Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 69 - The MEEP with a Mouth

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 14m·held·Aug 25, 2018
View original

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Deadpool hands-on review and Stern news; shipping issues for HomePen Thunderbirds.

Summary

Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers Podcast discuss their hands-on experience playing newly-released Deadpool pinball at a Kansas City location, covering gameplay mechanics, mode difficulty, and comparative analysis versus other Stern releases. They also touch on industry news including Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean shipping, Total Nuclear Annihilation location placement rumors, and a shipping controversy surrounding HomePen's Thunderbirds game.

Key Claims

  • Deadpool pinball arrived at 403 Club in Kansas City about 48 hours before the podcast recording

    high confidence · Dennis states they played Deadpool 'just a few minutes ago' at the venue and it 'arrived about 48 hours ago'

  • Dennis commissioned a custom playfield art piece from Tilt Cycle featuring a 1947 Genco Step Up game

    high confidence · Dennis describes commissioning the piece and having to wait until after Pinnberg due to the artist being booked up

  • Dennis co-wrote a major Pinball News article about gambling laws and their impact on pinball, with Stephen Dolefeld and Nick Baldridge as co-authors

    high confidence · Dennis states the article covers gambling laws that affected pinball rather than the Roger Sharp shot story

  • Deadpool came out of the box without rubber rings on the outlane posts, creating higher brutality

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony confirm the posts came 'unsheathed' and compare it to Jurassic Park and old Data East games

  • Dennis received payment from This Week in Pinball for articles he wrote for them

    high confidence · Dennis declares this financial relationship for disclosure purposes, noting he also guest-hosted episode 10 of TWIP

  • HomePen has started shipping Thunderbirds but shipments have gone to Canada first, frustrating Australian pre-orderers who waited five years

    medium confidence · Dennis explains the situation based on forum research and This Week in Pinball coverage; acknowledges the situation is 'convoluted' and incomplete

  • Total Nuclear Annihilation may be coming to 403 Club in Kansas City

    medium confidence · Dennis reports 'a little birdie told me' about potential TNA placement; notes this is significant because local operators have quality concerns about Spooky but player demand is high

  • Deadpool's difficulty out of the box is about the same as or slightly more brutal than Star Trek

    medium confidence · Dennis's initial reaction after playing and watching others play; based on hands-on experience

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm snarkier on that show than I am here because you don't say crazy stuff about pinball... I'm very grounded... Otherwise, I would feel compelled to constantly correct you.”

    Dennis @ ~4:00 — Shows Dennis's editorial philosophy on different platforms and reveals personality differences between his appearances on different podcasts

  • “because we, just a few minutes ago, got done playing Deadpool over at the 403 Club in Kansas City, Kansas... it's like, okay, change of plans. Can we really record the podcast when there's a Deadpool this close?”

    Dennis @ ~27:00 — Demonstrates the spontaneity of recording and changing plans to play freshly-released games; shows enthusiasm for hands-on experience before recording

  • “It's a really hard shot, but... I think that part feels clunky. It's almost like there's a gate, a one-way gate? That's what I wonder. But it doesn't have one... But it feels really accidental.”

    Dennis @ ~47:00 — Identifies a potential design issue with the right orbit shot dropping into shooter lane; raises question about whether this is intentional or a code/hardware oversight

  • “I would put it, I'm going to go ahead and throw it out, on the games currently on Stern's line. That's probably the one I would take. Okay. If that or Guardians... I do. And for me, I'm not as pure as you. Theme matters for me, and I don't care about Iron Maiden.”

    Dennis and Tony @ ~54:00 — Dennis ranks Deadpool as his top current Stern game and explicitly prefers it to Iron Maiden despite that game's strong mechanics

  • “And Deadpool clearly has that [modes]. Maybe you chop wood for your chimichangas... Iron Maiden is chopping wood. And maybe Deadpool's chopping wood, too. That's the fear.”

    Tony @ ~57:00 — Raises concern about Deadpool potentially being just another 'chopping wood' game like Iron Maiden and Metallica, despite initially positive impressions

  • “So Monsters is doomed. Is what we're saying? There's no way.”

    Tony @ ~62:00 — Suggests Stern's upcoming Monsters game is undermined by competition from Deadpool; implies community expectations for Monsters may be difficult to meet

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonJack DangerpersonNolan NorthpersonStephen DolefeldpersonNick BaldridgepersonSteve KordekpersonHarvey Heissperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack operator in Kansas City area took financial losses on previous JJP games during liquidation due to insufficient route revenue; hesitant about future JJP purchases despite demand

    medium · Dennis: 'my understanding is They took something of a bath On a couple of those JJP games When it was time to liquidate Because they just weren't making enough on a route'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community petition on Pinside demanding R-rated Deadpool version; Dennis dismisses it as unnecessary attempt to inject Ryan Reynolds movie version into game

    medium · Dennis: 'There's a petition... on Pinside asking for the demanding the R-rated Deadpool you're not going to get it... This was a new way... to weasel in the Ryan Reynolds movie version'

  • ?

    community_signal: High-level players in Kansas City demanding Total Nuclear Annihilation on location despite operators' quality concerns about Spooky; demand overcoming operator reluctance

    medium · Dennis: 'there's been a lot of high-level player demand for TNA to show up on location because it's so fun... it's an amazing game... TNA isn't a location game, more so than a home game'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Deadpool positioned as superior to Iron Maiden and strongest current Stern release despite both games' mechanical strengths; theme preference and chopping wood concern differentiates them

    high · Dennis: 'on the games currently on Stern's line. That's probably the one I would take. Okay. If that or Guardians'; Tony: 'I would agree with you currently... I would put it... on the games currently on Stern's line'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.225

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is a very surprising Friday, August 24th. This is episode 69. Ooh, well, we're really turning things around today, aren't we? Yeah. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. And welcome to the show. So, we can get our intros out of the way because it's the start and that's when intros happen. What's been going on, Tony?
0:41
Wow, it's been a busy week. I mean, I have been... It's been two weeks. Two weeks, almost. Almost. Close enough. The last week was busy I've basically been going insane with Cleaning and stuff Because we're having We're hosting a game night At the house tomorrow Which is why we're not recording tomorrow Because we can't record on Sunday Because it's When we're having my youngest daughter's Birthday party So We kind of cheated and put everything that needed Us to go through and Super clean the house Back to back On the same weekend So we could do one heavy clean And then all we have to do is pick up the mess Everybody leaves come Sunday I'll try and be extra tidy You do that I do it as best I can Other than that I've just been Doing the same stuff I've been doing And nothing Fancy Just watching I just finished watching Sherlock And trying to find something else to watch And still reading mysteries And just kind of cruising I haven't really played a lot of video games Or done a whole lot of other stuff Except for tonight But we'll talk about that in a little bit We will Well, let's see I haven't gotten a lot of gaming in There's one, and we'll hit on that later as well But, let's see Since the last episode Well, right after the last episode Was recorded almost two Sundays ago, I was asked to guest host again on This Week in Pinball podcast. I don't know why. I'm assuming desperation.
2:26
And so that was episode 10. There's a link in the show notes if anyone wants to listen to it. I'm snarkier on that show than I am here because you don't say crazy stuff about pinball. No. You're grounded. I'm very grounded. And it's very important to me. I'm very rooted. Otherwise, I would feel compelled to constantly correct you. And that, no one wins when that happens. Except me, I suppose. Maybe. Except for when your corrections are wrong. Yes, but that's not possible.

  • “I don't know because I heard today a little birdie told me that, yes, chirped in my ear and said that we will probably be getting total nuclear annihilation at 403 Club.”

    Dennis @ ~71:00 — Reveals gossip/insider information about Spooky's TNA coming to a Kansas City location, suggesting demand overcoming operator concerns about Spooky quality

  • “The issue is there are a lot of Australians who pre-ordered this game. And by pre-ordered, I mean five years ago put money in.”

