thought it started very strong, which is good, because it's going to be... That was the problem with Andor. Andor started slow, and people didn't forgive it and didn't even get to the third episode, even though they dropped the first three so that people could get to the good episode right at the start. I think that's what hurt Andor. Yeah. Fallout... I still think Andor is the best of the stars. Fallout, the first two episodes are some of the strongest in the series.
    59:43
    And yeah it drags a little bit while you because you following these different characters And of course it takes a little while before their paths start to intersect at least for some of them one of the things i really liked about it though is with the zaniness of it like they even uh and i guess after the show came out they went ahead and like announced the uh like the stats the character sheet stats or the characters because you kind of see it because you're like you're following like this brotherhood of steel guy and you're like this guy is an idiot and it's like yep no his intelligence is like a three They literally made him stupid. And so he acts that way. And so you just have all these different pieces coming together in that regard. There are a lot of little Easter eggs as well. I think there are a few of the Justified cast that were pulled in. Welton Groggins is known, at least by me. That's when I first knew him before he was Justified. Yeah, me too. And so there's some pieces like that. Kyle McLaughlin is in a few of the episodes. I'm waiting for him to write a Fallout sandworm. He doesn't do that, but there's some pieces to it that kind of remind me of Twin Peaks. So I think they're looking at some stuff, knowing where some of these people are from as well. But a lot of relative unknowns are also starring in this. Yeah, it was solid. Yeah. I think even the like really like there's a couple of the little side characters who some of them aren't. They're only in an episode or two. Some of them don't even survive the episode or two. but they're great characters yes so yeah and so yeah overall it's interesting it's taking a very different approach in the sense of it is doing a lot of flashback to before the bombs falling to set up some of the story arcs and and i think also that's to help humanize their the the ghoul that we are following in particular so i think that's something we'll probably see less and less I think so. I think it was mostly just to sort of establish like that. Because, again, they are doing this so it appeases the fans. But it's like, well, what about people who have never played Fallout? Right. So they're not going to know like the vaults were a bunch of experiments on people unless that's laid out for them. Game on a box of puppets. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, very well done. This is the strongest video game TV show. I was going to say since, but I'm drawing a blank on TV show video games that have been done very well.
    62:10
    Yeah. There have not been very many that have gone the TV show route. Most go the movie route. Right. Or if they go TV shows, they're animated, which is kind of a different animal. Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, because there's other things that you can work around because you're able just to draw it. But anyway, so yeah, I think it's very strong, especially for a video game adaptation. It's very strong. So even if you've never played Fallout, I think it's worth checking out. Now, the games have been reaping the rewards bigly out of this. Oh, wow. Have they ever. I've downloaded Fallout 76 because it was free for Prime members. So I was like, I'll go ahead and download it. I didn't know that. Yeah. I read an announcement. It was free for PC and it was free for Xbox. Wow. As long as you were a Prime member, there was a code to get through Prime. But, yeah, because Fallout 76, when that game came out, I was like – It was panned hard. It was panned hard, and I was like, I don't want open world Fallout. Make Fallout 5. Yeah. And I still want Fallout 5. Right. Well, I mean, the thing to remember is, like, Fallout 76, that came out like six years ago. Yeah, it's old. It's old. And they broke a million players in a day. In a 24-hour period, a million players. That's the first time that's ever happened. and for a short time, Fallout 4 was the best-selling game in Europe.
    63:36
    While Fallout 4 was the best-selling game in Europe at that time, the top ten list included three Fallout games, 4, 3, and 76. We're all in the top ten best-selling games of the week.
    63:51
    I hadn't heard that. I want to think, and I might be misremembering, I wanted to think I read that Fallout New Vegas set a concurrent Steam record for the game after the show came out. And the Fallout 4 sales, just to know what it took for Fallout 4 sales to make it the number one spot in Europe, it had to jump 7,500%. Jeez. So, and to cap it all off, Bethesda did their Fallout 4 next-gen update. Oh, to make the graphics better? To make the graphics better and to make it work better on the new PlayStations and new Xboxes. That's smart. I have heard there's been some bugs, and my first thought was, well, of course there is. It's a Bethesda game.
    64:41
    Well, yeah. It's an update to a Bethesda game. Of course there's bugs. It's what they do. I would say this is 100% an enormous, enormous win for Bethesda.
