Thank you. Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pitbull Podcast. This is episode 79 and my name's Martin and with me... I'm Stacey Borg. Is that how Stacey speaks? I'm not Stacey Borg, I'm Jeff Teels. Hi, how you doing Martin? It was a pleasure to hear Stacey, a good friend of the show and just a reminder that when you put on someone like Stacey, it makes people listen to the podcast because there's no possible way you can listen at two speed with his high voice. I mean, you've got to listen to every single word. And it made me realize why you Australians love Wizard of Oz so much, because half of you talk like munchkins. Is that really the case? I love Stacey. He's a great guy. I'm going to miss him not being on the show this week because, boy, I really want to hear more of his play-by-play of his Guardians of the Galaxy game, just going on detail of how he missed the mode, this, that. It was brilliant. Loved it. God bless you, Stacey. And, you know, the one thing about Stacey is that he makes Ryan C sound like he has testicles. Oh, there's a lot. No, stop it. Stacey's awesome. So it's actually really interesting because I've said many times that Ryan and I, you know, the dynamic works because we don't know each other. But the dynamic works also because we have almost polar opposite opinions on just about everything. Stacey I've known for a long time. And so, you know, we talk about lots of things all the time. So we're fairly aligned when it comes to sort of our outlook on pinball. And probably because we're both seeing it from a tournament perspective as well. Yeah, and you probably have the same thoughts, finishing the same sentences. I love Stacey. He knows I'm joking with this. Of course you do. So, yeah, that's interesting. So you have to find polar opposites now that Ryan's in prison. And hence why you're on the show. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe he gets a phone call or something like that. We'll have to see. But anyway, thanks for having me. Let's begin the three-hour podcast. Let's do this. We'll see how we go. So let's start with some news. And the first news is that we saw during the week An update from Haggis Pinball And guess what Jeff What? Their pinball machine is not going to be shown at TPF Good idea Haggis, it's a good idea I'm excited to see the game Have you seen the game sitting there? No, I haven't And the closest I got to seeing the game was I'll talk about it later But during last week I streamed Deadpool at somebody that reached out to us via email and they have a business in the city and he's got four pinball machines in his company, just their reception area, and he knows them very well. And apparently he's seen some of it. And I was like, you know, on the side, I was like, oh, mate, so can you tell me what it looks like? Would not give me a single piece of detail. But even he said What he's seen looks really cool And there's some things that they're doing That's never been done before I also really like the theme Not just, you know, race Just when I was speaking to Damien from Haggis He was talking about how the story unfolds And it genuinely sounds really creepy So if they can get that right I'll be very, very happy to see it Come on kids Let's go play some pinball. It's going to be interesting from what I've heard, and I really don't know much, much like yourself. I just thought you being right there, you might have heard a little bit. By the way, before we go on more about Wraith, why the name Haggis? It's an Australian company. Are they Scottish? Where's Haggis come from? I think there must be some sort of Scottish connection. That's what everyone's saying as well. We're going to get them on the show, and we will get them on the show at some stage, but it really is, well, when's the time to really have them on? Is it when they've actually got something to show, to talk about what they've got to show? No, no, the answer, yeah, no, no, Marty. The answer is you get them on when they've done four other podcasts that same week, all right? So once they've done Special and Lit and they've done some of the other ones, then you get them on. That's how it works in podcasting. Pretty much how it works. Again, or do we get them on now to give us a bit of an update? it's one of those things when we've really sort of done our interviews we like to do them you know really when it's relevant when something has happened either a release of a machine or the announcement of a machine like in between we just don't know when the timing is but we'll get them on and we obviously do wish them the best and I agree with you it is so much better for them to just not have that deadline looming and they can just get to it in their own time. I hope that now that they don't have that deadline, it doesn't mean that they take their foot completely off the pedal. No, but if you show it at TPF and you're not ready to sell it, or even if it's months down the road, and we've seen bigger companies do that, where they've had to wait for whatever production reasons or whatever the case may be. It's out of sight. It's out of mind. Too many things come in, especially in 2019. and we're going to see a lot of pinball machines every single month perhaps. And so when they're ready to ship, when people can touch it, feel it, have that impulse buy, I'm on it, I like it right away, that's when they should show it. So there's enough shows. TPF, yeah, that's fine and dandy, but you're going to be competing with everybody else that's there. And, again, you know, the Munsters is kind of the new toy probably at TPF. I mean, we're only a few weeks away. Are you going to TPF, by the way? Yes, I am. I really haven't heard that. No, I haven't mentioned it enough. No? No. No, absolutely locked in, flights, accommodation, all booked, all ready to go. Yeah, that won't be the last we talk about it on this show. No, it really won't. But I don't even know whether we really know what Haggis' plans are, whether they're just the idea was to get a one-off boutique machine that was their deadline to get at TBF, or whether they actually want to dominate the world by mass-producing pimples. I don't think we even know that yet. Well, if somebody who had a podcast in Australia could get that information, and I know you want to wait until it all comes out, but a little teaser wouldn't hurt, maybe. It would be accommodating. You know, get Stacey Borg on. Stacey's already on it. He's out there. Good. But what they also did say on this video, they did an even bigger tease about something called the Celts, which they said will be shown at TPF, but we have no idea what the Celts is. it's a Boston basketball team. It's the Celtics. I don't know what it is either. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of trial balloons that they're floating out there, but, you know, we're all going to absorb it. We're going to be interested in seeing it. But the one thing about teasing stuff, it creates a buildup. You better live up to it. That's true. I think of Mafia. When that came out, I had no idea this game was coming out, And I know they've reduced from 100 to 20, but boom, there it is. There they are. You can buy them. That was kind of cool. It was kind of cool, yeah. But the danger of that is, and this is where it's such a double edge on this, the danger of that is that you then don't know whether the machine that you've designed is going to hit the mark, if you know what I mean, because it's now you've built them. there's no way you can go back and change them. I think they already had 10 machines built and ready to go. And then when it came out, people sort of said, oh, yeah, but the layout, if you moved this slightly, if you did that, it's like, well, sorry, guys, it's all done. There's nothing we can do. And that was possibly why the reception after it came out was a bit cool. Yep, the release, the launch was great. I was really happy with that. There was a video. There was 10 machines made. there was the pricing model, it was all there ready to go but you don't then have the opportunity to revise what you've got there, so double edged I think I guess you really have to rely on the people that are manufacturing the game and having that kind of expertise and people that are familiar with the rules, with layout, with design, with art you know you, if you took all the feedback, even if somebody as big as Stern pinball, if they were to tease a game today in 2019 and show the play field and give you a little bit of rules, you'd have some excitement, you'd have criticism. Which do you take from that? You just have to go with your expertise. The more experience you have with the bigger companies, you're going to know, okay, this might not be something that we can mass produce. the geometry doesn't work on this so the smaller companies have to really I don't know if they have to reinvent the wheel that's what's curious about Haggis and even Deeproot talking about doing different things we haven't seen before in pinball there's some tried and true tested things that do work so how much of a renaissance do we really want to see where it's just something totally completely different But we've seen Pinball 2000 try to do that. P3s try to do that. It comes with mixed reviews. So you've just got to stick to your guns, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. And here's the difference, though. Like the likes of Stern, if Stern wants feedback on its new model that's coming out, they don't have to go external to their company because they've got all the experts there, right? If they want to know how's this machine going to be in a tournament setting, hi, Zach, hi, Keith, can you have a play of our game, which they do anyway. If you want to know whether geometry is going to work, you've got the best designers in the world that know what works. So they don't have to go with that. So they've effectively got their focus groups, their expert opinions all in-house. but if you're a small company you don't want to if you want to go out to the market to find that stuff out you have to pay for it so they go out to the public almost like it's really the only option they've got for and you can't see my air quotes professional opinions on machines that are works in progress yeah but I'm sure they've contacted some so called experts maybe in your area or some contacts. Hopefully they have. I mean, think about it. They have an interest in pinball. So they must be fascinated by other machines, other designers, other games specifically. So they had an idea. They're not creating a totally new game. It's still pinball. So I would hope they've reached out to some people and maybe people offer the advice. Maybe they have to be paid for that. Whatever the case, I know a lot of us podcasters have been asked to to give our opinions or feedback or test games, this and that. So they must know some people at Haggis. And again, you know what? A small company like that or any small company, I know I won't ever pick on them because God bless you for trying to make this kind of game or even the homebrews, you know. They all start somewhere. And TNA is a perfect example of a homebrew. One guy doing it, making this a bigger company in Spooky, says, well, mass produce it. And that's how these things happened. Iron Maiden was Archer. That was just Keith's little project. So who knows what could happen from this. And I guess that those people are in those situations. And I think that's where they're doing it right because they understand the limitations of them as a commercial entity. meaning, you know, if Keith has got this great layout in Archer and he wants to put that into production he's really got a couple of options one is to get somebody to make it for him the other is to become a pinball company, right? and that's kind of I think the trap that some people have where they're saying, well, I want to have full control and I want to have all of the profits so therefore I'm going to start a company that's probably where you're going wrong because unless you have extraordinarily deep pockets like Deep Root then you can't do it yourself so you can't have your cake and eat it so go and get somebody to make it for you and Scott Danesi did that with TNA Keith did that with Archer which then became Iron Maiden gave it to Stern he's got a happy life living there now in Chicago so it's when people are sort of saying they want to do it all that's the problem And the main example I'll give, and I think it encapsulates all that we've just talked about when you get it wrong, and that's our good friends at Homepin, right? Because nobody knows who the designer is. All I've heard is that there's about four or five people that have worked on the design. There was no going out to the market to get people's opinions on the layout. The layout is terrible. there's been no real tournament players or major players that we know of that were in the process of testing out the layout to determine whether it shot well. Marty, cut to it. What are you saying? Do you like this game or not? Everyone knows I hate it but it's very easy for me, a person, to say, oh, your chalupa sucks. There we go. A frangy reference. It's very easy for me to sit here and go, your chalupa sucks. what I guess I'm saying is why I think Thunderbirds missed the mark take Mike from Homepin out of the picture that just adds fuel to the flame there I think the problem there was a bit of hubris he's like I know I am the expert I therefore am going to go my own way and I'm not going to get anybody's opinion the product's released and everyone's like well your chalupa sucks And he's like, oh, well, you guys are just trying to be negative. Well, no, you didn't really seek any professional opinions along the way because you thought you knew it all. I never knew how to spell the word international before I played Thunderbirds. So in that sense, it's a home run. You're judging the machine on how many repetitive shots you can make. Home run. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But you're right. You do need some expertise there. And, again, with Haggis, I'm really looking forward to seeing what's coming out. But, you know, I like the reserved angle that they've got right now. Let's just wait until we're ready. Here it is when it comes out. So, yeah, we're excited, but we can wait. And it was similar to – similar but maybe different scales. When Deep Root, a couple of months ago, had to come out and say, hey, we aren't going to be ready by TPS. we will take the hit on our brand but in the long run it'll be better because it would be a greater hit if we met the deadline of TPF but had really subpar product out there. People would just crucify them for how easy he has said it is to make a pinball if something is shown at TPF and it's falling apart or it's half-baked people will stick it to him. So it's so much better for him to take the hit now on the brand of delivering to TPF, doing it at a later stage with much better quality. What do you think? And really, what hit did he take? Because he hasn't taken in any money. He's promised that all these games are going to come out. He never said the date. The goal was hopefully TPF. So they don't show up. Big deal. And I like that. You know what? The one thing he has always said was, when we show it, it shifts within two weeks. Yeah. So that's still true. It hasn't proven to not be true. If you were showing at TPF, okay, you weren't ready to go? All right, well, then don't do TPF. Again, there are lots of different shows. You can just do streams. I mean, yeah, there's just other ways to do this and show the game, whether it's any company. If you're not ready, don't do it. I mean, we've just seen three-plus years ago that was kind of the norm. Here's a teaser, and then you don't see it. Even our good friends at Jersey Jack Pinball, you know, Everyone was excited at the Chicago Expo show, not last year, but the year before. Here's Pirates, and it was exciting, and it is a good game to play. Unfortunately, the production problems caused a little bit of a delay, so that's a lesson learned. And they'll come back and be gangbusters here in 2019. I know they will. You're absolutely right, and that shows where it sometimes can take a bit of a hit. I think, I say it hit to your brand, I think that the double whammy with Jersey Jack was I think it took a hit to the buying potential of Pirates. I think by the time it came out, people's money that they had set aside had probably moved on to something else. And I don't think Iron Maiden helped because everyone's money went onto that machine. Well That's interesting you say that Because I think of a game that came out Now six years ago in 2013 In Wizard of Oz Are they still not making that game in some form or another? Well that's what we hear You know Yellow Brick Road Edition Is going to be coming out And he was at a seminar and said that I think Wizard of Oz has sold 4,000 units The next is Hobbit At about 2,000 units TNA, not TNA Obviously Dial-In was at about, I don't know, 1,300, 1,400 units. So yeah, Wizard of Oz is really popular because it's a bit of a timeless thing, really. Sure. But I guess what I'm saying with Pirates is now that it's out and we're starting to see it circulate more and more and the code is good and the gameplay is fun and the mechanical issues that were a production problem earlier have now been resolved or there are quick fixes. You know, our good friend Carl D'Python Anghelo, he loves that game. It goes on and on, and he put it in Indisc this year, and he just says it's one of the greatest, deepest games. A little sneak peek for you, and I've got a special treat for you later on the podcast, so listen up, but that's a teaser to get people to listen to the whole thing. But Joe Katz will be on Pinball Profile in the next day or two. I recorded it on Friday, and he talks about pirates, and you're actually going to see some more pirates being streamed this Thursday on Deadflip. So that would be, I guess, Friday early morning for you guys. But the pirates thing, here's the whole point of it is, yeah, it probably took a hit for the sales because of the delay, but as people are playing it more and more, they're like, I've got to get that machine. And Jack can go, here it is. You know, we can get it. Well, but he's also going to announce two machines this year, apparently. Well, that's true. Those were his words. And they don't necessarily have the largest production, you know, space. So something's going to have to stop on the main run for a new machine. Maybe they're at the stage where they think, well, 1,500, 2,000 units, that's all we need to sell. Don't know for sure. But, again, it's going to be a good year for Jersey Jackpin Ball. We'll see. Absolutely. And back to Teague Brook, we hope it's going to be a good year for them. And just sort of also back on the previous point before we move on, that's another example where if you want the expert opinions on layout, rules, don't hire the people that are the experts in your field, and that's what they've done. I see that with all the companies now. Even American got Joe Shover, who's a great player, and you've had Josh Kugler on and stuff. and we're seeing good games come out of them, and Spooky's got Bowen, and Deep Root, our friend Steven Bowden. So, yeah, everyone's got it, and it's making pinball great. Absolutely. So let's move on. Speaking of great pinball people from the industry, Joe Kamenkow. Yes. We've got some news for you. Congratulations. The news is he's going to the EKG Slot Awards Hall of Fame. Now, I know that is on the tip of everyone's tongue, just like the Grammy Awards last night. And I didn't know what it was, but it is a pretty big deal. In fact, he's the first inductee because of all the great things he's done with all the slot machines. Super, super popular games. And here's a guy that you've had on the program, co-founder of Data East Games, a really big guy in the gaming industry and getting some great recognition. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it's great. Obviously, we did have him on. We actually had him on twice. But it's really great that he's still passionate about pinball and bringing some themes to us when the reality is he would be making so much more money through the slots world and doesn't need to do anything in pinball. He doesn't need to at all. And, you know, we have the Beatles pinball because of Joe. He didn't need to do that. Thank goodness he has that passion. You're right. I mean, it's not like he's making a ton off of that with only 1,964 units. 1,963. Thanks, Franchi, for not covering up your game. I've heard they are going to make him one to make it back to 1964. Make it the yellow submarine version for when it leaks again. Well, if the art's the only thing that needs to change, it's the right person to have their machine needing a refresh because he's the one that can do the art. Yeah, I'd suggest watercolors. Hail! Poor Brad G. You know, as soon as this airs, I'm getting a text from him, and I guess I can repeat those words on this show. Half this, half that. Anyway, we love you. We've mentioned this before about Zynga and their licenses, but here's a line from the article that we'll link in the show notes about Joe being inducted into the Hall of Fame. He says, Joe also serves as, here it is, Zynga and Joe currently remain employees by Zynga and continue to develop social games based on beloved brands like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter. You like the Harry Potter. Doesn't that drive you nuts that they can make a Harry Potter slot machine but they won't do pinball? It'll happen in our lives. Well, I don't think they've done a Harry Potter slot machine. They've done Harry Potter... Oh, the Zingida game, yeah. Yeah, they've done social games. They call them social games, but effectively, you know, they're, you know, phone games. And there's this really interesting argument, and Ryan makes the argument where... Who? Yeah, that's right. Oh, the prisoner. We used to know him. So the Harry Potter mobile game Or mobile game It's not gambling In that you're not Leaving it to chance And if something random comes up And you can win or you can't, whatever But these social games Are designed to take your money You can't progress Until two things happen Either you wait a period of time, or if you can't wait, pay to progress. And so they do make a lot of money, and they're making a lot of money from children, so how far is the stretch from that to be taking money from adults via a slot machine and then taking money from people who want to buy a Harry Potter pinball machine? Like, it's not that much of a stretch. In fact, I would argue that a Harry Potter pinball machine is less gambling than either of those two examples. Get off your high horse, Marty, all right? I just got my fucking machine. You're the kind of guy that, you know, here in North America, one of the biggest candies ever made when you grew up was called Popeye's cigarettes. It came in a pack of cigarettes, and it was just sugar in the form of cigarette sticks. And it even had a fake little burnt part at the end there, and you thought you were cool because you were smoking a Popeye cigarette at the age of five. Sure. And it's because people like you that put a kibosh to this because, oh, there's gambling for kids. Oh, those are cigarettes. You would have loved those as a kid. Sure. I agree. We called them, well, they were actually called fags when we grew up, but they didn't change the name to fads. Yep. But I'm not doing a get off my lawn type moment. I'm just bugging you. I'm sort of just saying... You're right, by the way. Just make it, for God's sake. I don't know why they won't. I mean, you know what we can do, though, to get a Harry Potter machine made? Who put together that Angry Birds flyer? Whoever at Highway did that, do the same thing for Harry Potter. Boom, there's your machine. You're happy. Jeff Patterson of Twips happy. Everyone who wanted Harry Potter, there you go. So just make sure there's a wire frame right near the flippers and have pop-boppers at the bottom. That is key. Nothing says Harry Potter or pinball like that. I know it was last week's news, but just how much of a myth was that whole Angry Birds thing? I thought the theme was good. Yeah, it's good on you for trying. Yeah, I mean, the layout was, again, you're probably sending us back that really wouldn't be what the pinball machine would be and you're sending it to people who don't know what pinball is. So, yeah, this looks good. Those are our characters. Yeah, there's the birds. There's red. There's the house. I see that these pop up. That was probably a track mode for them to let's see where this can go. But that's not how the pinball machine would have played. I hope it wouldn't have. It looked pretty basic, and I didn't really like it. But the theme, a good one too. But Harry Potter, something will happen. It will happen. Absolutely great. And, look, one of the things that we talked about last week was, I think, you know, Stacey was trying to explain it to me. I couldn't work it out. But I did during the week. Couldn't understand them or what? But Paul Garner has actually written to us only seven hours ago. And I had actually worked this out during the week, but he explained it as well, that the 46-inch screen that we're talking about, the key was where they said transparent. I don't know whether you've ever seen these, but these started popping up a couple of years ago. and the first time I saw it was in vending machines. I think it might have even been either Pepsi or Coke where the actual glass door actually had video, I was going to say projected onto it, but that transparent screen allows you to have video on the actual screen itself. So what that was going to be with Angry Birds is the actual glass that you see through onto the play field, they were able to project images and video onto that, which is cool technology. A lot of slot machines use that as well. And it can actually be really quite effective. So different than Pinball 2000 as far as that kind of screen projection? Yeah, because the projection is actually in the glass itself. Well, I'm sure that'd be neat. Have you played a P3 game, by the way? Yes, I have. Okay. I know some people say it's not pinball. I have fun every single time I play that game. And yes, the flippers feel different and everything else, but I get such a kick out of playing that game. And, you know, I'm not talking about competitions. I'm just talking about playing at a friend's place. I find it fun. So, yeah, there's some innovations out there we haven't seen. This might be one of them, too, with this projection glass. We'll see. I don't know. Yeah, look, the only sort of downside to it is that when there's nothing that's been projected onto it, it's not crystal clear. Oh. Because my understanding is that it's done by having like a very small LED dots that can change colour. So think of it almost like a mesh. So it's not crystal clear, but that was two three years ago I saw that because part of what my company does is