    Dennis @ ~82:00 — Highlights the long pre-order timeline for HomePen games and the frustration of customers waiting years only to be potentially skipped in shipping

    • Dan Burfield
    person
    Taylor Reeseperson
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Dylanperson
    Artieperson
    Mikeperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Lymanperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Tayoperson
    403 Clubcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    HomePencompany
    This Week in Pinballmedia
    Pinball Newsmedia

    design_philosophy: Deadpool has a potential design flaw: right orbit sometimes drops ball into shooter lane without one-way gate, appearing accidental and unpredictable; may or may not be intentional

    medium · Dennis: 'if you didn't carry enough speed through it, it dropped back into the shooter lane... I don't know if it's on purpose or if it was a bug in the code, but it was annoying to me... It feels really accidental'

  • $

    market_signal: Concern about Stern Monsters game being unable to meet high community expectations; positioned as 'doomed' compared to Deadpool's success, suggesting competitive pressure within Stern's own lineup

    medium · Tony: 'So Monsters is doomed. Is what we're saying? There's no way'; Dennis: 'There's no way' [agreement]; discussion of whether Lyman is involved in Monsters code

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern expanding code design team beyond traditional Lonnie/Dwight/Lyman rotation; new leads like Tayo and Keith Elwin working on recent games including Iron Maiden

    medium · Dennis: 'It's not always going to be the Lonnie Dwight Lyman rotation anymore... Tayo is a new lead. Iron Maiden had a new lead. Keith did the rules... the programmer was a new lead'

  • ?

    announcement: Deadpool pinball has officially shipped and is now on location at 403 Club in Kansas City; Jack Danger performed live stream reveal of Pro model from Stern facility

    high · Dennis: 'we, just a few minutes ago, got done playing Deadpool over at the 403 Club'; Jack Danger did 'a live stream reveal of the pro model of Deadpool from the Stern facility'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Deadpool features custom soundtrack with throwback sound effects (spinner sounds, old-school SFX) that differentiates it from recent Stern releases; features fighting game-style display; includes Nolan North voice acting as Deadpool

    high · Dennis: 'they did the custom soundtrack, but the sound effects stand out, too, because it's such a throwback'; 'I really like those to hear those old spinner sounds'; 'Nolan North did a great job as the Deadpool call-out'

  • ?

    product_concern: HomePen Thunderbirds shipping strategy prioritizing Canada over Australia despite Australian pre-orders dating back five years; described as situation being 'convoluted' and operator Mike claiming complaints are 'unfounded'

    medium · Dennis: 'HomePen... has started shipping the game. However, the shipments have started going to Canada. The issue is there are a lot of Australians who pre-ordered this game... five years ago put money in'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tony expresses concern that Deadpool might fall into 'chopping wood' category like Iron Maiden and Metallica, undermining initial positive impressions

    medium · Tony: 'Maybe Deadpool's chopping wood, too. That's the fear'; Dennis counters that Deadpool 'clearly has' modes unlike pure chopping wood games

