What I never could have hoped to win, you're stopping down the road and leaving me again. The threats you made were meant to cut me down, and if my love was just a circus, you'd be a clown by now. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I'm about to say something that's going to be controversial. I'm going to say something I never thought I'd say. and I mean it when I say this 100% after playing this game for hours I want to say right now to each and every one of you who's a member of this show and I hope you don't leave because I'm going to say this and I don't think I should do a podcast about pinball if I don't get super enthusiastic about certain games every once in a while but after spending hours playing the New Jersey Jack pinball game Elton John I can say without a doubt, I think this is the nicest modern pinball machine I've ever played. I think it is the greatest modern example of what pinball can be. And I know some of you out there are saying, what are you talking about, Chris? Where are the toys? Where's the mechs? Where's this? Where's that? And if you're saying that right now, and if you're thinking that right now, I can 100% guarantee you've never played the game. Get on this machine, pick your song, and go on a ride like no other pinball machine I've played in a long time. And I mean it. Finally, a Jersey Jack game that plays as good, if not better, than any Stern machine shoots. And I know that some people think this is a recycled Steve Ritchie design, and I don't care. because this thing, not only does it shoot so well, it is arguably the most stunning pinball machine I've ever stood over. And when you play this game and you put this machine next to a row of Stern games for the first time in forever, I can say that a Jersey Jack machine shoots as well and the gameplay and the flippers shoots as well or better than any Stern ever made. And it's coming from the king himself, Mr. Steve Ritchie. All you have to do to convert over to this game is play one. And we talk a lot on this podcast about what's going on in the pinball market and the prices of games and where's the magic and where's this and where is that. But ultimately, ladies and gentlemen, we do eventually have to physically stand in front of a machine and play it over and over again. and that should be what makes up our mind on a game. And after playing this game at Jack Bar and playing Godzilla and playing Foo Fighters and playing Venom and playing some Bally Williams classic games, all I wanted to do was go back to Elton John. I've never played a game that looks so good, that shot so good, that sounded so good. And when you're in it, you know, this thing feels like a modern roller coaster ride in pinball format. And I know, right? I know it sort of goes against what we've been saying. We need to load these games with more stuff. And I'm not going to say something stupid like shots are the new toys because, no, that's a stupid thing to say. But this layout and this design, it's addictive and the flow is amazing. and there are so many pinball moments in this game that just get your blood boiling. If you add fuel to the rocket and start Rocket Man multiball, there's no greater moment in this game that gets your adrenaline going. And I put up the third highest score on the machine at Jack Bar. So yeah, Kanade is not a terrible player, but there's just something about this game that makes you want to keep playing it and playing it and playing it. I didn't miss some very complex mechanism or toy. I didn't walk away from Elton John wishing it had a lot more physical stuff to shoot at because the shots are there and the moments are there in this game. And it is a perfect tribute to Elton John. And unlike other Jersey Jack games, you're not chopping wood all day long. Unlike other Jersey Jack games, you're not being bombarded with multi balls. I mean, when you get into this game, you know, just coming back from Disney World, I want to compare this game to the Guardians of the Galaxy ride where you get on it. And the moment you plunge, it's like a roller coaster ride in pinball format with the lights and you're going in all different directions. And my gosh, the speed you can achieve in this game as you're hitting combos. there was just this moment where I was hitting that upper right flipper shot towards the left to go up that ramp and loop around and loop around and loop around. And I kept doing it over and over again. And it was so exhilarating. And sometimes you hit shots in this game where the ball is moving fast It even jumps over the slingshot plastic into the outlay because it got so much velocity And oh my does that right orbit shot feel so good when you hit it And then how satisfying this game is when you lock the ball in the physical ball lock with Crocodile Rock. And then it's got the other physical ball lock with the Elton John Piano. And when you lock three balls into that Elton John piano and you start those multi balls that are paying homage to iconic Elton John concerts over the years, I'm telling you, this game's got it. It's got those moments. And you know me like I walked up to this machine cynical. I walked up to this machine and said, this game's not worth the money. This game's not worth twelve to fifteen thousand dollars. Well, we're going to talk about that in a little bit. And I didn't want to love this machine. I wanted this machine to somehow validate some of the hesitation I've had over this game, you know, because, oh, yeah, lift the hood and look underneath and it's not nearly as loaded as Pirates of the Caribbean. This game is so much better than Pirates of the Caribbean. It's not even funny. This game is so much better than Toy Story. It's so much better than Dialed In and Willy Wonka. it, it's so much better. Now, the one thing this game does not have that you might miss in it, it doesn't really have like a story driven narrative. And I think that might turn a few people off. But what this game does have is this amazing ability to like choose your own adventure. And based on what song you choose when you start your game, you know, you can change the vibe and the mode of your experience. You can go from I'm still standing to a more sort of slow song like your song and