retail marketing and so that why we were sort of seeing that technology a couple of years ago It may have improved by then I don know But thank you for writing in, Paul, because that reminded me to talk about the fact that I kind of worked it out during the week what they were talking about. So it would have been cool. Ta-da. There you go. So here's a topic for you. I was curious to know whether in North America, which I think somewhat you're in. It's the bigger of the two countries. Whatever, go ahead. Sure. What we've noticed in Australia is there are a lot of machines right now on the buy-sell market. People are selling machines in unprecedented amounts. I'm just noticing it right now. In the last probably three weeks, the amount of good machines are up on the market. and I'm wondering whether it's to do with new titles that are coming out, like Beatles or Munsters that are coming out, whether it's... Because the one machine that's really coming up quite a lot at the moment is Iron Maiden, or whether it's something to do with the economy because I don't know how your economy is performing, but ours is pretty much in the shitter at the moment. So I'm wondering whether people are offloading machines like that. But my first question really is, are you seeing that at the moment where there are a lot of machines up for sale? Yes, you're talking about the newer machines too, that game that's maybe a year or two old? Correct. Yeah, you know what? I was just at a distributor called Player One in Mississauga, Ontario, just near Toronto, Ontario. And I was talking to a guy I'd never met before. And I was playing some of the games. And he said, oh, you know, what do you think of this game, blah, blah, blah. And I said, oh, it's good. And he said, do you have any games? He goes, yeah, I've got 20. And I'd never heard of this guy. And I know a lot of people around. And I said, oh, have you been collecting a long time? He said, no, eight months. So he's into it right away, massively. And I said, oh, okay, so what do you have? And he explained everything he had. And I was playing Iron Maiden at the time, and he said, I have an Iron Maiden. I just sold it, actually. Oh, I said, why'd you sell it? He goes, I'm flipping it for another game. I go, why'd you sell it? It's a fun game. And he said, love it, but I can't stand the music. So that is a factor. that's the only thing. I don't know anybody who's played it and said I don't like playing the game. The big thing is the theme in certain people's homes, right? I love The Walking Dead as a game, for example. I'm not putting it in my house because just the way it would look and stuff, but would I love to have it? You're darn right I would. I might be able to get away with made-in stuff, but anyway, I think there are people in that boat as well. Last year, I noticed that a lot with TNA. People were buying them, buying them, buying them. And then because they could sell them at, again, the cost that they purchased it at, they weren't really losing money or maybe they lost the taxes, but they had some time spent on it and they wanted to get something new. You're a perfect example of that. You were all in on Iron Maiden. The LE, sight unseen, got it, loved it. The only reason you moved it was spacing. If the speech was an issue, you'd probably still have it, although it did pay for your next machine. Yeah, and that's kind of what I said. The reason why it did go is because it could go, and it went up enough money to be able to pay for the new latest model. That had gone up in price because, as I said, with our economy, the dollar's just absolutely woeful at the moment, so prices have gone up. It could pay for that. And so I could effectively rent a machine, which was Iron Maiden. For those people listening that haven't purchased a game, and I know it's a big investment, but when you do buy a game, know that you're going to get that money back. And like Martin just said, it is like a rental. So, you know, I think it's interesting that, you know, I know how much you loved that game and you even like the music and stuff, but it was a spacing issue too. And the factor I thought was interesting is that you didn't want it because you lost that new in-box feeling when Ryan put his DNA all over the game. You know, it just wasn't your baby, so to speak. So he's not touching my jail. Did you get that? Obviously, he had a go at me for that and said that I was kind of weird. Do you get the new in-box experience? Is that important to you or not? I would say yes and no. If it's a new game that hasn't been on a location and I'm getting it, it was a home use only, or in the case of your point, you were in Pennsylvania and North America for a month and then got it, I think I would be okay with it. Sorry to differ. No, that's okay. I would be okay with it, but I'm also understanding why you're getting rid of it to bring in another machine. Totally get that. Yeah, cool. But if it was a routed game and it was new in the house, there's no connection there for me personally. I bought Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's fun to have that box and open it and you see some of the streams. Our friends at Straight Down the Middle do it where they unbox a game and it's kind of cool. It's exciting and you get to turn it on and all that. Well, the box doesn't fit in my car, so when I bought Guardians, they had to take it out, so I kind of did feel like, oh, somebody's opening my present. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, it's still getting the first play on it and all that stuff. So, yeah, there is a bit of a connection there, so I do agree. Yeah, cool. Good. Plus, it was Ryan touching it. Yeah, like, you know, God knows where it's been. Yep. Okay, so, yeah. I don't know whether we really sort of answered that as to why it is. The economy. I agree. The economy is certainly a factor, but I think space is the real big issue, too. You know, I mean, I have room for eight comfortably. I have nine right now, eight comfortably. That's it. So if I want a new game, and I do, something has to go. So what do you want? What don't I want? I can give you 20 games. You know, I just played the Monsters. I thought that was pretty fun. I like the way it looked. I like the way it played. Code is only going to get better. It's a good start from Dwight Sullivan, and it's certainly fun as is. But the shots are good. Would I like Maiden? I'd love to have Maiden. The reason I didn't buy Maiden over Guardians is everyone has a Maiden. Yeah. So I can play it anywhere. In fact, I can play it weekly for free. Yeah, and that was probably another factor. And I've sort of always said that the games that I buy for home are the ones that I won't get to play out on site. So that was probably another factor with Iron Maiden is there's not an LE on site, but there's a premium on site. So I can get that premium LE experience whenever I want. Sure, I've got to pay for it, but I would pay a maximum of $10 if I was on a bad day, so I still get to experience it. It's accessible. Sure. My Wizard of Oz, you can't see that anywhere. Really? No, not on site. I think there is. No, you're right about on site, but I just thought with all the people with your stream, a lot of people would own it. Yeah, and there are some people that would own it, But that's not the same as being able to say, oh, look, I feel like playing Wizard of Oz, get in my car and go to a location nearby and play it. That's not as accessible if I have to ring up someone and say, hey, I'm coming over to play your machines. Got it. So, anyway. So there we go. But let's just talk about Munsters, because it's now landed in Australia as well. So we got it, I think it was landed probably Thursday or Friday last week. And yet again, on Friday, I finished work, and I knew this guy had got one, and where it was, it was at his work, was on my way home. So I sent him a note saying, hey, are you still there, or have you gone home? And he's like, no, I'll stay. Come on over and play. So I got to play Munsters. So you've got to play Munsters. You gave us a bit of a snippet before. Do you think it's a winner? Sure. Yeah, it's, I mean, it looks like, again, it's early code, what is it, 0.91 right now? Yeah. So is it simple so far? Yes. The kitty shot is interesting. That's the one that doubles the play field, I guess. Yeah. Play field multiplier? Yep. So that's an interesting shot, because I personally don't like shooting up the center for anything, and having it, you know, especially a stand-up that might come back. But the feed was good. So I was worried going into it. It was fine. And you probably experienced that too. The use of the videos from the theme, and I'll say that I love, love the theme. So the use of the videos, really well done. The voice character, similar voices sound pretty good as well too. I thought the flow was great. I love the ramp shots going behind the play field. I love that Borg does that. I played it three times, so I really don't have a lot of experience. But, again, it's all for me. And we talked about this before. I think this is now my third time ever in any incarnation of coming on head-to-head pinball. It's only the third time ever. I've never been on before. I've said that if the shots are good and the code is early don't worry about it the code will get there and the shots are good on this game did you not feel that? I felt the shots were amazing yeah you're right good is an understatement I really do my first impression was holy crap this thing is fast it's really fast so what I like about that is if you miss the shots you've got to be on guard because it'll come right back at you. And the feeling I got was that this is a real flow borg. It flows. It comes back to your flippers really snappy, gets your other shot. So you are. You're shot here, shot there. And it's really interesting because if you look at it on paper, you go, oh, well, it's a standard span layout. But what it really highlights, and I'll talk about the left ramp more specifically. The entrance to that ramp is effectively where just about every other entrance to a ramp is. But just because of the way it's angled and the fact that it goes back around, even though, like the ball, you're not touching the flipper, the ball's gone. For some reason, because you're following where the ball goes and it is more of a left angle, it just feels different. And it feels so satisfying when you can nail that left ramp. It just feels great. And it feels different to all the other games that you've played, even though, logically, it's the same. It's the same layout as a lot of things, but it does not feel the same. And I think this is what I've been hearing throughout the year when I was hearing all these rumours. John Borg had said he thinks that this is probably the best layout that he's done. Now, I think that's too early to say, but from what I played, I think that he's absolutely got everything perfectly placed. Everything feels good. And even that kiddie shot. Kiddie shot's interesting because you look at it and you think, oh, well, that'll be easy to hit. It's not, but it doesn't destroy you when you miss it. Yes, that's very important. You're right. I've heard a few people already say that, and my goodness, Borg may be the MVP in the last 10 years at Stern with everything he's come out with. This game, I've heard a lot of people say, his best layout, so you're not alone there. Okay, good. And that left ramp, it's interesting. I was able to backhand it a few times. I certainly tried it with spot being open when it comes up because that's just a little bash toy that comes out. Very, very cool and a nice feedback. but I was actually backhanding the right ramp all the way around, and boy, it was fun. And I love what they do now in games, and you've seen this before. Fuel would be an example for Borg, for Metallica. Guardians has it with the Guardians stand-up. He now has it with Dragula and with Lily. As opposed to individual stand-ups, like you think of ACDC, the pro, they have individual stand-ups for ACDC, for TNT, and Rock on the right-hand side. it's now this bar. So, you know, you don't have to be just as accurate. You don't have to take that dangerous shot at the bottom one. You know, at the end of the flipper that if you miss, you're probably going to come right back in the out lane. So you can hit that huge bar. I like that with Lily. I like that with Dragula. And again, I've only played it three times and I already liked it a lot. And the code, I didn't get to Monster Madness. In fact, We had a launch party yesterday, and I think there were 41 people that played. Only two people did. So how easy is it? Well, I got to play it three games, and I could have played it longer. But on my third game, I did get to Monster Madness, the second level. Oh. Look out, TPF, when this guy comes to town. Stand back. Keep your dollars in your pocket away from Marty. Don't challenge him. So a couple of highlights. So I think the end game score was something like 250 million. And my best super jackpot shot was 48 million, which is quite reasonable. Was it stacked? Was there another one? Yeah, there was lots of them. I think there was five of them, five stacked, and I also had five times playfield. So it was obviously a fat stack. But then there's a group of friends, including Ryan, and I put the screenshot up there and I said, you know, Grand Champion got to the level two Monster Madness. The first question someone said to me was, oh, does that mean you're done with the game because you've now got to the end? And