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BDYETP 89: Expo Recap, Metallica Remastered, Godfather Reviewed

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·2h 5m·analyzed·Oct 29, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Pinball Expo 2024 recap with homebrew highlights and upcoming game announcements.

Summary

Kevin Manning recaps Pinball Expo 2024's 40th anniversary, covering tournament play, factory tours (JJP), arcade visits (Galloping Ghost), and notable homebrews including Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Borderlands, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Harry Potter machines. The episode also previews upcoming game announcements (Metallica Remastered, Alice in Wonderland) and includes sponsor segments and giveaways.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball did not charge for their factory tour, unlike Stern, American Pinball, and Chicago Gaming

    high confidence · Kevin states JJP 'did not charge for their factory tour' while 'Everybody else' (Stern, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming) charged, with American Pinball tours costing $95

  • Galloping Ghost is the largest arcade in the world with approximately 1,000 arcade video games

    high confidence · Kevin explicitly states 'This is the largest arcade in the world. a thousand arcade video games in one place'

  • Ryan (from American Pinball) created the Sonic the Hedgehog homebrew that led to him working with Dave Fix

    high confidence · Kevin states 'That was Ryan from American Pinball. That was the game that landed him his lucrative gig working with Dave Fix'

  • Predator pinball machine 'works for, like, one or two balls, and then it breaks'

    medium confidence · Kevin mentions reliability issues: 'I've already played Predators, so I don't need to play that again. It works for, like, one or two balls, and then it breaks'

  • This was Kevin's first Pinball Expo attendance since 2017

    high confidence · Kevin states 'It's the first time I had been since uh what was the year that we went to stream pirates was that 2017'

Notable Quotes

  • “JJP did not charge for their factory tour. Imagine that. It's a promotional opportunity to share your games in front of everybody. You didn't charge people to come and see it.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~15:00 — Contrasts JJP's business approach with competitors (Stern, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming) who charged $95 for factory tours

  • “I can think of nothing less appealing than spending four days grinding out hours-long games on Jaws and Godzilla and all these games against the best players in the world.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~08:30 — Explains why he chose to enter Classics tournament instead of Main tournament at Expo

  • “It's got more code on it than X-Men”

    Kevin Manning @ ~38:00 — Criticism of X-Men Pinball's code depth compared to Overwatch homebrew

  • “The wall of microwaves at JJP is not nearly as impressive as the wall of microwaves at Stern.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~18:30 — Humorous observation about manufacturing facilities visited during factory tours

  • “If I was just there on the floor the whole time, I probably would have got bored.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~58:00 — Kevin's reflection on balancing Expo floor time with external activities like factory tours and Galloping Ghost visit

Entities

Kevin ManningpersonNick LanepersonPinball Expo 2024eventJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)companyStern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyGalloping GhostcompanyTony Hawk's Pro Skater (homebrew)gameSonic the Hedgehog (homebrew)gameHarry Potter (homebrew)game

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball facing unclear business status; Kevin 'very upset' he missed company seminar about status; industry uncertainty about company direction

    medium · Kevin: 'I'm very upset that you didn't go to American Pinball's, like, what's going on with American Pinball... I think we know what's going on'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo attendees recognizing and approaching podcast hosts; Kevin mentions multiple people wanting photos and expressing podcast appreciation

    medium · Kevin: 'met lots of people who said hi and even a few who wanted pictures which always feels crazy because I'm just like some dude with a podcast'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: X-Men Pinball criticized for code depth compared to homebrew (Overwatch); Kevin noted 'more code on it than X-Men'

    medium · Kevin and Overwatch creator commentary about code comparison; Kevin's surprise at depth

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 2024 40th anniversary event with significant homebrew presence, factory tours, and community engagement

    high · Kevin's detailed multi-day recap covering tournament play, factory tours (JJP, Stern, American Pinball), Galloping Ghost visit, and homebrew showcase

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: JJP currently running dual production lines for Avatar and Elton John games at new facility

    high · Kevin from factory tour: 'they had two lines going. It was Avatar and Elton John were being made'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.377