it totally changes the way you play the game. It's almost like your gameplay becomes in sync a little bit with the song that's going in the game. And I just feel for the first time again in forever that Jersey Jack Pinball has finally made a game where we're not going to walk away from it and say the flippers feel like crap. This game is just multiball stacking and it's just laborious. We're not going to walk away and say there's not great flow. We're not going to walk away and say this game needs more in it. I think when you play an Elton John, you're not going to get on a machine that really impresses you more than this. I mean this. This game blew me away more than Jaws. It blew me away way more than Pulp Fiction. I'm going to talk a little bit right now about this. I think Pulp Fiction is overhyped. I really do. It's a fun game. It's a great theme, but man, oh man, oh man, if you go from Pulp Fiction to Elton John, you're going to feel like one game is playing in slow motion and the other game is an exhilarating joy ride. And Pulp Fiction is not an exhilarating joy ride. My fear about Pulp Fiction and people, I have one on order, so I'm not trying to pump and dump anything here. I don't have an Elton John on order. So let me establish that first. I have a Pulp Fiction LE on order. My concern about Pulp Fiction with only five songs and a single level game and no LCD screen and it doesn't have the depth of code you know you're going to want in a home ownership experience, I'm worried that Pulp Fiction is going to get real old for people real soon. But Elton John, it's got a lot to do and there's so much to unpack in this game, but it's also not stupidly complex and confusing like some of Jersey Jack's earlier games. I feel like Joe Katz, when he works on a machine, he's actually better at coding a machine than Keith P. Johnson. Remember, it's always Keith P. Johnson and Eric Minier that bombard us with multiball over and over and over again. But Joe Katz and his team, they gave us Willy Wonka, and they gave us this game, and they gave us, I believe, Toy Story. And those are the Jersey Jack games that at least when you play them, You're not just being assaulted with multiball. And the great thing about Elton John is every time you start a multiball, you feel like you earn it and you feel like it's worth something. And it doesn't just happen because you randomly hit a few switches like in Guns N' Roses. And the other thing I love about Elton John, and you know me, I still love Guns N' Roses as a pinball machine. It's such a different approach than GNR. You know, GNR is all about a song is a mode and the lights sync up with the song. This game is radically different. And I think next to each other, those two games will complement each other. And so I haven't felt this way about a game in a really long time. I didn't feel this way after playing Jaws. I didn't feel this way after playing Pulp Fiction. But I feel this way playing Elton John. And now I'm thinking to myself, why isn't this game more successful? Why aren more people like as excited as I am for Elton John and most of it is probably because of the theme and the price and that is what has kept many of you on the sidelines But raise of hands out there How many of you out there aren diehard Foo Fighter fans and you love Foo Fighters pinball How many of you out there are not diehard Iron Maiden fans and yet you love Iron Maiden pinball? And I'm here to tell you right now, even if you're not the biggest Elton John fan, this game is better than Iron Maiden and it is better than Foo Fighters. And when you jump on one, you will 100% understand what I mean by that. And I can't underscore enough. Like this is what modern pinball should look like. This is what it should sound like. This is what the art package should be like. This game is as close to pinball perfection as I've experienced in any modern game. And I mean that I walk away from Elton John and I wouldn't change much in this game. I really wouldn't. The only thing I would change in Elton John pinball is the price. And that is the one thing, even when I walked away from this game and I love it so much, I'm in this like dilemma state. Do I buy a platinum edition of the game for $12,000? Witnessing what's happened to Jersey Jack games over the last few years, that feels like a sucker's bet. But I want to say this caveat. I don't think people are going to buy Elton John and be as disappointed in it as they are with Toy Story 4 and with The Godfather. This game is so much better than those two games that I think when people buy an Elton John Platinum, they're not going to want to trade it like right away. I think this is one of those games because the overall experience is so magical. This is going to be a game that people bolt to the floors in their homes. They're not going to want to trade it instantly. So that has me feeling a little bit better about going in on one and, you know, just bite the bullet and buy one. Now, here's the other part that sucks. When a pinball machine that I love is out there in the world, I want to own the best version of it. You know me. I've got some Swagger, some Gucci, some Louis Vuitton. You know, I don't buy the second fiddle version of anything. And I can't because I can't get the nicest version of Elton John because they made it so you can't quite get the nicest version of the machine because the collector's edition is the rarest and most exclusive, but the nicest version of the machine is the platinum edition. And I'm still so pissed off that Jersey Jack Pinball made us all have to make this compromise. It's like this company always makes a boneheaded move. If they had made the Christopher Franchi artwork be the collector's edition of this game, they would have sold all 1,000 of these machines by now. And now, even though I love the machine so much, I have a little bit of a dilemma, because I can't get something that's truly, truly special. I can get the Platinum Edition, where they're gonna make thousands of them once this game catches on, and I think this game's gonna catch on. But then I'm worried, because then it might be like Guns N' Roses LE, where they make so many of them, and then the price just plummets, and then I might as well just