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Episode 193 - Cassidy: A Pinball Noir

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 20m·analyzed·May 14, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discusses gaming, books, and pinball including critical views of Whirlwind Total Chaos kit.

Summary

In this episode of Eclectic Gamers Podcast, hosts Tony and Dennis discuss their recent activities including teaching experiences, video gaming (Hades, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, Cyberpunk Edgerunners), and reading. They transition to pinball topics, discussing Pedretti's Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 kit (which they view negatively as thematically incoherent), Multimorphic's Final Resistance module outselling the Weird Al module, and Overwatch homebrew pinball game featuring character-themed shots. The episode includes extended discussion of Overwatch character rankings and throw-picks.

Key Claims

  • Pedretti's Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 kit is now shipping at approximately 2,200 euros/US dollars

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony watched the Pedretti trailer before recording and discussed the kit currently shipping

  • Multimorphic's Final Resistance module has outsold the Weird Al module

    high confidence · Dennis saw a social media post from Multimorphic indicating this milestone

  • Multimorphic's module production is significantly ahead of P3 system production

    high confidence · Dennis references a NAP Arcade article discussing Multimorphic's production status

  • The Overwatch homebrew pinball game features multiple character-themed shots beyond D.Va

    high confidence · Michael, one of the Overwatch homebrew creators, emailed Dennis with clarification and an image showing character distributions

Notable Quotes

  • “If the original Whirlwind was Twister, this is Sharknado 7.”

    Tony @ N/A — Succinct criticism of Pedretti's Whirlwind Total Chaos kit as thematically disconnected from the original game

  • “They didn't even try. It's sort of like a what are the standard wacky things we can do?”

    Dennis @ N/A — Critique of the kit's lack of coherent design philosophy, describing it as a collection of random tropes

  • “It's like they're trying to shove their nostalgia down our throats through Whirlwind, which is not the vehicle to do it.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Criticism that the kit feels like a Rare games pastiche forced into an inappropriate theme

  • “Dornado. Dornado, I come to bargain.”

    Dennis @ N/A — Humorous reference to the Donut Tornado multiball and Doctor Strange meme about the kit's absurd content

  • “I still would have thought Weird Al, just because it's Weird Al, he's got the call-outs.”

    Tony @ N/A — Expresses surprise that Final Resistance outsold Weird Al given licensing value and character recognition

Entities

PedrettipersonScott DenisepersonMichaelpersonMultimorphiccompanyPedretti Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0productWhirlwindgameFinal ResistanceproductWeird Al moduleproductOverwatch homebrew

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Multimorphic significantly behind on P3 system production while module production maintains pace

    high · Dennis references NAP Arcade article: 'they are moving quite rapidly along on module production uh significantly behind on p3 production'

  • ?

    community_signal: Overwatch homebrew creator Michael proactively emailed podcast to clarify game design against on-air criticism

    high · Dennis states 'Michael, emailed us because he did hear our last episode. And he sent an image' with character distribution clarification

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 represents thematic divergence from original game concept via excessive mode/narrative expansion

    high · Dennis: 'I just think that they went way too far away from the theme of just taking shelter from a tornado and turning it into a smorgasbord' and comparison to Galactic Tank Force

  • $

    market_signal: Final Resistance module outsells Weird Al module for Multimorphic P3 system

    high · Dennis: 'Multimorphic that indicated that the final resistance module that Scott Denise developed has now, for the P3, it's now outsold the Weird Al module'

  • ?

    announcement: Pedretti's Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 kit now shipping at approximately 2,200 euros/dollars

    high · Dennis states 'these are now shipping' and 'they're running like 2,200 euros, so that's about 2,200 US dollars'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.242

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, May 14th. This is episode 193. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. It's a holiday. It is. It is Mother's Day. So happy Mother's Day to all the eclectic mothers out there. Yes, I should probably call my mom today. I went and brought her lunch on Friday. Thursday. We talked about Friday, but Thursday worked better. Because it was like, yes, I'm pretty nice. I'm pretty kind. And I finally brought her her birthday shirt from March that I meant to give her two other times, but I kept forgetting because I left it up here on a shelf. As you do. As I do. So we don't have any new Patreon members to announce. As a reminder, if you want to join the Patreon, it's patreon.com slash A Collective Gamer's Podcast. We have tiers as low as $1. So moving on from that, what have you been doing, playing? Well, I had my successful – let me rephrase. I successfully completed my teaching at a conference. I've done – multiple times I've done being in front of a group and large public discussions and stuff. But I've never actually taught a class to a group which has the question and answer feedback stuff of something like that. So that was kind of a new experience for me. I think it went pretty well. I definitely rushed my slides a little bit. I had 45 minutes, and I took like 34 of them. but yeah i've found with me and slides and i think this is pretty typical for folks is even if i rehearse it in reality i go slower than i do in my head because to me it's like i don't i think i underestimate how much i have to explain even on a simple slide yeah i've gotten better about it i'm usually within five minutes per hour uh that's then i don't usually present over an hour that It would be a long presentation. Yes. Yeah, no, I mean, I'll give it. I think part of the problem was that the slides weren't my own slides. They were from a local college that had provided the slides for it. So instead of having everything laid out at kind of my pace, I was kind of forced into their style of stuff. And I think that kind of messed me up even more. I had practiced, and when I practiced, it came in just over 40 and then leaving some time for questions. But I actually ended up going faster through it than when I actually did it. Yeah, I've only done that once. It was a weird scenario too, weird to me. We were still in the pandemic, but a lot of in-person stuff was resuming. But this was around I think when the Delta variant was surging. And so the original presenter was severely immunocompromised, and she was not willing to go and present at this in-person conference anymore that we had arranged for because the circumstances had changed between the two months before when she had agreed and what was going to happen. So I said, I will do your presentation for you as long as you provide the slides. And so that's what happened. But I had them early enough I was able to read them ahead of time, but it was really weird. So the way I did it is I opened with these are not my slides and I want to be answering any questions. And we're just going to get through it so that this deliverable is satisfied.
product
NAP Arcadeorganization
Dennisperson
Tonyperson

product_concern: Hosts criticize Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 for haphazard theme mixing without narrative coherence

high · Dennis: 'It's just like pulling from every kind of open source genre... they didn't even try... just standard wacky things we can do' and comparison to 'Rare fan...trying to shove their nostalgia down our throats'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts express strong negative sentiment toward Whirlwind Total Chaos 2.0 design direction, criticizing thematic coherence and art quality

    high · Multiple critical statements: 'this is going to sound very mean, and I'm not trying to be mean, but I just don't like it' and 'the art and everything's just horrible'

