Don's Pinball Podcast, episode 120, on the eve of the WIC release. I'm back once again. Welcome. The weekend's almost over. It's almost time for the Sunday Night Extravaganza. But before that, I'm going to record a podcast for everybody with some thoughts and with some rumors, with some confirmations. We'll get into all that and more like in an enchemere right now. It's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've done a show from the road, which we are doing again. Now we are in the banks of the mighty Lake Erie in North, Northeastern Ohio, Northern Ohio. Not quite Cleveland. Not quite Toledo. Not quite paradise. It's Ohio. Round of both ends. It's crazy in the middle. Here we are. What's going on, everybody? How you doing? Welcome to the weekend. It's almost over as of this recording. It is Sunday evening. The sun is creeping low, and we're on the eve of the John Wick release, and I can't wait to see some more. More meaning I haven't seen anything at all. This time last release when we had Jaws, I think we had LE trailers that had already dropped and kind of must with Stern's whole plan for Shark Week, but we're back here in Ohio. We're going to do some shows from the road. I am ecstatic about that. a lot of stuff to talk about today. So let's get into it. I haven't really had an answer. but now yeah i'm thinking i'm back oh my goodness john wick can you believe it it's been officially confirmed uh from stern pinball that that is their next cornerstone release and it confirms with some rumors that we've been hearing that john wick was coming we were wondering was this really going to be the matrix was it actually bill and ted's excellent adventure was it point break was it some other keanu reeves johnson no no it is the john wick the gun fu film series um or at least I think it's going to be the series, I would be just about as excited or surprised if it was just the first movie versus the entire extremity of films, of which I think they're doing John Wick 5 now. So this makes sense for a pinball theme. If you're a pinball company, you want to play it relatively safe. You want to put games out that are going to sell. You don't want to take huge risks that are going to underperform, but you really want to come with something that already exists in the miasma that's out there among entertainment seekers. And so you pick a film series which is current, still being made. I think for the same reason a Fast and Furious franchise film, Pased Pinball Machine, would work as well, even though I think the theme is absolute crap. I'm not into the movies at all. I love me some rock, but how much Riddick can you watch driving around and get excited about? Apparently a lot because they're still making them. To that end, if we're going to do that, Let's just pick the Adam Sandler universe and make a game based on that. Hell of an idea. So John Wick, what's going on? I am hearing rumors, and that's about it. There's no LE trailer that's been released. There's no grip of grainy photographs that have come out. Supposedly, I'm just going to list the things that I've heard thus far related to Wick. I've heard that there's machines in Los Angeles. I don't know if they're on location. Surely, if they were, enough people would have descended on them. We'd see pictures of them by now. So maybe they're in boxes with distributors ready for, like, day one drop. I like that. I was just at Interium yesterday, and so far no wick there. I was doing a little reconnaissance. But I think after the drop, they're probably going to show up there. So probably they'll do a simultaneous release of the games on location out in L.A., out in Chicago, maybe somewhere else. But I've heard that, and that seems credible. So we'll watch for that to happen. And lucky you LA folks and those of us in Chicago, we'll get to play the game probably on Tuesday. So what's in this game? Well, I've heard some things. And these are just kind of whispers cobbled together, bundled with some hope. I heard there's a toy in this game. A toy that's a car. A toy that's a car vehicle. As far as what does it do, what size of it, that's all purely speculation. I have no idea. Is it John Wick's vehicle from the movie? I know the first movie he started with one car and then switched to another. one, I think. And it's one of those, you know, jet black, you know, iced out, liquid, all coated on the roads to make it look dramatic, kind of black, I don't know, BMW or something. You know, then I think he changed to a Mustang or some such. So a vehicle does factor in at least the first film from what I've seen. So that wouldn't be surprising. I don't know, is this going to be like the focal point of it? You know, as long as it's not an elevated vehicle with an ejection roof in the shape of a DB5 that goes into a wire form ramp, I think I'll be okay with it. So I'm thinking, you know, I'm thinking of car games, right? Mustang, Corvette, you know, where there's like a vehicle or a giant engine or something. So maybe there'll be a big bash toy. Last time I saw a car getting bashed in a pinball machine, it was on the big Lebowski. So maybe we'll get some of that. It will be nice to see, you know, I don't know if the car does take some abuse during the film franchise. So maybe, you know, we're firing, you know, The car's taking some hits, and as it takes damage, maybe it slides out of the way, revealing a path behind it, underneath it, over it, around it, in the passenger seat. Maybe you load balls into the