I didn't feel that way. I still want to play it more. Because people were like, oh, well, you should cancel your pre-order on your Munsters because you've now seen the game. Yeah, yeah, the code's done at 9.1. Brilliant, whoever emailed or said that. Come on. Yeah, but it's more so that if you've got a great layout and it makes you smile, then that should be enough. And I've got my deep games. I will always have my Star Trek and I still have my Wizard of Oz and I've still got my Lord of the Rings. They're my deep game experiences for something where I just want to turn on and flip and experience a great layout. And also, you know, I was only playing the pro, so I've got an LE coming that's for the lower playfield. but also it's not just sort of the layout and yes the rules will come what I really liked about Munsters as well was the choreography the way the lighting makes you feel good and also obviously the GI changing colour as well when you go into Herman Munster the whole thing goes green that's very cool you haven't seen that on a pro for some time and yes some cynical people will say oh it's just like Monster Bash, Monster Bash I said, yeah, sure it did. But I'm talking about in recent years, you haven't necessarily had that kind of dramatic lighting experience on a Pro. So you have the LE coming, correct? Correct. Is it because it's an LE and it's a nice collector's piece? Sure. Is it because of the lower play field? You've played the Pro and you've liked it. Do you not think that that will, and I'm asking because I don't know and you don't know because you haven't played it, do you think it might take away from it the flow of the game? going to the lower play field. I hear it's better than Stewie Pinball. Stewie Pinball is kind of floaty and doesn't really feel like pinball. But I hear this one's a lot better. What is it about the LE versus the Pro? About the LE, it's not necessarily for me because it's for collector's pace. I sort of said this, that I don't necessarily like to buy one knowing that there's a better version. How high was your nose up in the air when you said that? So it's not that. But as I said to you, look, because I've only got room for four machines, I want whatever machine I get to be special. I want it to make me feel special because I've only got four that can do that. So I got the LA. I would have been, I guess, somewhat happy with the premium, but I did prefer the full colour over the black and white. Okay, so if they were both visually the same, I guess they're going to be a little bit different with an LE and a premium. That was the biggest factor, though. Yeah, I did... So had the LE been a black and white, you would have got the premium? Ooh, they see? Oh. I don't know. Uh-huh, there's a better one out there. I don't know. But I was reminded of this on the weekend. And so when I got the Hobbit, I got the Hobbit special edition, the Smaug gold edition, right? So it was the best that you could get. And then they released the Black Arrow edition, right? And that kind of pissed me off. Because I was like, I bought this one because it was the best one to get. And now you bought this one out? That kind of really shits me a bit. You don't think it is different as opposed to better? Well, I don't know. But, anyway, I don't know. But it's just that the whole, like, when you say if the premium had been full colour and the LA been black and white, what would I have done? What would you have done? I don't, fortunately, I don't need to answer that because that's not what happened. Oh, a vote. All right, so. What a bunch of bullshit. There it is. I like the black and white, actually. I actually really like the black and white. Yeah, I think it looks good, too. I don't know. Because I do really, really like Franchi's art, I feel the black and white doesn't showcase his colour, how he does colour and how he does gradients of colour. Yeah. So that's it. Okay. But look, code is early. Code is early. I still have mixed emotions about the code at the moment because I do now, I guess I get why people are sort of saying that the code is too shallow. But I was playing Deadpool during the week. You're a big fan of the Deadpool pinball machine, I know. It's fun. He's not. No, I don't hate it. It's not my favorite. Well, I mean, you're comparing it to the games in between, like Beatles and Iron Maiden and now Munsters. If I have to rank them, it's fourth out of those. But it doesn't mean it's a bad game. No, I understand. No, because I know what you... I'm sort of airing your dirty laundry of what you said, but I know that you think it's a bit clunky, right? It is. There's no other way to... I'm talking about the Pro, which I haven't played the Premium much, but the Pro, that right shot is clunky. The right upshot has to be perfect. And if it's on location, it'll never be perfect. It is. And I streamed the LA. They were saying that a guy invited us to his workplace that he had in LA. And it is clunky. And I think that's its appeal. I came away three hours of streaming because if every shot was just easy to make, well, then the challenge isn't there. I know you can look at that ramp shot and think, well, that's a design flaw. Well, maybe it's actually part of it. Because what I've realised, and I said this before when I first played Deadpool the genius of the layout of Deadpool is it's not the direct shots that are about the game it's the rebounds it's the ricochets it's everything that happens as a result of the ball just being in the right place at the right time without you necessarily being in control of that now that's a massive paradigm for us to really adjust to because we're used to you nail a ramp it goes up that ramp and then you've got to nail your next shot. Deadpool is all about what happens after the first bounce, and that takes a bit of getting used to. I'm shocked. It's early morning on Monday, so I know you haven't had much gin, and you're saying the clunkiness is the attractiveness of it. And again, I'm sorry I relate to competitions. In a competition, I'm player four, and I know I need to get a certain score. I've got two locks done, and there's that risk-reward. You know, do I, back, I'm on the left flipper. Do I go into the scoop to start a mode, or do I go into multiball, and the lock's lit. You know what, I've been nailing that shot, I'm cradled up, I got a clean shot at it. Boom, I go up the thing, a half ramp comes back down, hits a pop, out lane, I'm done. Yep. That attractiveness, yay, oh, you know what, that was cute. No, I know. No! No, and I know, and I said this before, I absolutely hate it in a tournament setting, because of that exact reason, because it's unpredictable. Because it's unpredictable. But as a home game, it's fun. Yes, yes. One thousand percent. And I'm not just blowing smoke. I'm telling you, you're right. It is fun to play in a home game or dollar games and all that kind of stuff, for sure. I don't want to see it in a competition. I absolutely don't want to see it in a competition. But that being said, the most recent code updates, I really like. Right. It's getting better. The code's really good. Okay, so that was actually where I was sort of leading with the story of Deadpool, because I played this for three hours, and here's effectively how people... Well, I know people can play it multiple ways, but if you think about the code for Deadpool, here's its framework, right? The main framework. You've got your multiballs, right? That's fine. You've got Deadpool, little Deadpool multiple, and you've got the ninja multiple, right? You've also then got Disco multiball. So they are three Multi-Balls that are separate, right? But the main framework going through the rules to get to the Wizard Mode are Starter Mode, well, you know, whatever they are, Battle of Villain. What are they called? I think they're battles. So Battle 1, Battle 2, Battle 3, and then you get a boss, which I think is, I can't even remember what it is, but it's like a pterodactyl type creature. You then go back to... Is that the Megalodon, yeah? Yeah. Well, no, no, no. So they're the quests. So they're the two additional quests. But all I'm talking about is that there's, let's write, Juggernaut something. Juggernaut, there's Saber Tooth and Mystique. That's right. So you kill one, you kill the next one, you kill the third one, you then get a boss battle. You do that again, you get to the wizard mode, which is Mr. Sinister, I think it is, right? I haven't been there yet. No, I haven't either. But that's it. that's how you get to the final boss. This is what I've been told. So one character, two character, three character boss, one character, two character, three character final boss. All right, I didn't know that. And then you've got three other multiballs around that. Plus you've also got things like, you know, the chimichangas and all, you know, whatever. You've got the weapons multiball, Wolverine multiball. Yeah, so you've got Mexico multiball, all that kind of stuff. So you've got all those multiballs around you, but that's effectively the framework. Now, people haven't complained about the length of the code. They complained about various incarnations and how it works, but nobody said that Deadpool is too short a game. No, but again, back like we were just talking about with Munsters, if the shots are good, I'm okay with the code not being there yet. So this is the exact opposite. The code is there. The code is good, I think. you and I are pretty good players, and we haven't got there yet, and we've played it a bunch, the wizard mode, but there's that clunkiness, and it's not all across the play field. It's a couple of shots, right? And you know what? Now that I'm putting this on there, and I'm about to go to Chicago for the Sturm Pro Circuit, you know damn well they're going to put it. Let's screw Teola. Let's put Deadpool in, heads up, put him in the main. Do it, guys. Thank you very much, Mark. Do it. Thank you. Thanks. anyway it's is it a fun game yeah it's fun but uh i have two i have two hats right one is a competition hat one is a home hat and the fun hat so the i'm wearing the fun hat playing that game it is certainly the callouts are amazing the animation's great the artwork it's all good and george gomez is a hero he's he does great stuff so all that and tanio uh good for you on your first big game there so it's just uh There's some things that aren't appealing to me, that's all. And I think there are others as well. I understand. And so my parallel, because it came up last week, I mentioned it, was Avengers, right? So I think Avengers, its clunkiness, which it is, really kills people in tournaments. But the code's really good. I think that makes a good home game as well, because if it's clunky and you lose your ball, well, just start another game. It's not going to cost you any more money. but in a tournament where it's life or death or if it's on site and you're putting your money in, you can feel a little bit whipped off. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Good analogy. Thank you. So, shall we talk about the twippings? Sure, if you want. What do you want to talk about? You're a dick. You're a dick. What do you think about the twippings? Let me just... Hold on. I am a massive, massive fan of Jeff Patterson and This Week in Pinball. 100%. That guy has a full-time job, and for almost two years now, he's been putting in another full-time job that doesn't pay to give us this great content, and podcasters absorb it. The casual people love it. I'm sure the website has tremendous numbers. Support it with Patreon. Help them out because Jeff Patterson does great, great things. the Twippy Awards came out last year and you know when I talked to Jeff Patterson he said I want to promote some of the great things in pinball what a great concept, what a wonderful idea and so he's done all these separate awards and what I and I've never said this publicly so please understand, if you have a question email me, talk to me, we'll talk about it I love Jeff Patterson, I love Twip I am not a fan of the Twippies and I will tell you why please do I'm hearing this for the first time so please tell me I know you are that's why I said you dick Ryan knows I don't know how I told you from jail listen I think it's great to promote the wonderful things about pinball the problem unfortunately sometimes can be that there's one winner and everyone else is a loser when that is not the case There are a lot of winners, and I'm not trying to give participation badges to everyone. But this is voted on by anyone, not experts. So as you have to vote of all these wonderful games, Alice Cooper and Beatles and Cosmic Cart and Deadpool and Houdini, Iron Maiden, Monster Bash, Pirates, Mafia, Primus, Supreme and Thunderbird. Those are all the ones for this year, 2018. if you're voting and you haven't played all of those games, fuck off. Don't vote. I haven't played all those games, so I don't vote because I'm not an expert. How can I possibly give my opinion when I haven't played perhaps the best game? I know which ones I like the best. And I say this from experience in my radio background in promotions and marketing, and you're into this too, Marty. Whenever we used to run internet contests or Facebook or social media contests, we quickly realized how fixed they are. And I'm not saying that twips are fixed. I am not saying that. I'm saying the potential is there to fix any internet or social media votes. Go to buycontestvotestowinonline.com. You can buy an internet vote for four cents. Seriously? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, I wish I'd known this before the bloody voting and the trippies stopped. Buycontestvotes.com. Just Google buy internet votes because this was brought to my attention years ago in radio in how somebody won a contest. Stern themselves used to run a contest a couple years ago called the Ultimate Stern Fan Contest These wonderful people sent in these beautiful pictures of themselves and their Stern machine and then they let the internet vote and say go ahead and vote And the votes were, let's be honest, were they fair? Fuck no. People went and bought these, and why wouldn't you? So I'm going to get a new Stern machine and I can spend $100 to get a bunch of votes? Here's my $100. Yeah. You know what I mean? And again, I'm not saying this is the case with TWIP. because what TWIF has done this year is very, very smart. And again, love Jeff Patterson, love This Week in Pinball. He has put together a panel of, I think there's 12 experts, real experts that are going to make sure the votes are legitimate. But the only thing I ask is, how the fuck do you do that? Yeah, well, okay. So there's a couple of parallels I'll give to this kind of thing in Australia. Yeah. So, our, effectively, our TV awards, you know, the lowest rent possible, they're called the Logies. And don't look them up because they're just, like, Logies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're called the Logies. And, effectively, all of the, well, most, I think most of the categories these days are only voted on by industry experts. But then you've got the, you know, the magazine-sponsored popular vote. And, you know, the most talented person never wins. It's always the one that's got the larger fan base. Well, there's that. Right. How about Sanjaya? There's a thing called VoteForTheWorst.com. Sanjaya? Yeah, wasn't Sanjaya on American Idol? American Idol. He was terrible, but couldn't stop watching him? Because people said, vote for the... Sanjaya. Yeah. That's right. So, again, that's... Listen, there's nothing wrong with the Twippies. Nothing, nothing, nothing wrong with the Twippies. But I know what you mean. The way you vote is perhaps the concern. I myself refuse to vote. I just can't. And not because I don't like the Twippies. It's because I haven't played everything. It's not a fair vote. Not fair enough. So, to me, do you know who the winners are? The winners are... How many games were sold? There's your winners. And let's put it this way. Did you make games and they were sold? Did you sell out of what you want to do? There, you're a winner. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. The streamers. How many, okay, you stream. Who's the best streamer? Who's got the most? I guess that's the best. Yeah, that is. And I guess that's already like, that's a popularity contest that's already happened because if you have got the most viewers, you're the most popular. But if you've got, I guess Lashley is probably a good example where T&A and Dialed In were neck and neck with a lot of these awards. Now, T&A only sold, at that stage, probably 200 machines, whereas Dialed In was already selling a lot. So that's a smaller manufacturer versus a larger manufacturer. But just because, in that instance, Jersey Jack had the ability to make more, does that make Dialed In a better machine than T&A? but it also comes back to your original point of this isn't binary just because dialed in one doesn't mean that everything else is shit to me what I would like to see and okay here's an example I did a thing on pinball profile I did the top 10 most intriguing people of 2018 yeah I know by the way we got to mention you got to mention dude I know we're old news we are fucking old news listen listen I never said this was an internet contest. I said, according to me and the people I've talked to. So no one can question. No, that's exactly right. You can't argue with it because it's your opinion. You can't argue with it. That's right. So I would just say, you know what, we put together a panel, which they have, maybe in the future, and say, we played all these games. We're the experts. And, again, the Grammys are on Sunday night. You know, the Oscars are coming up this month, the Baseball Hall of Fame. They don't let just fucking anybody vote. they let some people that have some expertise in it so that it's not a shit show. Right. And I'm not saying TWIP is or was or will be a shit show. But now there's some credibility that, you know, we've got this panel. Here they are. They come from all walks of life. Sure. And that's what I'd like to see. Okay. So then what are... Okay. Eurovision. Surely you'd be into Eurovision, wouldn't you? I do know what it is. Only because I think I know it from this show. I've never seen it, but I do know. Okay. So the big controversy is that Australia now competes in Eurovision, even though we're not part of Europe. But get over it. It's done. But I think this will be like the fourth, maybe fifth year that we've competed. In the previous years, some panel of experts have gone, you know what, we're just going to groom somebody, and that's the person that's going to represent. This year is the first time they've put it into a competition where they actually put 10 people. The way it worked is that they performed in front of a live audience and in front of a jury. Then they performed again, televised, and the public voted. So 50% of the votes came from an expert panel and 50% came from the public. And the reason for that is so that there can be an equal weighting between the experts and the public vote. That's kind of what this needs. And Eurovision globally has now got that same sort of structure because the popular vote was skewing the actual result. So that's probably where Twippy needs to go, where that panel of experts that they've got now to make sure that the voting is all fair, if they were given 50% of the vote, then you've got some normalizing happening there. Maybe. Or just, again, yeah, yeah, sure. I don't want to shit on Jeff Harrison. I love the guy. I've heard. No, no, but look at the stuff. Think of your podcast alone without Twip. We don't get our information from Twip. Some of it. Not a lot. And Twip, by the way, also gets their information from podcasts like you. Yeah, for sure. It's a two-way street. Don't get me wrong. We are unfortunate because our podcast gets recorded before TWIP comes out. So if we've had a long recording and then we're editing, we get to the end of the podcast and say, oh, shit, did we miss anything? Let's look at the speaking people. But no, this is the whole thing. I say we, but mainly Ryan. We do our own research. And that's just unfortunate because of the fact that TWIP comes out at the same time as us. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify that. But I know a lot of people do. A lot of people take that information. And I actually, I read Twip. I usually read it when I'm editing or after I've edited because it fills in a lot of the blanks. We're just one part of the opinion. Twip is another opinion on the same topic. Gotcha. That being said, and I'm sincere, I hope to hell you guys win the Twippy Award. Because I know it meant something to you at one point. Maybe it doesn't anymore, but it's a nice recognition. It was last year. You'd only been on for half a year. You're one of the top three. That's pretty cool. And it's the go-to podcast for me and almost everybody I know, too. You want to hear pinball news, a little bit of humor. You go to head-to-head, and that's in all sincerity. Sure. I really do appreciate that. And, you know, we obviously got into a bit of hot water when we did say a while ago that, you know, they're not that important. It's not true. They are important to us, but we are not going to go to www.buymyinternetvote.com. We're not going to beg for votes. We're not going to canvas for votes. If you like what we do, listen to our podcast. Just listen to the podcast. Maybe support you on Patreon. Those kind of things. That's all you do it for, right? It's all you do it for. Yeah, that's exactly right. That being said, I have a special treat for you. Go. I know you've been having to try to find some co-hosts, Smarty, each week. God bless, Stacy. You missed the bed this week. That's okay. Next week will be better. But may I suggest a friend of mine that I think would do very well. I think you guys will get along. Okay. His name is Brian C. Brian, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Hey, Brian, how are you? Pretty good, Jeff. Yourself? I'm all right. You know, you sound, are you Australian? Yes, I am. Okay. All right. Good. I'd like to introduce you to Marty. Marty, Brian. Hey, Brian. Hi, man. I think you guys have hit it off. I don't know if we need to do anything. The chemistry is right there. Yeah. So, Brian, are you a pinball player? Nearly, yes. Yes, just got into it. Okay. Competitions, collecting, what do you do? Oh, maybe Marty can get me into Timber. Really? God, there's something about you that rings a bell. Anyway, yeah, you know, there's the big competition next week. Martin and his former partner Ryan, see, who's been in prison now for a couple weeks. The Australian Championships are coming up. That's a big deal. You think you can do it? Do you think you could someday be good enough to make the Australian Championships? Sure, Brian C. will strive for that. You know what, I can't, I can't. Marty, I lied. It's really Ryan. I know you, I know you're talking to somebody else. Ryan, hello, how are you, buddy? You woke me up for that, Jeff. Get back on your fucking show, would you? It's a final round, all right? Did you not hear Stacey Borg last week? Oh, stop it. Patreon, all subscribers just quit. You actually owe them money now, you idiot. Get back on the show. How are you? Oh, Brian Slay. Hilarious. That's a good voice. It wasn't that bad. Like, it's only 7.30 in the morning. It's not like it's 4 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, that's right. I said, you got to get up. Yeah, that's right. I said, you got to get up and do it. He goes, ah, fucking busy. I'm like, I've heard your bullshit. How many times have I been asked to come on the show? And, of course, I always said no. Somebody else came into my place. No, you keep asking us to come on the show. You keep asking to come on the show. I think I've been asked 20-plus times to be on the show. Ryan, you can come on when I'm on, you son of a bitch. How are you? I officially like three times or something. I'm all right. I'm taking a break because Marty, I mean, Marty joked that, you know, the way we started the podcast is you know we met we had sex and then we started a podcast it's I forgot about that so I went and got tested and full my name so just in recovery at the moment and starring on Rent on Broadway I hope you don't see it up soon you're going to be at the Australian Championship So, you guys, isn't that next week? Yeah, it's this week. Correct. How are you guys playing? Are you excited? I mean, that's a big deal. I'm playing terribly at the moment, so I'm just going to have some fun. Yeah. I won a competition a couple of weeks ago and fought with the goods, and then so I had a go the other day and came, like, in the bottom 30% or something. I could go either way, Jeff. So I could come last, or I could come close to last. Very exciting. How many people win it? Can you explain? I don't know how the competition works. So for us in North America, how does your Australian Championship Series work? Explain. It's the first day of qualifying, you are in one, in a group of, there's three groups, and it's effectively four-player match play, and the top 16 go through to the finals, and then it's head-to-head elimination best of seven games. Okay. Yeah, that's it. And you're driving there, aren't you, Martin? I am driving because I'm bringing all my streaming gear. I am going to be streaming the event, so yes. It's only a seven-hour drive, so it's not too bad. All right, okay. I'm excited for you. Are you talking about Beatles and Munsters? Has that been done? Yeah, okay. What do you think? We talked about Munsters. We haven't talked necessarily about Beatles yet. What do you think of Munsters, Ryan? you think it's clunky well no not clunky it shoots really well it's just hard after playing Beatles to enjoy months as much as I would if I hadn't played a new pinball machine for three months or something you know what I mean it was in the same week so I'm obviously gonna throw one over the other and Beatles has that tight rule set that I think makes you feel excited for progressing the modes. Level 1, Level 2, Level 3. Plenty of... I'm listening to Beatles music and everyone knows Beatles music. Monsters means nothing to me. I've said it a million times, but I don't know. I don't think any of the modes feel different from each other. Yes, there's a multiball. Yes, one's a Switch frenzy, but everything's very samey. It's just... I don't know. and maybe that's because the scene doesn't resonate to me I've always said that you know scene doesn't matter too much this is the first time I felt like maybe it really does matter because I don't feel that much when I'm playing this two more machines Ryan you didn't know three Iron Maiden songs before you played that game I was on the show with you guys and you were naming some songs and we were like oh my god he knows nothing you love that game so is only a bonus, I think. I started listening to Iron Maiden a couple of months before the Pimor machine came out. So then there's a bit of familiarity there. But