    • 3:51
    And it was I mean, the slides had notes at least. So there's actually some background. So did mine. They were quite well versed in what we needed. And it was stuff that I know. So I was able to answer questions and everything. It just they didn't flow like I would have preferred to have done them to flow. Yeah, it was somebody else's. It was very much somebody else's rhythm. So I think that kind of messed me up. Yeah, that was sort of my my boat. Thankfully, my I was only about half of the of the presentation on it, but they put slides in an order I wouldn't have. Like I they just had a different way. Like they thought about things from some sort of I think maybe they were sort of thinking, explain it federal on down and i tend to think of it like topically like i want to talk about money then all the money stuff gets done and i like to talk about so so i yeah that's almost a running joke running joke with uh when i when i talk to uh groups is oh it's a money topic so we're gonna bring dennis in to talk about it because dennis loves to discuss money with everyone and it is one of my most common uh areas that i present on actually is funding so um i actually They had a presentation this last week. Actually, I think it was back on Monday. Sort of similar. I was given an hour. It wasn't to teach, though. But we kind of formed this coalition to discuss a Medicaid-related thing. And so I reached out to the director of the Kansas Medicaid program to say, hey, there's a group of us, and we're really interested in talking about this subject and wanted to know if we could, through Zoom, do a presentation. And we will be me because I had to write the slides. And they're like, okay, yeah, let's do it. But then they brought in the secretary from KDHE, and they brought in the secretary from KDADS, which is the aging agency. And it was a little higher level than I had thought it was going to be. It went pretty – it went about how I thought. They were more interested than I was afraid they'd be. Like we actually ran 15 minutes over, and I got through the slides in 20 minutes. It was – I wanted it to be a discussion, and I thought I'd ask for 45 minutes, and they said we'll give you an hour. but um of course uh my big concern was i knew they were going to be kind of reluctant to make changes in the way i want with sort of my my and that was the vibe i got from some of not all of them but the vibe i got from some of them was kind of like we don't know i it's a lot of work and i i know but let's let's do it anyway let's try it let's see if we make a difference and well we don't know it'll if it'll help so we have some next steps that with some pilots that are going on that'll test it so but it's always good but uh but interesting so um yeah no other than that um i have started a new battle tech playthrough uh that's been eating my video gaming time and i finished reading skulls these old man war and started reading the powder mage trilogy which is a really interesting fantasy series because it's like mid-1800s, like steam engines exist and rifles and stuff. But there's also magic. And then the tanks come. There's like multiple types of magic, and then the tanks come. What was that series? The Dark Sword Trilogy. That's actually four books. Yes. Right, because they came back and did a fourth one. Uh, though, though that's actually a good series. It is. That was Weiss and Hickman. I think, I think so. Yeah. Cause they normally do like dragon Lance and stuff. Right. It was what they're done.
    7:22
    What was that? Other big, the death gates. Yeah. Oh, I like death gate too. I mean, some were much better than others, but, uh, darks are, so FYI people, if you want to see things with magic and then tanks come darks or trilogy, which is really a quadrilogy is worth it. Yeah, definitely. But anyway, Powder Mage. But yeah, Powder Mage, it's just interesting because there's like different types of magic. There's like regular old school, you're a wizard, hairy magic.
    7:50
    And then there's – David Blaine. Yeah. I just stay on blocks of ice for a long period of time. That's not really magic, David. That's like just extreme, like subjecting yourself to extremes. It's magic. It's like congratulations, you're a masochist. Yes. but then there's like gunpowder acts as a basically a a booster for certain people like if they ingest gunpowder they get they see better they get stronger they're faster they can also control gunpowder they can detonate gunpowder with their mind they can use very they can detonate gunpowder and burn gunpowder to use to have like extra abilities, like the ability to literally just throw bullets in the air and then burn some gunpowder in their hand and the bullets will shoot out like they came out of a rifle, stuff like that. And then there's another bit of magic, a type of person who has magic where it's literally you're really, really, really, really good at one thing and that's it. Like there's a guy who can't fall asleep. He doesn't sleep. It's just that's his power. He never has to sleep. There's a guy who's like he doesn't forget stuff. There's people who can clean really well. I mean it's just – Okay. So it's just basically you have a trait, a trait that lets you do something like I can't get lost, stuff like that.
    9:20
    Some of these are actually very useful. Yeah, and some of them are completely – would be completely and utterly useless.
    9:29
    It's like, oh, you've got a power. What's your power? I don't have to wipe. Think about all the money they save on toilet paper, though, over their lifetime. It's just clean. It's just perfectly clean every time. There's nothing there. What is your name? Bidet.
    9:52
    Otherwise, this week I did finally get around to watching the Cyberpunk Edge Runner show on Netflix. um it was really good like much better than i expected i heard it was good but it was really really good i actually really enjoyed it so uh that's about all i've been up to what have you been playing because didn't you finish your thing i did um so i can't remember i think it was on the last episode i mentioned that i finally got to the epilogue of of hades well i went ahead and and what i what the term i use a phrase is full cleared it or if you're in the playstation universe you'd call it plat a plat trophy uh in xbox we think of it as you know we get all the achievements i so i 100 percented the game so because after i got the epilogue i was close i saw i had like three achievements left and they all seemed relatively within reach a number of them i probably could have done it faster had i just focused on achievements from the get-go i think in the end i put i i think i played exactly 100 runs to get all of them wow i ended either 100 or 101 so i was right there uh so that's how long it took to but i got everything um the hardest one was probably i think safe to say turning on the uh there's the the packs of punishment which are like uh adding on handicaps right so uh the there's a in-game award for turning on like all 32 levels uh however the achievement caps out half at 16 so i had to do 16 which was a lot it took i could get to hades fairly consistency fairly consistently with my favorite weapon which is the knuckles but um i had with 16 i mean because he's like he summoned cerebus at one point and i did not survive that i'm like no cerebus is my dog yeah that's not right um the knuckles are the best weapon in that game i love the knuckles uh so so that was cleared so then uh this week and by this week i mean like either yesterday or the day before i started a game that was free with gains with gold it's called star wars episode one racer it's from 1999 but they redid it to give it achievements and i was gonna say a facelift but no oh no oh no this thing um i could not i did not know how to drive it like i'd pause and i couldn't load the controls up and i guess the game probably came with a manual back in the 90s um but i did not have a manual uh i did not realize like there was a boost i didn't because i didn't know how to activate it i did not realize i knew that there was a repair feature because i saw it as a as a perk on all the vehicles i didn't know how to actually get it to repair though eventually i saw that if i paused in between races in the selection screen there i could load up the controls so i finally found a spot that showed me how to do every i was like i only i didn't know they slid i'm pushing all the buttons but i'm not seeing anything happen i didn't so like i i won the whole first third of the game only using half the abilities on the pod i'm that good tony i'm that good so actually uh as of this morning there were i don't know if you played this game it's i can't really i can't really if i did i can't really remember it i can't really recommend it because it's from you know 1999 yeah so i can't really recommend it uh there are sort of three main tournament races six races each so there's 18 total races a lot of them are just remixes of the same sort of six tracks though and then i think as you clear a a one of those you unlock a i think maybe one starts unlocked or something but there's like four other subsequent races which gets you more characters you can race as because you can change who you are basically anytime in the tournament um and but it was i think i finished those i didn't play the initially i didn't play the four uh but well called bonus tracks um i knew there was an achievement for getting first in every race so i wanted to see let's just get through all of this you have to get at least fourth in order to move on i finished those 18 primaries i first placed all but three or four of them and like i took i took third on like two and second on one and everything else was a first i gotta ask you I got to ask you, did you have fun? Kind of, kind of.
