Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 5 - Video Modes

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·34m 26s·analyzed·Nov 20, 2023
Buzzsprout-13931933
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Wedgehead hosts analyze video mode history and quality across pinball machines.

Summary

Alan and Alex (The Waterboy) from Wedgehead Pinball Podcast discuss the history and design of video modes in pinball machines, from early 1980s hybrids like Caveman and Baby Pac-Man through modern DMD-based modes. They analyze what makes video modes effective or terrible, highlight Dwight Sullivan's outsized influence in popularizing them (~60% of his games feature video modes), and share their favorites (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Fishtales, Getaway, Indiana Jones mine cart) versus least favorites (Theater of Magic's virtual pinball). The hosts debate whether video modes detract from pure pinball gameplay or enhance the experience.

Key Claims

  • Dwight Sullivan is responsible for approximately 11 out of 18 games he led as programmer having video modes, meaning he's responsible for over a quarter of all video modes across all pinball machines of all time.

    medium confidence · Alan and Alex discussing Dwight Sullivan's influence; Alan cites ~18 games total, ~11 with video modes (60%)

  • Terminator 2 (Bally Williams) was the first pinball game with a DMD-based video mode, designed by Dwight Sullivan.

    high confidence · Alan states: 'Terminator 2 was the first Bally Williams game designed with a DMD... So I think right off the bat, they're like, we're doing this.'

  • Indiana Jones (Williams Pinball Adventures) has the most unique video modes in a single game with three distinct video modes.

    high confidence · Alan: 'I think that Indiana Jones, the Williams version, Pinball Adventures, has the most unique video modes in one game because they have three.'

  • Junkyard technically has more video mode variety than Indiana Jones because it includes a time machine feature that cycles through video modes from other Williams games.

    medium confidence · Alan: 'Junkyard technically has more because it has two unique video modes to that game... it also has a time machine feature that cycles through and lets you play other video modes from other Williams games.'

  • Approximately 40 games across all companies and time periods have at least one video mode, with many having multiple.

    medium confidence · Alan: 'I said there's about 40 games that have at least one video mode in them, starting in the 90s going till now.'

  • Caveman (1982, Gottlieb) was the first hybrid arcade/pinball game with integrated video gameplay, using a joystick.

    high confidence · Alex: 'The first one came out in 1982. It was made by Gottlieb. It was called Caveman.' Alan notes Caveman has a CRT positioned in the cabinet.

  • Baby Pac-Man (1982, Bally) was an immediate copycat to Caveman, leveraging Pac-Man IP.

    high confidence · Alan: 'Gottlieb was the first with Caveman, but also in 1982, Bally made Baby Pac-Man... they got to license their own... Pac-Man.'

Notable Quotes

  • “You're just moving a reticle left and right. It automatically fires at the robots walking past the screen.”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Describes the core mechanic of Terminator 2's pioneering video mode in simple, intuitive terms.

  • “a good video mode is like a five to 10 second break from an otherwise frantic game”

    Alan @ N/A — Establishes key design principle for effective video modes: brevity is essential.

  • “it's like a buddy cop movie with pinball, right? Like they're an odd couple... Except for in this instance, it's like a buddy cop where one of the cops is a dog.”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Creative metaphor capturing the fundamental incompatibility of video games and pinball aesthetics.

  • “you're just making the people that like pinball upset, and the people that like video games are never going to accept it anyway, because it's going to—it's always going to be a worse video game”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Core critique of video modes as serving neither audience well.

  • “your high score on a pinball machine should be based on how well you play pinball, not how well you played a shitty video game inside of a pinball machine”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Articulates the competitive fairness argument against overpowered video modes.

  • “I term Dwight Sullivan the video mode cult leader.”

    Alan @ N/A — Humorous but pointed characterization of Dwight Sullivan's outsized influence and advocacy for video modes.

  • “Fishtales, probably... is like, true. Yeah, it's the best game of all time.”

    Alex (The Waterboy) / Alan @ N/A — Casual agreement that Fishtales is Mark Ritchie's masterpiece.

  • “So there's something to get out of it, but the points wise, it's not going to be huge. And they're fast.”

    Alan @ N/A — Summarizes hallmarks of well-designed video modes: quick pacing, reasonable point awards, meaningful but non-game-breaking rewards.

Entities

AlanpersonAlex the WaterboypersonRhodespersonDwight SullivanpersonSteve RitchiepersonMark RitchiepersonMeganpersonGottliebcompany

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Deep discussion of what makes video modes effective (brevity, intuitive controls, appropriate point values, thematic fit) vs. broken (excessive points, poor perspective design, complexity). Hosts argue video modes should be 5-10 second breaks worth ~one multiball jackpot, not game-deciding features.

    high · Multiple quotes establishing design criteria; Star Trek NG and Theater of Magic used as counter-examples of broken design.