it's weird because it's such an old TV show that half the sounds in the pin are new and half of them are old. And it's being mashed together, right? like clips from the show plus all the new sounds they've created. And it's kind of like, I don't know, like a mismatch of the two worlds that doesn't really ring true. Are you shitting on Jerry Thompson? How dare you? No, see, I think because I am so familiar with the original clips that I can resolve that because you've got to have new sounds. That's just, if it had old sounds, it would be sort of, I think that would be a bit weird. But because I'm so committed with the old clips, they do kind of merge well with me. But I can sort of understand. I mean, like, even when you're hearing, like, canned laughter with some of the clips, that may actually seem a bit weird, hearing that, you know, weird pinball sounds going as well. So I get why people would find that a bit of a weird disconnect. For me, I find that absolutely fine. You like playing it? Yeah, love it. You're still happy to be out? Yeah, absolutely, and so is Andy. so what I did say previously is I think that this is probably the tightest and best layout that Borg's done in a while I found particularly the left ramp to be super satisfying if you can backhand the right ramp which I did a couple of times it makes you feel like a god the rules need to be fleshed out they need to develop more obviously I talked about the fact that I got up to the second in Monster Madness on my third game. So if I can get to the end of the game on my third game, then it probably needs to be a bit harder. And yeah, and I think some of the choreography is great, like the lighting is great. I think tying that all together, there's some timing that needs to change. Like sometimes the video clips go too long and it takes you out of the game. Sometimes some of the fanfare, like when you're going into the Dracula and that sort of stops, like that's kind of, oh, you need to tighten that up, guys. That'll come, hopefully. Yeah. It's weird because usually with, like, with Ghostbusters, you pretty much, like, can't skip anything. With Munsters, you can skip half the stuff but not the other. Yeah. So, yeah, it is early codes, and I'm glad that it's the code that needs work rather than the layout. Yeah, I mean, the LCD integration is fine, I think. It's just the code. And we've seen it before with Guardians and blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, who knows what it's going to change to. It's not guaranteed to change into something that people are going to like. And it is designed to be a shallow game. So regardless of how much it changes, it has to change so that the modes... Like, everyone loves shallow games. A lot of people love Beatles. A lot of people love Iron Man. I don't like Iron Man enough to keep it because what is there isn't good enough for me to keep in the home. The older games are obviously good enough for me to keep because they're cheap as well, and maybe that's part of it. Beatles, I think I'd love to have. Munster is going to be a shallow-ish game. The rules have to be so freaking good for people to want to play that shorter loop over and over again because there's no carrot dangling in front of people saying, hey, you might get here. You're going to see everything, so you better fucking enjoy it. Yep, and I guess that's probably a good summary from me is that there was no real sort of contrast. There was no light and shade. It was these five modes happened, all this happened, and then I got into Monster Madness. Everything just felt like it just happened. Yeah, what's your favorite mode? They're all the same, right? like it's there's not one big but they're not literally no but then but this is the whole thing right is that they're not the same but they don't stand out as being different that's that's on yeah that's what I'm saying there's no there's no moments yet the only moment is catching in a super jackpot which obviously is different depending on your multipliers and how many super jackpots stacked but that's not necessarily a mode it's just that's what you're working towards yeah I miss Brian's to you already Oh, funny I can't believe I called you in Alright, thanks for coming on, mate It's been great to speak to you even though I speak to you all the time during the week so, anyway I'll see you on Friday You will indeed and then the following Wednesday which is the 20th of Feb we've actually got a Munsters launch party and we'll be streaming that as well Yeah, I had someone put a Munster Pro Pinball at Pinball Paradise in Melbourne and it'd be very interesting to see the audit because I received, because I'm the one who posted on social media that it's there, I received about three texts within 24 hours saying, oh hey, why'd you turn Ball Save off? I do it watching the streams or listening to the freaking podcast, like, there's no Ball Save by default and yeah, I'm wondering should I put something on like the on like the apron cards or something to say that because yes it's the fault but I don't want to feel like people might start getting gripped off yeah I think you should do it yeah okay because people will go what? no ball of praise and then look down and go oh okay that's why or maybe they don't read because no one reads the instructions well that's also true maybe because they're yellow cards yeah Wow, sound mixes that are done with gel and yellow cards. Ryan won't be back for weeks now. He's got it out of his system. Everything is awesome, Jeff T. always. Everything is awesome. Wow. Wow, I love this company. I love that company. Everything is fucking sunshine and rain. You haven't heard the start of this podcast. It's not a big deal. You're going to shit on everyone, but all the companies. Actually, no, the home pin burn was pretty good. That's one of the How you carry Did you hear the Torpies Yeah There was some Major shitting in that That is true I got it Yeah See you mate Bye See you later Ryan Ryan Get back on the show You son of a gun Anyway Ta-da There you go Yeah Awesome You know what When you told me You said You know He needs Some time To often do things We all do right Like I'm lucky I've got seven shows done I have to edit and put out so do I really have to record? Nope I just do it when I want to do it you guys are giving yourself this very difficult here we are every Monday but good on you for realizing you know what, we're just busy whether it's personal stuff, family stuff you've had stuff and we've all had stuff we've all had stuff put shit aside man we'll wait, we'll be here when you come back and so Ryan, when you're ready get all your stuff done, come on back dude Yeah, but also just the full stop to all of that is, whenever we haven't recorded, it really hasn't been easy, you know. One time we didn't record, my brother died the day before. You know? And the thing of it is, I wanted to record. I was ready to record because that's how much we love doing the podcast. But just, I think it was a couple of hours before I said, do you know what, Ryan, I won't be able to laugh tonight, therefore the podcast won't be as good as it should be, let's not do it. The other time, and I told this story on the stream the other day, because people don't know this, but do you know the time that Ryan's wife, Chanel, came on the podcast because she was freaking hilarious? She came on because I was in hospital with a suspected heart attack. I did not know that And we talk all the time How the hell did I not know that? Because it wasn't a heart attack I'd actually just gotten so fucking angry with somebody at work That it just something snapped inside of me But you know I was in hospital with an ECG But I wanted to record the podcast That's what I'm saying is that And Ryan's the same Ryan right now would love to be recording the podcast But there's just some things that happen in our lives that stop us from doing it. But, you know, the show's going to go on. Of course it is. And you've got to be, again, with your brother passing away. I mean, that was so tragic. And you can't do a show. It's tough to do. So good on you. But that happened live on stream. I was streaming. I know. It happened. That's just one of those things. It's just a real balance between, you know, doing a quality show each week and also balancing a life as well. because this can be all-encompassing. It's not just, you know, we record on a Monday night or sometimes six o'clock on a Monday morning, but throughout the week, all we are doing, and it comes back to what we were saying about Trip, we are doing the same thing that Jeff Patterson is doing. We are researching topics and we are talking back and forth all week preparing for the stories to talk on the podcast that we then record. So it can become quite time-consuming. You have such a built fan base and it's wide-ranging. People are going to cut your slack if you've got personal stuff to do on it. Do you want to know how dedicated Martin is right now? Here's the truth. As we record this, we started 6 a.m. Australian time for Martin. He will record this, then drive to work, then go home and edit the show, put out the show, and then, and not until all that's done, then drink two bottles of gin. That's how dedicated Martin is. I might be drinking throughout all of that. Who knows? It's very likely. Anyway, so let's go back to the news. So, Stern of the Union came out this week. Yes. Yes. And, look, to summarise, obviously they're talking about the monster of launch parties. We talked about before that we're having one. This is kind of, not for a long time, I think we've actually had a launch party of a machine around the same time. I mean, if you think about it, we've got our pros. everybody's only started getting their pros in the last couple of weeks. And you got it. And we got ours. So that's actually kind of really cool that we've been able to get ours at about the same time so we can do our launch parties at about the same time as the world. How long did it take for the last three Big Stern games? How long did it take for Iron Maiden, for Deadpool, and for Beatles to show up in Australia? We're usually two to three months behind. Holy cow, and you've got monsters now. Correct. That's because of head-to-head. Yeah, the pulling power. It is. Yeah, it has to be. Well, you know, I say that half-jokingly, but how much interest in pinball has grown in Australia? I've talked to Josh Sharpe about it, and he said it's booming. Yeah. He's had conversations with you about growing the Australia scene. So, I mean, hey, man, you're already world on the map. It's one of the big growth areas for sure in pinball. Wait, that's what I wanted to do with the podcast was just to continue to promote pinball. And we're doing our part, so that's awkward. Uh-huh. So, the other thing they started talking about was the Stern Pro Circuit Championship. So, I want you to explain it to me. Oh, okay. So, there are 20 Stern Pro Circuit events in the calendar year. And the big ones that everyone would know would be InDisc, Pinberg, and in fact am I saying it right? Is it Brisbane or Brisbane? How do you say it? Brisbane. It's not Melbourne, it's Melbourne. That's right. So Brisbane Masters is actually one of those events this year in 2019. So they take whatever Whoppers you get in those 20 events, they take the top 40 people and most of them are in North America as you can understand. They take the top 40 people and play in this special tournament in Chicago in early March, and that is the Stern Pro Circuit Final. It's something that replaced the Papa finals. Papa used to do something similar where they would award different points, not Whopper points, but different points for tournaments, and then they would take the top 40 people. So now Stern has it. There are 10 four-player groups, and the top two advance to the top 20 and then to the top 10, and then it's elimination after that. So the top 40 people, and I luckily was there last year, and I'm lucky enough to be there again this year. It wasn't top 40, by the way. I was 57 last year. People dropped out. I got in 43rd this year. A little better. Still got in. So that's coming up. I'm looking forward to it. And last year, Josh Sharpe won the championship. And what's interesting about that is he did not play very, very well by his own admission, but he was just good enough to get through to the next level to get to the next level. So when you got to the top 10, you're in a four-player group. So in that first group, 7, 8, 9, 10 play. You just don't want to be last. The last person gets the boot. Oh, is this like the ladder? Is this where once you progress, the next person... I love this format. So Josh was terrible in all those ladder matches but wasn't last, wasn't first until the final game. Isn't that something? And so he won the final game. He won against Colin Urban, a young guy, a great player. He did too. From the West Coast. Okay, so this is the one that we incorrectly reported on Josh Sharpe winning a major. And I think Sheriff Dex Peckerwood ran... Sheriff Dex Peckerwood? Yeah. You son of a bitch. Okay. He was the director, so yeah, so this wasn't necessarily... But, okay. The truth is, to me, it's major like. It's not because it doesn't allow everyone to play in it, but, you know, well, I guess you could go to all the events, but it's a biggie for sure. Yeah, it'll be fun. As you know, Dead Flip will be streaming it. You'll be able to watch it. Ed Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies is going to be performing. It's last year where they