    • 2:57
    I'm highly trained. Yeah. I'm trained by the best. The internets. All right. Oh, also, before I move on, I do need to declare that I've written a few articles for This Week in Pinball. Two of them have been published. And so Jeff, who runs this week in pinball, said he wanted to send me money because I had provided articles and he liked them. And I said, that's not necessary. And he insisted and I quit resisting. And so I did receive a payment. So I'm declaring it here for full disclosure purposes. We're not journalists, but we do like to let people know when these sort of relationships, financial relationships do exist and doesn't usually crop up with us. But it does in this case. So people can factor that into any bias analysis they ever want to do. They're not giving me anything other than a stage for the podcasting, though. That's just to enjoy my ridiculous voice. Your dulcet tones. My dulcet, yeah. My Steve Odekirk is the closest voice I could ever say that I had. And I don't even think at this point I could do it the same anymore. It's like my voice is degrading. It's just like getting higher or greedier is probably like an Ichabod Crane. It's almost like you're getting old, Nenu. No, Nenu. I don't believe that. I can stop anything, even time. Yeah. It's easy. I just remember I'm the young one. You are. Yours is the baby. Yeah. It's inspiring.
    4:25
    Let's see. Oh, other thing. A few months ago, actually, I commissioned a piece of pinball playfield art from a company called Tilt Cycle. And I'd heard about them on This Flippin' Podcast. We had Taylor on, Taylor Reese from This Weapon Podcast, a few months ago as a guest host here. I listened to their show, and I don't remember when they were interviewing Dan Burfield with Tilt Cycle. It was quite a while ago, and I just sort of put it in the back of my mind. And I finally went to his site, and I saw the custom Playfield stuff, and I thought, I don't know, that might be out of my price range, but let me go ahead and contact him and see what's what. and no, I thought it was reasonable but I had to wait until after Pinnberg because he was all booked up through then. I put a picture up on our social media and a little video clip too of it and it's neat. It's a wall hang of an old Genco playfield, a 1947 game called Step Up which I guess a lot of people probably get games for particular reasons and I've never played Step Up. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever played a Ginkgo game. The reason I chose that particular play field, though, was because Steve Kordek designed the first game I owned, Skylab, and Steve Kordek got his start at Ginkgo. Now, I don't think he designed Step Up. The reason I don't is I believe Steve Kordek had said that he didn't take over getting to do mainline design work until 1948 or 49, and this is a 47 game. Now, he helped a lot. He did a lot of the electrical, but he didn't do a lot of the playfield layouts. So IPDB doesn't know who the designer is. If I were to guess, it was Harvey Heiss, who was their main designer, up until Steve Kordek started really doing a lot of it. So anyway, but it reminds me of Steve, and whether or not he had anything to do with it is irrelevant. But other than that, wood rail, not very many people would be interested, and symmetrical. And while I don't like plain symmetrical play fields, aesthetically, symmetry is always best.
    6:38
    I can see that. Maybe. I can see you wanting something else, something like, oh, I don't know, a high-speed play field. Yeah. I haven't seen any of those available. It's whatever he can salvage. Well, yeah. An upcycle, as he calls it. Yeah. So I did that. And then final thing, I could do this in the pinball section. I guess I could have done that in the pinball section, but I'll do both here. Pinball News just ran an article that I co-wrote. The other authors, and they deserve primary credit, they poured so much time and effort into it. It's probably the biggest pinball-related article that I have my name attached to, and that's because they drove so much of it. But one of the authors was Dr. Stephen Dolefeld, who I co-wrote that Ted Zale article with way back in the beginning of the year. And then the other is Nick Baldridge, who we've discussed because he co-hosts the Gaming on 10 Minutes a Week and, for amusement only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. If I have the name memorized. What, Nick? You could have it backwards. Nick, I don't know if you listen, but if you do, why are these names so long? Is it EM and Bingo or is it Bingo and EM? I'm pretty sure it's the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. I'm pretty sure.
    7:52
    You know, my phone's right here. I'm going to look. Because you're giving me, folks, he's eyeballing me like I'm dumb, like he thinks it sounds weird. It's supposed to sound weird. Nick wanted it to sound weird. Now, it says, for amusement only, EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast.
    8:11
    Doesn't say the word the in my headline here, but I think when he says it he says the. I don't know. There's probably a limit on how long you would hope. But it should have been half this. It should have been half this. It's like three paragraphs. It's like a soliloquy. Just make the title of your podcast a soliloquy.
    8:32
    He says it really fast. Or at least at the speed I listen to it. It's a good show. I enjoy it. Have you listened to 4 Amusements? I've listened to it before, yes. I don't listen to it religiously but I don't listen to any podcast religiously anymore. Well, he reached out regarding some issues he had with the Ted Zale article, and then we all started communicating about some of the byproducts that were coming out of some of that. This article is about gambling, not the Roger Sharp shot that saved pinball. The story that everyone tells all the time ad nauseum. This is actually about the gambling laws that were passed that started to strangle pinball. and the different types of pinball games, pin games that came out in response to all of that. So it covers some major, not just federal, but some of the major state and local actions, and how the manufacturers were responding to all of it. So anyway, it's a very, very long read. But if you are interested in the gambling history related to pin games, it's probably the best resource, or at least it's the most timely one.
    9:40
    And that's it for intros for me. So, let's kick it into pinball. Pinball news. And this is mostly going to be news stuff. And we're going to open with the news item that everyone's been opening with, and that is Deadpool.
    9:54
    Deadflip, not to be confused with Deadpool, though he was dressed up as Deadpool, Jack Danger, did a live stream reveal of the pro model of Deadpool from the Stern facility. There's a link in the show notes to the archive of that gameplay reveal footage. There's also a link in the show notes to This Week in Pinball, which ran a deep dive article on the game itself a few days ago. However, we don't really need to rely on either of those, do we, Tony? No, we don't. Because we, just a few minutes ago, got done playing Deadpool over at the 403 Club in Kansas City, Kansas. See, that's the thing. And it's just probably the situation. But, I mean, we saw this release a week and a half ago, and it's out to play now. I was so surprised that we got it this past. I know. Because we had already planned to do this podcast tonight, just based upon everything going on this weekend. And then when it popped up in the local thing that, hey, Deadpool's here, it's like, okay, change of plans. Can we really record the podcast When there's a Deadpool This close And us not play it And so Tony insisted We have to get time in on the game I demanded it It was his idea It was a good idea It arrived about 48 hours ago I was out of town yesterday And for a good chunk of today So I drove in and was able to Play it and Tony came up And so we got a number of games on it A couple of the area players Also participated with us So we got to experience it with Dylan Who's one of our high level players And Artie who owns the 403 Club Played a couple games with us So let's just kick it off What are our thoughts on the game so far? I think people I don't want to talk about the art and stuff unless you want to bring it up But I'm mostly interested in the gameplay at this point Because that was what we didn't cover In the last episode Because we couldn't Exactly. The super skill shot's hard. I never succeeded. I got it once. Well, you're a better winner than me. I understand it. It makes perfect sense. It's a full left orbit. Oh, yeah. Feed out in terms of it's coming at your left flipper, and you've got to go and get it through that right orbit that goes into that left ramp. Yeah. Easy peasy. Except for it's not. Now, that orbit that everybody was worried about and we've talked about it, being just rejecting everything.
    12:32
    It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It doesn't feel clunky, but it is not an easy shot. No, but it's doable. I mean, I'm not a great player, and I successfully got that shot several times. Yeah, that shot I did as well. It seems like if it's getting up the ramp, it's fine. Yeah. I didn't see a lot of maybe once did I have a ball that sort of partially made it up and then came back around. The fail point is the right orbit into that left. Yeah. Every time I shot it, I knew the second I went into that orbit if that ball was going to make it or not. Because I could tell just as like that ball didn't have enough speed going in. Yeah. And it happens quick. It doesn't clunk around and just like bounce along the walls. Yeah. No, it's quick. It's smooth. And the way they've got it separated, you don't have it where the ball goes up and then kind of rolls back down and goes all the way back through the orbit and drops back down weird. Because if you're not going to make it, you're just not going to make it. And there's a break point where it dribbles out. And it feeds back into the pops. And as I thought, so I'm going to take credit here, when I looked at the layout, those pops are not dangerous. I never drained out of those pops. I didn't either. In fact, the only main, outside of a weird reject thing, that usually it was the outlanes that got people, the center drains, it's that spinner on the, a little bit left of that upper left ramp. That is a spot that does sometimes seem to. Yeah, if you pop the edge, if you break the edge. Yeah. Which I did several times because that's what I do. Straight down the middle. And of course, the little Deadpool targets are designed. designed to go back in that direction. But that, geometrically, is obvious to anyone who understands anything. Right, just by looking at it. Yeah.