0:00
Coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, we've got our very own Kevin Manning, the man on the ground at Pinball Expo, giving a recap. If you didn't go, he's got you. Don't worry. We'll give all the highlights and the lowlights. We also have the new Metallica pinball machine that was announced. Who saw that coming? And then an Alice in Wonderland. Who also saw that coming? Pretty much everybody. All that and more coming right up.
0:25
Let's go. Things are going great. That's the wrong thing. So here you go. This is the right one. Double Super Jackpot!
0:59
And now, the Hall & Oates of pinball podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Woo-boom-shakalaka! Hey, what's going on? It's Monday, October 28th. This is episode 89 of Brody, You Can Talk Pinball. I'm Kevin. That's Nick. Nick, how are you? As always. Good. We're doing it on a Monday night. This is our old time slot. just because this is what was available. Although, Kevin suggested, I suggested 8 o'clock. Kevin said, no, no, no, 7 o'clock because we're old. And Kevin is right. We're not getting any younger. We'll see if we can stumble through this.
1:42
Before it's bedtime and I start taking a nap. Also, it's the World Series tonight, so I'm glad I backed it up by an hour because World Series starts at 8 o'clock. So, Yankees haven't won a single game. Hoping to turn that around tonight. We'll see. So, let's get down to it. Let's kick it off by talking about some of our partners. Nick Lane, one of the things I was talking to folks about at Expo was how much people like your ad reads. Really? Yeah. So, you know, no pressure, but people like it. So don't screw it up, okay? Oh, Jesus.
Borderlands (homebrew)
game
Overwatch (homebrew)game
Scott Deniseyperson
Johnny Crabbperson
Dave Sousaperson
Kyle Bossaperson
Ryanperson
Predator (pinball machine)game
X-Men (pinball machine)game
Buffalo Pinballcompany
Penn Stadium Lightscompany
Flip and Out Pinballcompany
Ken Cromwellperson
Rob Burkeperson
?

community_signal: Homebrew creators demonstrating advanced design innovation; Ryan's Sonic the Hedgehog machine led to professional opportunity with Dave Fix

high · Kevin: 'That was Ryan from American Pinball. That was the game that landed him his lucrative gig working with Dave Fix'

  • $

    market_signal: Manufacturer factory tour pricing divergence; JJP free vs Stern/American Pinball/Chicago Gaming charging $95

    high · Kevin: 'JJP did not charge for their factory tour... Everybody else. Stern, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming [charged]'

  • ?

    product_concern: Predator pinball reliability issues; Kevin reports machine breaks after 1-2 balls of play

    medium · Kevin: 'I've already played Predators, so I don't need to play that again. It works for, like, one or two balls, and then it breaks'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Metallica Remastered and Alice in Wonderland announced as upcoming releases

    high · Episode title mentions 'Metallica Remastered, Godfather Reviewed' and 'Alice in Wonderland'; Kevin references 'Who also saw that coming? Pretty much everybody'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Hybrid pinball/video game experiences gaining prominence; multiple Pinball 2000-style machines, P3 platforms, and homebrews integrating digital and mechanical elements

    medium · Kevin's enthusiasm for Tony Hawk's hybrid mechanics, Haunted Cruise screen integration, and P3 platform appreciation

