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Episode 237 - Fixing The Switch 2

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 6m·analyzed·Jan 19, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

David Fix out at American Pinball; hosts debut 'Theme Judge' segment evaluating pinball themes 2020-2024.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers discusses Rotato gameplay and other gaming updates, then pivots to pinball news: David Fix departure from American Pinball and the hiring of new sales director Ron Lindman, along with uncertainty about future titles like Cuphead. The hosts introduce a new segment called 'Theme Judge' to evaluate pinball themes from 2020-2024, selecting best and worst theme choices across the five-year period.

Key Claims

  • David Fix is no longer at American Pinball; contract was not renewed

    high confidence · Host states 'David Fix is now out at American Pinball. He had released an announcement indicating that they did not renew his contract.'

  • American Pinball hired Ron Lindman as new director of sales

    high confidence · Host confirms 'they do now have a new director of sales. I'm not sure I'm going to say his last name right, but his name is Ron Lindman.'

  • American Pinball is hiring a new service lead and additional production staff

    high confidence · Host states 'they are in the process of hiring a new service lead and also trying to pick up more production staff' and 'seen... on Facebook, American Pinball's announcement attempting to find more people to be production line workers.'

  • American Pinball is surveying distributors about future game viability

    high confidence · Host notes 'they are also in the process of surveying distributors for them and such to try and figure out what they want to do in terms of next steps.'

  • Cuphead is the rumored next game for American Pinball

    medium confidence · Host states 'you know the rumored game, of course, has been Cuphead' but notes this is unconfirmed; Cuphead designer is no longer with the company

  • Stern is the main example of a pinball company that pulled itself out of financial failure

    medium confidence · Host argues 'the biggest example of that has been Stern. And Stern was the only game in town when it was failing and when it got pulled out of that failure.'

  • American Pinball lacks the financial backing that Stern and Jersey Jack Pinball have

    medium confidence · Host contrasts American Pinball's situation: 'the other big example has been jersey jack pinball um which has a very serious financial backing again american pinball struggle though isn't that it doesn't have a financial cash cow to turn to they do it's called aimtron'

  • Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye is selling well with positive early reception

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't see how this can be anything other than a positive for American pinball, but I don't know that it will be a game changer or a lifesaver for American pinball at this point.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~15:45 — Summarizes skepticism about whether management changes can save American Pinball given market distrust and lack of financial backing

  • “That's a tough bell to unring. It is. And I don't know. I think the big question there is how many people will actually think about it as something like that, so much as how many people will just go, oh, I like Cuphead, I'll buy the game.”

    Hosts discussing buyer trust @ ~14:30 — Addresses the trust problem: consumers may hesitate to buy American Pinball games due to fear of company failure and lack of support

  • “barbecue is not a good idea. It's just it's really not.”

    Host (Tony) @ ~28:00 — Opening judgment in 'Theme Judge' segment; Barry O's Barbecue Challenge criticized as poor theme choice

  • “It always felt to me that if you were going to take a movie along those kind of lines to make a pinball machine, you would have definitely been better going with Scarface or something else than something of the gravitas of Godfather.”

    Host @ ~30:15 — Argues Godfather was wrong IP choice for pinball despite being iconic film

  • “Princess Bride, what a smart pick Because those kids who grew up with it Have money now They could go in and want a pinball experience in that world”

    Host @ ~35:45 — Princess Bride selected as excellent theme choice; demonstrates understanding of nostalgic property with aging fanbase

  • “there are only three acts in my mind when I think of the absolute perfect music pens. And one of them was created, no matter how it actually turned out. And that's Queen.”

    Host (Zach) @ ~37:30 — Queen identified as obvious/dream music pin and top-tier theme choice alongside Meatloaf and Michael Jackson

  • “one could argue I think successfully that horror should never be done as a pinball theme. I know some people will love it, but a lot of people do not.”

Entities

David FixpersonRon LindmanpersonAmerican PinballcompanyAmetroncompanyDungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's EyegameStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyBrian Eddy

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball facing trust deficit with consumers regarding company stability and long-term support

    high · Host states 'That's a tough bell to unring' regarding buyer hesitation; concerns about company survival if next game fails; lack of financial backing compared to Stern and JJP

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball conducting distributor survey to assess demand before committing to next game release

    high · Host reports 'they are also in the process of surveying distributors for them and such to try and figure out what they want to do in terms of next steps. What makes sense? Is there an appetite for people?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Ultraman Kaiju Rumble criticized as too niche/obscure; mainstream horror franchises (Halloween, Friday the 13th) would have been better

    high · Host argues 'horror games always do worse in general' and TCM is 'too culty. It's just too culty. And there are too many other big name horrors that would have been better picks.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Toy Story 4 selected as poor IP choice; should have used original trilogy instead of widely-disliked fourth film

    high · Host compares to 'doing James Bond and instead you do James Bond Moonraker. Like, no'; argues Toy Story 4 was 'Spaceballs 2, the quest for more money'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barry O's Barbecue Challenge criticized as conceptually flawed theme combining barbecue with incongruous hot rod elements

    high · Host argues 'there was this big effort to incorporate hot rods into it as well, which also doesn't really have anything to do with barbecue' and contrasts with potential food truck concept

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.199

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, the 19th of January. This is episode 237. I have a sty in my eye, so I'm having a problem reading my notes on this side. I need to read them and move them to the other side. We've got to do a tablet swap. Tablet swap. But don't worry. We're good. They can hear this riveting. We can move some of these cables out of the way, too. Yes, I got it. So people don't know the setup. So the setup, we're back live. The weather is cold again, but we haven't received new snow. Yeah. It's not like last time where after we got done recording, I went to work to plow snow and then got trapped at work and was at work for like 30 hours. So the way it works when we record in person currently, which is why the audio is a lot better now because it's reduced echo, is I actually have a card table I set up in the middle of my living room. So when Tony comes, we set up a little card table. We have mics I put on the card table. We have a little Zoom PodTrack P4 that we bought with the power of the Patreon support. Thank you very much, Patreon supporters. It's been great. And, yeah, that's helped a lot. This has cut down on the echo a lot. And then so the table is mostly like XLR cables, our mics, our tablets that we use to see our OneNote notes. And I keep a little sheet of paper because I manually actually use paper to write down timestamp related things like the time we started actually talking about the show versus when I actually hit the record button. And so that is the structure. And when you write down when I make bad words. Yes. That's also why I have to have the sheet of paper. The Brotato. What's going on with the Brotato? That's what you left us with. I left you with Rotato. I'm still playing Rotato fairly heavily in my rotation. And by fairly heavily in my rotation, I mean I think it's the only thing I've played in the last two weeks. Okay. So Rotato is the new Battletech. I have Rotato up to over 100 hours of playtime in Rotato since I got it in December.
2:12
Wow. Yeah. I've had, like, entire days where I've just been, like, watching something and just playing. because I'll just sit there and I use my Xbox controller that's hooked up to my computer. Oh, right, right, right. So I will literally sit there with like my feet up on my desk with watching TV show on my big TV and then on one of my computer monitors next to the TV off right beside the TV, I have Rotato on. So I'll be watching Babylon 5 or something and playing Rotato at the same time. Okay. So I've been doing stuff like that. But I have 91 achievements on it out of the 176. I'm at 51% achievement-wise.

medium confidence · Host reports 'Buzz has been really, really positive. I've heard that the game is selling pretty well... initial reaction, by and large, to those that do not hate the theme... the overall uptake seems to be pretty high in terms of excitement.'