  • ?

    historical_signal: Detailed chronicle of 1982-1983 hybrid arcade/pinball wave (Caveman, Baby Pac-Man, Granny and the Gators) as response to video games' arcade popularity threat. These machines represented initial failed attempt to merge two incompatible gameplay styles.

    high · Hosts trace lineage from Caveman (1982, Gottlieb) → Baby Pac-Man (1982, Bally) → Granny and the Gators (1983, Bally); note poor market performance.

  • ?

    design_innovation: Terminator 2 (1991, Williams/Dwight Sullivan) marked paradigm shift from arcade cabinet hybrids to integrated DMD-based video modes in standard pinball machines. This design became industry standard for subsequent decades.

    high · Alan: 'Terminator 2 was the first Bally Williams game designed with a DMD... the first game that had it was Terminator 2.' Designer Dwight Sullivan credited with pioneering this approach.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dwight Sullivan identified as outsized influence on video mode adoption across industry. Worked on ~18 games as lead programmer; ~11 (60%) feature video modes. Responsible for >25% of all video modes across all pinball manufacturers/time periods (~11 of ~40 total games with modes).

    medium · Alan cites statistics: '18 games as sort of the lead programmer... about 11 of them have video modes... he's responsible for over a quarter of all video modes across all companies.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.103

0:00
Hello, welcome everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the official Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan. I am one half of the Portland Pinball Bar Wedget, of which the podcast is named. I'm joined by my co-host, the Waterboy, Alex the Waterboy. Yeah, man of many names over here. Man of many, many names. One half of the podcast, not one half of the bar. One half of the, yeah. My business partner, Rhodes, who you will hear on many episodes in the future. He's a busy man and he's a family man, so our schedules aren't always linking up. Nice enough to have Alex's basement studio, which we record in. and uh what are we talking about today alex today we're talking about the best thing that's ever happened to pinball video modes oh god oh god that intro that's your title now you're locked into that okay we are talking about video most today i will say that these might even be more divisive than our first topic lightning clippers i don't know i don't know what the general population's opinion is on video i know what mine is it's split what's yours well when i'm playing pinball all i want to do is play a little video game and you know that's what video modes deliver video modes if you're like if you somehow are listening to this podcast and haven't run into a video mode it's uh when the game stops flipping the flippers and you get to actually play a fun experience instead of the hellish world of pinball instead of a stupid pinball you played 50 cents or a dollar to play you now get to play a very cool little video game up on traditionally the old dmds occasionally on a new lcd and uh yeah it's usually super simplistic um the best ones are like 10 seconds long we'll get to that in a minute but um yeah that's what a video mode is and i do unironically think they can be great i also acknowledge many of them are horrible okay there there it came in i was like are we gonna have to put an audio tag for sarcasm in this episode i do i i would say as far as like within our group because i'd say most people within our pinball circle hate video modes with a passion and i genuinely do enjoy a lot of them at the of the games that you have at Wedgehead specifically? Well, some of the games that we've had recently are the ones that actually have some pretty good video modes. That's what I'm saying. See, you already are conceding. However, yes.
2:55
Yes, video modes, man. They are something that was sandwiched into pinball based on how badly video games were basically kicking pinball's ass as far as like terms of popularity in pop culture even if you go to an arcade bar now so many of these arcade bars you'll see like a fucking mario jumping and squishing a mushroom eight big pixar as a mural on a wall and you'd be like this is the place i have to go play pinball yeah it's glorifying video games yeah we should be we should be enemies i mean really right but they're smashed together forced to work together video modes are like a weird buddy cop movie with pinball right Like they're an odd couple. It's like they don't really want to get along because one of them plays by the rules and they're clean cut. And one of them's the loose cannon who doesn't play by the rules. And there's just friction there. Except for in this instance, it's like a buddy cop where one of the cops is a dog. Because you're like, what is he going to contribute? And that's kind of the video mode. There can be good ones. Yes. Like Turner and Hooch. It's inherently a bad idea, I would say. Maybe that can be the title. Video mode's inherently a bad idea. Ooh, that's a good title. Yeah. These started actually a while ago, like very early on. And at first, they weren't the modern version. They were sort of like these early hybrid machines themselves. The first one came out in 1982. It was made by Gottlieb. It was called Caveman.

  • Granny and the Gators was released by Bally in 1983, part of the early hybrid game wave.

    high confidence · Alan: 'And then they also, a year later they made, in 1983, they made Granny and the Gators.'

  • Star Trek Next Generation's video mode is broken from a competitive standpoint because it rewards 200-300 million points plus an extra ball if memorized, skewing tournament scoring away from pinball skill.

    medium confidence · Alex: 'I do think that the video mode on that is broken... it's worth yeah, an easy 200 to 300 million points with an extra ball if you just memorize the paths.'