    • 2:14
    Wow. Here we go. Screw it up. Well, first of all, let's give a shout out to our two premium supporters, Penn Stadium Lights, who is actually doing a giveaway, which we'll talk about that in a bit. Pinsidium lighting kits, iOS, Android-controlled, brighten up your pinball machine. You can do 16 million colors, I was reading. 16 million colors, that's amazing. That's a lot of colors. That's a lot. You will not have any trouble seeing your pinball machines with Pinsidium lights. Big fan of the Pinsidium Neo Adams, which we, spoiler alert, are giving away. But you can use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10%. and the other premier partner, Flip and Out Pinball, flipandoutpinball.com. If you're going to buy a pinball machine, and you definitely should buy a pinball machine, everybody should do it at least once in their lifetime, then you're going to want to go to Flip and Out Pinball. Zach, many will take care of you. Best customer service out there for distributors, hands down. Does great work and pretty much sells any machine out there. As I like to say, he'll even sell you the barbecue game. but he will have a disclaimer saying that are you sure you want this? All sales are final, sorry All sales are final he's warned you, he'll save the text in the email, and if you see where I warned you that's Zach May and then a quick shout out to our other partners, Comet Pinball for LEDs LED Lightings, it pairs nicely with Pinstadiums, especially if you've got an older game, we're going to we've got a bunch of classic games that we want to swap and some warm Comet Retro LEDs into those. Titan Pinball, maker of silicone rings and made famous by Buffalo Pinball, their mat, which is phenomenal. We can't shut up about it. We've been talking about it for like five years now. It's that good. PinballLife.com, one of the newer sponsors this year.
    4:04
    Super happy to have Pinball Life as a sponsor. Been using them since 2011, and they have excellent customer service. And, yeah, Scott Denisey's over there. What else do you guys need, right? support pinball life. Playfield Protectors. Now, here's another good one. If you've got an older machine that doesn't have clear coat on it and you're like, I really want to protect this art and keep it looking good and also the inserts are cupped, highly recommend Playfield Protectors. Head over to playfield-protectors.com. Great product. I use it on my classic games. Pinside.com, pinside.com. Buy machines, sell machines, argue about machines, get hyped, lose hype, all that stuff, right? If you want to create a shitty mod that will make fun of next month, that's where you put it. You put it on pinside.com. And maybe Nick and Kevin will talk about it. Isn't that great? And then Multimorphic, multimorphic.com, maker of the P3. And Kevin is hot to trot about that P3, and so are all my friends in my friend group. I'm the only kid in school that doesn't have a P3. It's a lonely club by myself. We got you covered. I owned an Amiga back in the day, so at least I have it. I don't know what's going on, too. I don't know where my buttons are. Okay, there we go. I have a wall of Atari Jaguar games back there, so I know all about consoles nobody likes. Yeah, that's right. All right, let's talk about our giveaway, the Penn Stadium Neo Adams.
    5:29
    Okay. I don't know what's going on today. I think they're a hot mess. It's not me this time. I just want to point out, usually it's me. There it is. Oh, my God. It's flawless. Flawless execution. This proves we should not do this in the evening. We should only do this in the morning.
    5:44
    It's Penn Stadium Neo X Adams from Penn Stadium. I see a lot of people doing hashtag win in chat. If you're watching on YouTube, it doesn't work over there. You've got to be in the Twitch chat for our robot to get your entry.
    5:57
    And this is going to go to somebody who has not won a set of Penn Stadiums before. So if you've won before, we want to spread the love out and share the love of the beautiful globe, Penn Stadium Neo X Adams. So it's a nearly $400 value, and they look great. We're spreading the well, okay, so letting other people have that who haven't won. But we're not communists. We're not going to come to your house and take your Penn Stadium Neo out of your pinball machines and then redistribute it. We're not doing that. You're not doing that. All right. So let's see how we're doing. We've got 32 total entries. And don't forget, if you're a subscriber to the channel, you get double the entries. So if you've got Amazon Prime, use your Twitch Prime, then enter, you'll get two entries instead of one. Look at that. You'll double your chances of winning. So shout out to Penn Stadium. Thanks for the giveaway. Thank you to everybody who supports the channel and just hangs out in chats. And hopefully you'll win.
    6:53
    All right. It's time for the latest pinball news. What's up? Yeah, that's right. Kevin's monologue. Let's go. Let's do it. I want to hear about. You gave me a week. Kevin and I got lunch last week and I got a little preview, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I want to talk pinball expo. I have to live vicariously through you. Okay. So let's get the proper intro by Tim Kittrow and then we'll get on with it. here's the tip it's the latest pinball news show hunt it's on fire all right let's talk pinball expo 2024 uh nick lane gets to listen to me talk about pinball expo for the next you know i don't know however long this takes but i got lots to cover because it was really awesome so it's the first time i had been since uh what was the year that we went to stream pirates was that 2017 is a magical year. It was. It was glorious. It was back when Steve Bowden didn't work for AP, so he could come and be on our