Host @ ~42:00 — Broad criticism of horror as pinball theme category; explains why Texas Chainsaw Massacre is poor thematic choice

  • “Led Zeppelin should have been an easy home run. Almost as easy as Queen.”

    Host @ ~50:30 — Led Zeppelin selected as excellent theme; Stern's version underperformed despite strong IP

    • person
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Barry O's Barbecue Challengegame
    Princess Bridegame
    Queengame
    Led Zeppelingame
    Texas Chainsaw Massacregame
    John Wickgame
    Toy Story 4game
    Ultraman Kaiju Rumblegame
    Evil Deadgame
    Game of Thronesgame
    Cupheadgame
  • $

    market_signal: Music pinball and modern IP (John Wick, Game of Thrones) identified as stronger theme categories than horror or novelty food themes

    medium · Multiple theme selections and detailed reasoning; hosts note music pins are reliably purchased and Led Zeppelin/Queen as obvious IP gaps in industry

  • ?

    personnel_signal: David Fix departs American Pinball; Ron Lindman hired as new director of sales

    high · Official announcement of contract non-renewal; new hire confirmed; hiring of additional staff indicates organizational restructuring

  • ?

    announcement: Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eye showing strong early sales and positive critical reception despite 'too nerdy' theme concern from some players

    high · Host confirms 'Buzz has been really, really positive. I've heard that the game is selling pretty well' and 'overall uptake seems to be pretty high in terms of excitement'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Cuphead rumored as next American Pinball game but unconfirmed; original designer no longer with company

    medium · Host notes 'you know the rumored game, of course, has been Cuphead. However, as things stand' noting uncertainty; concern that designer departure mirrors Dennis Nordman/Elvira pattern

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts acknowledge David Fix departure as positive management change but remain skeptical about company viability; Stern example suggests American Pinball needs 'only game in town' monopoly to survive

    high · Host: 'I don't see how this can be anything other than a positive for American pinball, but I don't know that it will be a game changer or a lifesaver'