    14:33
    But I wasn't going to have fun going back to get more achievements. And the reason was I made mistakes, Tony. I didn't understand. There was an achievement for fully upgrading, buying the best part for a pod, for a racer. Well, I didn't know there was an option to turn on winner take all winnings. So even though I got first, I split the winnings with the top three, and I don't know if I can earn enough money at first without winner take all to pay for the best upgrade. Which incidentally, if you upgrade the pods along the way, you put yourself in a bad position because then you don't have enough money to do it. It's better to not upgrade at all and then buy them all.
    15:15
    And parts wear out, so you can ruin a part and have to replace it as you go along. It's like there's some depth to it that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So anyway, long story short, it's already long. I found out that there were cheats. I could load up debug mode. So I could redo the races to earn the money by just backing up and crossing the finish line repeatedly. So I, this morning, spent 30 minutes and then won every race and got first because I'm that good.
    15:44
    But I had already had like all but the last three achievements. So that's what I did. So now it's uninstalled. I'm finished. It's full cleared. It's full clear, just like Hades. Easy. What a joke. I'm a champion pod racer. I can barely stand to play as little Annie, though. I avoided him initially because he is obnoxious. They might have gotten Jake Lloyd to voice it. I'm not sure. Or Jake Lloyd. Yeah. So I just had to go through finally, because I needed to unlock Sebulba, because Sebulba is the only racer who has a weapon, and you have to hurt ten vehicles with a weapon. So I had to get Sebulba, and I was like, I don't know how to unlock Sebulba because I finished the game, and I didn't have him. And he's like, oh, no, no, that's when you get first in everything. Do you get Sebulba? I was like, okay.
    16:28
    Win a race in a mirror mode. I ran all the races. I never saw a mirror mode option. I'm like, where's the mirror mode? Oh, you need to, like, when you put on debug mode, there's a mirror mode. Was there a way to get it without activating cheats? Because that's a built-in cheat. I think there is, but I don't know where it was. So anyway, anyway, it's a, no, I don't recommend it. And we're going to get into some games that some of our listeners don't recommend later in the show. But we're going to go ahead. We've already spent like 15 plus minutes here. We'll probably get complaints, but that's the nature of the gamer. We've had busy times. It can't all be me going, I worked, I slept, I came here and recorded. Sometimes I actually do stuff. You do. You did a lot this week. And I am also, I finally started Chapter House Dune. now that the second trailer for the movie came out I'm like I need to finish Chapter House before the movie comes out even though the movie is not Chapter House I will be ready for the movie by reading Chapter House I will be ready because I've read all the rest I want to be ready I want to know about this chapter and how it's house is I like Chapter House too it's probably my third favorite Okay, because the prior one, what, Heretics of Dune? I like that one a lot. I'd say it was right up there with Dune. Yeah. Because Dune – see, now we're going on about books. I think Dune Messiah – is that the second book? It's probably the worst.
    18:06
    I mean, maybe not, but – I'm torn. I'm so torn. It has – It's both – it's really short and it's really slow. It's very political. It's very different than book one. Yes. And it is very much the antithesis of the hero's journey that book one was. Yes. I mean, it wasn't bad, but I don't know. At least you still knew a lot of the characters. Then there's the stuff with Leto that gets a little. Right. Because it's so drawn out, too. It's a lot of like. Yeah. Children and God Emperor. Yeah. I'm trying to think like. I think maybe God Emperor might be my. Maybe that's the one I liked the least. I don't know. It had some good quotes in it, but it's just like nothing happens for most of the book. No. Most people, Messiah is the one they like, and it's because of the tonal shift. Because the first one is so the classic hero's journey, and then Dune Messiah is basically breaking everything that happened from the first one. I think there's a reason why when we see filmmakers explore this property, they generally don't have a lot of interest in moving past the first story. Right. And if they do move past the first story, they go heavier into children. Mm-hmm.
    19:19
    Well, because that's more interesting. Because that's what they did with the sci-fi channel did a couple of miniseries. Yes, with William Hurt. Yes, and the first one was Dune. the second one was Children of Dune which had a little bit of the stuff from Messiah in it just a little bit that needed to be at the beginning but was primarily children we're going to actually talk about pinball we are and that actually was a good segue because speaking of children Whirlwind now has a child Whirlwind Total Chaos the 2.0 kit so this is Pedretti's new kit for those that have Whirlwind We actually on the last episode had talked about this on Rumor Corner That Whirlwind was the rumor of what was getting the 2 kit A victory for Rumor Corner Dennis is going to get hash marks tattooed onto his shoulder for every Rumor Corner victory How many are we up to? I thought we were basically 100% successful. See? So he's got like 75 tattoos to get. So there's a lot. You're going to brand. You're going to do a brand instead of a tattoo. It burns us. Burn it. We'll just get a bar of metal and heat it up and just burn it into your arm. Yes. Moo. My moo-sona. So we actually – I'd already seen it, but we – just before we started recording, we went ahead and watched the Pedretti trailer because these are now shipping. They're running like 2,200 euros, so that's about 2,200 US dollars. um tony what do you think of this approach that pedretti has gone because i mean i do agree total chaos is this is a pretty apt description it's a very good description of what that trailer was it was it was definitely total chaos i just i i don't think the trailer did them any favors in my opinion because it was not i just kind of stared at it and it was like what is happening here it felt like it had a a please clap moment in the middle of the trailer and i'm just like what is going on but whirlwind's a good game i like whirlwind i just i don't know i don't know about this direction yeah i don't like this direction at all uh i think i i get that they were trying to come up with you know they had to invent modes and stuff because they're taking a system 11 game and trying to give it depth i just think that they went way too far away from the theme of just taking shelter from a tornado and turning it into a smorgasbord.
    22:19
    We talked about how kind of like fried and weird galactic tank force decided to be like when it went into the camp and it's like, it's like they're talking about ice cream and cows and their abductions and all that.
    22:32
    There's more of a narrative thread to galactic tank force by far than there is to this. even though both use nonsensical elements. Like this is just like pulling from every kind of open source genre. I'm amazed there weren't pirates and ninjas in it. Here's the thing. If the original Whirlwind was Twister, this is Sharknado 7. That's what it is. Yes, except with a Donado. Yeah. Because there's the Donut Tornado is a multiball. We've got multiballs. Multiballs, here is Donut Tornado, Dornado.
    23:12
    Dornado. I did like the Mark Silk voice. Dornado. Dornado, I come to bargain. Oh, we just have now seen what Phase 10 is probably going to do with Marvel. That was my Cabbage Patch voice. Yeah. So I just – zombies, aliens, just – I mean it's just like – it's – Don't forget the sewer monster and grandmas with shotguns. Yes, yes. No, there is a – it's – this is going to sound very mean, and I'm not trying to be mean, but I just don't like it. It's like they didn't even try. It's sort of like a what are the standard wacky things we can do? I mean, okay, so Poop Monster is a little – I still feel like someone played Conker's Bad Fur Day. It was just kind of like I'm going to bring that back. But it's less like, oh, we're going to – oh, I love Batman Begins. Let's have the Scarecrow in, but we'll make it more literal. Or maybe I liked Wizard of Oz, so we'll do that. And all games now have aliens, so we've got to have Area 51 aliens. Maybe they got done playing Perfect Dark. Maybe they're just a Rare fan and they've played all this stuff. They've just played all the Rare. They played all this rare crap, and they're just trying to shove their nostalgia down our throats through Whirlwind, which is not the vehicle to do it.
    24:36
    I mean, this begs the question. What would they do if it was a 2.0 taxi kit? What happens then? Meet Cabby, who's strangely drawn, like Danny DeVito.
    24:51
    And then I just started blasting. Blasting donuts. because that's what I do. It's donuts. Yum. Yum. Okay.
    25:05
    Now we're going into ASMR donut mode. Do you want taxi multiballs? Well, we have taxi multiballs. Shoot this left ramp a whole lot to get ramp out multiball and shoot the right ramp in order to get crazy alien grandma multiball. Can she catch a cab? She's radioactive. and thus dangerous. Okay, well, I got run over by an alien. Yay. Anyway, I mean, it just, it don't work for me.
    25:37