    65:00
    And for Amazon. I mean, it's been huge. I've seen it listed everywhere. I've seen people talking about it everywhere. Its critical review scores have been extremely good. Yeah. Like over 90%. Yeah, it has done very well for them. So this is one of those really enormous successes that a lot of times you don't really see or hear. And again, the fact that the showrunners seem to be treating the series with so much reverence while making it their own and doing their whole own story is refreshing based upon the kind of stuff we've seen in the adaptation market lately. I mean... Yeah.
    65:48
    Too bad the Dark Tower movie couldn't have been done. Well... That was what it was. So... Microsoft had some good-ish news. They're probably happy about all these Fallout sales now that they own Bethesda. Yes, that helps. They actually had a 51% increase in gaming revenue, primarily due to the Activision merger. I'm not surprised given the size of Activision. But.
    66:16
    Caveat imptor. They had to, at the same time as they were making that announcement, announce that they had a hardware revenue had dropped 31%. Xbox console sales are dead. Yep. It is. Which we've known. That's why they're pushing onto other consoles. They're pushing PC. Yeah. Pushing Game Pass. So the question is, I'm assuming that Xbox is going to try and get Jump on the next gen. They're going to try to be first to market. You're probably right. There's been some rumors floating around that for their next gen specs that they're – I've been hearing – let me put it a different way. I've been hearing more about their progress than I have about Sony, and I know Sony's got to be working on it. It's just we're hearing a lot more talk about it out of Microsoft. And, of course, if Microsoft now has the catalog of publishers that even if they still want to cross post on PC same day, there will be people that in theory might finally give up their PlayStation in the next gen and get an Xbox. If there's enough stuff ready, which wasn't the case when this latest was dropped. In fact, it's still kind of like Microsoft. I'm saying this as someone who plays on Xbox, but like Microsoft, you bought like a dozen companies. Where's all the cool new stuff? Because it's been a few years. Yeah. I mean, Bethesda dropped Starfield, which, let's face it. They had far higher hopes than that. I mean, Starfield should have been a big deal. So we'll see if they recover their console sales next gen. It ain't happening this gen. No, this gen's a loss. Last gen was a loss.
    67:59
    Maybe they'll just go out of business. Oh, they won't go out of business, but they might become more software-oriented, and there's always a possibility that they will leave the market of hardware sales. I mean, I'm not – I have a hard time seeing it because even if they're not leading the market, it's not like they're losing money on the market. That's a good point.
    68:28
    We would have to wait and see. Yes. Just like we'll have to wait and see. We'll have to wait years to see what the next BlizzCon is like. Don't you all have phones? Because we don't have a BlizzCon again. I wonder if that's killed the BlizzCon forever. Do we really need BlizzCon? I don't think we really do. And I wonder how much of it is just that BlizzCon was a thing that Blizzard did that was like their own special kind of direct. Right. And now that they are effectively under Microsoft, they'll just be involved with the Microsoft directs. I don't know that there's necessarily a need because none of the BlizzCons that even existed in the build-up to the last one in 2019 really had anything huge because just Blizzard doesn't have enough stuff to handle or to put out a whole bunch of huge stuff. I think BlizzCon is much like E3, a thing of the past. I don't know that we're going to see it again. Because it came back last year. It went over meh.
    69:45
    And now they're like, yeah, we're not going to do 24. And they didn't say we're coming back next year. They said that they will be looking into returning it sometime. in the future. Okay. Yeah. No. So it might be held for like super special things. Maybe if they put out a new product. Yeah. We'll see. Oh, they're so excited because of their new 20th expansion for World of Warcraft that is going to completely change everything and set them up for the next, for the future of World of Warcraft, whatever that is. It's supposed to be some major change. I don't know. It's World of Warcraft. Yay, they're putting out creepy-looking Crystal Dwarves, and it's not. Crystal Dwarves may be the shark that gets jumped.