stream when we streamed JJP Pirates. It had three spinning discs in it. Then they took the three spinning discs out, and nobody bought it. And we still bought it, and it's an amazing game. So we reviewed it to go back and watch that. But we're not talking about 2017. We're talking about 2024, the 40th anniversary of Pinball Expo. So I'm just going to kind of run you through what I did and how I spent my time. So I got there on Thursday, which was the first day of the official floor opening. They had some stuff going on from Tuesday to Wednesday. They had tours of Galloping Ghosts, and you could go if you wanted to pay Stern or American Pinball money to tour their factory for some reason, you could go do that. but I decided to show up on Thursday for a couple reasons, family stuff and also Thursday to Sunday that's plenty of pinball expo in my book so I'm showing this room here shout out to Pinball News I'm using all their photos because I'm far too lazy to put together my own slideshow of photos so this is what we did first which was we went to visit the tournament room because we got there around 10am so we landed, grabbed breakfast with Rucko and Chris. And I shout out to Dave Sousa. He was my bro for the ride-along. If you saw the videos on our Instagram channel, he's the one that did all those.
    9:12
    Because, again, I'm far too lazy to do these things. I said, if you want to do some reels, we'll put them up on the YouTubes and the Instagrams and stuff.
    9:22
    So he did those, and they're really cool. You should check them out. And then so we got breakfast. Then we came over. We still had like two hours to kill, so we put some entries into the Classics tournament.
    9:32
    It was nice and wide open. Apparently, previous years, the tournament area was pretty cramped. This shows a nice shot of the room where the Classics and Main were. So Classics were on the left. Actually, this is looking the other way. So in this photo, Classics were on the right, and the Main is on the left. And as you can see, Main is just a massive tournament. and I can think of nothing less appealing than spending four days grinding out hours-long games on Jaws and Godzilla and all these games against the best players in the world. Absolutely not. So we went over to Let's Play Some Classics. We did about two hours versus the classics, and that was pretty fun. And our entries held up pretty well. I ended up like 50th or something overall after the weekend was all said and done. There was like 200 people that entered. So not bad for, like, I think we did six or nine entries altogether.
    10:28
    That was fun. We got to play weird stuff like Kickoff and all these really old, like, mini-flipper EMs and stuff. So while the main tournament was a boring tournament, the classics was pretty legit. So that was fun for a couple hours. So from there, we just went and, like, walked around the floor. Let me see if there's any good pics of the floor here for you. Oh, so this was the overflow room. This was like the free play bonus room where all of Rob Burke's games, and he had all sorts of weird stuff in here, like a bunch of Zachariah games and all the Hanking games from Australia. You know, there was a beautiful hard body there, things like that. So that was that floor. So this is some of the main floor.
    11:14
    We walked around in here. There's tons of stuff. The main floor is absolutely massive. and we were just walking around through there. I swear to God, every time I walked through there, I found something new that I didn't see before. So really cool. This stern had a huge area that was carpeted. I spent like no time in there because you could play sterns everywhere. I went and played X-Men a couple times and that was about it. We'll get back to that. I'll talk about that later.
    11:40
    Alice in Wonderland played that. We'll give some impressions of that later. But, yeah, so some of the other things of note, I have two stories. The first story I want to share from day one of Pinball Expo. I was walking through. This was me being ultimate dumbass Kevin moment. I walked through, and we were walking through, and somebody was like, oh, that's Johnny Crabb playing. I forget what he was playing. I was like, oh, he's awesome. He did the art for Jurassic Park and Final Resistance. So I was like, oh, I'll go over and say hi. Johnny, what's up? I know we've been following each other on Instagram for a while.
    12:14
    I was like, yeah, I appreciate your work. He's like, oh, yeah, I like the podcast and whatever. And that was pretty much it. I was like, I just wanted to say hi and moved on. And then later we were getting ready to – we were either coming back from Scott's house or going to Scott's house. I think we were coming back. It was at the end of the night. And we're getting out of the car, and there's this guy there. And he's like, oh – he's like, hey, what's up? And I was like, what's going on, man? He's like, yeah, I'm just going over to the – there's this, like, event over there. I was like, hey, cool. And I walked back in and I turned to Dave. I was like, Dave, I had no idea who that was. And so I get a message on Instagram the next day going, hey, I saw you when you were getting out of that car. And I could totally tell that you had no idea who I was.
    13:01
    And it was hilarious. I go, absolutely. I am a huge dumbass. That was me not remembering who you were. I remember you had an awesome Bad Brains hoodie on. So shout out to Johnny Crap. I don't know what you look like because I never see you on Instagram. He's not like a take pictures of me kind of person, which I appreciate. You won't also see many pictures of Mick or I on our Instagram channel. You'll just see our stuff that we do.
    13:26