    I'm sure they'll sell a few just because there's probably a decent amount of hunger from people that would like to have just something deeper to do with Whirlwind. Right. And this gives you that. I just... It has a new bad class that looks terrible. The art and stuff. The art and everything's just horrible. I just don't under – That's a big thing they push in the trends. Like, look at this art. It looks good. No, it doesn't. My understanding from the Funhaus 2.0 Rudy's Nightmare is this is not an easy install. Like, there's a lot of work to do this sort of conversion. So maybe the logic was we got to throw in art and stuff because otherwise people aren't going to want to do this amount of work in order to deal with the scary boys.
    26:19
    Scary boys. I'm emphasizing the Z. Yeah, it's – Anyway, doesn't work for me. Yeah, I'm not. I would not get one for my Whirlwind if I had a Whirlwind. Yeah, I would not either. Let's move on to something more positive. So I saw a social media post from Multimorphic that indicated that the final resistance module that Scott Denise developed has now, for the P3, it's now outsold the Weird Al module.
    26:47
    I mean, I can see that. I'm a little surprised just because licensing means so much in pinball, and Weird Al was a huge success for Multimorphic this quickly, that Final Resistance. Now, I have not sat and done a side-by-side comparison on pricing, but regardless of that, I still just defaultly – even though I liked Final Resistance more, and I have very limited time on both Final Resistance and Weird Al. Right. I still would have thought Weird Al, just because it's Weird Al, he's got the call-outs. I wonder how much of it is just module sales and how much of it is that the people who already are part of the ecosystem just get all the modules. well it's and there is a after i saw this i know i don't have a link in the show notes because i wasn't going to talk about the what's going on at multimorphic broadly i was going to mention this because that was an interesting tidbit uh is uh nap arcade does though have an article so folks go over to nap arcade.org i believe it is um and check it out i but i don't have the link directly here uh goes in a little bit more because i i believe as part of that announcement there was some explanation which i did read the article and my too long didn't read version would be they are moving quite rapidly along on module production uh significantly behind on p3 production so kind of what we you know we've talked about that several times uh as they've given updates it seems like their their module build crews are are staying on top of things by and large um but yeah the p3 systems continue to be more difficult for them to to put out there and And I think it had a listing about how far behind they were. Well, and I can understand that because I would assume that the core P3 system is probably a much more complicated build. Sure. Obviously, it's larger. It's got the whole – I mean, that's where the system is. So I do think you're right in the sense that you've got a lot of people that probably already have the system. And maybe they bought Weird Al. Maybe they didn't. but Scott Denise, of course, and a lot of people that own P3s, especially before Weird Al, are just like, they're pinheads, right? They're really into pinball. Right. So Scott Denise is a known entity within pinball. Very much so. So, and his name does have cachet. So I think you're right that like, people are able to buy those modules and so they're buying them and it's Scott. So a lot of people are buying, and maybe there's some people that maybe were indifferent to Weird Al as a theme, but they want to support Scott. So there could be that too.
    29:23
    So anyway, so that was a positive piece of news. Moving on, last episode we talked about the Overwatch homebrew.
    29:32
    And actually one of the creators of that, Michael, emailed us because he did hear our last episode. And he sent an image. I've shared it in our internal notes, Tony, so you can take a look at it. He shared an image. I believe this is up on their pin side thread as well at this point. I didn't see this at the time. but basically he wanted to provide this to us because in the discussion we, really it was more me, kind of said this game looks like it's basically revolving all around D.Va and so this was like no no no no no there are actually a lot of shots associated with various characters from Overwatch D.Va's just in the middle so that's why she was so prominent but it's not really like a D.Va centric I'm looking at this listing of characters because they've got all these drops listed with character names and they say who's this you know you know who's missing cassidy's missing oh it's that's right it's using the mccree name he's been renamed guys it's not mccree anymore half the time when i play i still say the wrong name i do i usually just try and say cowboy at this point and then i usually swear because um i know it's been a while since you played overwatch when you played though and weren't doing mystery, obviously, because there's no control there, were there ever characters like in ranked or quick play or whatever where if someone on your team picked them, you'd do,
    30:55
    because you're kind of like, I know I'm going to lose. Yeah. Like which ones were those for you? I mean, back then, Torb. Okay, Torb, you remember, it was a throw. Torb, I always considered Torb a throw back in the day. I still remember a YouTube video. someone did some animations and they had an animated little Overwatch short and they had someone click the Torbjorn and they just had whoever was voicing it just go Torbjorn ready to throw. Exactly.
    31:23
    Who else? I'm trying to think. Who else back then? I mean, I didn't consider McCree a throw back then because he was solid.
    31:35
    There for a while I cannot remember his name for the life of me. The new, not new anymore, but the floaty tank guy.
    31:55
    When he was kind of... Sigma. Sigma, there we go. Sigma was kind of garbage for a long time. Or at least nobody knew how to play him. So he came off as garbage. uh for a while but yeah no i so not you didn't have a significant list i didn't have a significant oh i did i still do tony i still do okay let me tell you the throws i'm gonna break them down let me see how many of these are my mains let's go all right um let's start with tank okay there are there are two tank throws and well okay there are three um ball hammond oh yeah no ball would The ball is a total throw. Total throw. Especially at my level.
    32:40
    At your level? Yeah. Especially. No, no. This is tough because I don't know how many people played Overwatch. You remember, like, in the ranking systems, right? Right. All right. I am generally, because it's by class, but by and large, I'm in gold. Yes. So my current ranking is I'm platinum in open queue, and I think I'm gold in all three other categories. I might be high silver in DPS. I'm not sure because it changes depending on how bad I do. So anyway, so that's just this content. Because at higher levels, Hammonds probably know how to play, but at my level, they do not. They do not. All right, so Hammonds will throw. Doomfist is usually a throw. He's a tank now, by the way. Okay. Sure. Hence why he's a throw. Yeah. Because he doesn't – I've seen some good players with him, and they've actually made some upgrades to him because he's not as bad as he used to be. And then a third one, which used to be a good pick, Hog. He's a total throw now. How's Hog a throw? They nerfed his damage. I call him Piglet at this point because he's so weak. Hog used to be one of my primary tanks. Hog was always my go-to, especially if I wasn't getting healed. I'd be like, all right, I'll take care of myself. But he can't one-shot with a hook combo anymore. and they've greatly reduced his damage. He's just not good. So those are the current throws. Support.
    34:07
    All of the support. All right, Life Weaver, the newest character. He is a throw. They've been making some changes to him. He actually has good healing output, but it's just like everyone else does their job better than what Life Weaver does. So he's not in a great place right now, but I think they'll probably fix him. Everyone else is sort of situational. It's just I think if we are playing an escort, like a payload escort, or if we're on defense, I usually, again, at my lower level, think Lucio is the throw because he doesn't do enough healing and the team isn't grouped up enough to take advantage of his speed. So a lot of times I get really skeptical, especially on defense, Lucio on defense. I just I'm not a big fan. And usually when I see people pick, I'm like, okay, they're going to go off and do their own thing and try and get boops and get kills. And they're not going to heal anyone and they're not going to speed boost anyone else. So it's not much support when they're on their own. That's about it. All the other supports are pretty good. And then DPS. Okay. Genji is a throw. Widow is a throw. McCree is maybe not a throw, but I'm always skeptical about McCrees. And the reason is, or Cassidy's at this point. And the reason is Cassidy's, I think, there's a lower, the barrier of entry on Cassidy is lower than Widow. So it's easier to play him. So I'm not as like, I get a lot of bad Widows, Tony. On console, they can't aim.
    35:37
    And they feed. They'll play into a shield tank and they stay on Widow. And it's like, you're not killing anyone. You're shooting a shield. And they don't switch because they're losers. So there's that. the thing with Cassidy though is once they are an ult, they spend five minutes going on a flank to try and get their high noon, which will fail because Cassidy always fail. And that's why they're a throw. Because they're good up until they have their ult and then they've decided, I'm going to get a 4k plus. And it's like, no you're not. You're Cassidy. You're going to die. You're going to go off on your own. The thing is, he is a little better than he was back when you played because they took away his flashbang and now he has a magnetic grenade that goes halfway across the map and attaches to someone. So even an idiot can get kills with Cassidy at this stage.