  • Theater of Magic's virtual pinball video mode is atrociously bad, featuring pinball gameplay from a wrong perspective angle on the DMD.

    medium confidence · Alex: 'This one, I there's a lot of contenders for this, but this the one that stands out as just atrocious... Theater of Magic's virtual pinball... it's fucking terrible.'

  • “It's humiliating to die on the first round of video mode on BST.”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Social element of Bram Stoker's Dracula's video mode design that creates inherent risk/reward tension.

  • “now you're playing a really shitty version of pinball. And you're like, what are we doing here?”

    Alex (The Waterboy) @ N/A — Critique of Theater of Magic's virtual pinball mode as conceptually confused and poorly executed.

    • Bally
    company
    Williamscompany
    Terminator 2game
    Baby Pac-Mangame
    Cavemangame
    Granny and the Gatorsgame
    Indiana Jones (Pinball Adventures)game
    Junkyardgame
    Bram Stoker's Draculagame
    Fishtalesgame
    Getawaygame
    Star Trek Next Generationgame
    Theater of Magicgame
    Toy Storygame
    Portland Pinball Bar Wedgeheadvenue
    Fishtalesgame
  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Bram Stoker's Dracula video mode praised for elegant risk/reward design: shooting werewolves earlier = safe/low points; waiting until close = high points/high risk of humiliation/game over. Creates inherent strategic depth and social comedy in casual play.

    high · Alex details point scaling (1M → 50K based on distance) and social stakes of dying on first stage; Alan agrees this 'forces you' into genuine tactical decision.

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Star Trek Next Generation video mode identified as broken by exploitability: memorization yields 200-300M points + extra ball repeatedly, distorting tournament scoring away from pinball skill. Getaway video mode similarly exploitable via right-edge strategy, though considered more forgivable due to thematic fit and general game quality.

    high · Alex: 'It's worth yeah, an easy 200 to 300 million points with an extra ball if you just memorize the paths... that breaks the scoring.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Host consensus: best video modes use flipper buttons (no special controls), short duration (<10 sec), clear objective, and visual clarity. Terminator 2 praised for intuitive reticle targeting; Theater of Magic condemned for perspective confusion.

    high · Alan on T2: 'you don't have to... it's just like a big reticle... you intuitively know what you're supposed to do.' Alex on Theater: 'it's in the wrong perspective angle.'

  • $

    market_signal: Video modes became industry standard following Terminator 2's commercial success (~20K units, 'one of most popular pinball machines of all time'). Subsequent manufacturers adopted video modes despite unclear causation of sales success, suspecting video modes were key feature rather than theme/designer/era.

    medium · Alan: 'you don't know what's making what's making the quarters come in, but you're gonna try copying... this game had it, and we sold the shit out of them.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Hosts note video modes are highly divisive within pinball community, even more so than Lightning Flippers. Most players 'hate video modes with a passion'; Alex 'genuinely do enjoy a lot of them.' Wedgehead bar attracts mix: recent games with 'good video modes' are draws.

    high · Alan: 'these might even be more divisive than our first topic, Lightning Flippers.' Alex: 'most people within our pinball circle hate video modes with a passion—and I genuinely do enjoy a lot of them.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Core debate: video modes represent failed attempt to merge incompatible design philosophies. Video game fans won't play mediocre DMD games when arcade/console alternatives exist. Pinball purists reject video game intrusion. Video modes satisfy neither constituency while compromising pinball's core identity.

    high · Alex: 'you're just making the people that like pinball upset, and the people that like video games are never going to accept it anyway, because it's always going to be a worse video game.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Limited DMD display and two-button control scheme constrain video mode design to simple mechanics (targeting, dodging, timing). Hosts acknowledge inherent design ceiling despite discussing only ~40 games total with modes out of thousands of pinball machines ever made.

    medium · Alex: 'you have two buttons and you have a tiny screen. Well, what can you really do?' Discussion of game types (targeting, dodge, etc.) as exhausted design space.