    14:29
    And I didn't have any big problems with the little Deadpool going down the middle. It wasn't where I didn't feel that it was like, oh, no, I'm getting screwed on this. I was able to save the ball almost every time I had that issue. What did you think of the dead and pool stand-up targets on the sides? They were easier to hit than I thought they would be. They are. Part of it I noticed is they've got, I learned this term from an interview that was with Dwight Sullivan about Ghostbusters and how Trudeau did it. They ran with those flop flippers where they're angled down more. You see how they're not right in line with the balling guides, the ball feed guides. And so it lets you have a lot of accessibility to those sides. They were not dangerous. No, and I was able to, a lot of times I'll run into the issue because, again, I brick a lot. I'm not that great of a shot. I'll run into an issue where there will be one, especially the lowest set of whatever on those that I have a hard time hitting. I didn't on this. It wasn't easy. And don't be scared from having watched the stream that this just has stupid long ball times. because while it can be a long player and I had balls that went long, more often than not, even when we were playing three-man groups, we were going through it pretty quick. Yeah, we had no one we played with. Well, the game's only been on location for two days. So no one we played with had a ton of time. A couple of them, though, are pretty good players, and they had mixed results. My initial reaction from watching other people play and me playing it myself is I would rate its default out-of-the-box difficulty about the same as Star Trek. It's maybe a little more brutal than Star Trek. And apparently it did come out of the box with those outlaying posts without the rubber rings. They did not remove those. It came with them unsheathed.
    16:36
    Yes, they are not ribbed for your pleasure. So it reminded me of Jurassic Park and the old Daddy East games, which would often have the posts, or spots for posts. In this case, they have the metal posts, but they did not come with rings. So the assumption is you want a degree of brutality once you're getting near those outlanes. And it appears there's a virtual ball save on the left that can be activated. So you've got that going for you, which reminds me of Star Trek Pro as well. what'd you think of the uh the modes the modes i successfully ran and successfully completed which i never got any of the time travel modes activated yeah those those are harder yeah those are harder because you have to light them chimichangas right and then gather enough of them up to be able to go back in time and mess with the t-rex right we saw one person do it one time and he drained out pretty quick. Yeah. I didn't get any of those, obviously, but the battles and the team-up stuff and all of that was... I enjoyed it. I didn't have any issues with it. None of it was... I mean, even though there were times where I was bricking shots, I didn't feel like the game was screwing me. It's just that I brick shots. That's what I do. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. Yeah, it's a lot of, I thought it was a lot of fun. I did, I tried all the battles. My personal assessment is, as currently coded, Sabretooth seemed the easiest because the orbits were his shots. Right. But with Juggernaut, it's the side targets. Yeah. And those aren't as hard as I thought they would be. Like we talked about. No, they're not. And I'm not quite sure what I needed to do with what mystiques were. Was it the little Deadpool? It was flashing blue a lot. There were targets that lit around. I mean, I beat her at one point, so I must have, whatever it was, I knew what I was I was hitting what I needed to hit So that worked out Little Deadpool is an incredibly easy multiball to start It also worth nothing Yes But since it can be done you can activate him in a mode is my understanding But you can't lock a ball and then go in. Once you lock a ball with him ready to trigger him, you can't start a mode. Right. So it's like there's a way you can integrate him in a mode, but you can't. You can start the mode and then do it. But you can't prep it. You can't get yourself completely set up and be like one shot away from multiball. Right. And then go into your mode. They lock you out of that. And then I did do the ninja multiball from the sword lock. The sword lock is really cool. It is cool. And that ramp, the sword blade looking ramp is cool. Yeah, it's a fun ramp. It's a fun toy. It's more notable than the little Deadpool. It's just neat watching it. You even hear that kind of sound. Yeah. The old school sound effects. I really like those to hear those old spinner sounds and such. So that's going to resonate with classic fans, I think. Yeah. Just because the sound. I mean, one of the complaints about Iron Maiden, besides that the theme is polarizing, is a lot of people seem to like the call outs. But, you know, if you don't like the music, there's nothing. There's nothing about the sound effects that stand out. This game, they did the custom soundtrack, but the sound effects stand out, too, because it's such a throwback. Right. Did you like the fighting game idea for the display? I did. I didn't pay nearly as much attention, obviously, when I was actually playing it. But I enjoyed it. And it made it fun to watch other people play.
    20:17
    No, I liked it. I liked that. I liked the call-outs. The little Deadpool call-outs did not annoy me nearly as bad as I feared. No, he wasn't very obnoxious. No, it wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it would be. and the occasional yelling at you like when you double-dangered the machine and this and that. And it's yelling, yeah, shake it, there's candy. Oh, yeah.
    20:40
    Yeah, no, I think Nolan North did a great job as the Deadpool call-out. He's voiced Deadpool in so many things now that it works really, really well. I know there's a petition. I haven't even read the thread. I've seen the thread headline though petition on Tenside asking for the demanding the R-rated Deadpool you're not going to get it so why do you even waste your time asking I don't think it's necessary it's fine the way it is I mean I'm not a huge Deadpool guy but I've read enough Deadpool comics and I don't recall Deadpool dropping F-bombs in the comics constantly it's just another way in my view to weasel in the Ryan Reynolds movie version we understand Everybody loves Ryan Reynolds Even Ryan Reynolds loves Ryan Reynolds But we can't have Ryan Reynolds In our life everywhere Even if it would make you happier Correct They just need to accept and move on You're just friends You and Ryan Reynolds are just friends Were there any shots that you don't like?
    21:46
    The farthest right orbit Had this weird thing And I don't know if it was intentional or not But if you didn't carry enough speed through it, it dropped back into the shooter lane. That sucks. But I did. No, I didn't. I missed it. But one of the guys we were playing with, it did that, and it dropped into the shooter lane, and it auto-fired. And when it did, it lit super skill shot, and he successfully got super skill shot. I did see that. I don't know if it's on purpose or if it was a bug in the code, but it was annoying to me because it's like, well, you can earn five million points for that. It's a really hard shot, but. Yeah. No, I think that part feels clunky.
    22:37
    It's almost like there's a, is there supposed to be a gate, a one-way gate? That's what I wonder. But it doesn't have one. It's just open. And so it just sort of falls in there. But it's not like if you do a ball save with an air ball and sharky shootout where it doesn't seem like you get a bonus set of points for getting it back in the shooter lane. Right. If there was that that gave there to be an incentive to kind of have it happen, I would probably like it a little more. That's why it just feels really accidental. Yeah, but it feels really accidental. It does. They're not going to be able to keep the ball out of there. Right. Unless they forgot hardware, which I'm not thinking they did. I didn't see anything because I looked down there And you can see where there's A ball guide Not a full wall but just a little wire Like ball guide in that area And I wonder if it's just not enough and it's hopping it Yeah I don't I never got a good view But it happened and then I guess Sometimes we would see the dangers On the screen most of the time we just saw a blank screen So there's a code thing going on with that And I didn't see any I guess they still don't have the high res fourth wall breaking Deadpool. Deadpool, Sophia. No. Though I did like in the fighting game scene stuff, he will, if you're not making shots, you could tell his little 8-bit form starts looking at you, looking at his watch. Yeah. Just standing around shrugging because you're not accomplishing anything. And his pockets kicking the ground, doing a little board stuff. Yeah, no, that was pretty good. And they did a really good job. I had this happen a couple of times with the saber tooth fight where I was ready to finish him and get it in the scoop. And that sound that's going, like that beating sound that's going faster and faster, it reminded me of Xenon. And the one thing that really worked for me on Xenon was that sound, as it just got faster and faster and faster, stresses you out. Yeah. And so most modern stuff on the hurry-ups don't do that to me too much because most of the time the music or whatever is still playing. Right. It doesn't do that. It doesn't do that and give you that kind of horror film, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like Sharky Shootout does that where it's got the sort of special hurry-up sound. It always stays the same pace. It doesn't accelerate through. It needs to do this so you freak out and drain in a panic. Yeah. That's the idea. Well, that was pretty much everything I can think of that I have to say about Deadpool now that we got a chance to play it. Yeah, I enjoy it. I would put it, I'm going to go ahead and throw it out, on the games currently on Stern's line. That's probably the one I would take. Okay. If that or Guardians. So you like it way better than Iron Maiden. I do.
    25:15