    70:45
    Because the pandas weren't? The pandas seemed a bit. I was out before the pandas came. I was like, come on, guys. That was a meme. That was an April Fool's joke, and then it turned into reality. so and last and certainly least we talked last episode about how embracer was done with their reorganized or restructuring uh they're set up they're just going to sit down and make good games and put them out that's where they are and they kept that for like a week And then they said, oh, by the way, we forgot to mention in our restructuring that we're going to go ahead and break Embracer Group up and cease to exist as Embracer Group. And we're going to form three new groups, three new separate companies. The Asmodee Group, which is strictly their tabletop gaming, which the purchase of Asmodee originally, a lot of people I've seen considers that the beginning of the fall of Embracer Group because it was like a $2.67 billion purchase that saddled them with a large debt that directly led towards their attempt to get the buyout from the Saudi retirement fund group. And when that fell through, that's when everything fell apart. they're also separating a second group that they're calling uh coffee stain and friends that's some that's some marketing like random like that's asking ai name an indie game company yeah and that's what it is it's their let us you didn't even need to say it everyone who heard you knew that coffee stain and friends meant that this was your small stuff right and the last one is middle earth enterprises we swear is it and friends and friends yes do it what no it really is oh no no you can't say middle earth enterprises and friends is it asmodee group and friends no that doesn't make sense then what friends you don't have any friends nobody likes you no it's not and friends let me double check maybe I just typed that in maybe I just typed that in because I was laughing so hard laughing I can't believe oh my god I type middle of enterprises and punch up middle of enterprises and friends no no I won't this is the triple A gaming group and also the stewards of the licenses for all of the Lord of the Rings stuff. And all of the Lord of the Rings stuff. I won't allow this name. This name is not right. You don't have friends.
    74:14
    Schmiko doesn't have any friends. Nobody likes him. That's the whole point. I never thought I'd die side by side with a coffee stain. Would you die side by side with Middle Earth Enterprises? No.
    74:37
    The head gentleman that I didn't write his name down for, Embracer Group, did an interview where he said that there may have been some mistakes made in the last few years. that led to this.
    74:56
    And if he could go back and do it differently, there are multiple changes that he would have made and done differently. I mean, on the surface, this decision to break it up,
    75:12
    I don't know if that's right or not. Probably to at least try and unsaddle the tabletop stuff as a lodestone from the rest of it. but they needed to rename no matter what yes but not like this not like this the thing is is the the the asmodee uh the reason they went into so much debt for asmodee is because asmodee's huge in the tabletops i mean they were huge they they've got ticket to ride and and half of the really big euro games are asmodee games so it's not like they bought some little failing thing. But yeah, they definitely over leveraged themselves to enter a market that they weren't even part of.
    76:00
    I mean, that was the thing is because they entered a market they weren't there. Just like I never really understood buying the licenses for like the Lord of the Rings licenses and stuff.
    76:16
    I don't know. Okay. Middle Earth Enterprises and Friends. I'm so disappointed in this name. That's real. It really bothers me.
    76:32
    It's like they named the coffee stain thing first, and they're like, well, we have to kind of keep it unified. No, you don't.
    76:37
    You didn't for Asmodee Group. Well, they're trying to show that it's more than just Middle Earth. They've also got Laura Croft. Okay. So it should have been Middle Earth Enterprises and Friends. This episode is going to suck. I apologize for making you pull out the beeper for me multiple times. God, this episode is way too long. I miss our old 40-minute episodes.
    77:07
    That's because this time we came with energy. We did. We weren't tired at all. We came with energy and friends.
    77:19
    Well, if you want to be our friend, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. But if you really want to be our friend, you have to buy our friendship. And that's at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. But it's as low as a dollar a month, so we're cheap friends. But that's what we take. If we get 500 subscribers We'll rename you a Click the Gamers podcast And friends I'll go in and I'll rename it We will do it Yeah we will And we'll add like And friends And the intro music We go that far But it takes 500 paid subs To do it We're about 450 short So get your friends to pay us the dollar Click the Gamers And friends I'm kind of thinking like how Diner does Oh, oh, man. And friends. No, we totally need to do a redone parody version of the Golden Girls theme song. Thank you for being a gamer with friends.
    78:31
    Going down the road and back again. Yes, the road of gaming on Mario Kart. Or rolling down the table and back again. Yes. You're flipping true You're a friend and a confidant This should be behind the paywall All this stuff But I'm too lazy to cut it out So it's going to be part of the main episode Alright well that's all I have for them You can also reach us on Instagram It's eclectic underscore gamers No friends Actually we have a bunch of friends on Instagram Yes but we don't have it in our name Yet I don't know how that works Well we should have the episode in two weeks I'm traveling but I'll be back For that one so We will maybe have more gaming News to talk about Maybe there will be more breakups of what's left of Not Embracer I don't know They're going to separate Coffee Stain and Friends To just Coffee Stain And Middle Earth Enterprises and Friends To just Middle Earth Enterprises And they're going to start a fourth one It's just friends and friends.
    79:43
    Until next time. My name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See ya.