front cockpit, just like the helicopter on ABBA. I don't know, but I can't wait to see. But apparently, there's a car in it somewhere, and I think that seems to be on theme. What else have I heard? I heard ramps. I heard if you like ramps, you'll like this game. Now, I'm a dude that likes him some ramps. And I ain't just talking about the spring onions in West Virginia. I mean like actual physical ball-elevating, verticality-inducing ramps, right? Wire forms crisscrossing everywhere A lot of the games that I like and I think other folks do too from the Data East region of game releases back in the 90s late 80s 90s those wireform ramps are crossing all over the place. I have myself a cross-field wireform from Friday the 13th. No, Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street, right? Huge thing. A Vuck shoots a ball up into this thing. It's like four feet long. It crisscrosses across the play field like it's a massive thing. and I would like to see more of that. When I think of recent releases that I enjoy, definitely enjoy Jaws. I love all the chrome wire form paths that go everywhere there. Foo Fighters, I do like the wire forms in there. You know, when I think of games like Bond where the wire forms are used very sparingly, it's kind of like something's missing. It's kind of like something's missing. I'm kind of thinking there is, right? You know, Deadpool's got those cool flowing shots, especially that katana shot that starts on the play field and curves up and around, but it really doesn't have good shiny wire forms, and that's what I like. Metal ramps, plastic ramps, I don't have a preference as far as how we get the ball up there. As long as it's some kind of inclined plane conveyance, I think I'm happy with that. So hopefully I'll be happy with this game. I want to see some ramps, more ramps, the better. Think of some of those games like Starship Troopers where just a mess of ramps everywhere. You don't know where things are going, where things are coming from. Or, I don't know, Tales from the Crypt. I don't know why that just entered my head, but I'm looking at it right now. So maybe that is some foreshadowing. So if we like ramps, I guess we're getting ramps. So that's good. Art. I've heard a couple of things about art. Really just not even fully formed thoughts, just vague memories. So I'm going to get to this in a little bit when I talk about bashing new games. But in my mind's eye, when I'm envisioning a John Wick machine, I'm seeing darkness. Black with some green highlights, maybe a little characteristic flash of purple or something. But I want something that is like a modern cityscape, a Gotham, right? With rain-soaked streets, not actively raining, but you can tell it just rained, so everything's shiny and reflective. And the streets are empty except for some squealing of tires in the distance. And there's an auto race going on, muzzle flashes of gunfire. That's what I want to see. That's what I envision. So are they going to go with that? Are they going to pick images from the movie posters and plug them on the cabinet? You know, is the art going to have a cohesive style, you know, evocative of like some sort of artistic vision like we'd like to see, a comic book style art? Or is it going to be just, you know, almost like a CSI or a 24 where they just kind of take a movie poster, put it on there, it's already approved, let's go, open and shut, looks good. I want to see a nice side profile of Keanu Reeves as John Wick. Almost like he's posing for one of those senior photos back in the 90s where it was like you in your band uniform and then like a side profile like in like soft repose. in the upper left corner. Like, that's what I want to see. I want to see, like, the essence of the wick, right, and his little chin stubbles as he's, like, you know, looking at an impossible mission that he's about to accomplish for the millionth time. Like, that's what I want to see. Is that what we're going to see? I don't know. I don't know. Who's doing the art? No idea. We'll find out. Stern has been doing a great job about keeping a lid on all of this. You know, I mean, by now we should have heard, like, tons of things. So what did we hear? We did hear about the designer whose name completely escapes me at the moment because I didn't write it down. I'm going to call him Enzo. So I'll look this up at the end. But he's an engineer with Stern. We heard that there was going to be a brand-new designer for this game. That appears to be the truth. But the new designer isn't somebody new to Stern. Apparently, it's the chap that was behind a lot of the mechanisms from the Star Wars premium. Well, pro and premium release, but really the premium. Somebody posted up a little clip of an interview of some of the guys that are working on the Star Wars machine back in the day. Talking about that accelerating Hyperloop ramp and kind of how that works. the exploding Death Star, and all that business. So this is cool. Maybe this guy is some kind of mechanical engineer and obviously likes pinball, has been around it for a while, on the inside, on tons of other projects, and now why not helm one and let's see what he can do. Somebody else whispered that he's being guided by Gomez, which aren't we all if we're really being reflective about it. So we'll see if the godfather of the Deadpool and Bond layout and countless others has lended his touch to the John Wick. I'm in maybe some Batman vibes. I mean, you know, Stern's Dark Knight was our homeboy