    And for me, I'm not as pure as you. Theme matters for me, and I don't care about Iron Maiden. Okay. Well. I think Iron Maiden plays great. And I enjoy playing it. but themish, I wouldn't care to have it in my house. I can see that. Iron Maiden, I still, it's funny because we've had it for quite a while. I still need a lot more time on it. I probably should have taken that time today to really get a better sense of it. Iron Maiden, I feel, plays longer, which is a detriment in my opinion. It plays longer than Deadpool. And Iron Maiden is chopping wood. I mean, maybe they made it fun. But it's like Metallica's chopping wood. And maybe Deadpool's chopping wood, too. That's the fear. But the whole thing with Iron Maiden is you can do any shot at any time and make progress. But that's the definition of chopping wood. Whereas I slightly prefer, I mean, I'm glad there's a mix of games, but I slightly prefer going and activating a mode. And Deadpool clearly has that. Maybe you chop wood for your chimichangas. but the yeah just going and hitting a ramp eight times to light whatever just for whatever reason you can make that work like walking dead works for me in that way a little bit better than metallica which is one of my least favorite popular games that people seem to love but uh iron maiden i like uh because it seems like i get a long time to chop the wood but uh and it's got a really unique layout i have to give it full props for that but i actually I would agree with you currently. We have to see how the code comes along, but geometrically, I really like a lot about what Deadpool does. Yeah. And what they've got there in terms of code, I think is more interesting. Iron Maiden has some very high-level interesting stuff, but it's beyond me in a lot of ways. Like the bonuses and spot things for Shat-Sing, just stuff that's a little much for me. It's a lot of much for me But it's really good for people who love They're both really good games So Monsters is doomed Is what we're saying There's no way Tony So many people are so excited for Monsters And I full on don't understand it It's I don't know what they're hoping for But I think once they find out that Lyman is not on code on Monsters And then we can There'll be no advantage to it at that point we don't know if Lyman is or isn't on code. I'm assuming, since he's still working on Batman, that he's not working on anything else. And that's why they expand their software teams. Could be. This was a new lead. Tayo is a new lead. Iron Maiden had a new lead.
    28:06
    I mean, Keith did the rules, but that was new. Yeah. And the programmer was a new lead. So, yeah, I mean, it's just different now. It's not always going to be the Lonnie Dwight Lyman rotation anymore. And I think that's fine. As long as they crack the code on what makes good rules Crack the code Then it's all good So Let's move on from Deadpool And let's move to Stern's rival, Jersey Jack Pinwall Pirates of the Caribbean, Tony It has officially Because there's always a cartwheel The cartwheels were attempted Multiple times There was a game on a truck Perhaps bound for Cairo, perhaps not And so Pirates is starting to get out Into the world with its single spinning Disc in all of its wide glory I do not yet know If one is coming to our area I don't know We have always received the Jersey Jack games But they've always rotated out pretty fast They have, Dialed In probably lasted The longest and It's, we still have a Dialed In On location but Yeah I don't, I don't know because I heard today a little birdie told me that, yes, chirped in my ear and said that we will probably be getting total nuclear annihilation at 403 Club. Now, that's interesting because as we have said, none of our area operators think very highly of Spooky for a variety of reasons, which we've touched on. And I don't name which ones are which on this because I'm not out to throw people under the bus and people get really defensive when it comes to spooky stuff. The quality has been the concern. However, there's been a lot of high-level player demand for TNA to show up on location because it's so fun. Because it's an amazing game. Right. And I think, if anything, TNA isn't a location game, more so than a home game. I think so. Because of how simplistic the rule set is. I think so. But it would make a great tournament game. So it sounds like if that's the case, my prediction is the source who would probably supply that is also the person who tends to buy the JJP stuff. And they might not be inclined to spend this much money in this short of a period of time on this many games. I don't know. Because you can always rely on the resale value a bit. A bit. But my understanding is They took something of a bath On a couple of those JJP games When it was time to liquidate Because they just weren't making enough on a route And you took a bath Because they're not great games Yeah Anyway, it's shipping Speaking of shipping We have a shipping controversy to talk about This is one we do not talk about Hardly ever Because we know We're American We are But we also America We don't follow it's not just because it's not American, but because we just don't follow it for whatever reason. Or at least it's my case. Because it feels so far away. Yeah. And it's literally I care more about the theme of Pirates of the Caribbean, which I think is a terrible theme, than this one. Well, they made their decision. I think I probably cared more about dominoes as a theme.
    31:33
    Yeah. I haven't had dominoes in years. And I've still not played the pin. I heard it was actually a fun one. I did play it. It was fun. Okay. I played it at Texas several years ago. I should have. It was open. It was fun. I played Jetsons, which I didn't like. But anyway, we're talking about Home Pin, obviously, to anyone who couldn't tell. And that means we're talking about Thunderbirds. So here's the situation as near as I could tell from checking up on forums. And I read a little bit about this, I believe, in This Week in Pinball. And that made me find the forum thread on it because there wasn't a lot discussed in the newsletter. and that is HomePen, the company that's making Thunderbirds, has started shipping the game. However, the shipments have started going to Canada. The issue is there are a lot of Australians who pre-ordered this game. And by pre-ordered, I mean five years ago put money in. Are you saying that somebody in pinball who pre-ordered a machine got screwed? I'm not saying that they got screwed or not. the whole situation is convoluted. So Mike, who owns and operates HomePen, he's indicated that the complaints of the pre-orderers are unfounded, essentially, that they chose a free shipping option, free shipping in terms of on a boat from China to Australia. There's still parts that they need to pick up, like paying the tax, paying the delivery from the boat to their house. That's not a part of that package deal. So he says the pre-orderers who are complaining, they agreed to this free shipping option. That free shipping option clearly indicated that the games would only come when HomePen had a container ready to come back from China to Australia with other stuff like paid orders. And that these free ones would piggyback on the ride. So basically they get a hitch a ride on a container. Make sense? No. What part doesn't make sense? all of it why would they even give this option I don't know the thread is like 2000 plus posts long and as I noted I don't really follow this company or this game and so I had to go look I had to go and read this for you I did but I didn't go back that far I went back 5 pages and that's it oh look home pin thread drain Tony There are people in America who care I know, there are people in America who care And if they want a machine Apparently they can go to Canada and pick up their machine But all of them there are people Who put out all their money down in Australia Where people actually care Oh my So But yeah I mean, it's sad But I So anyway, that's Mike's claim And in response, the pre-orderers have said, Mike is not actually, it's not that he's being inaccurate in that part, but he keeps saying that they can get their game anytime they want if they want to pay for shipping now. If you want to choose now to not take the free shipping choice and wait, that's fine. They can do whatever they want. But the pre-orders say that's not true because he won't give them the relevant information on the shipping options and the tax costs. And they have to send all that money over to do all of that is my understanding. So basically, he's not they say Mike's not really telling us any other way to get the game. And so the suspicion is that even though he's claiming their games are ready, they're just waiting for that piggyback ride that their games aren't built. That's my thought. Okay, so you agree with the pre-orderers Yeah, I mean that would make sense If that's how they're doing it It would, but it could also make sense that the games are built And he's just Sitting on How many I'm just going to make numbers up Let's say a container could hold 40 machines Okay, I don't think that's far off How many Paid machines Have to be in that 40 to enable them to ship some of the free shipping machines? I don't know. 20 of them? 30 of them? How many of these pre-order shipping people are sitting high and dry while they have to wait? So do they send 30 machines to Australia where people paid for the extra and 10 of the free ones and there's another 100 free people? I don't think there's 100 free people. There's another 15 free people who have to wait until the next container is ready to go to Australia?
    36:12
    Who knows? Last I saw, the Australian distributor for HomePin appeared to be trying to make some sort of arrangements to get the games over.
    36:23
    And that seemed to be the route that Mike is tacitly endorsing. It's hard because he's fairly abrasive on the forums. He goes and posts and he's fairly abrasive when he does it. And so I can't really tell if some people are now getting the impression that the only way to ship outside of the free option is to use that distributor. And some of them don't want to. There's another person who came in and said he would pay for a container to get games over for everyone. And I guess he's seen as a rival in some way. And so that idea was some are saying it's been shot down. They won't deal with him. He's a rival? well like he I think it sounded like and again it's getting way too deep but like he was the guy who originally got the license to do remakes of things like Attack from Mars on the Australian or do parts or something and then because there was a dig that Mike took on him at one point and I don't know if he distributes for Stern or what I don't know I speculating way too much now all I could all it looked like he came back the guy who did the offer and said they won deal with me They say that it too much liability or something So basically what it amounts to is an Australian company who has pumped up the Australian market for a theme that is very deeply personal and important to the Australians. and they told the Australians who paid five years ago, who funded the company to get to this point, funded the company to design the game, funded the company to manufacture the games, and they're like, hey, thanks, guys. Piss off.