    • 4:23
    Have you played a Caveman? That one's got a joystick, doesn't it? Oh, I guess all we're going to get into is probably a lot of joysticks involved. Yeah. So the separation of these games where there's a pinball machine and then there's a separate, at the time, CRT screens, right? Like you'd play a video game on. And so you would hit a ball somewhere, usually like a hole, a scoop, a saucer, and then it would start the video. And then now you look up at the screen and you hit these other buttons that were used to play the video game. I love that. It's like a freaking stuff. that how it's like your reward for playing pinball and doing the thing is you get to play a video game you're like if i wanted to play the video game i can play the one right next to me in the arcade this shitty one here when i could just play the and that was a horrible idea but how many of those did they make those little hybrid ones they weren't popular yeah they weren't popular but there were there were immediate copycats so gottlieb was the first with caveman but also in 1982 bally made baby pac-man which they got to license their own yeah that's their own very popular ip yeah pac-man you can see why they were like we gotta go for it so they so they did that that also came out in 1982 and then they also they a year later they made in 1983 they made granny and the gators and so granny and the gators baby pac-man even got leaps caveman got leaps caveman has the crts position a little bit differently but they're all the same they're basically a little they're a compact pinball cabinet too they're not a regular pinball plate they're in more of like a video game stand-up kind of classic yeah you do see them every once in a while i i've seen a good number of the baby packs and they're always shoved into some weird little spot where a normal pinball machine wouldn't work because they're a different form factor so i'm like that's kind of like when you're one of those barcades that's just cramming everything into every corner that's when you see those baby packs i feel like nowadays which is kind of funny yeah and some and some people really like them i mean they're they're oddballs yep you know they're they're they're weird like caveman is in a pinball cabinet but granny and the gators and miss pac-man are in like arcade cab yeah okay that so the bally ones are in that but i don't know if i'm thinking of granny and the gators i played granny and the gators had no idea what i was doing when i was up on the video game part of it i've never played a caveman so caveman has like a crt in like the back top of the pinball cabinet that'd be a cool like homebrew idea but i don't know just i would say i would say of the three i've played all three the only i if i had to play one i'd play caveman it's it's more interesting than yep than granny and baby pac-man to me baby packs up yeah baby pac-man scott pac-man dude like speaking of before we get into because that's sorry you're gonna move into the first what we'd consider a normal pinball video mode right sure but before that pac-man or i think it's is it mr and mrs pac-man the george christian normal conventional pinball machine yeah that has that little grid of lights and it has like a video game mode you hit a saucer on there and you're chasing around on this little grid so it's not really what anyone would ever consider a video mode but it is like a mini video game mode in pinball in the pinball machine using insert light right yeah it's got that it's got like i think it's like a six by six grid of inserts with incandescent bulbs but below them into like one little dot that's running away from the other dots like it's like a kind of a knockoff crappy low i think i can yeah i think we can give that as an honorary video it's there's no video part to it but it plays more like a video game than a pinball that one has maybe my favorite feature of all video modes in that when it starts you have no idea what the hell you're doing and everyone just dies immediately and then you go that was shitty and you go back to playing pinball and that's a recurring theme on a lot of shitty video That's, I mean, 100%. Yep. That being said, we sort of transitioned into what modern video modes are and, and sort of what everyone I think thinks of as a video mode, which is where the ball is held, like you hit it into scoop, usually saucer or anything that holds the ball and it starts a mode So usually the lights go out or or significantly on the play field and you intended to look up Sometimes there a call out that tell you look up, right? So you look at the display, and they started in the 90s. The first game that had it was Terminator 2. And you would look up at the dot matrix display, and you would play a little game where you kind of strafe left and right, and you're trying to kill Terminators with a gun. Yeah, you're just moving a reticle left and right. It automatically fires at the robots walking past the screen. Modern video mode is you're playing on the screen and you're using the flipper buttons on the side of the cabinets. No special controls because that is very confusing to everybody. Yes. That's some things about T2 coming out of the gate. So T2 was the Terminator 2 was the first Bally Williams game designed with a DMD. I know Popeye, or not Popeye, Gilligan's Island, released before it, but T2 was the first one. So I think right off the bat, they're like, we're doing this. We've got to put a little video game in here. That'll get the kids' attention, right? And they got that in there, and it actually works pretty well because you don't need to, you know, it's not that confusing. It's very short, which is the best thing a video mode can be. I think a video mode, see, this is where I'm saying, a good video mode is like a five to 10 second break from an otherwise frantic game and T2 is a good one because you're like T2 anything to make your game play like last a little longer is going to feel like a reward because you're like oh shit like I actually got to play T I mean that thing is kind of an ass kicker when it's set up right anyway it can be yeah yeah and so it's like it kind of makes sense in there in the mode you don't have to actually fire anything it's just like you see a big reticle and you're like well I'm going to aim at the evil robots like it's very straightforward you intuitively know what you're supposed to do which I think is good. That's the word I've been dancing around. And it's fine. I don't think