Gomez. Batman 66 was kind of just a rehash of the same thing. But notwithstanding, I think this could kind of work. I would like to see some flow. I seem to be a guy that gravitates towards games that have nice orbits, so you can catch the ball coming around the orbit and fire it up a ramp or something, so it's like a one, two, three combo shot. I love that. Foo Fighters definitely has this. Deadpool has it a little bit uh Stern's Dark Knight had it not at all it was very much a uh okay trap up which we go for now let's get up to the ramp all right let's do that two more times and then we can go ahead and put it up there for the upper play field try to unlock some uh gadgets and toys okay now let's trap up and uh let's start the scarecrow crane right or the penguin crane in Batman 66 then it's all about like okay let's trap up again all right wait for it to line up where we want to hit okay let's collect it there all right trap up let's collect You know, it's very much like almost playing like a sniper type game, right? And, you know, John Wick is very much, you know, gun-fu, right? It's choreographed martial arts and gunplay, fast, one thing flowing into another. I don't want this, like, stop and start. Like, stop, bash the car, okay, bash the car again, okay, bash the car, okay, now it's rotated out of the way. Now we can go up and lock balls in the skyscraper or whatever it is. Or, you know, the car is lowered into an underground garage and now we can go to the lower play field or some such. I want to have something that's like bang, bang, shoot them up, and then maybe some diverters that pop up. So as you're playing in real time, the layout can switch up, and then you hear call-outs where you're chasing the bad guys behind the walls or something. Get to the hideout or something. Hide in the VUX. Stop the mode. End the mode. Finish the mode. New mode's coming up. Watch out. There's a car coming out. Something like that. Keep it coming, man, just like the films. The films start, and they just keep rolling, man. As Smash Mouth once told us, the years start coming, and they don't stop coming. And so there your daily Smash Mouth reference So what else have I heard That kind of all about it So a lot of nothing a lot of speculation but I hearing ramps which is good I had posted up this rumor that some troll friend of mine had sent that said that this game actually didn't feature John Wick at all. You were hunting him. You're an unknown assassin or some such doing contracts. It was based on comic book, nothing from the movies. And it was all single level, no ramps, no wire forms. Thank God that it took me half a second. I was buying it for about half a second. And I'm like, This is garbage. Get out of here, guy. Get out of here with that. I want to see something good. I want to see something good from the WIC. So we're going to find out tomorrow's Monday. And if there isn't any kind of a repeat teaser, Tuesday is when everything's going to be released. Stern tends to do this around 10 a.m. to noon. So I think by lunchtime Tuesday, no matter where you are in the U.S. of Eagle Land Freedom, you should be able to see this thing. I think we'll start hearing a little bit more rumors tomorrow, maybe tomorrow about lunchtime, because they should have a dealer conference call tomorrow morning. where the dealers will be getting the skinny on all these games. I've heard that the dealers have already been told about their allotments. That makes sense because if they're already shipping games to location to be unboxed and on the show floor by Monday, that the dealers should have a heads up now. Especially before the order banks open. If I was a distributor, like say from Mad Pinball, and I was hearing about a new release, before people start bombarding me by calling, I'd like to know what my allotments are. particularly if you're Jeff at MadPinball.com who already has my name down for one of these should I like it? not a bad way to go about it give me that robotic voices go crazy it's sunday y'all let's do it jeff and mad people.com will come and hook it up more about that later thought well one more thing one more thing i had heard somebody i don't even know where this came from just came floating through. I don't know if it was messaged to me or posted to a message board somewhere, but I heard Expression Lights. Expression Lights has me jazzed. I do love me some Expression Lights. I was playing Led Zeppelin Limited Edition last night, and Expression Lights debuted with that title. I think they should be utilized just about across the board, man. More lights, more fun. Please bring it. Please have that be an option for pros as well, because I want to see more Expression Lights on location. And when you cut it out of the pro, just because you want to upsell us to the premium and le um it really hurts the locations that aren't even going to consider a premium or le no matter what but they may consider putting lights in their cool games so why not guys man you know just on the cnc machine hit that little selection for the router holes and let's put that groove in these game machines so you at least have that option all right so that was one more thing for the john wick more to come later let's keep this party rolling um so i got myself a tales from the crypt all right jeff from mad pinball he hooked it up I'm out here on the road. I've got to be out here for about a week. And I'm in a town with a dearth of pinball. The nearest games to play are about 20 