announced That Iron Maiden Was going to be released With a little tease, yeah, okay Will there be an announcement this year For maybe Steve Ritchie's next game Who knows Well who knows, I don't know Well okay, so then let's go through Skip to a point that We've got on the show notes as next We're talking about Steve Ritchie's next game So People have been sort of saying over the last ever since it was announced that he's working on an original theme that it's either going to be Black Knight 3000 or High Speed 3 and I been hearing recently the latest and who knows what it is is that it more likely to be High Speed 3 I sort of said who knows But I wanted to do a bit of powers of deduction because if he said he's doing an original theme, neither of those are original themes. They're themes that have already been done. But I don't know. I should have looked and I had the notes here. I didn't bother to look. Is High Speed trademarked? And all, it's Williams. Yeah, I think Black Knight and High Speed are now, they would be considered IP, their intellectual property. So they would be licensed to Williams, right? It's like saying, you know, can Zen Pinball do a Medieval Madness? Could they actually do a re-theme, like a new layout of Medieval Madness? Well, no, they couldn't because that license is now copyright. That's actually, you know, Williams down the line. So if they're saying that he's doing an original theme, surely that means it's not a theme that's been done before. I think people were so fixated that he's going to be doing a sequel to one of his legendary games. They assumed it would be a quote-unquote non-licensed theme. You pointed out that these are licenses. I think people have gotten off track. It is going to be a sequel game. Martin, congratulations Roller Games 2 will be coming out this March by Steve Ritchie I would love a Roller Games 2 you know I would, but I think you know what, I think the reason why it wouldn't work now is because they wouldn't be able to make it as kitsch and cheesy as the original, it would become really serious, so yeah, good point you know what, I forgot to ask Ryan C when he was on too, talking about themes and stuff. He listened to Iron Maiden for two months before the game came out to get familiarized with it. The theme, I've never really liked themes. It's never been a big thing for me. But now I think because I don't like the monsters, yeah, the theme does matter to me. Ryan, have you gone and watched some monsters shows to prepare for this? Because they're pretty darn funny. I'm going back, but themes, as we talk about themes. Steve Ritchie, okay, so let's say it's not called High Speed 3. could he call it Getaway 2? Or, you know what I mean? Or can it just kind of have that same RPM in the middle and it just be called something different? Yeah, it could be. It could be just a car theme, who knows? Does the title really matter if it's high speed-esque or if it's Black Knight-esque? Probably not. Well, I think to fans of those licenses, there you go, I've said it, that want a sequel, I think it would be really important for them for it to be called Black Knight 3000, that would be like, oh, that is so cool. But if it was the other sort of, you know, the charcoal knight, people would kind of go, well, it's kind of the same thing. You're just trying to get around a license that's a bit cheap. If the gameplay is well, do you really care what the title is? I don't. No, but yes. Do you really? Yeah. Yeah, if it was a Black Knight 3000, I would be going, cool, it's a sequel to one of my favourite games, that's great. But what I guess I'm saying is, I don't want him to do a Black Knight or a high-speed sequel, because I want those machines that were legendary of the time to stay that way. I don't want to have a new look on an old franchise. Totally original, then. I would want him to do something completely original. If there's a guy who could do it, it would be him. Will Stern do that, though? And I don't know the answer to this. I have no knowledge. Would Stern do that? When was the last time they did a non-licensed game? I know the answer. Do you? Ooh, it would have been, like, Shockey Street Out or that High Roller Casino way back when. Yeah. So it's going to take – is Stern really going to do that? But now, like you say, Black Knight would be considered a license. Is it a cheaper license than to get Star Wars or Game of Thrones, his last two games? Of course it's going to be cheaper. So what if he just calls it BK-3000? Or, you know what I mean? BK-3K. Uno. BK-3K. Ooh, I like that. That's good. That works. Wow. But again, I'm excited. No matter what the title is, no matter if it's a sequel or not, it's a Steve Ritchie game. Your favorite guy, my favorite guy, as far as the course of how long we've been playing pinball, the Steve Ritchie games are the ones that were like, wow. Over the course of time, those are the ones that really... It was Black Knight for me that got me into pinball. That is the game as a child. Mine was Firepower. That really cemented my love of pinball. That's a Steve Ritchie. So it's Firepower 3 then? Yes. Is that a license? Yeah, well, anything that's been done Has been trademarked, I guess So you would call it a license Okay Unless they've let those licenses expire You know Ah, you might be onto something You know what I mean So Yeah There you go Last bit of news Just a bit of a code update And we Ryan was talking about Beatles Let's just quickly talk about Beatles So 1.1 code has just been released There was a lot of lines there Effectively the skill shots have been and their values have increased. I streamed Beatles last night, so I got to play it for three hours. Let's ask you first. What do you think about Beatles? It looks really nice. It plays, I think, better than Sea Witch. I'm still learning a lot of it. We had it yesterday at a tournament, and unfortunately, midway through the tournament, on the set of four drop targets, that's spelled the word four, the first drop target started the game down so you couldn't select a mode. So I was like, oh, so we had to take it out because I'm like, that's kind of a big, big deal. You know, you want to go through your modes in a certain order and you couldn't do so. But boy, I certainly get a kick out of that game. The sounds are good. I don't know the best strategy, although I've read a lot online about, I think Adam Lefkoff talked about caching two super jackpots as opposed to doing one behind the fab thing. Wait, start another mode, complete it, then that's a way to blow up the game. So I'm like, okay. I was excited to try. I never got a chance to do that yesterday, but I like the code at 1.0 or whatever. Was that now 1.1? I'm curious to see what it's like. Yeah, as I played it last night. And I think that's really cool that a player like the Lefkos can sort of say, you know, wait for two super jackpots. Because if you're good enough to do that, then you are an amazing player. This game plays like a solid state machine. And so it should. It's based on a solid state machine. But, you know, like TNA, which looks like a solid state machine, it is ridiculously fast. It has got modern components. even though Beatles does they've softened the flippers they've softened the pops and the slings so it feels like a solid state it's got a ridiculously wide flipper gap so what you thought you could save on other stir machines you can't on the Beatles but it does have a simpler rule set but as Ryan said it's a very tight rule set you know exactly what you're doing we had so much fun playing it last night and it really is it's a great party game but it's also a skill leveler because when this machine decides that it is going to drain you it happens immediately and there's not much you can do about it yeah isn't it neat that Stern now doesn't put rubbers on the outlanes and it still works you saw that in Deadpool you saw that on Beatles I can't remember on Monsters I think it's got them yeah no it does It actually has them off because we put them on the Munsters. So, yeah, by default, it comes without Rubbers on the Outlands. It's a fun game. I don't know the best strategies. I'm curious what you did. The one I've heard is go Pops, then Drops, and then Spinner, if it's not Ball 3, otherwise go for the multiball. Yeah, what I like about this is, yeah, so there's five modes, but all my loving, you can't select unless it's your fifth mode that you're going for or if it's on ball three, you can select it. But what I like about this is, yeah, obviously you've got spinner mode, drop target mode, loop mode and... Pop bumpers. Pop bumpers, right? If you as a player, you get to choose what you're most comfortable with. So if you fear going into the pops is going to be too random, well, don't pick that as your first mode. Pick something that's a bit safer, like loops or spinners, really. Drop targets, I think, is probably the most dangerous because if you're talking about the Fab Four bank, well, they're just going to rebound back either to the flippers or to the outlanes, and with no rubbers on it, outlanes are sure death. so that's for me I was always picking the spinner mode first because not necessarily the right spinner but the left spinner that they've added that wasn't on Sea Witch ripping that spinner is so satisfying so I was just doing that because it made me feel good not because it was necessarily a good strategy but ultimately you are going to be going through all of the modes to get to Betamania multiple anyway, so do what you're comfortable with, I think. Martin, I did the same thing you did. I started with spinner because I could make a shot, and it was fun. It's something new that Sea Witch didn't have, that left spinner. Never went for the right spinner. It was too tough. But the left one, yeah, I could do, and you could even, on the upper flipper, hit it early, and you'd get some spins there too. That's correct. But talking to Ryan, or Brian C, whatever his name was, he was telling me that when you do the other modes, you, I hope I'm not screwing this up, when you do something like Pops first, the next time you get to loops or drop targets, you're making progress so they'll be worth more. So do something right off the bat. And I think that's going around because the magnet will drop it into the Pops. There's some big points there too. But you're right about just doing it because it's fun. I can play Beatles over and over and over again. Wish the price wasn't what it was. That's exactly right. That's the only thing I have difficulty with is justifying the price, but they're going to sell it anyway, so it's not for me, as some pinball machines have been. That's the new marketing slogan for some pinball machines. It's not for you. Yeah, pinball, not for everyone. This one's not, but I do like playing it, man. It's fun, fun, fun. It is just a hell of a lot of fun. The music does get a little bit repetitive after a while But that's going to be any music pin Right? See I'm a massive Beatles fan But from 67 on So I remember when Franchi talked about Which one are they going to do? Are they going to do the Yellow Submarine And the LSD Beatles You know When they fell in love with drugs And the Maharishi Or are they going to do something That hadn't been done, the Beatlemania so I think it was a wise choice to do the Beatlemania one from a fan perspective for me you know, gimme Abbey Road gimme the later stuff for sure, you know Magical Mystery Tour, I like that kind of stuff anyway, it's still great what if they'd done the White album? sure, yeah, that's fine would it have just been White? would it have been like Supreme? that's where I was going with that oh yeah, the toothpaste game the Colgate game That's right, Colgate. All right. Shall we do Pinslam, the top 100? I would be honored to do Pinslam. This is awesome. I love it. Thank you for bringing it back. Well, because you actually sort of, I think, three times now have said, I'm only coming on if we do Pinslam, which is pretty much... It's fun. It is fun. Because you know what? I can read a flyer just like you can. Okay. Well, we are going to, because it's the top 100, Let's do the top 100 Because we are going to have machines against each other That, you know, we would never have had you and I argue these machines So, because you have done it once So Okay I'll pick my number first and then we'll pick yours Okay, go ahead Okay, here we go Okay, Google, pick a number between 0 and 100 Sure 98 Oh yeah Banzai Run Banzai Run Yep that's awesome So that's mine I do like the game though It's a good game I know And I know how much you love Lawler I do So this will be an easy win Alright Okay Google Pick a number between 0 and 100 Okay 44 44 Congo Oh perfect Are you kidding You are going down, buddy. Not a chance. Because you got the higher number, you get to go first. Okay, let me just get the flyer here. Hold on a second. Let's talk about Congo. We won't talk about who the designer is. Doesn't matter. The game is fantastic. The game is great. 