    But, Johnny, I'll remember you next time. But, actually, I probably won't. I'll probably forget you again. But you can just call me out and say I'm done. The other thing we did Thursday night was we hung out with Scott Denise. He was kind enough to invite us over. thegirlgeek and Ricker and I think they're in chat hanging out Rocco what's up we went over there and hung out with them they're also good friends with us everybody's blowing up chat today we went up to hang out with them got to check out his sweet collection that he's got at home I played his he's got a stacker game I don't know if you've ever played gone to like Dave and Buster's you know when Dave Fix used to fix games at Dave and Buster's and there's that game where you would, like, stack up the light blocks on top of each other. If you got high enough, you got a present. And I want some – get a stock of sweet stuff like candy cigarettes. So I got a box of candy cigarettes from Scott.
    14:21
    And then I had a root beer. So I had a root beer and candy cigarettes. And I was the coolest 12-year-old on the block. So thanks, Scott, for the invite and for hanging out.
    14:32
    All right. So the next day we went to – so I missed the main Jersey Jack Factory tour because it took place Thursday and was already sold out by the time I decided I was going to Expo.
    14:45
    Shout out to JJP. They did not charge for their factory tour. Imagine that. It's a promotional opportunity to share your games in front of everybody. You didn't charge people to come and see it. Wait, who was charging people to go? Everybody else. Stern, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming. I'd pay to go see American Pinball, to be honest. Yeah. How much did they want? I don't know. Somebody in chat will know.
    15:11
    I'm on it. What's going on? I don't know what's happening in chat. Oh, the helicopter hype?
    15:18
    That was good. 95 for American Pitbull. Oh, and you paid to go to Logan Arcade? Get the hell out of here. Wait a minute. You got both of those for 95 bucks.
    15:30
    It was like. What do you mean? What does it mean going to Logan Arcade? Like, that was. So if one of the days it was like you went to API and then you went to Logan Arcade, that was like how you spent your whole day.
    15:44
    There was nothing open at Expo that day. It was only like... It's like a bus ticket. Is you paying for the bus ticket? I'm just confused. Pretty much, yeah. Like basically $100 to go to an arcade you can go to anytime. Yeah, they provided the bus. Apparently there's food or something.
    15:59
    Like I said, I didn't go those days. Okay. Yeah. Sorry, Kevin. I thought it was bizarre because Stern never used to charge for their tours they just started charging well I guess they need to pay for their fancy new headquarters I guess they're not making enough off of their LEs anymore yeah so Friday Ken, Cromwell and crew were kind enough to get us in on a smaller tour of the JJP factory with some of the distributors and things like that so we got a cool behind the scenes tour. I had not seen their new facility. I had only seen the, you know, Nick and I went to the old factory in Jersey a few times and that was a good time. But yeah, the new one's impressive. It's similar in size to the old one, I think. But they had two lines going. It was Avatar and Elton John were being made.
    16:55
    Their wall of microwaves, I will say, is not nearly as impressive as the wall of microwaves at Stern. So Stern's got I'm beat there. Sorry, JJP.
    17:05
    But yeah, things were cool. Quick tour. And then we headed over to Galloping Ghost, which was super awesome. I got some pictures of those here. Galloping Ghost was a bucket list item for me, because I like pinball, but I also like video games, as you might be able to see from behind me. I've got some retro games behind me. And a big fan of that. So here, let me show you some of these. So this is the largest arcade in the world. a thousand arcade video games in one place. So it used to be, if you're looking at this photo on screen, it used to just be this building. And then slowly they've acquired all of the other buildings on this block, torn down walls between the buildings, and filled and full of arcade games. And it's insane. So you can see it's just like video games as far as the eye can see. And then you get to the back and you're like, oh, hey, there's more games back here. And you go back through, you tour through another room, and then there's, oh, there's another room over there full of arcade games. And it just rose and rose. Any game you could possibly imagine. We played all sorts of weird stuff like old Laserdisc video games and, dude, I can't even remember. There was this Castlevania environmental game where you held the whip in your hand and played with the whip and stuff like that. So it's got more modern games too. They also have a pinball location which is a little bit further down. And we didn't go there because they don't have that many games there, and there's plenty of pinball at ISPO already.
    18:36
    I've already played Predators, so I don't need to play that again. It works for, like, one or two balls, and then it breaks. So didn't need to play that.
    18:47
    Yeah, the Galloping Ghost was super awesome. If you have any interest in classic arcade video games, highly recommend checking out Galloping Ghost. we didn't have to pay 90 bucks we just went for a tour and we paid our entry fee and we walked around for hours and hours and didn't even scratch the service we just we went and I was like alright let's just walk the whole place and see everything and then we'll start playing it took us probably a half hour just to walk around the place and make sure we saw everything that gives you an idea of how big that place is so super glad I got to go there thanks to Rick and Danielle for giving us the tour and picking us up and driving around that day.