minutes away. And I can't stay here a week and not have something to play. People, when they go travel on the road, they'll bring a Nintendo Switch. They'll bring an iPad. Maybe they'll bring an Xbox or a PlayStation or something to play remotely. How is bringing a pinball machine with you on the road, on a work trip, any really, any different, right? So I called up Jeff, and I'm like, hey, guy, what do you got? You know, I don't need to have anything new in box. you know, that's a little excessive for just a business trip, but you got anything sitting around, you used inventory. He said, yes, sir. And I had the option of a Tales from the Crypt or a Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or an Avengers Infinity Quest Pro. And so the AIQ, that's going to be, you know, $55,000 or more. So that was out, but I'm looking for something kind of in the price range and Tales from the Crypt. Are you compared to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? Frankenstein. I can't do that game. I just can't do it. So Tales from the Crypt is mine. It's here in my dojo. while I'm on the road for this week. How fun is that? It's travel size, right? I'm enjoying this game. Jeff hooked it up. Thank you so much, buddy. I'm at home delivery. This is business delivery. And if you don't have a machine at your job, you're not living your best life, man. Come on, let's get it together. Let's make this a thing. Let's normalize pinballs at the source of a place of business. Unless you work at a pizza parlor or a bar, in which case it's already there. Or maybe you're an operator. Well, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking about folks stuck in office buildings, stuck in those crypto farms. No, no, cubicle farms, right? People crop dust in you. You should get yourself a game, at least for the break room. I think it would fit, especially if we start getting themes like The Office, other television shows. But, yeah, got this game, played it about 10 times now, and, yeah, man, I'm captivated by this era of games. This thing's loaded, man. When you talk about the games of the past and what we used to get versus what we're getting now, I know we're getting fancy node boards, We're getting LCD screens and all that. We're paying three times as much as we used to pay for games, even adjusted for inflation. But this thing's got eyeball stand-up targets, captive ball, like six different wire forms, three spinners, ball locks, vertical up-kickers, an easy ramp, a hard ramp, zombies, lights, and the Crypt Keeper. The only thing missing from this is like modern-style code. You know, the modes in this game consist of, okay, now the stand-up targets are worth three times as much. Okay, now hit the buff pumpers 25 times. Okay, now hit the spinner targets. You have 25 seconds for each one of these. And then you just try to fill up the wheel. And then I guess there's some kind of wizard mode, and there's a multiball. But if this game had robust code, man, this thing would be unstoppable. So the future rumors of a Metallica redo. I played Metallica yesterday. Let's go into this. I traveled across the upper Midwest yesterday. I started at an interium in Chicago and then worked my way across Fort Wayne, Indiana to Wizard's World. So let's talk about these two places. Now, Interium, that's the perennial favorite in Chicago. It's at the Woodfield Mall. It like a Dave and Buster but better Plus they got bowling And it also the place where a lot of the pinball companies use as their stomping grounds particularly American pinball they put their games out there when they have new bug fixes or new mechanical fixes they put them in that game and test them out i was able to play barrio barbecue with some new updated beta code playing some different characters in the game that i haven't seen anywhere else game was playing just fine um you know i still i i still think there's issues with barbecue i'll probably do a whole expose on that after i've gotten to play it a few more times um you know But it's a fun place. It's modern. They mix it up all the time. Sometimes they go there and there's 60 games. Sometimes there's 20. It just depends on if there's a tournament coming up or not. But if you have a chance to go to the Pinball Expo, make a point to head over to the Woodfield Mall at some point. Pop up to Interium because while everybody's in town, all the dignitaries and VIPs and media mixer mogul peoples, they bring some really interesting versions of interesting games to Interium and put them out on the floor. So it's not a bad place to go spend at least 45 minutes or an hour during Chicago's Pinball Expo because I saw Guns N' Roses Collector's Edition. It's the only place I've been able to play one so far. That was there. A bunch of other machines that were just being released were over there. They host little private parties and things. So if you act like you're supposed to be there and you're not too terribly interested, maybe you'll fly under the radar and get to play some things. So, Interium, invite your boy over. I want to go to more private parties. And then I made my way across Indiana. I stopped at a rest stop, and I checked the pinball map, and I had a couple of hours before I had to get to where I was going, and I thought, oh, there's got to be something new to check out here. And so this ping popped up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, about an hour south of the Turnpike, and there was 129 games listed. And when I was going