1995. You want to talk about a game that has just, over the years, gotten better and better and better. As it's about to celebrate 25 years now, this game is still sought after in all kinds of tournaments and by collectors because there is so much to do in this game. You want to go for gray. You want to go for diamonds. You want to aim the multiball. There's just all kinds of things you can do in this game, and it gave us that incredible skill shot that we hadn't seen before where you just shoot it around. You pull the plunger, and you try to go into the left out lane. Why would I do that? That's crazy. No, because it's worth $25 million, and it's a great... And your kickback's still lit. Lots of fun. I know I'm running out of time. I'll talk more about Congo later. Great game. Okay. So, Banzai Run. A legendary game because this was the first game that was made by Pat Lawler. And everyone knows how much I love Pat Lawler games. I don't. I don't. except for a couple of games. And one of them is Banzai Run. The first thing everybody knows about this game is it's got the vertical playfield on the back. So those people that don't know, look up Banzai Run, B-A-N-Z-A-I, and, you know, have a look at what I mean by the fact that you've actually got a ball that travels up to a, you know, let's call it a vertical playfield, and then you've got to battle against these other bikes because it's effectively a motocross, I guess, thing. But it's not just the output. That can be a bit of a gimmick. But the actual layout down below is really underrated. It's actually, on its own, that would have been a fantastic game in its own right, just having that bottom layout. It is fantastic and then you just get the bonus. The other thing that's great about this game is it's got a really good light show. It was kind of one of the ones that really had this really good choreography, sort of one of the first machines that really paid attention to that, but also great sounds as well. So Bazaar Run is a fantastic game. Over to you. I won't shit too much on this game. It's one of my favorite Pat Lawler games, but it does have some problems. There are way better solid-state games. The upper play field is certainly unique. It's eye-catching, but because of the gravity of it being upright and vertical, it's quick shots. You don't spend a lot of time up there. And if you're cradling up, you can make those shots pretty easy. So it's a lot of rinse and repeat. Get back up, do the same thing over and over again. The right ramp is wasted. It's not a shot you use a lot. The right spinner is wasted a lot. The captive ball is not something you go for. There's some misses there. I don't want to shit on it completely, but by far, Congo is the way better game. There's so much to do in that game. Okay. Fair enough. You make some good points. And you know what? Do I like Congo? Guilty as charged. Guilty as charged. Just guilty. Fine, yeah. Is that all you got? Are you implying John Trudeau made the game? Yes, you're right. Just in case people didn't get the subtext of that. Yeah. Okay. Congo's a really interesting one because it's actually got a really kind of quirky layout. I'm not even going to go with the cheap option here of talking about the theme because everyone says how much a terrible film Congo was. Right? Except for me, I actually quite liked it. But that's what I'm talking about, right? Because maybe that's the biggest criticism I can give of this machine, is that I like the theme. But the problem with the layout is that people don't really understand what they're doing, what shots they're going for. It's not labeled as clearly as people would like. but also the biggest flaw that it's got is once you work out how to do the thing which is effectively just getting diamonds the rest of the game doesn't matter anymore you don't actually do anything else and that lower play field could have been so much better it kind of in a way it feels kind of good doing it where you're trying to get the grey but it's just really lacking and you sort of do it and you go oh is that it better go back and get some diamonds because that's all you're doing. It's this really interesting layout that's just underutilized. It's just not as good as people give it credit. You're already into the gin. You can't see the lock lights. You can't see the diamonds that are flashing, the volcano, the... Oh, Kim, you remember that game? No, what I'm saying is... And the resale is for dick. Don't you talk about your dick. But, you know, the hype was real for a while now people are looking at it going huh probably not as good as we thought it was you get to choose one game to put in your house which one is it? Banzai Run or Congo? Banzai Run, easily lie, oh you fucking liar it's absolutely true Banzai Run is by far the better game the truth will come out next week when the results come out and he goes I was lying. Of course I'd take Congo. It's the greatest game ever. It's so underrated. I'll buy one right now. Send me an email. I'm buying Banzai Run. Look, we've just got a couple of points to end on. Just really social media words. Do-do-do-do-do-do, whatever. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Super Bowl. So Super Bowl happened. And the reason why I'm bringing this up Because there was actually two pinball related videos That came out about this time But I just wanted to ask you this question Because I know you went to a Super Bowl party Therefore you must be into Super Bowl Everyone, and I'm not at all But people were saying that it was a really I don't know, boring match Or I don't know What was the deal with Super Bowl this year? Why were people so unhappy with Super Bowl? My favorite team was in the Super Bowl, so I couldn't have been more excited for the Super Bowl. When the game actually happened, it was terrible from both teams' standpoint. They were missing passes. It was just no excitement. The first three quarters of the game was boring, boring, boring. So that's the problem with it. Halftime show was boring. It was just a big miss. They've had some exciting games in years past. this one was one of the worst I've ever seen. That's why. Okay. Well, that's what I was trying to work out because if I was to watch the game, I wouldn't know what quality is or isn't in a game like that. But I just... Everybody on social media was just posting about how terrible a game it was. So I just wanted to ask why it was. And also apparently the halftime wasn't that great as well with Maroon 5. So anyway, whatever. No. So if you're into it for the halftime entertainment, you were also disappointed this year. So there's really three things that people are watching Super Bowl for. Either the game, where you're saying it's crap, the halftime entertainment, it was crap, or the ads. How were the ads this year? Anything stand out? There were some pinball videos, I guess, with Sony and the Supra return. So, again, if you're watching the Super Bowl for the ads, you're missing the point. You should be drunk by that point. And you can watch them the next day on YouTube. So, yeah, did you see the pinball ads? I saw the Supra Super Bowl one, yes. It was cool. Big deal. Yeah, big deal. If someone didn't bring it to my attention, I wouldn't have noticed. I was like, oh, okay, great, wow. Yeah, it was cool. I mean, we are pinball nerds, right? So my take on it was, okay, it's a car that's in an environment that somewhat resembles a pinball, but it wasn't pinball enough. It wasn't like true pinball. I mean, they had this big, like, I don't know, it looked like a bulldozer on a rotating thing. I'm like, you never see that in a pinball. Maybe that's a deep, maybe that's a deep innovation that's coming. It's actually one. Red and Ted's Roadshow. Yeah, kind of. It looked cool. And, you know, obviously everybody in the pinball community was like, oh my God, pinball, it's back in mainstream. So it really wasn't. No, I agree. But I reckon the cooler of the videos was Sony Bravia has released like a 4K video. and I think it's one of those things that's just to showcase what 4K video can look like. Have you seen that one? I have not. Have you? I have. And everyone that I've spoken to has said, make that pinball machine. In fact, people I know... Oh, I've got to look. People that I know, I'll link it in the show notes, but people that haven't even, you know, they're not into pinball have looked at that and gone, oh my God, that looks amazing. It's like, yeah, they don't make pinball machines like that. I wish they did. If they did, it would cost a lot more than they do at the moment. It's very cool. And that one, even though it's not quite keeping to reality and what you can do, it's kind of highlighting what the future of pinball could look like. I don't know. I'm probably just hyping up a bit much. But it's very cool to watch. So make sure everybody watches that. It's very common. We're going to see some new innovations this year, right? Jersey Jack always comes out with something. If they've got two games, I would guess that they have some innovation. Your friends at Haggis are talking about something new. Deep Root is actually talking about pinball difference. We'll see it all in 2019, I think. Well, I hope so. No one wants a revolution. We just want a bit of evolution. Well put. There you go. And the last thing, I just want to do a big shout-out to Buffalo Pinball because they had their four-year anniversary of streaming this week. That's very cool. Very good. And dedication and a good network, too. So it's not easy to stream, you know. You do it with Melbourne Silver Ball League, and congratulations to you, too. Just like Buffalo's four-year anniversary, you now are at four subscribers. So congratulations. If I'm lucky, four viewers. on a good day. I do try to watch it, but I can't watch it live because of the timing. Yeah, no, I understand. No, look, you know, I do it for a bit of fun. I mean, last night's Beatles, we had 150 people watch. That's kind of cool. I'm happy with that. That's good, yeah. I'm all right with that. That's fun. Martin, because of who you are, if, again, the timing was different, you would have a lot more in North America where, obviously, there's a lot more pinball people interested. So you probably have people watching it after the fact, like myself. Yeah, probably. I do get a lot of views after. So what's happening on Pinball Profile? What's coming up? You said you've got seven interviews in the bag. What should we look forward to coming up? This week you will hear Joe Katz from Jersey Jack, a game programmer. That will be out probably Tuesday, all right, because you're coming out on Monday. I don't want to steal any thunder, so that will come out Tuesday. on Valentine's Day from Pittsburgh, John and AJ Replogle. They are a big part of Papa and they also run the Pinball Dojo so we'll hear from them. Antoinette Johnson will be on soon and a whole list of other people so it's going to be fun for you and others to hear about these people outside of their normal lives and to get to know them a little bit better because they're interesting people. And you were also on the This Week in Pinball podcast this week as well. How'd that go for you? It was great. It was, you know, I've only met Zach once, and he'll be coming on later on this month because he's also opened a new arcade, Flip N Out Pinball Arcade in India. So, yeah, I had fun for sure. We gave a lot of props to Head to Head in that episode, as we should, and I'm telling you, man, I'm not just blowing smoke up here, but this This head-to-head thing is a lot of fun. Anytime I can help out in any possible way, I'm always there because it's just such a fun show to be a part of. And I know Ryan feels the same way you do it. You get that back. So, Twippies or not, you know you're doing a great job. And I do hope you win the Twippies. But if you don't, there shouldn't be any disappointment. I would sleep really well either way. Well, you'll be hammered. I know you're going to be hammered. You're going to be hammered. That's what I mean. You'll be partying with Mrs. Penn in her gold lame. Well, that's it. So we're only a few more weeks away from Texas Pinball Festival. I am very much looking forward to it. Are you not going? Are we still decided, undecided? I have two trips in March already. I'm in Chicago in the second week, and the last week I'm in Las Vegas. So am I going to go back to back? Probably not. I would say there's maybe 20, 25% chance. Yeah. So you're saying that there's a chance? It's not. The door's not closed. But again, I screwed up. I didn't get in the tournament. And so for me to go there and not be in the tournament, that would drive me nuts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. Yeah. Well, as I've said, I'm actually really looking forward to not being in a tournament this time so I can actually just spend a couple of days talking to people and just playing machines casually. I think that's going to be a bit of fun. Cool. You'll have a great time. Yeah. Well, thank you very much again, Jeff. You said if there's any way you can help us, you may be back on in a couple of weeks. Who knows how long Ryan's going to be in jail for. Thanks for doing this. You know how much I love you guys and coming on this show. and people don't know, maybe they can gather. We talk to each other probably not daily, but weekly. We're in communication all the time. It's funny how far away we are. And by the way, start planning because next year, late January, early February, my Australian tour happens. Damn it, there better be a tournament happening. and I want to see some of my Australian friends and I'm going all over too. I'm going west. I'm going east coast, sorry, Gold Coast, Sydney. I'm doing Melbourne. I'm hitting Perth and then going to some of the islands and it's going to be a good time. Yeah, you're going to have a good time. Next year. And you're coming at a good time. It'll be summer so it'll be perfect Carl Weathers for you as well. Yay! Awesome. All right, thanks, mate. Thanks, everybody, for listening. we will speak to you again next week thanks Jeff thank you