    • 2:59
    I don't know that I'll ever full clear this game because some of the characters are really hard. But I'm at the point where the only achievements I have left are to beat the main game with a character and the DLC with every character. Okay, so when I saw your math here of achievements versus achievements remaining, I was like, That must be a lot of characters then. It has a ton of characters. And some of them are much easier to beat than others. And some of them are much more fun. There's a couple of characters that when I'm getting annoyed at how it's going on other characters, I will go back to certain characters because I just consider them more fun and just play around with them. Yeah, that makes sense. But I'm doing that. I did take part of – grab some stuff in a sale, and I got all of the DLC for an older game that I haven't played in a number of years, Battlestar Galactica Deadlock. I never played that. Yeah, it is a – it's a strategy. It's a Battlestar strategy game, like an RTS. It's a Battlestar RTS. but I'd never gotten any of the DLC and there's like six of them and I was able to get like all of them for like eight bucks. So I grabbed all of the DLC. So I'm going to, I've reinstalled that and I'm planning on starting playing that at some point, but that will require more input than Brotato where I just kind of half-heartedly do it on one side while doing other stuff. Okay. That makes sense. So I've prepped for that. I just haven't actually started that. Yes. Well, I have continued along with my Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth game. I actually just yesterday got into Chapter 5. I'm finally up to a party of four individuals, and I finally met Danny Trejo because I knew Danny Trejo was in the game. It was very obvious at the moment. Machete. When he grabs a, do you know what? This is a very useful tool. It's called the machete. And it's like, yes, he dual wields machetes. That's the way to go. Yes, this is the way. So doing that, I've been continuing to play Marvel Rivals, usually every day or every other day. Overwatch, I probably do maybe three times a week working on that battle pass. But more time on Marvel Rivals as I continue to try and learn characters. They've come out with their first real season one. They had started with a half season of season zero. So they're starting to roll out Fantastic Four characters, and they started with two of them. So you can play as Mr. Fantastic or the Invisible Woman. And so they've got a lot of characters already, of course, because it's quite easy to know characters because Marvel's got a pretty big catalog of them. Yes, they do. So I've been doing that. So let's go ahead and jump into pinball then. And we don't have a lot. I mean, we, because of the brilliant timing of Stern, we were able really to give a lot of initial thoughts very early in the release of Stern Pinball's Dungeons & Dragons, the Tyrant's Eye game. Just to sort of tie a bow on that, because we even already saw that first gameplay reveal where Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan were explaining the game. Buzz has been really, really positive. I've heard that the game is selling pretty well. I don't know if all of the LEs are yet sold out from all of the distributors, but I heard they were going at a pretty good clip. And, of course, they had further reduced down from the uncanny X-Men's LE count, so they don't have to sell as many to reach that particular level. But initial reaction, by and large, to those that do not hate the theme. And there are a number of pinball people who find the theme too nerdy. But setting that aside, the overall uptake seems to be pretty high in terms of excitement. We'll see what people think as they get their own hands on the game itself. However, a number of people did take Stern up on the media mixer option. That was back, I believe, on January 7th. You and I were invited, but there was no way we were going to, especially with what happened with the weather, there was no way we were going to end up making it. That would have guaranteed it even if I didn't already have meetings scheduled all day long. Yes. So anyway, those reactions, what few I've heard, like over on Triple Drain Podcast and such, has been positive to their hands on with the game as well. So I think our initial reaction seems to be holding up in terms of the hands-on experience that folks have. I don't know if we will get a chance to play this before we go to Texas in March. I'm hopeful, but it really just depends on when the locations around here get the game and when I can make time to go to those locations. Yeah, it's the harder part. Because, yeah, that tends to be a harder part for me nowadays. But there is one piece of big news. Everyone, unfortunately, what goes up must come down. And while we may win with being able to be early in the news cycle for Dungeons & Dragons, we are late on the news cycle regarding the fate of American Pinball. David Fix is now out at American Pinball. He had released an announcement indicating that they did not renew his contract. So he has departed. I do have a link in the show notes to a Nap Arcade article that's going to give you some summary on this for those that would like to read more. However, they do now have a new director of sales. I'm not sure I'm going to say his last name right, but his name is Ron Lindman. And according to Ron, they are in the process of hiring a new service lead and also trying to pick up more production staff. Now, I have seen, I think it was on Facebook, American Pinball's announcement attempting to find more people to be production line workers. So that definitely tracks with what American Pinball have been indicating about trying to acquire more individuals. However, my understanding from that NAP Arcade article, as Ron has indicated, they are also in the process of surveying distributors for them and such to try and figure out what they want to do in terms of next steps. What makes sense? Is there an appetite for people? Will people actually buy their games if they do keep making games or come out with another game? And you know the rumored game, of course, has been Cuphead.
    8:51
    However, as things stand, there is an intention to fully support all of the games that have already come out. And, of course, this company does operate under the Ametron umbrella. And Ametron is a company, as far as everyone is aware, is doing just fine. In fact, they had been, I think, last year going through like an IPO to go public over on one of India or maybe I don't know how many stock exchanges India has. But I'll say the India stock exchange because I think it was the big one.
    9:19
    Any reactions to any of this? I don't see how this can be anything other than a positive for American pinball, but I don't know that it will be a game changer or a lifesaver for American pinball at this point. I think the big thing is going to be when slash F the next game releases, whatever its theme is, whether it's cuphead or something else and how well it's supported and how well it works since they've gotten rid of all of their coding staff and everything else. Yeah, I'm in a similar boat. I think it's too little too late to really save American football as a brand that can move forward. I mean, never say never. We've seen other companies that have gotten into dire financial straits pull themselves out. But the biggest example of that has been Stern. And Stern was the only game in town when it was failing and when it got pulled out of that failure. and so we had no other choice if you wanted new new pinball you had to keep buying stern that's not true anymore the other big example has been jersey jack pinball um which has a very serious financial backing again american pinball struggle though isn't that it doesn't have a financial cash cow to turn to they do it's called aimtron the problem is now there's this huge distrust that the company is going to like they're going to keep the subsidiary around so are you willing to buy hey, let's say Cuphead comes out, are you willing to buy in the concern that maybe they won't be around in a year to continue to provide custom parts and support that are specific to that game? That's a tough bell to unring. It is. And I don't know. I think the big question there is how many people will actually think about it as something like that, so much as how many people will just go, oh, I like Cuphead, I'll buy the game. But the thing is, is I think Cuphead is the wrong license to have people buy games just on license. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, it's good that it's licensed. Is it good enough? Most of the buzz I see isn't about the theme. It's about people that are really excited about the designer's design, but that designer's not even there anymore, which, again, isn't atypical per se. We've seen instances like, you know, Dennis Nordman was long disconnected from Elvira's House of Horrors before it came out. And he's noted that Stern made a number of changes to the game he originally had crafted for them. So we've seen instances of this before, but I don't have a high degree of confidence. But I do think ultimately from all of the I and we've shared a lot of it, but I had received a lot of stuff behind the scenes about American pinball claims, claims that maybe weren't always verifiable in some instances. So I couldn't I couldn't feel like I could run with them publicly. But broadly speaking, there was a lot of issues with with Mr. Fix's approach claims that he was making publicly. I was hearing different stories from people behind the scenes. And so there's a general sense that even if he maybe wasn't the biggest issue with how American Pinball operated, what he was conveying was seen by some people as very inaccurate publicly. So the hope is that if they're not going to be more transparent, they'll at least be more accurate with what they've been claiming publicly because that breeds distrust when it comes across as disingenuous what you're saying to the public versus what everyone else is reporting behind the scenes. Correct. All right. That's really it for any of the notable pinball news I wanted to run with. So I'm going to – this is a game I've