    36:21
    So he's not a total throw. Genji is. Genji is a throw. All they do is feed. All they do is get themselves killed. And all they do is ask for more healing after it happens.
    36:33
    If you have to pick a Shimada, you should pick Hanzo. But he's usually a throw, too. All snipers are throws.
    36:39
    Now, bear in mind, this is a console experience. So snipers are throws. If you want to play a sniper and not be a throw, Ash is probably the closest you can get away with. She might be a throw, too. But at least Bob does something. Unless she sends him off the map. And if she sends Bob off a map or down a pit, they need to switch off Ash because they don't know how to play it.
    36:58
    Now back to pinball. Nope. That is pinball. I will say, looking at this layout, I love the heel spell out for the inlanes and outlanes at the bottom. I find that hilarious. And they're each once tied to a support. And each once tied to a healer. It's great.
    37:17
    And May is a little save post. And Roadhog's face eyes are going to be the ball save. I guess it's going to hook the ball back into play. I kind of like. I do really kind of like what we're seeing here. But looking at what they have actually drawn out here, I think it looks really interesting. I am very interested to see how it plays out and how it works out for them. But it looks pretty cool to me. It looks pretty flowy as well. This seems to be their approach that they're going for.
    37:46
    Okay, next pinball topic. This one we won't go under a tangent because of me. So Josh Sharp, president of the International Flipper Pinball Association, he was on a Triple Dane pinball podcast. They talked a lot about competitive pinball. However, he also did mention that the enhanced code for Cactus Canyon Remake from Chicago Gaming Company that he was working on with Lyman Sheets, It is actually further along than was originally suggested. We talked about that on the last episode about how the information that had been presented was that it was more in an outline form and that there was a lot of work to be done. Josh indicated he actually has a beta version of the code on his copy of CCR. and it as software as it stands is already further along than the 100 completed ccr software that cgc did to you know put in the final wizard mode stuff like and that is substantively different like the scoring is different and all that so it is much further along than yeah that's a lot better than what we'd heard what was conveyed yeah that that actually makes me feel hopeful so so you see That's actually all I have for pinball other than your favorite segment, the 100% never wrong, possibly made up rumor corner.
    39:24
    Okay. It's everybody's favorite segment. Is it? Is it? I don't know. But on this episode's rumor corner, here's one. This is a pinball machine that, theme-wise, that people talk about all the time. Tony's rolling his eyes, and I do understand. And that is Back to the Future. Okay. There's been a lot of speculation because we're coming up on another major anniversary of Back to the Future here in a couple of years. and is it going to happen? What's going to go on? Joe Kamikow is the licensing god. He can get anything. Is Stern going to do it? How much is it going to cost? Is it going to be a cornerstone? Is it going to be a boutique capow title? All that stuff.
    40:06
    Here's a rumor that I have heard, which is interesting to me, and that it was purporting that talks about doing Back to the Future may be centered around Back to the Future as the story but not the movie
    40:23
    And so the context was just that they may be exploring doing this without the movie assets, which were seen as the barrier in the past. But that East obviously didn't have movie assets, but they didn't have the likeness permissions and stuff.
    40:38
    Now, what would be done instead wasn't a part of the rumor. So that's unknown. I've done some research. So like there was a Back to the Future cartoon, for example, though. It only went like a couple of seasons. It had bad ratings. Telltale did a Back to the Future video game back here this century.
    41:00
    Telltale did get permission to use likenesses. However, while I do think Lloyd did do some voice work for it, Michael J. Fox did not voice Marty. so I'm wondering is it like something like that like going with a video game aesthetic remember with Deadpool they went comic style instead of movie style and that gave them a lot of creative freedom as I recall the Telltale game still follows the plot points of Back to the Future 1 the movie it's just video game different art not using photorealism all of that and I guess I think I saw something about that there's been an animated version of the movie done too, but I don't know anything about it. IDW put out a comic series that was basically for Back to the Future, but it was very much like the Marvel's What If type thing. So it was like untold stories and alternate timeline and alternate story type things that they did. I collected some of them. I have some of them digitally. I don't think I have the whole series, but I have some of them digitally. It was pretty good.
    42:20
    The art they went with was, they were likenesses. The art was likenesses, but it was a stretch. like maybe like what zombie yeti did with ghostbusters stretch on that pen yes the listeners want to know uh yeah as you show them the picture i'm going to show you the picture so you can get a feel for it or a picture okay so they're like this is yeah that's that's it's closer than i thought yeah how you were describing it okay they're likenesses but almost caricature. I just can never say that word right. Likenesses. But I mean, like I said, I own a few copies of it. I was when digital comics first came out and were super cheap there for a while, I collected a fairly large number of digital comics and they were all weird stuff like one-off stuff, a lot of IDW stuff. So what do you think about the idea of doing something like that for a pinball machine? I think if they can get the rights to do something like that easier than the movie rights and they want to do it, do it. I just don't, I just think that I, I just don't think that I think the theme is a loser and I love back to the future. I just don't think, I don't think it's a big enough series to really get another game.
    43:46
    I just, I just don't see where there's going to be enough draw for it, but I could be wrong. What do I, I mean, nostalgia hits weird. Yeah, I mean, I hear a lot of people who have nostalgia for it, who bring it up, so they must care. I don't have nostalgia for Back to the Future. I didn't care for it as a kid. I still don't care for it. I think it's fine, but I don't love it. I've never loved it. I mean, do you want another Indiana Jones? But I'm, you know, I just don't care. But the, I'm not sure, like, license-wise, if it's not the movie, I'm not sure that's the right move for pinball. Like, I'm not sure that scratches the nostalgia itch. It seems a little too weird, a little too off.
    44:26
    But that being said, if Stern does it, I still think it would sell well because people are pretty trusting of the quality of game they're going to get out of Stern at this point. I don't know if you can – I mean if that's to keep it from being a really expensive game, then maybe it's worth it. And people might just enjoy doing the movie, kind of like what they tried to do with Jurassic Park, Stern Jurassic Park. Right. I mean Stern Jurassic Park turned out fine. As a game, it's fun, but what gets made fun of is the voice acting, and that doesn't feel like the movie at all. It just feels like you're dealing with dinosaurs. But it's an excellent game, and so it overcomes what handicaps it has, and it still has the name to draw quarters in on location, and this would have that. Right. So, I mean, I guess as an approach, it seems more realistic. Like, I don't think people want a fakeified movie with Potato Face Marty again. I don't think they want anything like that.
    45:23
    I don't know. I probably – honestly, I would welcome this just so we could quit having the conversation about Back to the Future because I'm really – We'll just start talking about having the next one.
    45:34
    No. They'll be done with that. I mean they'll start talking about Jaws again or something instead, but we'll be done talking about this, which will be probably a blessing. Regardless, were you rumor-tained by this rumor? I was disappointed. Okay, never mind. He was not rumor-tained, folks. Well, maybe the video game segment, which I've already kind of infected into the pinball segment with my protracted whining about Overwatch characters. We can continue now because we actually received two. We've had a number of people ask us for game codes. Email eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com if you would like a Steam game code. We're about halfway through the list of donated, randomized, unknown codes. Tony and I do not know what games these are. We just were given a list of codes. And we apologize in advance. Apparently I'm now understanding why we have this list I'm wondering if any of these Is going to have a positive recommendation We did We had a review last time It was not a positive It was a virtual game And we have two more that have turned in As of the time of this recording Oh incidentally If you've already reviewed a game Once you get the review in You can ask us for another code We're not going to judge We're going to get through this together guys we're gonna get through this we're right there we're with you so feel your pain do you want to read the first one or the second one or what tony and i are going to each read one of these so that we don't i will i'll read the first one why not okay do you have a good utah voice i do not have a good utah voice i thought utah just sounded like just about everything else i don't want to have a good nutting voice but so apologies in advance for my terrible voices so i should have read which one the first one was before yes yes maybe maybe say you know who did this for us so this is a game review from josh r from loser kid podcast uh pinball podcast we've met josh we multiple times i wear my loser kid hat every single day um it is the hat i wear when I sit in the backyard in my rocking chair and throw sticks for the dogs.
