I'm gonna tell everybody I know that I'm moving to Nashville. I get all my goodbyes very loudly today. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda and I want to talk about The Godfather. And I want to talk about my feelings on this game after seeing Karl over at IE Pinball stream this game for I think multiple hours. I saw one hour of the game, I saw the stream, I saw more than enough to give you my first impressions on this game. I'm going to be talking about a game, but I also want to tell you what I've done. I've sort of zoomed out a little bit and I want to approach what I'm about to do on this podcast in a much more sort of balanced and intellectual way. Because I do firmly believe that you can hold two opposing beliefs in your head at the same time and still function and still move forward. And I have a lot of opposing feelings about this game. And it doesn't mean I don't think the game is fun. It doesn't mean I don't think you'll enjoy the game. It doesn't mean Jersey Jack delivered a total masterpiece or a total turd, but I want to give you the way I've been approaching this game, the way I've been feeling about this game, and also what I've gathered from many of my trusted friends in the pinball community. Because nobody can watch a pinball machine being streamed without a lot of different bias and opinions coming at them, right? So look, for example, I have people who have already ordered this game without even seeing I have people who have told me they will never buy this game. I have really good friends who've sent deposits and now they're seeing the game and they're not sure if they want it. I have people who sent deposits and they're over the moon and they're arguing with everyone else who doesn't love the game how great the game is. And meanwhile, only a handful of people have played the game. I love Christopher Franchi's artwork. I only own two pinball machines on planet earth. I own an Eric Meunier game and I own a Batman 66 SLE again in which I have one more payment or two more payments and the game is mine. But I think Christopher Franchi is one of the most talented artists in pinball. And so as I approach this game knowing that I have a designer who I appreciate making this game, an artist who I really appreciate who's done the artwork on the game, and many friends of mine who are invested in this game or this game triggers anger from them, I've I've been absorbing all of it and I want to give you my feelings after watching the game being streamed because two days ago we got a 90 second video where it looked like it was Willy Wonka noise and it was lit up like a rainbow and everybody was reacting to that. Now obviously Karl gave us a much deeper dive into the game and he showed us what the modes are like. He showed us how often there are multiballs. He showed us the shots, the diverters, everything that's in this game. I'm going to explain how I have opposing forces in my head as I think about Jersey Jack Pinball Number 8 being the Godfather Pinball. I'm going to start right away by saying this. I think Jersey Jack Pinball made one heck of a mobster themed pinball machine. This game looks like a really fun mobster pinball machine. It just does. It's got the Tommy guns. It's got all the different call outs from mob bosses. It's talking to you as if you're building your gang family and you're going around the city and you want to take over all the power and the burrows and become the ultimate Don All right, now I want to play a little bit of what the opposing force is inside my head around this game. As a Godfather pinball machine, right? A pinball machine that is paying homage to one of the most iconic movies of all time, is paying homage to the 50th anniversary of the Godfather movie. On that level, I think this is one of the worst theme integrated pinball machines I've ever encountered. And I'll explain why. Nothing about what I love in that movie or what makes that movie iconic is coming through on any level in this game. That movie is all about iconic scenes and you never get any of that in this pinball machine. They don't give you anything more than just a few seconds at a time. It's more filling the gaps between the kingpin code than it is actually letting you experience the iconic scenes from the movie. And I was watching for an entire hour and I was like, oh my gosh, like there really is like hardly any the Godfather the movie in this game. And this code is pretty much done. It is not going to change. I feel like there's less about this movie in this game than there is even of Pirates of the Caribbean in Pirates of the Caribbean because at least with Pirates of the Caribbean, you got the actor from the movie doing all of the call outs. And I mean it when I say it. Like if I love the Godfather and I saw a pinball machine called the Godfather and I walked up to it and it said the Godfather and I plunge this machine, I would be really confused what What is going on in the machine itself? And I've played so many pinball machines based on movies. TV shows and different things and properties. And look, and I heard Eric Minier during his interview say like all of the iconic scenes from the movie synced up with the video clips are going to be in this game. And I think that was one of the most misleading statements I've heard anyone say about what's going to be in the game. Eric, the iconic scenes are not in this game. You don't play any of those iconic scenes. They just randomly happen in the game as you're going through this completely different mobster storyline. And it's just so weird to me. It like the main entree in this game isn even the Godfather I going to talk about that a little bit more And I said it last night on my Facebook Live If they had called this pinball machine Dick Tracy and they got the Dick Tracy license and made Dick Tracy pinball this would have been one of the coolest games ever It would have been one of the coolest theme integrated pins ever. And I just want to say this to everyone out there who's