decided to do. I'm going to call it Theme Judge. I'm actually going to broaden it a little bit more. then let us know like right into eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com if you think this works like if you guys are interested in this or not we're going to be judgy we are but we're going to do positive and negative i've written it up in our one notes internal notes as negative but i want to do both because i want to be generous uh plus i think it'll make it a little more interesting so here's how here's the way i've been thinking about it we just talked about like the importance of license in regards to american pinball so we know theme is super important but we know companies run with themes that are good, themes that are bad. And I'm not just talking licenses. Sometimes even original themes might be a really good idea or a really bad idea. So the way I thought about doing this is I want us to judge a bunch of themes. So I've taken a five-year range. This is what the game's idea would be. And we could do different sets over time if people like it. If you guys hate it, write in and let us know that this segment sucked and we can drop it. But I want to do 2020 to 2024 because it's pretty recent. Most of our listeners are going to be familiar with those games. And so here's what we'll do. I'm going to read out the list of games. This is from Wikipedia. So if anything's missing, blame Wikipedia and go in and edit it. Don't blame me. I'm going to read the games of 2020 through 2024. So that's five years, 2020, 21, 22, 23, and 24. Of these themes, simply as themes, we are going to pick the three worst and the three best in our opinions. and i'm not gonna make us rank them because there's a lot here it'll mostly just be we'll do an alternate we'll alternate like uh we'll do like one one bad one good one bad one good one bad one good i think is how we'll do it okay makes sense and so well you get an opportunity to read through this i of course need to let the public who is not actually you know being able to see our internal notes know what these all are so here are here are the list of games so 2020 our theme options are Heist, which was Multimorphic, Ranger in the Ruins, Multimorphic, Rick and Morty, which was Spooky, Rocks, which was Multimorphic, Shoot and Scoot, which is Multimorphic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was Stern, Hot Wheels, which was American Pinball, Avengers Affinity Quest, which was Stern, Guns and Roses, which was Jersey Jack, Led Zeppelin, which was Stern. So that's 2020. 2021, Heads Up, Multimorphic, Silver Falls, Multimorphic, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Multimorphic Kelts, Haggis Mandalorian, Stern Halloween, Spooky Ultraman, Kaiju Rumble, Spooky Godzilla, Stern Legends of Valhalla American Pinball, Cactus Canyon Remake, we will count that as an option is I jumped to my list because my tablet is being weird, but that's Chicago Gaming Company, I know that because I've got it memorized and now I have to scroll the rest of the list And that's it for 2021. 2022. Flipper Foxtrot Rhythm Explosion. Multimorphic. Rush, which was Stern. Weird Al's Museum of Natural History, which was Multimorphic. Hilarity. Natural hilarity, what did I say? History. Thank you. Good catch. Toy Story 4, which is Jersey Jack. Queen, which was Pinball Brothers. James Bond, which was James Bond 007, excuse me, which was Stern. Fathom Revisited, which was Haggis. James Bond 007 60th Anniversary, which was Stern. And that's it for 2022. We almost done Venom which is Stern Elton John which is Jersey Jack Jim Henson Labyrinth which is Barrels of Fun Looney Tunes which is Spooky Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is Spooky and for 2024 Jaws which is Stern, Princess Bride Multimorphic, Barry O's Barbecue Challenge which is American Pinball, Ninja Eclipse which is Turner Pinball, ABBA which is Pinball Brothers, John Wick which is Stern Avatar the Battle for Pandora which is Jersey Jack, Uncanny X-Men which is Stern, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which is Dutch and because it was announced We're going to go ahead and count it. Evil Dead, which was spooky. So there you go. Five years. A lot of games in some of those years were kind of weak in terms of count. And I will say, like you said in the original thing, the whole purpose here has nothing to do with how much fun or how good the game is. It is purely theme-based. Exactly. Good and bad theme. We are not judging how the game came out. So I'm going to go ahead and even give you even more time to consider options. Looking at this list, I'm going to go ahead and say for my first bad pick that I think was a mistake, and I don't think this will shock anyone, Barry O's Barbecue Challenge.
    17:42
    Setting aside the gameplay and the issues with the game itself, barbecue is not a good idea. It's just it's it's really not. And having seen how they executed that theme, I think it was really obvious that they struggled with the concept because there was this big effort to incorporate hot rods into it as well, which also doesn't really have anything to do with barbecue. So just conceptually, like I know we've had historic food themed games like Diner, which did very well. I actually think Barry O's concept that he had over with Deep Root of food truck would have had a lot more potential. I think so. Than a barbecue thing. I just think doing barbecue was just, it was, it was not smart. As a theme, this is not a winner. So that's my first negative pick. What's a negative pick of yours that you'd go with? I don't think my first negative pick, which probably isn't going to be a surprise based upon the conversations we've had here on the past. But Godfather, I think there's a lot of opportunity to have something along those lines. There's lots of good gangster movies out there. And don't get me wrong, I love The Godfather, but it just really always felt like the wrong choice for a pinball machine. It always felt to me that if you were going to take a movie along those kind of lines to make a pinball machine, you would have definitely been better going with Scarface or something else than something of the gravitas of Godfather. I like that. Actually, that would have been one that I would consider. And we could name the same ones that we wanted to, but I think I'm going to try and avoid it. We'll see. Yeah. It's just a fun game. Sometimes some of them are just – Yeah. Yeah, no. It's a good point. Yeah. I think – and again, when we see how Jersey Jack did it, they ended up doing it like a mafia video game with the land control and stuff and the territory, which – because what else were you going to – like how are you going to make Godfather a fun pinball game? So I think they – I mean just straight off the top of my head. I already said Scarface. Another one that was a kind of gangland themed that I think would have been better, Untouchables.
    19:49
    Interesting. That's quite a throwback. I really like that movie. Yeah. Where's Nitty? Nitty's in the car.
    19:56
    What are you prepared to do about it? All right. So for my first pick of a really good theme in this five-year segment, I'm going to do The Princess Bride from Multimorphic. What a great idea. I think this was a better pick than Labyrinth. Yes. It's an iconic movie. It's super quotable. It's beloved by a lot of people. I think it holds up today to reviewing even by adults. There's just a lot to appreciate in all of it. It's one of those examples of something that just got missed during Pinball's heyday when the movie actually came out. And that's like how I'll often bring up how Die Hard really should have a pinball machine. Princess Bride was one that definitely should have had a pinball machine It's also just an interesting coincidence that Incidentally, Multimorphic did a pretty good job with this They got all the assets and everything too So it had all the key things that anyone would want Everything from the movie you would ever care about Is in that game So as a theme though Just again, purely off the theme Princess Bride, what a smart pick Because those kids who grew up with it Have money now They could go in and want a pinball experience in that world So I think that was a really, really smart one In this five year segment I think you're right. I'm going to go for my good choice is going to be on the music pen side of things. Because when I think of dream music pens, there are only three acts in my mind when I think of the absolute perfect music pen. And one of them was created, no matter how it actually turned out. And that's Queen. Queen is an obvious grab for a music pen that's not been created so far. The other two on my list, Meatloaf and Michael Jackson. Those are the obvious, those to me are the obvious big acts for a music pin. And I think choosing something just as big as Queen with the kind of following, I mean, even my kids love Queen.
    22:00
    Just everyone does. So I think it's a great choice. Yes, I agree. Yeah, no, that's definitely one I had been considering as a as an option for a top three in this five year period. In terms of a second pick of mine for a not good theme choice, I, in this instance, am going to go ahead and go with Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
    22:23
    I like the movie. I've seen it a couple of times. I don't love the movie. However, it's overall this of all the horror you can do in the horror genre, even this is too much of a cult classic. It's not that it's more famous than it's well, it's a it's a cult hit. This may be the thing like doing something more mainstream or something in the Friday the 13th franchise or the example when Spooky did Halloween. I think those those are more iconic. They spawned really large franchises. there have been revisits to the Texas Chainsaw Universe. It got really goofy really quick, but I don't think the acting is that good in the movie. I don't think a lot of people actually remember a lot other than Leatherface from the movie. I just overall, especially because pinball and horror is a tough sell anyway. Horror games always do worse in general. One could argue I think successfully that horror should never be done as a pinball theme. I know some people will love it, but a lot of people do not. But I think Texas Chainsaw was too niche. It's just too culty. And there are too many other big name horrors that would have been better picks.