    38:03
    You'll get your game when you get your game. But I'm sending it to Canada because they say sorry a lot.
    38:12
    Maybe. be? The two things would be, one, my guess is that the Canadians could be getting their games because they're paying for them with new money rather than being apologetic. And Canada isn't the U.S., so it's okay to deal with them, perhaps. I don't know if the U.S. thing is still a factor. The other thing is, I'm not sure that Homepin's actually an Australian company. I think it may officially be a Chinese company. I thought it was a Chinese company. That is owned by an Australian. Right. Well, you refer to it as an Australian company. Well, that's a valid... Excuse me, that would mean that it is incorporated within the nation of Australia, which is not the People's Republic of China.
    38:54
    China. Okay. So anyway, it's a mess, but I don't know any more about it, because I don't know anyone at all who's remotely interested in this game. Well, apparently there are some people, because they're getting screwed on pre-orders. Not the Canadians. They seem fine. Yes, but they weren't pre-orders. Yeah. And that's the thing that hurts more, and that's the thing that makes you wonder once again. Did Canada learn its lesson? Do they need the money from those machines to be able to afford to build the machines for the people who paid money five years ago? Maybe. I mean, it's something that happens in pinball. It does. Like every day. HomePin isn't just making one pinball game. They produce arcade cabinets, Hankin-branded cocktail tables and stuff. So they have other income streams at their disposal besides, say, the Big Lebowski or Highway, which was only making Alien at the time that it went belly up and only making the Big Lebowski. I mean, there was a time when I could have to go on to your favorite topic, the Dutch Pinball Big Lebowski trail. There was a time where I could have envisioned that they could have pushed pause, maybe come up with another something 2.0 kit like they did with the DMD thing and help dig themselves out of a hole by selling product lines that were relatively high dollar, high profit, but not the extremes of making a whole new pinball machine.
    40:24
    Maybe. I mean it would have been a bad sign to have to resort to that But it would have Probably gone over better than Bride of Pinbot 3.0 Right we already did the 2.0 Right right well and that it was ugly Let's not forget it was ugly And here's I mean again and I don't mean I don't want to Sound like I'm fear mongering I don't want to sound like I'm not saying any of this is what it is It's just with how often Horrible stuff has happened to pre-order People in pinball more horrible stuff happening to pre-order people in pinball does not make me feel good no no this is not a good sign and bottom line i've always been it's almost fascinating i can't say i'm fascinated because i just don't research it enough but it could be fascinating to people just how aggressive home pins owner is when it comes to dealing with customers and potential customers. The way he writes, he phrases it like he's a truth teller. He's just telling it like it is. And anyone else who doesn't speak and write in this way is being deceptive. And it's a very sort of sad outlook in a way, because I get that he may have just a naturally gruff personality. I know plenty of people that are like that, but not everyone who's nice to customers is doing so because just because they think that it'll sell more stuff. But it will help sell more stuff because I'll tell you what, treating your customers like trash, even if they are trash, isn't a good way to build reputation. Not typically. It's quite a stretch to be able to think you're the arbiter of who all us trash. And just, it's just, he's really thin-skinned.
    42:22
    And the irony of, and I'm sure you know people like this who act like they're strong. They talk a lot about people being weak nowadays and crying over everything. And then what happens? They can't deal with any criticism. That's how it comes across to me.
    42:38
    Snowflake. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it because it gets into – it's been so co-opted in politics now. It has been. It's so terrible. Because one of my favorite things back before it had been was one of those demotivational – it was like a calendar thing. Yeah. Posters. Demotivational poster. Like a little cat hanging and saying, hang in there. Yeah. There was one. I love this one. It's relevant to pinballs. I'm going to name it here. And it was a picture of a snowflake. and it said, and I think the word of motivation was individuality. And what's said underneath it is, you are a super special snowflake, just like everybody else. And it's true. Yeah. And it's a snowflake word I live by. You are a unique individual. Everyone is unique and individual. So being unique is not unique. You're supposed to be unique. Now, what does that have to do with pinball? Everything, but I'm not going to spell it out. Got to let the listener think about it. you think on it listeners think on it we have one last news topic tony paul ferris the paul ferris has joined deep root now you naturally are going i know all about paul ferris well obviously but the listener doesn't and they might not so paul ferris is an artist he's known his back glasses in particular are well known but in terms of games he worked on artistically Centaur, Xenon Tube Shot I don't think that was his voice but Tube Shot I can't anymore Xenon's dead to me it's just Tube Shot now Tube Shot Toot shot the game I heard that so much That was my first solid state game Space Invaders Obviously that's Geiger But he stole it really well And here's one that's really really popular Paragon I like Paragon I like Centaur He's got other major ones that he did But those are the ones I chose to note And so anyway Dennis Nordman who is a designer with Deep Root now He went on to Pennside and posted a thread announcing that Paul Ferris joined Deep Root and Paul would be doing at least the back glass for Dennis' new game. I have to say, with the amount of skepticism I had and still have, you can't really bash the team other than the one member.
    45:21
    The one really core member that still makes me feel weird about everything. but they're putting together a heck of a team over there. Yeah, it's like the Expendables. Yeah, I'm just thinking about all these legends, because they're all... Well, yeah, but I'm just trying to figure out who'd be J-Pop in the Expendables.
    45:41
    Probably the bad guy. Jean-Claude Van Damme from Expendables 2. Oh, okay. Because he was a legend and a bad guy. Hmm, I see. Wasn't he? Was he in the second? I think it was the second one. Yeah, you're right, he was. He was, yeah. Because he had that fight with Statham? Yeah, I remember the fight. Okay. Well, anyway, so it's just sort of like he, while Robert indicated early on that the initial direction was to sort of grow up a lot of talent, and one of the designs I know is a design that he worked on, which might be a fascinating design. We don't know because we haven't seen it yet.
    46:18
    He's clearly shifted in the wake of the controversy with J-Pop into bringing in a lot of legends. And it kind of reminds me of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Schottenheimer years. Do you remember? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, we're talking sports sports. Sports ball! I probably mentioned this before, so I apologize if I'm being repetitive, but I'll say it really quick. In the 90s, Kansas City's football team, what it did was it focused on getting veteran legend players who were past their prime, but were still playing. And we'd only have them for a year or two usually. And since they were past their prime, they weren't expected to bring us to a Super Bowl. But what you could rely on them to do is bring butts into seats. Right. It's basically when the Wizards hired Jordan. Yeah, it's like that. Yeah, it's a good point. But we did it with Joe Montana and Marcus Allen. And some of them still put pretty good performances in. But that was the idea. It was a lot of other teams that they had been able to take into victory We're like, well, they're too old, so we can't really do that. So now we've got Stearns obviously ramped up and brought in people like Brian Eddy coming back and stuff where it makes sense. But there's only so much room in any given company for – you'd think there'd be more designers over with Jersey Jack, for example. You would think. But when you're not even putting out a game every 12 months, honestly, how many can you keep around? And they've got more than one. But they're also home-growing, like Eric Munier for Pirates. I mean, that's giving a new guy a shot. Which is good. We can't just keep throwing stuff to the legends. And I think we're seeing from people like Keith Elwin and Scott DeNisi and Eric that they have some pretty clever ideas. I might not love all of those ideas personally, but they're not bad designs. Except for TNA. I really like TNA. So Paul is going to be with them. And, hey, that was our big question, if you recall. We didn't know who – there was that time where when we had Martin on from Head to Head Handball. And the thought was because there was that joke Facebook announcement that Christopher Franchi had that he was leaving Stern.
    48:30