it's super fun. If it wasn't in the game, I wouldn't miss it. But as far as what we're going to talk about later, it's pretty, it's damn good, with some of the things they came out with later. But Terminator 2 was the first, like we said, and the guy that was on code and the guy that brought video modes and what we think of as video modes in, his name is Dwight Sullivan, and he did the rules and code and software on that game, and he brought in the video mode because Dwight is a fan of many games including video games and he's always been consistently through the years talking about how why can't we bring these video game elements into pinball like he he draws lots of inspiration for his pinball machine yeah from video games yep which I don't think is bad I think it's but as as we'll see later when you try to make pinball a video game you're just making the people that like pinball upset and the people that like video games are never going to accept it anyway because it's going to it's always going to be a worse video game you know like you can play a good video game on your phone at home on a console if you're in an arcade there's good video games in different cabinets like yep so it's a it's a weird anachronistic thing that pops up in in games and really in a lot of his games yeah dwight likes video modes loves video modes so i i i i term dwight sullivan the video mo cult leader yeah that's that's appropriate he was the first and he's done the most and his games are also some of those i mean okay dwight teamed up with steve richie who we discussed in a previous podcast yeah for a lot of titles and his games were monster sellers and so I think at that time a lot of people would look at those huge successful games and be like we got to do whatever they're doing we got to do that and video modes were part of that they saw those were part of that it was hard to tell like what was earning the money right you got a big you got a huge theme you've got the best pinball designer probably of all time and certainly the best well I guess at all it was already around at that point selling huge numbers too and uh so you know anyway you've got pretty much all the cards stacked there for Terminator 2 it's a huge success one of the most popular pinball machines of all time it's like something around 20 000 units i don't know uh in it has a video mode and it's the first game with a video mode and so like you said you don't know what's making what's making the quarters come in but you're gonna try copying you know that this game this game had it and it we sold the shit out of them and people are playing the crap out of them on location right right but but dwight he's he's done as far as i can tell he's made about he's worked on about 18 games as sort of the lead programmer okay he's worked on other games like in different companies you know he's brought on to teams but then he's later said like oh i just sort of whatever i don't want to be credited but you'll you'll see that list on his like internet pinball database or or his pin side listings on games that he's later said oh i just sort of do you happen to know how many of those 18 games have video modes about 11 it up that's a big rate so that's which also means he's responsible for over a quarter of all video modes across all companies all pinball machines of all time that's hilarious it's crazy and so it's like that son of a bitch from my count it's about he's made about 18 games and about 11 of them have video modes so that's like 60 of his games have video modes yeah that's kind of nuts uh like i said like you were saying before i said there's about 40 games that have at least one video mode in them starting in the 90s going till now and many that have multiple video modes so that was the other thing that happened is they came in coinciding with a big boom in pinball popularity in the early 90s as well and they also had video modes so then they're like oh we're selling more units we also did this new thing so we got to keep doing this other new thing because people like this new thing and so there's lots of games that have multiple and i think that Indiana Jones, the Williams version, the pinball adventure, has the most unique video modes in one game because they have three. Do you remember all three? I don't like, oh, this is going to oust me as a fake Mark Ritchie fan. I don't really like Indiana Jones that much. So I don't think I can name. I don't want to even try to name a single one of the video modes in there. Wow.
    14:54
    I think that might be his weakest game, personally. Whoa. Yeah. Okay. probably his most valuable which is fun alex alex has been talking well it's got a kick-ass theme i mean yeah indiana jones theme is dope and it follows the original trilogy which everyone likes not the not the bullshit indiana jones is a game that i didn't like when i first played it despite liking mark ritchie and loving the movies as a kid but i've come to like it it's just one of those games that needs to be working well and maintained well because a lot of the things that you're going to do in it are very finicky and if the path doesn't work or if the flippers aren't strong enough to make the ramps or there's there's a lot or it's a super pen so there's always lots of stuff to break on yeah but it's got the cool idle law it's got very cool features and they really nailed the theme and i will say that as far as like i don't love video modes i don't think i'm ruining the ending here by saying that but i will say that of the ones that are around the ones that are in indiana jones are good what are they so there's the mine cart oh is that like donkey kong style where you just have to jump over shit no no no it's it's more like he it's it's another it's like dwight's uh the star trek next generation you're kind of going one way or the other way and you okay you know and you try not to die that was good and then there's the the grail where it's like one of those three card montes you put a or you put a ball under a cup you gotta swirl around okay you gotta choose which one yep and then there's uh then there's like a there's a gun shooting one in marion ravenwood's bar where there's a scene in a movie where they all come in and she's got to defend her bar and you know you kind of pop you kind of go left and right and kind of kind of pop do it's it's it's not too dissimilar from other video demos that'll come later but there's three of them in there and they're all quality like none of them are bad they they are all different they're all fine they're all memorable not that memorable i don't remember them yes because you don't play that game because you're a hater yeah i guess you an andy and the joe hater i gonna pay you back the movies i just re there i gonna pay you back on this because we had some people after a podcast where you made one offhand comment about Foo Fighters Oh, yeah? And you're like, well, Alan doesn't really like Foo Fighters at all. And I was like, wait a second. You're like, don't do that. No, I don't. No, I like Foo Fighters.