    47:44
    It's your stick hat. It is my stick hat. I put on my Loser Kid Podcast pinball hat, and I sit in my rocking chair, and I read my book, and I throw sticks for the dogs. And then my neighbors look at me every once in a while to make sure that my heart hasn't stopped and that I'm not just a very, very, very old man who looks a lot younger than I actually am. So, Stone. A hip-hop stoner noir is a detective game similar to the Max and Sam series. Stone drops you into a Zootopia-like world set in Australia. From the opening scene, you are awakened as a private-eye koala by the name of Stone. Your phone rings to reveal that your lover, Alex, has been kidnapped, and you must follow the clues to save him. The first place to explore? Your flat or apartment for you American types. You'll explore the apartment in what appears to be cutting-edge graphics first introduced in the original Xbox. You find clues to different locations that could unlock more of the mystery that is the kidnapping of Alex. As far as gameplay, controls are very basic. Traditional move, look with mouse and interact. also you can pull out a blunt and take a hit when you want when you interact with the different characters you have very limited options would you like to play the good cop or the bad cop angle because that's typical the response you can because that's typical the response you can give good cop usually gives you the answers you want while the bad cop usually gets an fu response Literally, this game felt like an excuse to jam as many F-words they could into a basic dialogue game. Stone himself walks like he has all the time in the world, and can make moving from one side of the room to the other very tedious when looking for clues. Speaking of looking for clues, apparently you can find those when you're high and talking to your toaster. Bloke's name is Nigel, and is a nice fellow. As I said earlier, the graphics really weren't great, and basic at best, The sound wasn't properly balanced, so some areas, like the nightclub, just felt weird because the sound wasn't balanced like a nightclub. Why are your characters yelling when the music isn't even that loud? The music itself was fine, but it felt like an excuse to get the game developer's cousin's rap group in a game that could get them cred. When you said indie artist, they meant every letter. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. There are far better detective games out there Between bad gameplay, terrible acting, basic graphics And strange animal hallucinations It feels like an excuse that the game developer smoked a little too much weed And thought combining Big Lebowski with Zootopia was a great idea Again, Tony and I can't be held liable for the games you actually get Because we don't know the names of the games I'm so sorry I didn't know something like this existed. And it does sound honestly pretty horrible. I'll be honest. This sounds like a game that you would play from Games with Gold. Well, when it's free, and that's kind of the logic with the reviews. When it's free, you end up trying things you wouldn't normally. You might end up being like, I love pod racing. I'm a pod racer. I try things. It's there. They're like, hey, do you want to be a koala who hits the blunt? I'm like, yeah, man. Why not?
    51:25
    I mean, oh, man. We can tell he gets the PCP-laced blunt, and then he becomes a drop bear. And then that game would get review-bombed because people would be saying, no, you're using – now he's saying that the marijuana is a gateway drug, and then you'll make them all – the stoners will get mad. So you can't say that. You can't move them up to PCP. Not right away. You've got to give him another problem that serves as the heroine. So you need heroin or meth. No, he's like a crisis. Oh, man, that would have made that game better. As you continue to look and try and solve the mystery, you find out that the clues are getting harder and harder to find, so you have to step up to, like, heroin and cocaine.
    52:06
    You're sitting there. You get to a point where you're like, I know there's something in this room. I know it's there. I know there's a clue. And then you sit there. You've grown a little coke nail. So you're dribbling a little Coke onto your Coke now? Oh, there it is. I see the clue. We've got a clue. And it becomes booze clues.
    52:29
    Okay. Well, thank you, Josh, for suffering through that and giving the – Thank you for suffering for our enjoyment. Yes. We do appreciate it. I'll read the next one, which is from Stephen H. Stephen, thank you for submitting the review. I don't know what Stephen H. sounds like. Maybe I do and I don't remember. Today he's going to be Southern. The Steam code I received was Songbringer.
    52:54
    I wonder if this one's going to be an indie rap group or something for credit. We'll have to find out. The game is advertised as a classic Zelda game in a sci-fi setting. The game is an open world action RPG that you traverse procedurally generated dungeons. The game has the trappings of something interesting, but never successfully captured. My attention with any of it. While the graphics are a classic 8-bit style similar to that of Swords and Sorcery, I didn't see the character of the game present itself in that style. I could tell the game was trying to do something that I had enjoyed in other games, but I had a very hard time addressing the piece of what it was looking to offer. I could not enjoy the moment-to-moment action because it didn't feel like there was enough impact to the attacks. As an action RPG fanatic, this is critical. If I'm expected to hack and slash my way through the game, it better be fun to do.
    53:53
    The sci-fi world that was being created was engulfed in a distracting soundtrack. It was a good gaming composition, but it didn't feel like it matched the game I was in. It was cyberdelic. whereas the game felt like it was darker and should have been presented with more grim or unpleasant tones to tease one's nerves. If that was not all, the onboarding of the game lacked any hook for me. I didn't care to learn more. I didn't find myself interested to see what was around the corner, and that is too bad. For folks looking for a good action RPG that finds the right balance, I would recommend Children of Morta. If you want some additional depth, add the ability to be a shopkeeper in Moonlightner. If you love 8-bit art, go back to something like Sword and Sorcery. It feels like a great replay. It feels great to replay it, and it looks infinitely better. Okay, so Steven didn't like this game either. And he didn't like the sound either. And he didn't think it was a proper action RPG either. I like the phrase cyberdelic. But even if that was decent, it didn't fit the game either. Exactly.
    55:00
    It gave me this weird, like, power blink. mental, I was going to say mental image, but mental auditory hallucination of some real grim, dark almost like 40k-esque stuff in the background is like this cyber pop punk.
    55:23
    Yeah, I'm trying to imagine like this Warhammer aesthetic, but 8-bit. Yeah, exactly. But you know what he did? Stephen did give us an excellent transition. Oh, you saw it too. Because he said that it's advertised as a classic Zelda game.
    55:44
    And Zelda's out. The new Zelda game, Heroes of the Kingdom. I just wanted to let everybody know Dumbledore dies on page 596.
    55:55
    Yo, is it Lincoln? I haven't played it. I played the previous Zelda. I haven't played this one. I haven't purchased this one. I might. Let's be honest. I probably will at some point. We know plenty of people who have. I know people who've taken the day off work to play it. I know a couple people who did not take the day off work. But while their families are going to go visit other portions of their family this weekend, they were staying at home just to play it. I did hear that there was a big uptick in hyrolitis. Yeah, I bet there was. what was interesting to me is just before the game dropped they apparently put out like a depression ad really? yeah it was the ad's from Australia but it's this hilarious thing it's just got like this guy he's just like a businessman he's sitting just tired at the end of the day suit, tie, whole nine yards sitting on a bus staring out the window just looking dead to the world as the bus goes home and then it shows he walks in the house he's like taking his jacket off and he's loosening his tie and there's his wife in in her nightgown and she's like night deer and gives him a hug and walks away and he sits down on the couch there was just he's just loosened his tie and he's just sitting there and he looks completely and utterly broken and then he notices the pro controller and the zelda game sitting on the coffee table and then he puts it on and he starts playing and it shows him playing the game and he's just starting to smile and he's starting to get a little happier and this and that and then it shows him on the bus the next day playing his switch on the bus with the sound up because he's apparently one of those people uh but he's playing it and suddenly he just kind of looks out the window of the bus and he sees the whole world out there and he's just got this big smile like he's rediscovered his zest for life wow somebody is that good huh it was a fine commercial somebody very quickly took it stripped the sound off of it and overlaid mad world over it And it became the perfect commercial.