    19:29
    Yeah, so what else? Homebrews, we saw all the homebrews. They were awesome at the show. Some of the standout ones to me were, the one that was at the top of my list was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater because I think we've talked about dream themes many times, and that's always way up there at the top of my list.
    19:51
    Number one, because it's the only way I'll get music that I really like in a pinball machine. And number two, it's a game I played the shit out of growing up, and it was just incredible. So let me see.
    20:02
    There's some pictures here. I'm not seeing a picture of Tony Hawk. But it had this – we were, like, cheering each other on when you would hit the shots on this game. It was crazy. So it wasn't like a flow game. It was a let's make the ball do crazy stuff. So it had, like, you know, remember when Hot Wheels came out and everybody wanted a loop shot on it? Well, this game had a loop shot. It would do a straight-around loop shot. It would do this crazy course through and come out, like do stuff I've never seen on a pinball machine before. It's got a shot where you would shoot it up the back wall, and then there was a flipper on the back wall where you could send it one of two ways. And then if you shot it to the right, there was another flipper up there to make it do another trick.
    20:44
    Yeah, so you're doing, like, grinds on the walls, and there's an up-and-around shot. It was crazy. Crazy stuff. I thank the guy for making it happen because that's a dream theme for me nice work on Tony Hawk another cool another cool homebrew that we saw was Borderlands was sweet it had a playfield in it that would sink down in the cabinet and then it would like tip back and forth you would like pick up this little controller on the apron and tip it you would like move the ball around on the play field. Like if you've ever played one of those old like labyrinth games where you have the knobs on the sides and you would move it front to back, left to right. And you do that with the game, really crazy inventive stuff. So that one was awesome.
    21:35
    Probably my favorite of all the games to play was the Sonic, the Hedgehog homebrew. That was really cool.
    21:44
    Let me see. I don't know if there's any pictures of it here. No, I'm not seeing it. That was just really, it was a wide-body game. It had super fun shots. It had a cool jump shot that went into the back of the cabinet.
    22:00
    The code was really well fleshed out. They even had a flow chart of the rules of the game next to it. There was a giant Charmander guy up on the top of the machine that I knocked down because he was just a stuffed animal, and I nudged the game and he came falling down, so that was fun.
    22:18
    Sonic the Hedgehog, finally got to play that. That was Ryan from American Pinball. That was the game that landed him his lucrative gig working with Dave Fix.
    22:28
    So I finally got to play that. Very cool. Very well executed. Enjoyed that. He said that's not done. He's still working on it some more. And apparently I caught this in the thread about Sonic. He said he might be working on a multimorphic module, too, which would be pretty sweet. We'd love to see that happen. Make it happen, Ryan.
    22:50
    Also a very good Total Nuclear Annihilation player, which we'll get to that later. What else? Overwatch was cool. I played that with the creator of the game. He was standing there giving me play-by-play of, you know, tips on how to play, what I should be shooting for, and I was able to get to a mini wizard mode on that.
    23:10
    I, not ironically, said it had more code on it than X-Men, which he said he had heard many times. during the show already.
    23:19
    But yeah, they had multiple mini wizard modes you could pick from all these characters. Nick, you played Overwatch, right? You used to play it? Yeah, I played that game a lot. Yeah, so when you fired up the game, it was kind of like Pirates where you could pick your character and each character had its own super move and perks and everything. It was crazy. So you made this game with his kids because his kids are really into Overwatch and he had video clips from all the different players or different characters. They all had their own voice work in there. Really well done. Really enjoyed that one a lot. The shots were fun too.
    23:53
    And then Harry Potter. Our very own Kyle Bossa took his Harry Potter machine there. I'm going to basically take... Nick and I are going to take credit for Harry Potter because Kyle said we inspired him to get into pinball pretty much. So you can thank us for that machine, right? I think that's fair.
    24:14
    So it looked awesome. It was real early, but he had this crazy, like, super tall cabinet because there's a massive castle in the back. I'm not a Harry Potter guy, so, you know, call me out when I get all the things wrong. But multiple play fields, lots of, like, shoot under this big play field shots.
    24:33