listening to this right now. I was in the chat and I was listening to people and I am so shocked by people in this community all of a sudden acting like it doesn't matter how well the theme is integrated into the pinball machine. I'm shocked by the amount of apologists who are saying, yeah, they did a great job integrating the Godfather. No, they did not. They did not do a good job. I've heard people bring up Jurassic Park being like, this is like Jurassic Park and what Stern did with Jurassic Park. No, it's not. Stern did a completely separate Jurassic Park adventure. And I guess maybe this game is trying to be a completely different, like, Godfather adventure. Okay, but think about Jurassic Park for a minute. Stern did not put in movie clips from the Jurassic Park movie all throughout the game, but just used them in a weird way that's not the modes of the game. And I keep thinking about the Godfather movie. Let me give you an example of Godfather the movie that I just don't understand why they didn't even attempt To make a game where you play through the iconic modes of Godfather. You remember the scene with the horse head? Remember when Robert Duvall goes there and he's representing the Don? Remember when he's talking to the movie producer about getting Johnny Fontaine the part in the movie? And they're sitting down at the dinner table and the movie producer is screaming at him how he's never gonna let this happen. He's using all sorts of expletives. Why couldn't that have been a mode in this game? Where you are playing and you're hitting the shots and you're getting through that scene. You can still have energetic shots, you can still have some vibrancy in the gameplay, but at least you'll be playing through that iconic scene in the movie to get to the part where when you complete that mode, the guy wakes up with the horse head in his bed, and then you have the iconic Godfather movie coming through in pinball format. And none of that is there. Alright, let me go on to what I like and don't like about the game. Again, I really like the layout. I think this is one of Jersey Jack's best shooting games to date. The layout is absolutely incredible. The shots look totally fun. They look fast. There's a lot of flow in this game. If there's been one knock on Jersey Jack Pinball, it's that their games don't flow very well. There's a lot of stop and go. And Eric Minier heard that feedback and he made what I think is one of the fastest shooting Jersey Jack Pinball machines to date. All of these are great and it was really fun watching Karl shoot this machine. But then what I don't like about the game is I look down at the game and I'm like, where are the toys? Where is the innovation? And see, this is the big debate now. We use the word mechanisms. Where's the mech in the game? But I think I want to use the word, where are the toys in the game? Where's the Godzilla building? Where's the Godzilla bridge? Where's Mechagodzilla with the magnet? Where's the Godzilla magnet that throws the ball into the upper flipper, right? So when you look at this game and you play this game and I say to you, where are the toys in Godfather Pinball? You will probably only have one toy in the game, which is the guy with the Tommy gun and the spinning disc underneath him. There are no more toys in this game. And if we start considering diverters to be toys in pinball, we're in big trouble, ladies and gentlemen. So as I look down at this game and I know there's a lot of little things in it that change the pathway of the ball, but that's it? A $15,000 pinball machine, a $12,000 pinball machine has absolutely hardly any innovation in it. Hardly any toys in the game itself. There's more going on in the Pirates of the Caribbean upper playfield from a toy standpoint than is going on in all of Godfather from a toy standpoint. You're not going to get this like satisfying thing seeing a diverter happen that you're not even seeing. Like you're shooting the ball into different places and then it's diverting the ball in a way you don't even see. That's not like that enjoyable. And so knowing Eric Minier has the ability to load up a game and use his engineering skill set to make real toys in pinball, I'm highly disappointed by the lack of toys in the game. And when I look down at this game, it still feels like one of Jersey Jack Pinball's most barren machines. And that is why I am also utterly disappointed when I read the comments from people who keep saying stuff like, this game is packed. How is this game packed? If this game is packed, then what is theater of magic? What is freaking like medieval madness? What is freaking Twilight Zone? What is Godzilla if this game is packed? The truth is it's not packed. It's got great flow, a lot of ball paths, a lot of interesting diverters going on, but it is not a packed pinball machine. And then I feel like if Jersey Jack is going to sell me a game that doesn't really integrate the theme that well, and then also doesn't have much in it mechanically that is that interesting or innovative or a real toy, then how can we be dropping $12,000 to $15,000 on these machines? You see I'm torn, right? The game has great flow. It's going to be Jersey Jack Pinball's best shooting game ever. See and then what's going to happen is this ladies and gentlemen. This is pinball in the modern day. People are going to say it shoots great, the flow is great, it's a lot of fun to shoot, and because it's a lot of fun to shoot, I will absolutely give this game immunity from having toys. I will give it immunity for having good theme integration just because it shoots well. And this is what these companies want. This is what these distributors want who make videos selling you these games. They want you to think flow equals fun equals buy the game now because then these games can hide their lack of mechanical engineering with artwork. And what is Jersey Jack doing now, right? To hide the lack of toys in a game. They're hiding that with light shows that are over the top. I am Tom