wait and get it on the secondhand market. If I could have my dream, I would somehow find a way to put the collector's edition playfield into the cabinet of the platinum edition. And I don't care about that topper. I'm fine with the platinum edition topper. But maybe this is the game that just gets us all over the stupidity of collector's editions versus LEs and I just go in on the platinum edition of the game. But for $12,000, is this game a ripoff? I don't know, people. I mean, we keep saying that, but then I look down, and a fully loaded spooky machine is almost $12,000. A fully loaded labyrinth is almost $12,000. And when I put those games next to Elton John, all of a sudden, of course this game feels like it's worth $12,000. This game looks so much more expensive and unique than Jaws LE. It's $1,000 cheaper than Jaws LE. It definitely looks like it's $2,000 more money than Jaws Premium or a Venom Premium. So I think we have to get over this hump. Like if this is the new world of pinball pricing and all the moaning and groaning we're doing isn't going to get these manufacturers to lower their prices, at least Jersey Jack gives you something magical and special when you look at the game. And I mean this when I say this, for the first time in forever, I think this is the Jersey Jack game that's really going to make people realize how cheap Stern machines really are. And I mean that because we've always been able to make fun of Jersey Jack games because the gameplay sucked and the flippers sucked and other things sucked. You can't do that now. You're going to jump on this game and nothing really sucks. And you having this great time and you don remember In the last 10 years you can remember when you ever played a Jersey Jack machine that made you feel this way because none of them did make you feel this way And then you look next to this game and you look at the Stern machines next to an Elton John And I mean this when I say it they look like tinker toys They look like cheap, cheap tinker toys next to Elton John. And so now if Jersey Jack can consistently make games that play this good. If Steve Ritchie can help everybody over at JJP realize we need gameplay like this in every one of our games, and then they get themes like The Matrix and Beastie Boys and Top Gun and Harry Potter, you best believe that Jersey Jack's future is looking really, really bright. And when I look over at Stern, they look like the company that's making the outdated item. They look like the company that looks much cheaper than the price they're asking for their machines. And I think this is awesome for us, the pinball buying consumer, because if we can get everything in a Jersey Jack package and they can do it right. Now, look, the ultimate example of this is not going to be Elton John. If we get the matrix and the video clips and the voices don't sync up, that's going to be a big failure. If Jersey Jack is listening to this. You're almost there, Jersey Jack, but you've got to go all the way. You got to give us a theme we really want. I know that Elton's not that for everybody, but you got to make sure whatever theme you do, you got to make sure you integrate it well. It's easier to do the music pins, but when Jersey Jack makes a movie or some other property, they've never done the integration exactly the way it needs to be done. And at these prices, there are no shortcuts anymore. Now look, I will own an Elton John. Am I going to buy one tomorrow? No. But when I get a house, this is going to be a machine I want to go get. I'm here to tell you right now, I think Elton John is going to go down and maybe be the game of the year. We might not get back to the future this year, but I'm telling you right now, when you think about all of the new pinball machines that are available, this is by far the best machine in the pinball market right now. And I know you might be on the fence about this game, but trust me, go play one and you're going to want one. Now, if you go to buy one, do me a favor. I've got three distributor friends. I get no kickbacks. I get nothing. If you order from them, please do say that you heard Canada's show and you got really excited and you want to take the plunge. I would order from Mike at Automated, Chris and Melissa at Cointaker, and my good friend Joe Newhart over at Pinball Star. And I know that I was asking people to order from Joe because he doesn't sell Sterns. Like Joe doesn't get a chance to make money on all those Stern LEs that everybody else sells. And he's taken a bath on some of those previous Jersey Jack games. So if you were to lean one way, you might want to give Joe some love because he's probably staring at a wall of Godfather Elyse wondering what happened to his life. All right, everybody, it's Sunday. It's 1115. Guess what I'm going to do today? I'm going to go back to Jack Bar and play more Elton John. That's how addictive this game is. I need to go play it. I need to go play it some more. I didn't feel this way about Venom. I haven't felt this way about a game in a real long time. And I've played pretty much everything that's come out over the last year. This game shoots so much better than James Bond. It's not even funny. James Bond is such a bad shooter. I don't understand why people are making excuses. Maybe they love the theme. But go play Elton John and then go over to James Bond. and you tell me which one blows the other away in terms of fun factor and shots and adrenaline and magical pinball moments. Everybody, Kaneda out. I'm not chilling. I get no kickbacks. Jersey Jack doesn't pick up my phone calls. He doesn't respond to my text messages, but I'm just here to tell you I was wrong on Elton John. And yeah, I kind of think this game is worth $12,000, especially with what's in the pinball market. I'd rather have one of these than something from Barrels of Fun or Spooky or Pulp Fiction. I just think it's on a different level than all these other companies. And I don't know why we're screaming at Jersey Jack and welcoming those other companies who are charging so much and they don't nearly have the same talent that went into Elton John. Everybody, happy Sunday. Let's go play some pinball. Like the wreck you had behind that Matthew. Some people call me Maurice.