    He kind of, like, did massive crunch time to get it going for Expo. So nice job, Kyle. Good finally meeting you in person. met lots of people who said hi and even a few who wanted pictures which always feels crazy because I'm just like some dude with a podcast that talks about pinball but I was happy to say hi if you want to take a picture we can take a picture other people were like I think Sarjanski was like I didn't want to bother you I was like you should have said hi you know what I look like I don't know what you look like say hi we can if you just want to high five and move on with your day that's all good too um and that was i think that was i also like the uh they had these um like they were kind of pinball 2000 ish uh machines the haunted cruise was really cool i played that one and i played this this other one too um the haunted forest that was neat i didn't do any of the other two but those were like pinball 2000 but even better um the haunted cruise was cool because you'd like smash on the door, which was basically a thing on the screen, and then something would move it out of the way, and you were able to, like, shoot it through the door, and there's, like, cool ramps, and the rules made sense, and it wasn't too crazy, but it was very inventive of you, like, picking up these coins and stuff, so, again, I'm all about bringing video and pinball together, so, you know, like, Pinball 2000, P3, it's all good in my book, and these were really cool.
    25:59
    Yeah, Kyle was telling me that that guy basically makes a new game every year, which isn't it's insane. Some people just are way too talented, uh, but keep it going. And it was cool to see a lot of the, like the manufacturers going around, checking it out. Uh, I always wonder, like, are they just stealing ideas or are they like looking for, uh, people to hire? It doesn't feel like maybe there's that much of a market for that many more, uh, pinball designers, but, um,
    26:25
    we'll see. We'll see. Uh, we'll see if, you know, the next turn that comes out, uh, and it has something from one of these homebrews in and they're claiming it as an industry first. Well, no, we'll know where it came from um okay so that was homebrews one of the other cool things we did was we played in the pre-war pinball tournament uh because I figured where else are you going to be able to play a bunch of flipperless pinball games uh let's see if it's in there here no I don't see it I don't see it in here um so yeah uh burrs fz burrs and a whole crew had all these awesome like pre-war 1930s flipperless games where you basically just plunge it and try to get in the hole. You can nudge it a little bit. They have tilt bobs in them and stuff and little stool pigeon tilt warnings and stuff. So those were cool. I was like, we definitely got to play that. No whoppers though because there's no flippers in the IFPA and that includes flippers. We got some fun times in on that. Some of them were cool because they were electrified so they would have lights on it if you did certain things. Or, you know, it would change states and things like that. So I know very little about those games. I just know they're fun to play when I see them at places like that. So shout out to everybody who made those happen.
    27:42
    And, oh, Pinball Olympics. Pinball Olympics was dope. Let me see. I'm going to pull up our Instagram.
    27:50
    So, Nick, what do you know of Pinball Olympics? I assume you've seen some of that before. Yeah, it looks zany. I've seen videos before. Zany is accurate. It's probably not for me. No, why not? I don't do zany. You're not a zany kind of guy? Martha probably would do zany. She would do zany. All right, there we go. Oh, I got this. I can show you. These are some of the hot reels that Dave did. He did this one.
    28:14
    So you can see, this was Saturday of Expo. Oh, don't ask what's going on there. Just never mind that. Okay, that's going to get us demonetized. It was censored. It was all good. But It was uh yeah so just Whoever I'm sorry I can't We got him I just want to say that That's why I He was like yeah let's Let's get you can go ahead and play I was like yeah there's going to be no footage of me playing this game at all But they had TNA in this crazy room You could play Iron Man with pistols NBA Fastbreak With Step Mania pads You could play Trilogy Beer with a beer mug Hollywood Heat Through a kaleidoscope Insane, insane stuff But yeah We spent our Here's me playing Avengers While flying and this was the game I ended up getting a medal It was from the Avengers flying Avengers game I think mostly because It required upper body stamina And mine's okay So I was able to play for a while I got the multi-ball going. I got an extra ball. There's lots of Lion Man. So this was the medal ceremony at the end, and they threw medals off, and Scott and Dave and I all won medals. It was a good time. So there's Scott D'Anissi signing Dave's shirt, and there's Joe Cher. We did it.
    29:44
    So, yeah, that was a good time. Pinball Expo. So I think kind of the irony of going to Expo this year was that I spent most of my time not there. So we went to the JJP factory. We went to Scott's house. We went to Galloping Ghost. We went to Pinball Olympics. And then when we were doing that, we were at the floor. So I felt like it was a good balance. If I was just there on the floor the whole time, I probably would have got bored. But then I probably would have ended up going to more of the seminars. I went to none of the seminars. Which I'm very upset that you didn't go to American Pinball's, like, what's going on with American Pinball. Yeah, it's pretty sad. Pretty sad. I think we know what's going on. Yeah. I wanted to just go and ask what was happening with American Pinball. Here's some of the pre-war stuff that Dave shot.
    30:36
    Really fun. Crazy. Is it crazy the amount of stuff they were able to do with just mechanical? There's me looking at a book.
    30:45
    This is one of the ones that had lights. Starlight. That was awesome. If you got it in the middle thing, it freaked out. Oh, and here's a good one. Multi-ball ready. Wait for it. Woo! Multi-ball. Yeah, good times.
    30:58
    Yeah, what else? Pinball Olympics we talked about. And, all right, I guess I can give some thoughts on some of the new games. That's what people want to hear about, right?
    31:08