Katz your host for Over seis goorder Polyvagal Un INFJ and wallywh gutter stop Math machine that doesn even have an LCD screen underneath the glass Now look I don like the way they used it in Toy Story but they been very creative with how they used LCDs under the glass in other games but we don get any of that in Godfather. So, they've yanked that out, they have only one real toy in the game, and people are saying this game is packed. It's the best Dick Tracy pinball machine Jersey Jack Pinball ever could have made. It's not the best Godfather pinball machine by any means. Alright, so then I look at the artwork and I'm watching the stream last night and everyone's saying, Franchi, you killed it on the artwork. Franchi, you crushed it on the playfield. This is Christopher Franchi's greatest playfield of all time. And there's only one problem with that. Christopher Franchi didn't do the playfield of the game. The game's playfield was done by Jean-Paul DeWin and what's his name, Jesper, whatever that guy's name is. I think maybe Franchi did some of the characters that they dropped onto the playfield, but he did not do the playfield. Okay, so that's another thing. I'm like, wow, okay, so who did what in this game? Alright, so but the cabinet looks beautiful, the playfield is nice. It's not as nice as the Munsters though, and people are like, this is your greatest game ever, Mr. Franchi. And again, it's subjective, but I don't think it is. I don't think this looks better than the Munsters. And then as I was watching this stream, right, Alright, then we get to the callouts of the game. And I'm just reading people in the chat as Karl is playing. And I was so surprised to see the following comments. Somebody said, these are the greatest callouts in pinball ever. And then another person says, these callouts are horrible. And you see how polarizing this game is. Like some people love it, some people hate it. And look, my opinion about the callouts again, the callouts are great if you're just making a generic mobster game. If you're making the Godfather pinball, I think the callouts are pretty damn bad. Then again, it's like how you approach this game is how you will feel about it. And I've been taking so many punches from friends of mine who have ordered this game. That's another thing in pinball, people. Whenever somebody orders something, they've made up their mind, they're committed to buying it, they will defend it at any cost. And the same is true for people who know they don't want it. Like they might slam it over and over and over again. My good friend Derek is like, you're really hard on the Godfather. You're too hard on the Godfather. And this is the other thing I want to say. All of a sudden, this theme that nobody wanted, right? Nobody wanted the Godfather. All of a sudden now, everybody is treating it like some fragile, precious thing that we're not allowed to say we're not happy with the way Jersey Jack made the Godfather. And the reason why we're not happy with the Godfather for those of us who are not happy is Godfather was a bad theme to begin with because how many people go see the Godfather and walk out of that movie and say hey that was a fun movie nobody it's not meant to be a fun movie and so then if you're trying to make a pinball machine based on it and your creative direction which we heard from Eric Minier and we heard from Keith Johnson if your creative direction was to make a fun bright pinball machine based on the Godfather because that's the only way you could turn the Godfather into a pinball machine. I'm here to tell you right now, if they pitched that to me, I would have said, no, we are not doing that. At least try to make it work. Go watch that movie. Watch it 10 times each. And you're telling me with all the different movie pinball machines that have come out in the world, and you're telling me, look at what Lyman did with the Batman clips. You're telling me you can't take this movie, find all the iconic scenes in this movie, and you can't create modes around this movie. México Coló, I feel like they only license a certain amount and it's just so weird to me every time I watch the stream I just don't feel that movie coming at me. Alright now let's talk about the code and the multiball. I mean this is another thing it's like once again Eric has made a very multiball heavy game and when I talk to my friend Derek he's like that's Eric's signature. Like he makes multiball games that you stack the multiballs on top of each other and when you know the rules, Derek tells me it's very rewarding and he gets very mad at me. He's like, Chris, you never want to take the time to learn the rules. And when I was watching Karl play and looking at the LCD screen, I could see like everything they're going for. The stained glass window, four separate windows to the side. Then there was like all these bars on the stained glass window that were filling up. It's just a lot to get your head around and this game is perfect for people who like those kinds of rule sets. Jersey Jack Pinball makes rule sets like this. They are very polarizing. You either like it or you probably don't. It is radically different than how Stern Pinball codes a game. It is radically different than how Lyman Sheets codes a game. And look, personally, I don't like the way Jersey Jack overbakes the code. I don't want there to be 22 patches in Guns N' Roses. I don't want to have to select 22 characters in Pirates of the Caribbean. And I think because they've got this big screen, it's like they're always trying to figure out how much they can layer into the code and put up on that screen. A pinball spouse from Canada. Quick answer i got banny Subculture within the pinball culture. And when I look at a game like Foo Fighters and I look at what they did with the code and what they did with the animations, it's a million times easier to understand how to play the Foo Fighters how to look at the Foo Fighters screen and enjoy what they put up on the screen And I know it Jersey Jack