    58:26
    It was so good. I couldn't stop laughing when I watched it. Everything about the game sounds good. It's their first $70 game. People will pay it. People easily pay it. I won't, but that's because I don't own a Switch. Yeah. Becomes an easy one. I need to find my Switch. It's been hidden by the family. Yeah, it's somewhere. I don't know. Hi-ya!
    58:53
    Super Mario Brothers crossed a billion dollars at the box office. Peach, you're so wealthy. With a billion reasons, we're gone stealthy. There's definitely going to be a second one of those. And supposedly, or reportedly, the Zelda people said they would be willing to look at a movie in that style for the franchise. Well, excuse me, Prince. It has to have that line. It has to. Do it. They probably would, considering the sheer number of nostalgia. They'll probably have Chris Pratt play Link. And then they'll make the Smash Brothers movie. They'll end up, Chris Pratt is just like half of the cast. Chris Pratt is Kerbo. Kirby, what are you doing? Chris Pratt is just going. like the i am group yeah no they'd they'd get like ian mckellen or somebody just insanely yeah it's like it's like you could be doing so much more you shall not complete uh final fantasy 16 big game they've been pushing how it's going to change so much. It supposed to be a much more adult much darker Final Fantasy The last one was a road trip I know the last one was a road trip Most of them have been not I mean for being about the end of the world almost every time none of them have really been super dark This one's supposed to be a lot more grimdark. We'll see.
    60:39
    But I'll tell you what, you can't play it if you live in Saudi Arabia. Why not? Because Saudi Arabia requested changes be made to the game's content, hence Square said no. So no idea what the changes were But being Saudi Arabia I have guesses So It'll be Interesting to see if it ever actually comes out What the requests were But Starship Troopers What? There was a RPG Not really an RPG But there was a like combat game, like Warcraft style game. Oh, like an RTS? Yeah, an RTS that came out last year. There's another new Starship Troopers video game coming out. It's called Extermination. It is a 16 player co-op first person shooter where it's basically you and 15 of your closest strangers from the internet who've had sex with your mom fighting bugs and apparently like building up fortresses and barricades and stuff to help fight the bugs away. Okay. So it is a 16-player co-op versus AI. That's interesting. I used to really like that style. I mean, I never did it with 16 players. Right. I used to really like that style with – I'm trying to think the last time I really did it. Maybe the – was it called Horde mode with Gears of War? Or they had a mode that they added where there'd be like waves and you'd get ready and you'd play with four people. And it was fun. I liked it. Yeah, and it sounds like it's going to be a lot like that. It's entering early access this month. I just want to be the character voiced by Doogie Howser who just says, it's afraid. It's afraid.
    62:32
    And then I also want to play as the bugs. I want to be the brain bug so I can suck out people's brains.
    62:38
    You're just all about sucking stuff right now. Ian McKellen will voice my brain bug. I just want to play the Michael Ironside.
    62:48
    Come on, you want to live forever as he kind of walks up there and just kind of ignores everything going on around him and is just like casually killing bugs while yelling at everybody else to do a better job. You know what to do.
    63:02
    Apparently, Vampire Survivors, it was gifted to us. I've played quite a lot of it. I don't know if you've ever started it. I haven't installed it. I still have not played it. I meant to three months ago. It's a lot of fun. Somehow they're making an animated TV series out of it. But like everything right now, it is now in limbo due to the writer's strike. Right. The same thing with Last of Us, the second season of The Last of Us. It is now on pause due to writer's strike as well as a lot of other stuff. There's a lot of shows where the writing was done, where the shows are still filming, but the showrunners and writers are not there. So expect a drop in quality of shows next season. I had that actually happen at work. I had someone ask me for something, and I said that I was on strike and I wouldn't be writing that right now.
    63:57
    I don't think it went over the way I thought it would. I thought it was quite funny. All I know is the last time we had a writer strike, we got Dr. Horrible's sing-along blocked. that's true it was that long ago yeah so yeah i saw that once it was i liked it okay i didn't love it like you love it i love i i love i think it's great but hopefully my water bottle just it's angry it's angry it's angry i mean it does not like it's voiced by it's too moist reports coming out of the u says that they're going to approve the microsoft activision deal What does that mean though? I have no idea. I was going to ask you if you had any ideas. No, I saw that headline also and I don't I just don't understand without the UK whether, I mean I get that because they're appealing the UK thing you still need to move ahead with all the other plans. You're not going to put all that on pause and then stall out your timeline even more. So I guess maybe it means nothing. Maybe it helps with the appeal but I don't think so. I think i think that if the eu says yes it's fine and the us says yes it's fine and japan's already said yes it's fine because they don't care they don't care about microsoft right at that point i mean would you be better just to pull xbox out of the uk i just i just don't know how hard how hard it is to do that i i mean i mean literally i i would assume they would just have to literally stop selling it in the uk i i wondered that initially and then i my thought had been because of vpns and everything else that they if that was that easy they would just do that anyway right and maybe that's been their plan but and and it could be i don't know but i i know they're taking some fairly aggressive like microsoft is and i know you have this in the notes so maybe that's a good you know transition to it but like microsoft is not like sending in the backup team to try and deal with it like they're not using some scrubbed second stringers to try and solve this microsoft hired like the number one corporate rights lawyer in the uk activision's lawyer that they're providing for it uh has what is a fairly well-known clientele um with the queen pre-deceased of course uh and boris johnson and like half of the government and the head of bbc and very high profile i mean they did not pull out the small guns these are oh hey look here's a nuke and they're bringing a nuke with them as well so i mean they they brought the big guns and and i mean and that's the thing that will come up in the appeal as part of the appeal i'm sure if the eu says it's okay and the u.s says it's okay then does it matter what the uk says that's the question i know the uk has said that as far as they're concerned their block blocks it worldwide because it's too big of a combination to exist.
    67:25
    But, I mean, you're literally... Yeah, that's where I've always wondered, but how does it block? Is it because Microsoft has got some entities incorporated in the UK? They can make themselves not so... There is a way, assuming there may need to be some disentanglements, but there would be, in theory, a way to no longer operate, quote-unquote, in the UK. And we see businesses, smaller businesses, do this all the time when they get tired of paying U.S. taxes, so they incorporate overseas, even though all their workers are still in the U.S., but it doesn't count as a U.S. business. It gets tricky.
    67:59