through this list, I was seeing things that even I have never played, particularly like some of the new things in limited release. And they had multiple versions of other games. Like they had a Black Knight Pro and a limited edition. They had Star Wars Pro and limited edition. Led Zeppelin limited edition, which I have to say, one hell of a game after playing it again. It got a lot of cool points back from me that led Zeppelin LE. I got to play, so I go into this place, and it's essentially a hut in the outskirts of Fort Wayne, and incredibly unassuming. You would think it would be like some kind of coffee place or a pet groomer or someplace selling boiled peanuts or something. But then there's this huge four-foot by eight-foot sign, maybe a little bigger, just this pinball and big red and white letters on the side of this hut. and it's like, okay, I think this must be the right place. As I'm walking up there, there's IFPA people posing with their awards plastered on the side of the building. It's very much that kind of place. You walk in and then boom, it's just darkness and rows of pinball machines all lit up, all functioning adequately, all running on Coindrop. Go in there with your debit card and they'll sell you rolls of quarters right there. And then it's like, go nuts. EMs are 25 cents. 90s games are 50 cents. Everything else is a buck. I mean, you can't go wrong there. They had a whole room of just pros. They had every single topper available. So if you've never seen them, they're there. I played a Black Knight Sword of Rage Limited Edition. I could do a whole show on this place. The Black Knight Sword of Rage Limited Edition, which I had played one of those before. I did play it again. I'm so happy with my purchase of a pro. I can't believe it. But I got to play with the stinking Black Knight Sword of Rage Shooter Rod. This thing, the three fanged skull shooter rod that was released when Black Knight Sword of Rage came out and then promptly has been out of stock. and commanding insane prices in the secondary market. I had a bloke reach out to me. He said he had about $350 into it. He let it go for $450 or so for a shooter rod. Now, this thing looked like hot-dipped metal gold. It looks like the pommel to a giant sword or something. And so I go ahead and grip this thing, and it's like resin. It's not even metal. I thought this thing was like a metal poured, forged in the fires of Mount Doom accessory that was going to have some weight to it. It was going to feel ice cold like the heart of the Black Knight. But no, it just feels like a warm resin sculpt, man. I'm not paying $400 for this dang thing. I'll go 3D print myself something similar and be just as happy. So that's what I'm going to do. So Stern, I would like to see you release this thing again, but not if you're going to charge $225. I want to see this thing no more, no more than $129. You know, $85 would be great. It doesn't even light up. The shooter rod doesn't even light up. So at $129, I think I would purchase one just to have the official accessory. But if you want $225 for that, you all can go ahead and keep it. Sell it on to Taiwan. Do whatever you want with it, but I'm not paying that much for it. I'm going to go 3D print myself one and just go giddy with that. I'll put my own face on it, my own fanged face, right? I'll do it custom style. And if anybody wants one $25, I'll send you one too. But, you know, I got to do all this stuff at this place. I played at Gilligan's Island. I played a heavy metal. I played a Queen Rhapsody edition that was running well. It was an okay game. It was an okay game. Heavy Metal was three times the game Queen was, but it gained some cool points for me. So something has to be said about the games in the right environment that are running well and not just unboxed to the show and haven't been adjusted and the flippers are loose and the coils maybe need to be turned up. You know, they're just not playing well. So Queen gained back some cool points for me. Still ain't worth the money, but it's not the worst game I've ever played. I think what is the worst game I've ever played Bone Busters probably just because it's disappointing in just about every way shout out to all the Gottlieb fans out there what else do we got here for this show I gotta go jump on and do the Sunday Night Extravaganza now I covered that was everything I had to cover fantastic well doing these live streams and recordings and things from work are always fraught with challenges and delays I'm about one minute late for my live stream so I need to go start that up so thanks so much for joining me for episode 100 220120 of Don's Pinball Podcast. I'll bring you some more. You know we're going to do a big expose as soon as everything is released about WIC. Right now, my name's down on a premium. If I want one so I can get one, is it going to be as dope as I'm hoping? We're going to find out. We're going to find out. Give me that outro music. Email me at donspinballpodcastgbo.com. If you've ordered one of the chicken buckets up until today or yesterday, it's already been shipped. Everything else, I'm going to get caught up over the week. It's been selling incredibly well, so check it out on Pinside for the Jaws pinball machine. Email me at Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Follow on the Facebook. Instagram is blowing up. You really should be following there, too, because I've been doing a lot more content. More coming. It's live stream night tonight. Later.