    23:34
    Now, Spooky did a great job with it. And Spooky also hedged their bets by doing the same layout with Looney Tunes. But overall, I think this was a pretty big miss as a theme in and of itself, just judging the theme itself. Of all the horror, Texas Chainsaw wouldn't have been my top 10. No, it's not one I would have considered. You can make the niche argument about Evil Dead, but I don't think it falls in the same thing because it has a much larger following and being the kind of comedy. Yeah, and this was tough because I actually – it's more famous in the U.S. than another spooky example, which would have been going back and doing their alternate to the Halloween layout, which was Ultraman Kaiju Rumble. I almost went with that instead. That's actually what I'm just getting ready to say. Okay, well, I'll keep my mouth shut then, and I'll hear what's your second pick for a bad theme from this five-year period. It's Ultraman, guys. You're awful. But you love Ultraman. I don't.
    24:32
    No, you're like, no, I don't like it at all, Dennis. No, it's not that I hate Ultraman. Ultraman is one of those themes that it has its place. I know enough Ultraman stuff, but I'm not like a huge Ultraman person. But something along those lines that they could have taken wanting to use that layout and tie something else in, I can think of much better themes that would have been more well-known across big chunks of the world than Ultraman for it. I mean, even if they'd stayed in the kind of Sentai area thing, if they could have gotten Power Rangers or something, it would have been better. But it would have also probably cost them a lot more to get than to get the Ultraman. I just think it felt like a, we already have everything built up. Let's just kind of grab something that's not overly expensive to tap onto it to give a choice other than Halloween. Mm hmm. OK, for my second good license, you mentioned your top three like music ones. I'm going to say Led Zeppelin. That was a brilliant theme. Yes, it's they're an iconic band. They have more than one major song that people appreciate. It's a band, incidentally, that historically was very hard to get licensing for. um there's a whole story about being able to use the immigrant song in in school of rock with jack black and and how they were able to win win the ability to use that and such and so it's it's a super iconic band that i that is seen by many as sort of trailblazing i believe given a lot of credit for trailblazing what eventually became heavy metal but yeah i don't that's getting neither here nor there um now what stern did with it was pretty sad i mean not getting Stairway to Heaven alone was enough reason to pass on the license. But hypothetically, if you were able to get all of their major hits and do something together, there's no reason that that could not have been bigger than Guns N' Roses. Right. And so as a theme in an industry which loves to do music pins and a consumer base that loves to buy music pins and a location base that loves to play music pins, Led Zeppelin should have been an easy home run. Almost as easy as Queen. so like like i'm like they're right up there queen gets i'll give queen the edge simply because they're like played at all the basketball tournaments but but uh but led zeppelin super iconic that should have been a smash hit so that was a brilliant theme to do though yeah uh in a similar method of something that should have been a smash hit uh and was a great theme choice that just fell apart for a whole bunch of different reasons john wick john wick is a movie that came out of nowhere to become a franchise because of just how well it did its action scenes and how different it was from everything that was the staple of action movies anymore. None of it didn't have the jumpy cam where you can't see the action or what's going on. All the stuff they did just, in my mind, completely reinvigorated that style of action and brought it back to the forefront and increased its popularity. and it is a modern franchise that is not having titles put out based upon the weight of its older stuff. It's not Toy Story that is based upon the weight of all of the history of Toy Story. It's not anything Marvel or Star Wars related that has the whole weight of all of their entire franchise history behind it. It's something new and fresh and different. the game itself didn't work out so well but as a theme and a theme choice i think it was an excellent choice it just got hurt on the back end i really like your point about it being modern because it's something that i've seen and i had other discussions with people uh you know about the future of pinball and what comes up in a frustration that i often hear expressed about pinball manufacturers, including and maybe even namely Stern and their incessant desire to rely constantly on nostalgia. And it often comes up in particular with music pins. But it's like, guys, Stern has taken modern chances. They took a modern chance with Walking Dead when they put that out. It was only around like season three or so when they did that. And John Wick is a great case in point of this was a modern theme. The John Wick franchise is about 10 years old. I think it's 10 years old for the four games, four movies to come out. And so, yes, that was a it was an example of here's something modern.
    29:21
    And, you know, it didn't it didn't shake out the same way, say, Game of Thrones did, which was another modern example when they turned Game of Thrones out because it's based off of the movie. Sorry to make the HBO show.
    29:33
    I like that one. That's a good pick. My third and final bad theme I'm going to name out of this list that I want to highlight actually is one you kind of touched on, Toy Story 4. And I've emphasized the problem. They should have walked away from this if that was the best they could do with the 4. Toy Story is a beloved franchise. Toy Story 4 is a movie a lot of people who saw the first three didn't even bother watching, myself included.
    29:56
    Arguably the worst of the numbers. Different than everything else. It doesn't feel like the same sort of continuation. It feels like Spaceballs 2, the quest for more money. That's what it feels like. Where's our slinky dog? Where's our all the stuff that people beloved from the first one? That JJP had grand plans to do things around the original trilogy. And again, we're saying all that aside, conceptually, it would have I would have put this. This is on par with saying, hey, can we do James Bond? And instead you do James Bond Moonraker. Like, no. How about no? But Moonraker is so good Moonraker I can't even tell you What the theme sounds like The person who sings that theme She never re-sings it I've read an interview with her She's the one who did Goldfinger I think she's done four bomb themes And I can't remember her name Off the top of my head But she's like the Moonraker theme sucks I don't ever sing it I'll be honest I can't remember what the Moonraker theme is It sounds like pretty much everything else Now we're bashing Moonraker But my point is, my point is, Toy Story 1, nostalgia, brilliant theme. Toy Story, the trilogy, brilliant, embraced concept. Toy Story, all four of them, sure, that works pretty much as well as the trilogy does. Just Toy Story 4, stupid, stupid, stupid.
    31:22
    So that was my last of the bad things in this list that I'm going to run with of my three. What do you want to close with? I'm going to close with James Bond 007. Not because I think James Bond is a terrible theme per se, but because I think the licensor is such a terrible licensor to work with that they hurt everything that attempts to use the James Bond license. I think a company would be better off avoiding them just because of that. because a lot of the issues with this game and its initial release was their rules and requirements. When you make Disney look lenient on your rules and requirements and stuff, that's a problem.
    32:11
    Yeah. I mean, you have a very, very good point. But the theme, people do like James Bond a lot. People do like James. And, I mean, I'm willing to admit that this could be a stretch. I just remember the drama over the licensor and their agreements and their rules so much. I remember, too. That it feels to me like it would be something you'd be better off avoiding. And, really, I know the latest James Bond movies were kind of liked for their reinvention of the character. Jason Bournification of it. But it, again, feels like one of those things that is just living on the nostalgia.
    32:51
    Okay. Well, it's your pick. You get to decide. The rules are how you want it. Please feel free to reach out and tell me how wrong I am. Tell him how Bond was a smart theme. Tell me how Bond was the best. I sure wouldn't have picked it as a worse theme.
    33:04
    So for my last good theme that I want to highlight from this list that I thought was super smart is Stern Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles This one because it works on multiple levels it totally plays up on the nostalgia from those of us who remember the guys in the rubber suits as the Ninja Turtles and remembers the early cartoon. However, there have continued to be new cartoons, new live-action movies.
    33:27
    I assume the comic still goes. I have no idea if it does or doesn't. But the thing is, Turtles is still mainstream for kids, too. There's stuff for people. But it's a franchise that's continuing. So it plays both on nostalgia, but it also plays up modern, kind of like how Transformers does. So in that regard, it's a very, very good theme because, again, a lot of people fondly remember seeing those movies. I remember seeing the movie, the first one in the theater. I remember watching the cartoon and singing along with the intro song and all of that and playing the video games and all that. So Turtles is a pretty big touchstone for me, the NES game that no one could get past the water level on. I remember all of that. All of that's a pretty big touchdown. It's too bad I cannot stand how that game shoots. But as a theme, brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant. Excellent one. So that's what I'm going to end with on my positives. Okay. What's your final positive you want to run with? Weird Al.