    17:30
    I think it's good. It's not my favorite game, but I do think it's good. and I've had people come up to me like, I heard you don't like Foo Fighters. It's all over the internet. So I'm going to do the same to you. Everyone, give Alex a hard time when you see him. If you're a fan of Mark Ritchie's masterpiece, Indiana Jones the Pinball Adventure. Mark Ritchie's masterpiece easily is Fishtails. I agree. That to me is like, true. Yeah, it's the best game of all time. Yeah.
    17:59
    Fishtails probably, okay, sorry, I'm going way off track. Sure. Oh, fishtails. That is one hell of a video mode. But what's the order we're doing here? What are we doing? What's next on your schedule? Oh, I was just going to say that. So Indiana Jones has the most video modes in one single game, the most unique ones with three. But Junkyard technically has more because it has two unique video modes to that game. Shooting the toast at the dog. Yeah. And I don't remember another one. I just remember shooting at the dog, chasing the girl in the towel or whatever. You got a flap. there's that one where the dogs run in and you gotta flap both buttons at the same time it's that one's terrible that's what doesn't that's the toast one's fine the toast one's perfect it's fun it's it's cute it's of the era the the one where you have to flap smash both flipper buttons horrible horrible yeah horrible we could probably break all video modes up into like four basic types yeah well of course you have you have two buttons and you have a tiny screen well what can you really you could do all kinds of stuff you want to get wild with it i bet so it has those two unique junkyard has those two unique video modes but it also has a time machine feature that cycles through and lets you play other video modes from other williams yeah i don't think i've ever run into that yeah it's like a randomized uh mystery you know i probably have and that was why i was so confused because i think you can play the attack from mars video mode in there that would make sense okay yep this is all yeah it'll it'll cycle through different video modes from other games so technically it has the most you'll see the most variety if you're playing a junkyard yep um surprisingly i say indiana jones isn't a dwight game but junkyard is which is very unsurprising yeah uh but since he was there at the company i can't imagine that he wasn't involved in some way indirectly since he was the guy that brought him in since he loves them so much in it all on dwight i'm i'm sure that i'm sure that he helped the other uh software engineers get their video modes up there's no way he did it it would be like his framework at the you know something yeah he had to have his hands involved but now we get to the fun part and i want to talk about what's your favorite video my favorite video mode i could do top three my top three favorites would probably be uh bram stoker's dracula yeah shooting the dogs yeah is fun and i think it's good because although i will say the first the first stage of it which is all a lot of people ever see is so slow it sucks but it's it's great because it's like we're getting reward because yeah you need to wait right from a points perspective really clearly so because you need to wait for the dogs get closer to you to actually get maximum points but you also don't want to embarrass yourself and lose on that first round yeah factory default settings give you an extra ball at the end of the second video mode right that's right so it's like it's humiliating if you try to milk points out of it it's humiliating to die on the first round of video mode on bst yeah you will be laughed out of an arcade but if you if you shoot the dogs at just like a real safe distance you kind of look like a little bitch and so if you got buddies there they're gonna give you shit for that too so that's a perfect video mode because it is a perfect video mode because there's actually complexity of the rules because you're still using if the dogs are on the right side they're wool the werewolves but like if they show up on the right side you hit the right flipper your gun will automatically shoot the ones on you're just shooting you're just shooting to your left or right it's very intuitive but what makes them fun is that they they start coming at you faster and if you if you wait until they get close right before they bite you they're worth like a million points a piece and then 70 750 000 50 depending on how far back they are so it's safer to shoot them early but then it's not worth any points yep so i think that that's cool because it's a rule where it forces you yeah it's an actual inherent risk reward there which makes that a great one yep and and the animation's really cool the sounds are really cool that game's just cool in in and of itself so i'll run through my top three and i'll kind of talk about what i think is the bet what makes video modes good i guess so the next one would probably be fishtail since i brought that up earlier and you get to shoot water skiers you're fisher right so your enemy is water skiers on the lake to start your fish so you get to shoot water skiers i don't know what it's with torpedoes torpedoes yeah apparently a bunch of and there's just three levels of water skiers or boats that come ripping by yeah and it's all just kind of a matter of it's it's simple timing so it's one that everybody can just kind of immediately figure out but there's usually an extra ball that comes by and that's kind of where the actual like critical piece of it comes in that one's kind of maybe weighted a little too heavy because like you have to get that extra ball out of there. But it's just such a fun video mode. Also cute animations, good sound and everything. And it also goes pretty quick. And then the last one would probably be Getaway. And that video mode's kind of just whatever. It's kind of a gimme once you get good at