    I don't know. Every ship is a Panamanian flagship. I don't understand. It's so far above my pay grade. I just don't know. I don't know what the options are. It will be an interesting thing to see. And again, we don't know for sure that the EU is going to say yes. but the reports are that they're going to say yes. Right. But there have been reports that the UK had softened on their stance, and apparently they weren't. Unless they meant the UK softened on the console competition stance because they didn't care at all about that. Right. It's all the streaming stuff, which I know Microsoft is still kind of like shocked Pikachu facing over that because they're like, that's not even like a developed market right now. Yeah. It's all speculative. It is interesting. The announcement could be as soon as tomorrow, but it'll be sometime this supposedly it'll be this week okay uh there they did set a date that it had to be done by which is next week i think but um hollow knight the sequel to hollow knight silk song supposed to release the first half of this year is not gonna happen and they have not put out a new date they just pushed it they said we'll let you know when we get closer this game has been in development since 2019 they said that they're getting close but they're not there yet and that the game has gotten to be quite large so I've remained stuck on the final boss you still haven't been and I thought about streaming I mean I thought about going back and streaming it on our EGP Twitch because I used to work on it over weekends and yeah I got to the final boss and I just, I can't. Not for the quote-unquote good ending because there's another way I could try and do it where maybe I don't have to fight all the forms I'm fighting but you don't get the good ending. I've not, maybe I should just cave and do that because I'm just not good anymore. I, I, on my, yeah. Win. That's what I thought. Win. I've tried a lot. It's like, you turn into Dark Souls. That's not, I mean, that game is hard but it was never that I was able to overcome everything except that at the end, I just, I run out of, I run out of health. if I could just not run out of health Tony I'd be okay I'd be alright I would have beaten that final boss except for they hit me back and that's just not that is not how this game is supposed to play and it uses some mean stuff like skills and stuff I don't have which isn't fair it's like when you're playing a game and the AI does smart stuff like target your already wounded people or kill your healer first even though the healer might not be the most obvious target when it actively targets the healer because they're like hey it's a team that's just not fair when you know the biggest not the biggest not fair thing is ais that heal oh whoa what is that no that's a pc you know thing only player characters can heal bosses that's a shock pikachu face too i i i remember the first time i was playing a pokemon game and one of the elite four healed their pokemon and i'm like you what yeah you you can't do that that's not fair it's like no no no no i do that you die i eat 500 wheels of cheese in a second to get my health back can you imagine playing can you imagine playing fallout and they start eating like all the food they carry like the deathclaws start eating food it's like how are you even carrying like 50 apples and and 200 nuka colas this doesn't make sense you don't have pockets that reminds me i saw a skit once where somebody was they where there were some guys and they were playing like it was um uh skyrim and the the guy who was playing the bad guy gets knocked back and he's like climbing up and he's just watching the other guy just like pull out wheels of cheese and stuff them down his mouth and he's just like that guy just ate 32 wheels of cheese what am i even supposed how am i supposed to fight that's like a hundred pounds of cheese you just ate it no bro what i no i quit i had uh played fable three i believe it was and And in that game, you eat to heal. But if you ate healthy foods, it made your character thin. And if you ate pies, it made your character fat. And I didn't really pay attention. It was like real life. You're going along. You're eating what you want to eat. I was just eating whatever I found to get healed up. And I finally realized my character is not the same size as he was. he's just jiggling all over the place i mean like i mean it was i think he might have been over 400 pounds it was i was just like at some point he had expanded all of his pants out and everything so we're in the same outfits and stuff and i was like whoa i i remembered reading about that this would be the case but i was just like i just kept finding pies so i just eat them for Because I had lots. Right. So then I had to go and be like, I got to just concentrate on just eating apples to get him to be more of a normal hero size. Just because it started to become almost comical to play him. Because he's going along. And he's like, I'm doing these fencing maneuvers. But this guy is built like the Baron. It's not making sense. I'm doing these reposts and stuff. And I was like, blech. It was weird.
    73:46
    I've read a couple comics that have characters who rapidly build up fat but they can burn it for calories that's how they get their powers like there's a literal in One Punch Man there's literally one of the heroes he basically has what looks like kind of like a crappy Batman costume but he's Fat Man and he starts out huge but he like runs at super speed and as he runs he gets thinner and thinner And then he starts eating food again to get big again. That was the weird thing, if I remember right, with the Fable game, though, is if I didn't eat, I would stay big. I had to eat more. It just had to be fruits. Be healthy. Interesting. Like fruits and vegetables. It's like you must eat that. So I think what I ended up doing is I just started without needing health. I just went to the shop and bought apples and just ate them all.
    74:39
    And then I was thin. To work on that mechanic a little bit. Fable had some weird things. Yeah, definitely.
    74:48
    Speaking of weird things, Redfall. Everybody's been looking forward to the vampire first-person shoot.
    74:59
    I mean, the trailers were interesting. Interesting is not the word you want to say. It was interesting.
    75:07
    Its launch was a disaster. Its launch was so much of a disaster, Phil Spencer had to put out an apology. Yes. Where he apologized to the community and promised that they are going to be revisiting the development process for games. This game's problems included points where they were advertising it at 60 frames per second after it was known that the game wasn't going to be able to get more than 30 frames a second.
    75:36
    Yes. So were there other – I'm assuming there must be other substantive issues. That was a minor issue compared to the other issues. Yeah, because I'm just like – all right. That they advertised it that way is where I see the problem. And I note that because – I'm sorry, pinball streamers, because this is going to kind of get at you too a little bit. But I get a little tired of the 60 FPS snobbery where people are just like – I feel like it's being overstated. Like a game is crap if it's not 60 FPS. And I'm like, that is not the most prioritized thing you need to worry about, generally speaking. But if you're misadvertising, it is a serious problem. But it's got to be. Like if it's a disaster, it's got to be something that's a bigger problem than that. It is. The game is, from multiple sources, the game is just bland and boring. and it is very much an uninspired looter shooter. Okay. And there are lots of bugs that have stuttering and freeze-ups and a variety of issues. It is a game that was not ready to go out. But most of the reviews I've seen have said, you know what, if all the bugs were fixed and it was at 60 FPS, it still wouldn't be a good game.
    77:00
    Ouch. Yeah. that's just that whole looter shooter it's hard it is a lot of people are messing it up yeah it is i mean not everything look at the flack diablo 3 took right and all the changes they had to make to that and that was a that's a storied brand ip that had got it right for so long right and while this and we're currently like the top level of like the looter shooter it's the Borderlands games. And if you come out with a game that looks like borderland, like blander than Borderlands and doesn't play as well or shoot as well, you already lost because you're not going to get anywhere near it. And that's what this is.
    77:47
    Phil has also stated that he's not worried about Starfield. and he thinks that even if Starfield was an 11 out of 10, it's not going to hurt PlayStation because nobody's going to sell their PlayStations to play Starfield, which was a little dig at this whole ongoing purchase thing. Yeah, get your digs in. Yeah, get your digs in where you can because Starfield is the next big storied release. To be fair, I think that's the more looked forward to release than Redfall. I didn't know there was hype for Redfall, quite frankly. They tried to hype it real big, but I never heard a lot of fan talk about it. Not like Starfall. Right.
    78:36
    People have been waiting the new Jedi game, and people wanted the new Zelda game. I didn't hear that about Redfall. Yeah, Starfield. I said Starfall. Starfield. Starfield, yeah. I think that's the next big... Because it's sci-fi, and people have this hope that it's, what, fall out in space. that's what people want it's Bethesda so they want it to be fall out of Skyrim yeah they want a new IP RPG that's what they want that's what the people want they'll probably have a weirding module and your character's name will be a killing word yes I hated that addition to the movie to the original movie come on they're fun the weirding modules were fun they were voiced by Ian McKellen they're so bad they're so another one of those things I will kill him Sting. I liked Sting in that role. They need to bring Sting back. Sting. I think he's probably a little old for that role. Not the same role. He doesn't have to do the same role. Just have him in it. No, no, bring him back in the exact same role.
    79:41
    Okay. I don't know how well he'll go with Batista as Beast Rabban, but I don't know who was playing Payette in the new. I haven't looked. I watched the trailer, and I really enjoyed it. but I enjoyed Dune, so of course I did.
    79:58
    This talk means video games are over. That means we're done. We are done. People can reach out to us, as I noted before, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also visit us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast or patreon.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks, probably talking about a few video games, maybe some pinball. I'll probably digress a little bit. digression is fine. I digress some too. That's what happens. But until next time, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. And we say goodbye. Happy Mother's Day, mothers.