    34:22
    Music pen again, but it's tying into a music pen completely different than any music pen that's really come before. because it's tying into Weird Al and his parody, and it works with it. It's not just, oh, it's a concert. It has a whole theme around it the way they did it, but just the very concept of pulling in the parody that gives you so much and is such a touchstone for people over the last several decades, 40 years. Yeah, that hurts. is just a wonderful thing. And it's something that I don't think most people would have expected out of a music pen. I think it's a great idea.
    35:06
    Well, that was our theme picks, best and the worst of a five-year segment. We did 2020 through 2024. So again, eclecticgamerzpodcast.gmail.com. Let us know what you think. Let us know if you want to share what you would have picked. It would be interesting. I guess we could always read those on the next episode if you guys want to share them. Video games, Tony. That's it I've got for pinball. So let's move on. I know there was one really big news because I watched the most boring trailer to ever trailer. What are you going to lead us off with? I'm going to lead us off with the most boring trailer to ever trailer.
    35:36
    The Switch 2 was officially released. There's another Switch coming? Here's the thing. What's the thing? In my personal opinion. Give us the opinion. I believe somebody on the Discord call it the PowerPoint presentation of the Switch 2. This presentation was so PowerPoint that when I first started it on YouTube and watched it, I thought I was watching the animation display for Spooky's Halloween pinball game. It's so bad. But it plays into my general thought of this isn't their plan. This was forced because the leaks have gotten so bad. This is, you know, we're familiar with leaks, but I can't. Has Nintendo ever suffered this level? It feels like death by a thousand cuts. It does. I don't think they've ever suffered this level of leaks, not in a way that's been this big. And when it got to the point where they, you know, there were companies at CES who had mock-ups of it on. They had no choice. And that's what this feels like. This feels like that they had their direct planned, but it was probably a couple months out. Right. and they had to do something because they had to get ahead of the leaks. They had no choice. They had to drop something this month. And what they had was the PowerPoint presentation that they probably showed to the people to plan the direct. That's how it felt. Yeah, no, it was basic. Let's just put it that way. They even said there's going to be a direct with more information and games and all that stuff in, you know. April, I think. Late March. It's either late March or April. Starting in April, they're doing hands-on events all around the world. So they had a plan that seems to be centered around April, which makes me think that they had a major release announcement planned for the end of March. And then the leaks were just so bad, they had to do something to get ahead of it and to get control. Yeah, because I was seeing stuff about the magnetic Joy-Cons and all of this, and I'm just like, we know everything about it. I'm like, wait, I'm like, here, let me download the chip specs.
    37:50
    And I think the fact that there was no release date and there's no price. There's a bleak on the price, but there's no official release date or price yet. I think just plays into the whole. This was a let's get ahead of the leaks issue. Let's get it out there officially with all of the official information that we have, which is the magnetic joy cons, the magnetic joysticks, and the way everything looks. Let's get that out there, and we'll just get ahead of everything that's going. But all the main information, the big direct and everything, is going to be later. And I think whenever it is, it's going to be when it was originally planned to be. Okay. They did show off a new Mario Kart game. Oh, my gosh. All right. I just want to tell a little story. All right. So I played a few Mario Kart. I don't have a good Mario Kart story. I just want to tell you a story about my experience. So I heard about the trailer before I saw the PowerPoint trailer. So I mentioned watching it on YouTube. When I tried to find it, I had to work because there were all of these videos dissecting the Mario Kart segments, which are very brief in this trailer. This was a trailer that I want to think was about two and a half minutes. I don't remember exactly. However, I kept seeing 30 minute long videos. I'm like, you have got to be kidding me. Mario Kart people. Oh, my gosh. I'm going to say something that a lot of pinball people have said about Dungeons & Dragons.
    39:17
    Nerds! Now, that would have been a terrible theme, Revenge of the Nerds. What a terrible theme. The second one, Revenge of the Nerds 2, Nerds in Paradise. That's even worse. And that's saying a lot because the kind of stuff that happened in those movies is nowhere near socially acceptable. I'm waiting for HomePen to do it. That would be okay. All right. So, yeah. No. So, we'll get more information.
    39:49
    There's the hands-on opportunities. I'm obviously not going to get a chance to get a hands-on opportunity because the closest one is in Dallas in late April. They should have done it with TPF. We could have swung over. See, that would have been great. But I'm not driving seven hours, seven and a half hours each way to spend a little bit of time on a console. I mean, you could fly.
    40:14
    Oh, yeah. That is so much cheaper. Look, I'm just saying, like, there's a way. Now, there are price leaks out there that are pricing around $450. Yeah. That's not. I don't think that's too weird or anything. No, it's higher, but not terribly higher. Speaking of In Nintendo stuff Amazon's Metroid Prime 4 Pre-orders The ones that have been open since 2017 when people did the initial Pre-orders when the game was announced I didn't remember any of that They're being cancelled across the board Oh by Amazon? By Amazon Because when the pre-orders were initially put in In 2017 was when they just Figured the game would be $48 because that's what Games cost back then Now it's going to be a $70 game. Oh, yes. Well, it does. That's a big change in the terms. Yep. So Amazon has been canceling across the board on that.
    41:12
    I find it interesting that people were pre-ordering a game in 2017 that had no release date. You know, but this has happened. I still remember the guy who had a picture of his receipt for Duke Nukem Forever from the 90s. and had held onto it for GameStop until you had, what was it, Gearbox finally turning out that horrible game. Horrible. I do actually recommend people try Duke Nukem Forever simply to understand just how bad something can be that baked far too long. Right.
    41:43
    When it went on so long that they had to change rendering engines a couple of times. Well, the guy, and I don't want to go into the whole thing about 3D realms and everything, But they just – because Duke Nukem – this was – for those of you that are too young or weren't into video games back when shooters were young, the technology was evolving so fast that these games like Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem, Quake, like they were doing new things that had never been – it was the Wild West and new things were happening and it was really exciting. Like, I remember the first time I could see through water. Oh, yeah. And I was like, this is incredible. I mean, it was a really cool time to be a gamer. And Duke Nukem had, like, I think it might have been the first game, first shooter where you could see yourself in a mirror and, like, all this stuff. And then 3D Realms was, you know, I can't remember his name anymore. The guy who was in charge was just like, he needed the next Duke Nukem to be groundbreaking. But the ground was being broke so quickly that he was mandating engine changes and stuff because they would be developing. And then all of a sudden we would have this huge leap. It's not like how it is right now where we're still seeing very impressive improvements. But it's like buying luxury watches. There's diminishing returns in the quality. You're paying more for a lot less. The differences become more minute. And it's like that now where it's very easy to have really, really, really great graphics, for example. And so they wanted to be known for doing something incredible that had never been done before. It was very hard for a small team that wasn't making any money with anything else. They're just trading on the name of Duke Nukem. So instead of just putting out a fun, competent sequel, they just wanted to be groundbreaking. And they couldn't. They had a ship at sail. They could never do it with – it's like being a scientist today and thinking you're going to go out and discover a vaccine like the polio vaccine. It's like all the low-hanging stuff is done. And now everything is like brute force and computer analysis and massive teams. Music's even like that, which maybe it shouldn't be. But like teams of 30 working on a new song and everyone's a specialist and they're one thing. It's just – it's what's happened. And so that was an exciting time. It was an exciting time. The dooms and the – When you first could get transparent water in Quake and – so you could actually see if there was anybody in the water before you jumped in with a lightning gun to make sure it's worth the kills. Yep, that's right. Worth it! It's like a Reinhardt pin off the map. I see 30, that's worth it! Yeah. Worth it! Because before that, nothing was worse than jumping into the water and triggering your lightning gun and there not being anybody in there. So you just got... No fish. You just got the negative. So, the U.S. Department of Defense... Speaking of lightning guns. Speaking of lightning guns, that's the new tackles, lightning guns! Yeah! They have classified Tencent as a Chinese military