    And so at the time, the immediate assumption was, hey, I wonder if Deep Root's going to poach him because they had no art. They had everything except an artist. And you could argue a programmer, but they'd already said how they were going to handle the programming that they weren't bringing in. Well, they've got Steve Bowden to come up with rules. He doesn't have to learn how to program. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. He doesn't have to become a programmer to develop rules. Well, that is all I had for news. So I think it's time for 20 questions. Woo-hoo! All right. Well, for those that are newly tuning in, the rules are – I was going to – I need to make a notation here, but let me get through the rules really quick. It's very, very simple. I will have a game in mind. will be a flipper pinball machine game. It won't be before that. And Tony will have played it at least once. He gets 20 yes or no guesses to try and figure it out. It's closed book for the first 15 questions. However, after question number 15, it is open book for him for the rest of those queries. And all I wanted to note is I did have some people discuss this. The segment seems to actually go over fairly well. I did have someone say they wished that they had more time to guess. I thought about, some of that's editing, but I think people appreciate the tight editing. So I'm not leaving in a bunch of silence because it's just awkward to listen to overall. You need to be super smart to play this. This thing goes really fast and it makes me seem awesome. But the truth of the matter is, is this recording is going to take about a half hour to get through this segment. Maybe not quite that bad. But one of the ideas that someone suggested to me, which could be useful that you can, it's up to you to do or not do as you see fit, is when you're in the process of guessing, if you're at a certain point where you can explain what your thought process is. So as they're going along, to some kind of here like, huh, well now I'm thinking. Like the really annoying people who wants to be a millionaire. Yes. Who are talking about the. Yes. They want you to be annoying. Now I don't know if the rest of the audience wants it or not. We'll try it. Why not? We'll try it. And just to be even more interesting, I have a game for you. What's the game going to be?
    50:50
    You'll have to figure that out on your own. Okay. That's creepy and ominous. No, no, no, no. I picked a game to run your 20 questions back against you. Oh, I thought you meant you picked another game for us to play. One, two, play. We're going to play Tic-Tac-Toe. And then we're going to play Global Thermonuclear Annihilation. Okay. Well, tic-tac-toe is silly.
    51:15
    So are the rules the same? My plan was to have the rules be the exact same. Okay. Okay, that's fine. I've actually been keeping a spreadsheet with these results, and I can always incorporate that. I always even incorporate it with guests eventually, and then I'm thinking I'll start throwing them up on the website at some point. Yeah, that makes sense. Past tournament results. Well, I'll go ahead and go first. You go first. So let me see. I've got my stuff here. I've got my game picked out, and you, Tony, may ask your first question when you are ready, and I will make sure I keep track of the numbers. I just want to narrow things down, so I'm going to go straight to decades. Is it from the 80s? No. Is it from the 70s? No. Is it from the 60s? No. Son of a biscuit eater. 90s. Yes.
    52:06
    Four questions down. Wow. That was bad. Normally you don't pick games that new We've played this game Two times before And the first game was from the 90s I know So what does that even mean I've picked from the 90s 50% of the time And now more than 50% I'm just saying Your math is not right But Please continue With your fifth question Okay my fifth question with my terrible math is it Ballywillams? no is it Gottlieb again? you said it with such scorn but no is it Sega? no is it Data East? no holy crap I am full on trying to think of another company maybe you should go another route yeah that's probably not a terrible idea Let's narrow some more Is it from 90 to 94? No Do you own it? No 10 questions are down Wow, this one's going bad for me Does it have more than two flippers? No Is it an original theme? Yes 90s, original theme It's 95 to 99 It's a two flipper game I have seven questions remaining you've done twelve so eight yeah I'm slow today my math is bad too yeah it's been a long day I don't know we had that really good dinner and now I've just been hit with exhaustion I'm sitting over here going wow I just kind of want to take a nap um let's see 95 to 99 two flipper game original theme Is it sci-fi themed? No. Is it sports themed? No. Is it Harley Davidson? No. That's your 15th question, so you may now, as of question 16, start using open book methodology. Hmm. I don't really know why I went with that one. It just jumped out at me all of a sudden. It's an original theme, this and that, and I hadn't named. And it was a 99. Sure. It's an interesting. Actually, that would have fit all of the criteria. Right. Because it was multiple manufacturers.
    54:40
    Right. Because you already cleared Sega. Right, I cleared Sega, but it was put out by Stern as well. That's why I was curious.
    54:52
    Let's see here. As I go and open my book. Open my book. I think I found on this I'm not sure I mean it's too early to tell But I think the Date range is probably one of the Most important Things for narrowing this type For narrowing it down I think that makes a lot of sense at least Given the open book feature that we Apply It keeps things from getting too hectic I have five questions Remaining You do. Is it Capcom? Yes. I can't believe I forgot Capcom. I'd also forgotten Midway, but I thought about both of the games that came to mind from Midway. Midway is Bally Williams. Will you count that together? Midway is Bally. It is. That's what it's going to be listed as. If you're at IPDB, that was their trade name, but it's all controlled under. You asked Bally Williams as WMS, so that would have been it. Okay. Well, that's good. then I did wipe that out. Yes. Because that's one of the ones I wasn't thinking about when I was looking, when it was going through my head. It's like, oh. Yeah those naming convention things it just like I don nitpick between Gottlieb and Premiere Premiere just operated the brand So not sci 95 to 99
    56:19
    not sports, and I've played it. Is it Kingpin? No. Is it Pinball Magic? Yes. Have I played Pinball Magic? It was over by Bugs Bunny's Birthday Bash. Oh, it was. That's right. I remember because we played it and it's like, wow, this game sucks.
    56:39
    Yeah, I can't. I think we played it before we played Bugs Bunny, but yeah, we played it. Nope. It's the one with the magic hat. Yeah. I don't know if you remember that. Because we had that whole discussion. We had a whole discussion about magic themes and pinballs and why there's so many of them and why they're so terrible. 18th question, you got it. So, I mean, okay. I'm getting... No, actually, the first time was 17. The last time was 18. This is 18. I think my rule is 18. This is hard. I need the computer to help me. I need the database. That's why we have it as a provision to help you. So let me minimize, although I doubt you'll ask me pinball magic, but I'll minimize it because you could. That would have been hilarious. Hey, we don't have any rules about asking different. I could even ask the same game. There's no rule saying I can't repeat.
    57:26
    Well, I hadn't thought about that before because I've automatically been deleting them from my mind because I figured, oh, no, he won't do it again. It would be an interesting risk. Have you asked it before?
    57:38
    So. Okay. Your turn. I'll keep count of your numbers. Okay. And hopefully do a better job of it than I did when I was trying to keep count of my numbers because I was busy thinking. Is it solid state? Yes. Is it the year 2000 or newer? No. Is it 1980 to 1989? Yes. Is it 1980 to 1984? No. I just realized I've got a reflective piece of glass behind me. I had to look to see if it was reflecting in the window. No. Your shirt blocks everything. Is it 1985 to 1988? Yes. Five down. Is it Bally? No. Is it Williams? No. Is it Gottlieb? Yes. It's harder on that side, isn't it? Yeah, a bit. Does it have more than two flippers? No. Is it Genesis? No. That's ten. Good guess, though. Is it RoboWar? No. Is it Raven?
    58:46
    It's Raven. So, I think I got it on twelve. Twelve questions. See, part of my problem is I don't have the manufacturer years of all the games memorized. I have them, like, by decade. Well I was getting really desperate I can't even remember if Robo Wars The name of the game Yeah Robo Wars that one That's got the weird back glass Yeah Okay that was 88 So yeah okay I wasn't sure of the year on it But I thought so I knew it was still system ADB Okay But I can't remember the number of flippers It had two that's all Now, Genesis, I couldn't remember if it was only a two-flipper game or not. I remember the two, but let's see. Yep, it is two. Okay. It gets hard with the components. Yeah. But I tried to, yeah, I was trying to think. Unfortunately, we just don't encounter that many Gottliebs, even at shows that are from that era. Right. And that's why I was thinking of things like RoboWar And Genesis we saw in the most recent Texas So I like a little bit of a rare treat Right To have gotten that many Right and we saw Raven two years ago Alright well Yeah it was interesting You did better than me A little bit but Like five questions you didn't have to go to the computer Just out of curiosity Let's see how you Pulled it down What did you pull that down to? We'll search that database there. You pulled it down to 27 games within your time range. Oh, the 85 to 88? Yeah. Yeah, no, they made a lot. But with a provision that you knew I had played it, unfortunately you've wiped out over half of them with that. But we can't help that until we get more time on more games. But, no, it was clever. obviously I struggle with the, at first I thought, well, there were a lot of Bally's and a lot of Williams in that era, and that's why I was doing that period up to 88. 88's when Williams took Bally over, so I'm trying to figure out if it's a Trying to cut it down a little? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. But, I mean even without, and I can I have a general sense of which games got branded as Bally by Williams, but usually they just get clumped together, so it's, I mean, that's how I treat it is they're one and the same because they were. It's all just essentially a coin flip. I heard at one point there was a thought that Williams was trying to do the original stuff as Williams and the licensed themes as Bally but they abandoned that really quick. I don't think there's probably even any truth to it necessarily but it's something I've heard. But fun. With as much editing as gets done people are going to be like that was really quick. That was really quick Raven Clever You actually kind of liked Raven It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was The toy was terrible And the backlash was so so bad Poor little, well they are substitutes They're inappropriate but they are substitutes So Speaking of inappropriate Let's transition over to video games We've got one video game topic Two I just didn't write one down because I didn't think about it until after we were here.
    62:21