it, but it's like you're playing Road Rash. So you're playing Getaway, already a kick-ass game. Yeah. You get in there and you get a shift into fifth gear. You just slam it into fifth right off the bat. Yeah, right off the bat. And then you just get to avoid cars on the highway. and it's like from kind of a like a shifted perspective it's not straight on which i really i it's just good dots like they did a really good dots and i guess thinking about it that's what wins me over on a lot of the video modes so like if they look like funny like you're like this little car ripping around i'm like that's good i like i like that animation and so then i like them i think a big part of it is all three of those games getaway would probably be the easiest and that's not slow game it's just probably the most friendly it's hard when you're first playing it and you're like oh i gotta i gotta duck and dive around these cars and and i have limited information yep that's coming ahead of me in the in the perspective i have when you learn the secret which is like hang to the right edge and then only move kind of a tech in and out you can really exploit it and never lose and get the maximum points every single time the funniest shit in the world is how difficult that video mode is for my wife megan she loves getaway and she cannot play the video mode to save her life and she's seen how i do it like the kind of like safe technique and then so half the time when she's watching me play it i just swerve all over which is also funny that's very fun to play it that way yeah it's that video mode's more fun if you play it like it wants you to play it right rather than knowing the safe route you know how to get the maximum points out of it every time you're just going to slam into fifth gear you're going to get right on that line in between the you know second and third lanes and you're just going to hardly swerve in this lane but i don't know it's still a fun one i still like it yeah um i would say that's fair and anyway i was going to say the biggest thing about all of those is that they're not worth that many points um they can lead to extra balls although two of those are kind of like gimmies once you get them down but i think i think getaway can give you an extra ball yeah you can definitely because you have to swerve that's sometimes you have to swerve to get that extra ball yeah and see that's fun i think it's fun when it's like okay you can get something out of it that's big and so if you're a competitive player you're like well i need that extra ball i guess in a tournament you don't but um yeah it's just it's like so there's something to get out of it but the points wise it's not going to be huge and they're fast i don't think a video mode should ever last more than like 10 seconds i said yeah so yeah what do you think are the best or what do you think is the best i really like the minecart one on indiana jones okay um that's probably the i would switch out the getaway one for that one just because it's even though you can memorize that one too as the same thing but it's fun it's fast it's hard um and it's thematically right it feels different from others, although he then it's very similar to Dwight's version on Next Generation. So it's like they're all shades of the same thing. You could really only do so many things, but it feels good. It's fun. I like that one. I think Dracula and Fishtails are head and shoulders the best. OK I think that there there really 40 other games that have them head and shoulders the best It is really not close because they both have strategy and they both they both are rewarding but not over rewarding because there there are modes like that i think i think star trek next generation despite that being one of my favorite games i do think that the video mode on that is broken like it's worth yeah an easy 300 million 200 to 300 million points with an extra ball if you just memorize the paths yep and i think that breaks the scoring especially in uh tournaments or if you're just playing your friends yep like you're not necessarily going to get on the high scoreboard just because of that but it's definitely going to help you you can exploit it over and over again and i don't like that the mode itself is okay it's fine for video mode it's not it's not bad it's just it's worth too many points which i think really drags down because it should be your your high score on a pinball machine should be based on how well you play pinball not how well you played a shitty video game inside of a pin right that's where i'm saying like it's like i think the video modes at most should be like the score of like one multi-ball jackpot you know where it can make a difference in a close game but it should never win you the game yeah i agree what would you say is your least favorite video mode this one i there's a lot of contenders for this but this the one that stands out as just atrocious what the hell are they thinking is theater of magic's virtual pinball oh dude yeah it's fucking terrible like so bad i don't need to give you more like jjp bait but did you know there's a little virtual pinball mini mode on toy story they have that ipad in there and i think i think i've not seen it i would say though that is probably even though i'm sure that mode sucks like i'm it's got to be better it's got there's no way it's as bad as the theater of magic trying to do like the pinball from that shifted low perspective that they could put on a dmd yeah because it's in the wrong perspective angle and it's like the king of like you're like hey like we were joking about earlier the only thing better than pinball is to you know you want to stop playing pinball to play a shitty video game you're like now you're playing a really shitty version of pinball and you're like what are we doing here what are we doing and it's very slow yeah and it's and and the physics are it's just terrible yeah it's it's so not fun and i hate getting it i wish you could skip it but you can't One that I would say is kind of an example of like it's close, but breaks a couple of the rules that I like are is Star Wars, Stern Star Wars. Oh, yeah, that one's fun. The video mode where you're flying through an asteroid field in the Millennium Falcon. Very Dwight Sullivan game. It's a cool looking one. It's actually kind of like a fun little mode, but I think it goes just a, it can, you can be sitting there for a while. I mean, I guess it times itself out every time, but it's a little