company. I don't know. At this point, there's no ramifications known for that yet. Is it? But other companies have been designated that and end up being banned in the U.S. Interesting. Is it because they own Riot Games and that sounds like a riot? I think that's the reason why. I think it's because of some of their other subsidiaries because they're just like a huge holding company with tons of subsidiaries. Not just in video games. Yeah. It's all over the place. But they own all of Riot Games. Right. They own at least portions of Epic Games, Larian Studios, Paradox. I mean, they're tied in at least in small percentages to most of the major gaming brands like Ubisoft and this and that around the world. They've got ties everywhere. so if it turns out to be something along the lines of the tiktok man or like when dji dji started they were coming up with the dji ban uh because of the drones and everything uh that i don't think has gone active yet i think that's still in the the remediation and talk stages but if it comes into that it could have a pretty hefty knock-on effect in the gaming sphere i know uh as we're recording this today the tiktok ban activated today yeah and it's had a minor tie-in to the the sphere because the company that owns tiktok they've shut down all apps from them and their subsidiaries in the u.s which includes like marvel snap yeah that's the one i had heard about this morning with marvel snap ain't working yeah and there's a there's a bunch of other apps that aren't working also because they're all tied in um so it's just one of those things they'll be interesting to see Because, I mean, Riot, I mean, what are we going to do when all those League of Legends peoples can't play League of Legends because League of Legends becomes illegal? Dota.
    46:39
    What choice do they have? They don't know how to play real games. So they must go play Dota. The Dota players are shaking in fear.
    46:52
    So we'll see what comes out of that. with how well game-based media has been doing between like Amazon TV, the Mario movie, stuff like that. It should be no surprise that Sony has announced two new films based upon games.
    47:14
    Horizon Zero Dawn. Hide in the tall grass. Oh, yeah. Huge game, big, great backstory and lore. I think it's great fodder for a movie.
    47:26
    And then Helldivers, which I'm hoping is basically going to be like a comedy version of Starship Troopers because that's what it is.
    47:37
    We'll have to see. I mean, I was so disappointed when I heard that the Yakuza show is serious. I was like, have you not played in Yakuza? But then again, we saw what happened with the Halo show. Right. And that's the thing. It's like, oh, man, can you imagine if they take Helldivers and make it serious? I can. I can imagine. So will I get to watch it?
    48:02
    Surely not. Surely this is going to be developed slow enough. Like, I don't know how far along they were in the films. Do we know? No. It's literally just been in production. If it's in pre-production, then there's every reason to think that they will look at Fallout as a show and go, Okay, we've got to stay loyal to the world. Right. The Yakuza stuff was in development before Fallout was out. Plant your tongue firmly in the cheek and go. Yeah.
    48:27
    And then to finish it up, I thought we might talk about AGDQ, which finished. Awesome Games Done Quick, for those that don't know. I know we both watched a whole lot of it. They had a pretty good year. They raised $2.5 million. Yep. Mysteriously making pretty much every incentive. Mysteriously. Which I think we're completely, I think conveniently designed to let them slightly exceed the prior HGV total because they only beat it by a little bit. Yeah, by like maybe 100,000 or something like that. Now, they have raised $54 million in the last 15 years. Yes, no, it's a very, I mean, they raise a lot. I don't want to be dismissive. Like, this is a, oh, if other charities, like I wonder if Red Cross licks their lips and looks at this and goes, gosh, I sure wish we could do something like this. Yeah, and I feel, and we've talked about this in the past, that some of their incentive target goals are far too high. And since they don't ever fail a major incentive, they will feel minor incentives now and then, but they don't ever feel a major incentive. even if it requires them to find some BS reason to excuse why it took an extra 45 minutes for that incentive to close,
    49:40
    which I have a problem. I think they be better off if they just let incentives fail on occasion I think it would create more anxiety which in this instance I think is good Like they need to create more of a like if I sitting and watching I've never felt like, Oh, I need to get up and donate to make sure I get to see this bonus run. Because I'm like, I, yeah, he's going to come in and throw 20,000 at it. If it's struggling. Yeah. And, and that's the way it always is. And well, and again, I mean, there had, uh,
    50:09
    uh, on the final two big incentives, Let's go with the final three big incentives So the final three big incentives That I recall was The incentive to get them to play The new Zelda game That was weird It was a bonus incentive That should have just been scheduled But then they also had Two incentives One to have a look at Just some Glitches In the Zelda game ahead of that one, and then a glitch showcase for that Zelda game. And both of those incentives were like $150,000 plus, and both of their glitch showcases took like five minutes. Yeah, no, the glitch showcases are – the juice ain't worth the squeeze. It seems like they're not factoring how much you're getting for how much they're asking for. Right. Because, I mean, some of the other stuff they had, it was lower, and it's like, that's a much better pull. Yeah, bang for buck. Yeah. So I don't know. I think they'd be better off if they'd just let some incentives fail. Or they'd just set lower goals on some of them that aren't necessarily going to be a huge thing. That said, I think this has been my favorite one in the last two or three years. Oh, okay. I think there were more things that stand out in my mind. than the last couple of years. So I thought maybe we'd talk about some of our favorite runs and favorite things we saw.
    51:46
    I can go first. I was really impressed with the Wind Waker run just because I remember watching the Wind Waker run four or five years ago or something like that. And they have found so many new glitches and so many new workarounds in that game that the modern run is so majorly different than the old runs that they're like nothing alike, and they've cut a huge amount of time off, and it's like a completely different animal than what it used to be. And it was impressive to me to see just how much change had happened in the run over those years of what people have found. And to be fair, a lot of the finding is obviously from people running TAS and automated runs and stuff like that to break it and finding ways to do that as a human instead of a computer. But it's interesting.
    52:45
    Yeah. So one that – because I had recently played the game with Squirrel with a Gun. Yeah. I did go and – I had to go back because that was like a 4 a.m. or 4.30 a.m. sort of thing. It was like in the awful block or something like that. I put it in the awful block, but that was an any percent run. So watching someone beat the entire game, get the credits in under 30 minutes.
    53:08
    And one of the cool things was seeing so many different strategies. I had found some stuff. I was so proud of myself. I had found some stuff that I could do that kind of, quote unquote, cheated my way through things. Like I found out like I could hit giant buttons that you were designed to throw your squirrel from a height and use your force to push them. but I realized I could use rockets to achieve some of that. There were things like that that this person was doing, but had also gone ahead and had far more other interesting little tricks, like if I were to go back through, that I would be able to explain. It reminds me of a time I watched the first, like the 2016 Doom, and seeing how the runner dealt with the final boss. I hadn't been to the final boss yet. I used those techniques, and it made it super easy. So that was really cool to go back and see a game I had been playing So that would be one I would name that I really liked Plus he actually did a really good commentary It's too bad he got stuck at a terrible time It's not a popular game so I understand Yeah that's understandable Another one that I liked was What a lot of people probably consider One of the big ones was Zim's Ratchet and Clank run Now I'm not a Ratchet and Clank guy I don't I've never played them I don't really care about them They're not some touchstone for me It was just It was on in the prime time So I had it playing while I was doing other things But between The banter between him and his couch Was good They talked about it a lot, it was interesting And They had an incentive run during then Because Zim is like an influencer And all that stuff now, but he's a former Opera singer, and he sang an opera At the end of the run after they finished everything that had like acting and the whole nine yard, like choreography and the whole nine yards with him and his couch, which was just hilarious. And I highly recommend at least going and watching that bit just because of the hilarity of it. But overall, it was just a great fun run to watch that I found myself actually paying more attention to that than when I was, you know, looking at stuff online or playing bro Tato just because of the interactions and the way everything worked on that one. Well, another one of mine I had to look up because I didn't know what the name of it was.
    55:27