    Okay. Well, we'll start with the one that is written now. Okay. That works. And that is Don, co-host of Gaming on 10 Minutes a Week and three-time former guest host on this show. This is his fault. It's Dr. Meep. Meep, meep. Meepy meep. It's a good phone game. Like really kind of addictive For being like the It's a match three But it handles differently Than most match threes I've ever played Yeah So I've been enjoying it a lot Yeah it's a It's like a one dollar phone game It you eliminate one piece And then The pieces fall down So that's the differing mechanic Versus the typical match three Which is usually flipping positions Right, so since you can't flip positions, you can't move one thing to the side. So the only thing you can do is cause changes by vertical drop. And then as you progress, you're basically a shrink, head-shrinking all these people who have these differing psychological problems, and that's reflected in pieces. And as you go along, the pieces behave differently. Yeah. So it starts to make things really challenging. Some pieces will produce more pieces. Some pieces might wipe out a bunch of pieces. Some pieces don't move in the standard drop vertical fashion. Some pieces just don't go away no matter what you do. But I have been playing it more than any other phone game. I don't play a lot of phone games in general. But I had to put my phone on the charger a couple times because I've realized I've been meep-meeping, as I call it. I just meep-meep. I've been playing it a lot. Yeah, and it's Dawn's fault. I could have been at peace. I might have gotten some sleep last night or finished watching Deep Star Six, which was on Amazon Prime. That terrible horror movie that I loved as a kid. Is it still good? It's still as corny as ever.
    64:24
    Anyway, so Dr. Meep. So if you're looking for a phone game, you like Match 3, or you don't love Match 3, but you think this sort of mechanic sounds good, I'd go to your Play Store or your iTunes library and search it out and see if it's, I mean, it's only a buck. Right. All right. Like a pinball. Yeah, it's like a pinball. It's like a game of Deadpool. Right. That's how much it was. It's a buck. Until I won all those free games. Yes, that was just you. It was pretty much just me. Of course it was. So, what's the other video game you want to talk about, Tony? they finally after almost a year dropped a new Overwatch animation oh yes this is what everyone wanted to hear us talk about Overwatch I love Overwatch I'm wearing an Overwatch shirt I am not I'm wearing a plain white tee not the band they suck I hate them this is an aside before we talk about this the Overwatch video is a happy thing I heard a plain white tea song come on the radio once and I actually did have the urge to just crash into the wall. I just thought I don't really need to live. I just thought it would probably stop the radio. I could turn the radio off but I just have a I would have been a better person to have never heard this. I don't know. I don't normally have such a reaction. There's plenty of music I hate but I was like no. No, this is wrong. This is wrong. No, they're playing it again. What is going on? And that's when I started listening to podcasts. It's so wrong, it's wrong. It's wrong. Bad wrong. But wrong. Wrong. All right. So, yeah, a new short featuring everyone's favorite tank, D.Va. Oh.
    66:18
    Tor. And you would argue that the best tank already had the best animated short, Honor and Glory. Yes. And I would agree, Honor and Glory I liked overall better than this. But why not describe what this is about?
    66:36
    This is, let me think of the best way to put this. this is the weeboo fantasy of a lone hero who ignores everything and wins no matter what while chugging mountain dews and eating doritos and probably having a box attendee sitting around somewhere and they just keep going and do whatever they need to do by themselves because they're the big dang hero. Yeah, that's probably a pretty good summary. It's about D.Va, one of the support tanks in the game. Animation quality is top notch. The story was good. It wasn't bad. I mean, I think the goal there was to try and convey that her bubbly personality is in part a show, and that she actually takes her role as this mecha pilot very seriously. What it does, without overtly saying a lot about it, and especially the new map that they're starting to reveal, is reveal what the Mecha Squad is, how many there are, that they have different mechs, and that they're defending Korea from these omnic squids from the Matrix. Right. And honestly, what interested me more was stuff about this that I didn't really, until I was like, thought about it later. I mean if you actually watch the video and they go through the video and they're making all the announcements they've got diva plastered all over the city and they're talking about oh she's going to all these great places and she's doing this and that and it's all an obvious PR campaign and she's in this huge fight and they're like oh and she came out of it unscratched and she wasn't they're lying so this whole thought, this whole feel is very kind of almost sad. It's scary. It's almost a country on the verge of collapse because it becomes very clear that their PR is lies. They are straight up lying to the people about what's going on and how close things are and just how bad a shape they are in. And it makes you wonder just how bad is it? How bad has the Omnic Crisis gotten for Korea? Yeah. Which, it's funny because to me, in most of the stuff, I always have gotten the sense that the Omnic Crisis is a past thing that Overwatch was dealing with and now is broadly over. And now it's like Talon versus the world. these omnics had talon colors so now that and that may fit very well with that idea that well what was the omnic crisis is now talon using omnics what it very much reminded me of in terms of the tone they set was uh live die repeat and her the valkyrie of leon or whatever her title was and how they built their whole pr campaign around her as this unstoppable person when i mean at one point perhaps she was but she no longer is and it's a lie but it's a rallying cry and that's what D.Va is. That's exactly how I felt. But what was interesting to a degree was this and she's handed at it in her voice call outs in some of the scenes and stuff before that it's not she's serious sometimes as well. She's sort of seen as this gamer who never gets hurt. She's just beyond anyone's ability and it's No, this is supposed to show some vulnerability. And then other than that is Sir Frenzo. Yeah, yeah. Poor Sir Frenzo. I actually didn't like him at all, and I don't want to ever hear about him again.
    70:33
    I hear he's the new character. No, Athena is the new character. We will finally have Athena. Athena, for those that don't know, Athena is the Omnic. Maybe she's just an AI, but she needs to have a body. And she does all the announcements like, Welcome to Route 66. and I just want her to be in the game so she can go, play of the game. Me.
    70:56
    It's worth it. That would be good. It is worth it! That would be good. So, now, last year, they released a animated short at Gamescom.
    71:09
    Which is going on. Where this animated short was released. Or, roughly. And they also released an animated short at BlizzCon, which is coming up in a couple of months, if I recall right. I hope they have another one. It felt like it's been quite a while. It had been. It had been a full year, almost. And this is how Overwatch doesn't have, it's not a plot game. So this is how they build all their lore. Right. And I'd like there to be more. I would like there to, I would full on go see an Overwatch movie. I would too. I think they should animate it and get the voice actors to do their thing. because they have so many characters and they're putting out more characters than they're giving animated shorts to. I mean, D.Va was a starter character. Right. They still don't have, obviously, anything on any of the new heroes. Well, let's see. We have Tracer has appeared in the original trailer one and she was in Widowmaker's primary. Right. Widowmaker was in one. Winston was in one. And that really... And the beginning one. Right. So he's been in two, But one of them was that opening trailer That also had Widowmaker and Emo Boy I guess one new one had one Sombra had And Sombra's was very good It was and Reaper's been in at least four Yeah he's been in Well he's the bad guy they didn't have very many bad guys So There's also been I mean Zarya was in Sombra's As I recall Yeah but it was a cameo And Man, the Genji and Hanzo have had the one. Reinhardt. Reinhardt had his. Bastion. Bastion had his. And Mei, Mei is Bei, had hers. Yes. Which just made you love Mei more.
    73:01
    Yeah. Maybe. Definitely. Okay. Yeah. Lore-wise, Mei and Lore is awesome. Yes. Mei in games can't. Yeah. She bad.
    73:15
    So. So, yeah, go check that out if you're interested in Overwatch lore. Because the animated shorts and people have put together entire montages of all of them strung together on YouTube. In chronological even. Yeah. So you can see them. Because they kind of bounce around weird. Yeah.
    73:32
    Well, we made it to the end of the show. Yep. It's kind of a short episode. Just a little bit. About ten minutes short. It's been a busy week. And it'll be a busier weekend. This is going to be one of those weekends where the weekend is over And it's like I could use a day off to recover From my weekend that I did not have Yeah those happen sometimes Well until next time You can reach out to us EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com Or on various social medias such as Facebook.com slash EclecticGamersPodcast We're available on Twitter and Instagram At Eclectic underscore Gamers I actually posted on Instagram While we were at the 403 Club Sweet. Well, until... Did you? Yes. I haven't looked yet. Okay. I did. I didn't check. And I commented. Nice. I replied to a comment even. It was amazing. Sweet. I'm going to go check that out once we're done here. Then when we went to a Mexican place, I was like, I should order chimichangas, and they didn't have chimichangas. No, we didn't go to that store. We went to the hamburger Mexican place. It was good. I didn't get a hamburger. I didn't either. I got enchiladas. I probably should have gotten tacos. They were good. Tacos looked amazing. They were really good. The enchiladas were solid. I don't ever order enchiladas though I love enchiladas I've never been big into them Hence why I don't order them But what I will order is a new podcast in two weeks Two weeks Until then, see ya I wave every time, I don't know why