long. And to me, the biggest problem is that you can get a ton of points out of that. If you stack like a huge, cause that game already has insane play field multipliers and that applies to the video mode. And so if you get a group of people together that don't know how to play that game, someone can just get the right multiplier, get into a video mode and be 10 times the score of any of their friends, which is hilarious to watch. Yeah. And so that's like one of those things where you're like, ah, but if you guys know the game, then it kind of evens out. So it's just a matter of white scoring, which is another, that's a topic. Okay. One. That's not a battle. Like, come on, give me a bad one. What's the worst one? The worst that I can think of, I hate. So going to, if we define all video modes in like four categories, it's like you got the steer left or right things, right? You've got the like timing where it's like jump over like Circus Voltaire jumping over something or Fishtails shooting something, which is timing. And then the worst. The Doctor Who video mode is pretty fucking bad too. Like where you're just kind of, some guy's chasing you and you just kind of run and you can either do a short jump or you can do a double jump. but you don't know if the if the thing is two things wide or it's one thing's tied i think like all of it comes down to execution but the ones that are always shitty is just and i don't know if this even counts as a video mode but where it's just like pick a thing where it's like like congo where it's like you want to go left or right on the tunnel and you're like i don't give a shit i want to play ben ball and it's like oh you got five diamonds oh there's an evil gorilla what do you think about the other video mode in congo though uh what's what is that it's where you're It's where you're rafting down the river. That kicks ass. See, steering left and right, I was going to say, the ones where you get to steer left or right, those are good video modes. The ones where you get to pick things, bad video modes. Like playing Ghostbusters, you've got steering left and right, don't cross the streams, good video mode. You've got picking things that ESP bullshit, bad video mode. Super lame. Yeah. So it's like if you steer left or right. It's a Dwight Sullivan game. Yeah. Dude, that's a, I like don't cross the streams is fun. He loves video modes. Dude, he does love video modes. And he makes some good games. So, anyway, that's probably my least favorite or any of the ones where you just have to pick some bullshit.
    30:38
    Like, just pick a room, pick a path, like, whatever. Yeah, that does suck. And very anticlimactic. Yeah, and it's just like, that's the absolute worst. Like, why are you forcing me to do this? Yeah, why are you doing this to me? I'm here to play pinball. Yeah.
    30:54
    So, anyway, that's all I got, I guess, to say about video modes. I think some of them are fun. I think it needs to be in a frantic, fast game so it feels like an actual break. The video mode itself can't be too long and it can't be too valuable. I agree with that totally. Yeah. Can't make it too valuable. Can't last too long. Can't happen too often. Yeah. Oh, that's, I mean, that's a big one. If you can keep getting back into them, then it's just like game break. Yeah. That's, that's worse. They're stuck in like video mode hell. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think we covered it pretty well. That's video modes. they are if you talk to a lot of pinball players and and you yourself i'm assume are a pinball player you're gonna you probably have strong feelings one way or the other on i know i bet you hate them most people hate them i would think you could push a button so like you alan if you could push a button to remove video modes from all pinball would you yeah see i wouldn't i think the good outweighs the bad no but i definitely not i would bet that 90 i bet 90 of pinball players would take all of them out. We talked about there's 40 games. We didn't go through the list, but most of those video modes in those 40 games are terrible. It's true. We talked a lot about the ones that are good or are okay. It's like a trolley. It's like a trolley dilemma, you know? You change the track, and one of them is going to remove the video mode from getaway, which is so cool, and it'll save. It's fine. The two that are good that would be really sad to lose, we talked about, are fishtails, and Dracula. Those two are both legitimately good. The scoring or the benefit from them are weighted perfectly where you still care enough, but it's not going to make or break your game either way. Those are perfect. They're fun. They're funny. The dots are cool. The sound's good. They're well integrated into the overall game. Those were the two that would suck to lose, but man, there's so many. that's like, I just, you get a game and you just pop into one and you're like, why did this happen? When this episode hits air, we should put up a poll on your Instagram story. Okay. See what people think, because I'm genuinely curious. Yeah, we should start doing that when we do these divisive topics. Yeah. Fun. Right into the Wedgehead Instagram. Alan loves spending more time on Instagram. Oh, cool.
    33:13
    I'm not too good at it, but do what we gotta do. Yeah, do it for the people. Do it for the people. You gotta let them know what's going on, man. Did you know we're open at noon on the weekends? That's a good thing to bring up. We should be doing more plugs like that. Wow. Yeah.
    33:31
    Anyway, this was Video Modes. Thank you all for listening once again. I want to thank Alex for being my co-host and allowing us to record in his basement. And I just want to implore everyone out there, if you're listening to the podcast, first of all, thank you. Second of all, go out and play some pinball. This is what it's all about. go out find a location near you and as with every episode try to play a game with some video modes that's the recurrent check them out check them out make it up for yourself tell us what you think about video modes yeah go find the shittiest video mode that you can exploit for the most points over and over and let us know what it is and yeah you'll have a blast yeah go go play go play some pinball on location yeah the only thing better than pinball is playing a little video game in the middle of pinball. It's fun. It's great. It's fun, they say. Anyway, that's all for this time. We'll see you again next time.