    Chunnethum. Did you see Chunnethum, the rhythm game? Oh, yes. There were three Singaporeans who played this rhythm game where you put on special gloves and it kind of looks like a keyboard. Right. And so I've ever since seen the one with the washing machines, which I don't remember that one either. Like they they've realized there's a lot of interest in a rhythm game block, basically a rhythm game game assortment. And there because, again, it's one of those instances where it's like it's not really speed running. It's more about let me show you how bad I am at doing doing a game because they end up like getting SS pluses and very, very few errors. And these are just like ridiculous sort of things to go ahead. So that one that was the that was what was airing when they passed the million mark. Right. And their commentary, like they clearly had scripted their commentary because they're giving you all this background and stuff going on. And you're just hearing all these songs. All three of them were incredible players. And it's just it was just like the washing machine game before where you're seeing an arcade game and this stuff that we don't really experience a lot around. I didn't go and play this sort of stuff.
    56:40
    It was just really, really cool. And stuff that isn't just DDR, which is probably the biggest one that people would know in America. That or Beat Saber. Yeah. So I thought they were a really great – they actually – they weren't there live. They had connected to them in Singapore. And so there were some technical difficulties up front, but it ended up being really worth – it didn't take them too, too long to get it sorted out. But it was a really good one. It wasn't like the Space Marine One run that was connected out of the U.K. and had a bunch of issues. So many issues, I ended up turning it off and going and doing something else. It was in the middle of the night as well, but I'd woken up early because I wake up early all the time, and I turned it on, and they were having so many issues, I just shut it off and went and did something else and then went to work. But my I was this one is more. They did a lot of interesting. There was a lot of music related stuff this time. Yes. And I did not watch most of them. But some of the like the opera thing I thought was hilarious.
    57:44
    The when they did the Elden Ring bingo. Oh, with sex. Well, the sex ended up being the Elden Ring. they did with the music instrument thing play afterwards, which was very good. But before that, while they were raising the incentive for the saxophone run on Elden Ring, they were playing the Elden Ring bingo. And I thought that was a lot of fun, even though it was one of the moments where they were obviously stretching stuff out to provide time to hit the incentive.
    58:15
    But yes, but then they went and they played Elden Ring using an electronic saxophone. So for the guy to do anything, there had to be air moving through the instrument.
    58:24
    And the instrument would only accept one input combination at a time. So you couldn't do it like multiple different input combinations. You had to be very deliberate because the machine, the way it was translated, the input combinations would only accept one at a time. So he had to be, he could only do one. He could move forward, but he couldn't necessarily move forward and jump. He could do like that. So it was an interesting combination and a way to play through. Yeah. I did not see that one. I heard a lot about that one. Just like I heard a lot of people really. I had to go back and watch it because it was firing up because we had to go do something else. I heard a lot of people liked the Crazy Taxi with a live band backing it. Yeah. Playing the songs was pretty popular as well. I really liked the Breath of the Wild They did a two player one controller So that one again it was really well commentated Which I think really helps with sort of things like that Because otherwise it's a gimmick That you can start to kind of not care about After a little while but it was sort of interesting To hear them sort of specify that with them Actually working on the same controller certain things Were a lot easier because they only had to Focus each on one little aspect They handle the fighting I just make sure we don't die Right. Sort of stuff. So that would be one that I would name that I really enjoyed watching. It was humorous early on in that run while they were trying to get completely in sync with each other. And they were having issues due to because they weren't quite in sync with each other and how they were hitting buttons. It's like, I was like, I got now. Okay. Yeah. We'll get it this time. No, no, seriously. Yes. No, there are mess ups. I like that. I got to admit, there's still a little schoid and fraud in me where I like to watch runs like fall apart in the play, especially if they're very boastful. No, I did not watch it because of the bad weather. The schools were closed. So my daughter was home and she could watch her Pokemon run, her Let's Go Eevee run. And I got an all caps text message when that run fell apart. I heard about this. Yes. Because she was she loved it and it cracked her up. and she had so much fun that it fell apart. Yeah, I think the person forgot to get their revive items or something. Yeah, and then when they hit the final four, just like Lance wiped them out, and my daughter, I just got, Lance broke the run.
    60:53
    I'll throw out, I had to review some of these runs to try and remember what they were. Oh, there were so many. I think the last one I'll throw out as one that I really did enjoy was, I think it was a bonus incentive, was the Kaizo Mario World 3. I've seen it before. I forget how hard Kaizo Mario is. And they really emphasized it when the runner got to Bowser, the very end of the game. And they said, learning that and just watching the randomness of what he was all doing and how it got progressively harder every time you damaged him. And they said, on average, it takes a player 50 hours of practice to beat Bowser for the first time. Right. And it's just like the whole run was like, in fact, early on, I was mocking the guy because he wasn't even getting past 1-1. He was like, I'm not in the groove yet. And I'm like, dude, this is 1-1. I don't know if you're ever going to find the groove. But he did find the groove. He beat the game. Spoilers. And so it ended up being a really good run. but at first I just thought he's way too rusty at this. Yeah, it's been too much. But he had been playing something else, as I recall, and so he had to get back into this mindset of like, oh, wait, no. We're on toxic difficulty now. This ain't no baby's first Galaxy Mario or whatever. Right.
    62:12
    I did also incidentally see the – I did finally see – I'm not going to highlight it as a run, but I did watch it. What was the game of the year?
    62:23
    Astrobot. Oh, Astro Bot Run. I finally saw Astro Bot. I see why people like it. No, I can definitely see why people like Astro Bot.
    62:32
    The Super Mario World Run where the guy, he did not play the game with the piano. He played the piano while playing the game. Did you see that run? I saw a clip, but I didn't watch the run. So what it actually amounted to is he had his Joy-Cons, one of them tied to the back of his head, one of them tied to the bottom of his foot. So he would, to do his movements and stuff, he would shift his head one way or another to control movement because he had motion controls turned on. And depending upon how he used to tap his foot on the ground to trigger other buttons on the one on his foot, while playing arrangements of Mario music on the piano that he had arranged himself prior. So instead of having the actual game soundtrack, He was playing each level's game soundtrack on the piano while playing the game. So it was obviously not a record speed run level of speed, but it was a lot of fun. And it was a very interesting. It's a really weird skill to decide. I'm going to master this, this. Right. And one of the interesting things is he was like, he's like, yeah, I've done this for a couple of different things. He goes, well, it's like piano is not even my best instrument. It's not even my main instrument. I just know how to play piano. But it's just, you know, and the last thing I think I would really hit was just nothing special. It wasn't anything special. I just still find it hilarious. On Friday night, I had it on the TV and playing, and I fell asleep. And in the middle of the night, I get knocked bolt upright in bed because the announcer just starts screaming.
    64:20
    And he's screaming about how much he loves Manhole. Manhole's the best. Let's get it. Let's go, Manhole.
    64:28
    Because they were playing Super Monkey Ball and got to the Manhole level. Yes. But I was dead asleep. I've been completely unconscious. And I'm just jumping up because it's gotten so loud because the guy's literally screaming into the mic. And unlike some other people, he didn't warn the tech people to turn the mic down before he did it. I'm just like standing up going, what's going on? Okay. All right. Time to turn this off. Yeah. My main overall, and it's not a game, my main overall highlight from AGDQ was the dog wasn't back. Yeah, that was good. I think this was the first year with the new overall crew running things since the original main guy stepped down. And I thought it went very well overall. There were things that could have been better, but that's always going to be the case. And there were things that could have been worse. And I think it was a pretty solid year all in all. Okay. Yeah. Also, I mean, I didn't highlight it, but any of the runs that involve Spike Vegeta are always good because that guy just commentaries so well. He's very, very good. He's a very good host. Yeah. And he knows a number of games. So, very strong. Yeah. So, that's it. I want to, because after all the other stuff, I wanted to end on a happy note. Yeah, happy. And I felt that was happy. Mm-hmm. So. Well, if you are happy with this episode, you can reach out to us and let us know at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're also at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If you want to support the show, you can at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We have three tiers, including one as low as a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we will be back in a couple of weeks. Will we know new things? Will we see another PowerPoint from Nintendo? We don't know yet, but we will find out as the days go by. But until then, my name is Dennis.
    66:22
    I'm Tony. Bye bye.