makes everything beautiful Everything they do is so beautiful The LCD is beautiful The playfield is beautiful The gold armor, the gold sparkle, everything is beautiful. But to me, it's like the equivalent of wearing all of your beautiful clothes at the same time. It doesn't make it better. It doesn't make you more fashionable. It doesn't make you look good. And the same is true with the light shows. It's once again this like rainbow daisy chain of lights in which, and I will say it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the first stream, but there are still screen grabs going around of this just rainbow bright world that's going nuts. And usually that happens during Eric's multiballs. And once again, we have a game that is clearly multiball heavy. Now look, the multiballs in this game don't seem as annoying as in Guns N' Roses because a lot of the shots in this game are further up the playfield. So I think it's a lot more enjoyable to play this game when multiball gets turned on and that's probably why people are going to have a better time shooting this game than Guns N' Roses. But that being said, at some point Jersey Jack Pinball needs to start listening to the feedback about the multiballs, about the rainbow-colored lights, About how they integrate a theme into pinball. You know, Jack got up there at Texas like two years ago and said, nobody theme integrates better than us. And I think that's absolutely not the case. Alright, so look. So look, it's the best Dick Tracy pinball machine ever made that sits inside a godfather cabinet. Now you might hate me right now if you ordered the game. Please don't hate me. I'm happy if you like this game. I'm happy if you've ordered this game. I have Guns N' Roses in a box. I love Guns N' Roses. I will never sell Guns N' Roses regardless of how good or bad it shoots because it's my favorite band of all time. And that's my thing about Godfather is you might hang on to it because it shoots well, but I think anyone that really loves the Godfather movie is going to be sorely disappointed in how that movie comes through in the pinball game. But let's just zoom out again a little bit. There's like six or seven games coming out in one month. There are more than enough games for everybody. And we shouldn't kill each other. If Kaneda doesn't like one game, that's okay. I don't have a personal vendetta against Jersey Jack Pinball. This just isn't the game for me. It doesn't speak to me. I think there's a lot of valuable feedback Jersey Jack needs to hear and not just listen to the fanboys because again, they need to sell this game for six to eight months before Steve Ritchie's Elton John comes out. I'm looking at this Godfather. I'm just going to make a prediction. I think people are going to get this into their homes. I think they're going to enjoy it. I think the callouts are going to start to get annoying. And I think because of the lack of theme integration of Godfather, I think you're going to see this game leave people's collections sooner than later. And once again, Jersey Jack Pinball doesn't have the collector's editions on the line. And that's my other big fear for this launch. This happens almost with every Jersey Jack game now. The L.E.'s are out for maybe two months before the C.E.'s start getting made. Hopefully they make the C.E. sooner. They really need to get the C.E.'s to buyers. Will they sell all thousand C.E.'s? I'm going to be honest, I don't care. I'm not an investor in Jersey Jack Pinball and neither are you. I don't wake up and just want to make my distributor friends money. Alright, I mean it's so weird this hobby now, like every time a new game comes out, we are endlessly spammed by every single distributor on social media. You know when Chevy releases a new car, imagine if every single Chevy dealership was spamming Facebook trying to get you to buy their Corvette, not the other dealership's Corvette, my Corvette. I think the whole pinball industry is oversaturated, I think the whole model of like distributors is getting a little bit outdated, there's too many of them. They're all fighting over each other for sales. I think the first introduction to a game being a distributor's content is something I would just take with a grain of salt. They're trying to sell you the game. I mean, I just find it funny. Like I watched Greg and Zach's first impressions of the game and I'm just thinking to myself, it's nothing against them, but what do you think they're going to tell you? What do you think their first impression is going to be of a game in which they are best friends with the company that made the game? You just gotta remember that. Nobody's friends with Kaneda, right? Nobody! And I gave glowing feedback to Foo Fighters, because that one I had no expectations on and it blew me away. Godfather? I didn't have expectations either, but it's not blowing me away, it's really strange the way they executed it. Look, and that's why you're here, because I will call it both ways, and I am gonna have a hard time walking around TPF, Because people are going to want to kill me this year. But everybody look, it's just pinball. If you knew what I just went through in my personal life, you would realize how inane and trivial all of this is. And I will talk to you guys in Texas and I'll share some of that with you. But just remember, we are here to have fun. We are here to analyze these games. At these prices, I mean it, at these prices, nothing should be a compromise in pinball. Every theme should be integrated. And that's how we play kids play amazingly well every game should have a few amazing toys in it every game should have amazing artwork every game should come with a freaking top her ladies and gentlemen we'll talk to you soon enjoy your weekend's and make sure you join this Saturday morning spectacular tomorrow because we're going to pick which cargo short or Brazilian shorts Kaneda wears to this year's twippy's later Anchorfte Animation tutte sere E no Howl at baking running just let our minds run