    So I get to play all the new games. We started out on ABBA, which I almost forgot about until somebody, I think Rob on Facebook was like, can't wait to hear you talk about ABBA. I was like, oh, yeah, I played ABBA. So we played that They were right by the entrance so you couldn miss them And they had the folks at Pinball Brothers had written to us saying hey, stop by the booth. We'll show you what's going on. Cool. So I went over and said hi. And I played ABBA, and it was okay. It was a pinball machine. It did some interesting things. The left ramp, it could either go up the left ramp and come around and come back down the left side, or there was a magnet at the top of the left ramp and it would drop it in a hole, which was kind of cool. So, you know, two different states from that left ramp.
    31:58
    So that was interesting and different. The rest of the game just felt pretty straightforward. The helicopter mech was pretty cool. We were able to get the helicopter multiball going.
    32:10
    So that was something. You basically had to hit the stand-up targets, and then there was a drop target in the back. he would knock down the drop target, put it in the vertical upticker, and it would kick it into the helicopter. And then you do that twice, and it's a multi-ball. It comes out, it goes like, and lets the balls out. What's your favorite ABBA song?
    32:35
    Take a Chance on Me, I guess. That's the only one I can think of. I think that's an ABBA song, right? Sure. Okay.
    32:42
    But, you know, it's like you can't even hear the games. Like, you know, it's a music game and you barely hear it. I played Queen again. That was, you know, that felt the same. Still Queen. Still Queen, yep. Still no desire to buy it. Yep.
    33:01
    Yep, so that was Avvo. It's a pinball machine. Check the box. It didn't break while I was playing it, so that was good. I think I get a plus for that. What else? You want to hear like the highs first Or the lows first or you want me to go back and forth Why don't you work your way up to Your favorite okay so like let's Let's go let's start at the bottom So if we're going from the bottom Ewa would not be the bottom but that's Just the one I talked about first but what would be at the Bottom of the new stuff that I haven't Played is Space Hunt Remember Space Hunt It's like Yeah somehow I remember I think it's a French manufacturer Rob Burke bought one and had it there and apparently it's not UL certified that's why you can't get them in the US but he managed to get one so now you know how much money this guy gets when he just like meaning and buying games like that it was in the Pinzown booth because apparently it's got Pinzown stuff in it so I went and checked it out we were just walking around and we were like oh my god it's Space Hunt we gotta play Space Hunt so we played Space Hunt and it doesn't it looks good. Like it's a good looking game. Um, and the theme for what it is, is interesting, I guess. Um, you're hunting in space and stuff. Uh, it's got a like cool little pinball guy on there that you see bopping around.
    34:26
    Um, the shots are interesting. It's got a center ramp thing. And then we were like, how do you get it on? Cause the, the main play field features, It's got this dangly, dongly thing over on the right on a mini play field. We're like, how do you get over there? So there's this far shot. So there's a left orbit, and then there's a ramp shot just to the left of that is super tight and goes all the way around the pinball machine, all the way to the right.
    34:56
    And we shot that like 10 times, and it would go in there, rattle around, and come out, go in there, rattle around, and come out. I heard other people say they were able to make it and got it up there, but then once it's up there, it either just went right by it because they didn't realize what you were supposed to do, or you flipped the flipper and it fell off the upper play field and that was it. So, yeah, by the time ball three rolled around, we were not into it anymore. I was like, I'm going to finish it. I'm never going to play this game again probably, so I'm going to play all three balls of space on it. So that was the thumbs down game of the show so far. after that I would probably put ABBA after that so Space Hunt then ABBA then probably Alice in Wonderland it's kind of a toss up like Alice in Wonderland X-Men, Ninja Eclipse are all kind of like right there in the middle we'll go Alice next I do have pictures of that up How many games of balance did you play? We played two. The lines were pretty long for it. But it was only such a two ball.
    36:10
    Yeah. Which is good for a show where a lot of people want to play the game. It makes sense. It's a good looking game.
    36:19
    It's not as good as like Zombie Yeti art, but it's okay. Was it a Zombie Yeti art? It was originally, but they had another. This is what will get us demonetized on Easy right there. That's not fair. Let me see if I can find the play field shot here. So, yeah, here you go. So, yeah, Zombie Yeti had done the original concept. Yeah, okay. But then they took another artist to kind of actually bring it into production. Okay. So, yeah, it was okay. Like, it was just kind of like a beautiful game. Like, the sculpts are cool. Leora obviously does really good work. And the – yeah, it just – it's just like okay. It was okay from a shot perspective. I asked one of the guys from Dutch Pinball, I was like, how do you get it up on this upper play field?
    37:10
    And he was like, oh, you have to get this one mode, and to change the modes you have to hit the pop bumpers, and then once the pop bumpers are on that mode you have to hit this one shot to get it to the upper play field. Wow. And then if you accidentally shoot the pop bumpers, then it changes the mode and you're screwed. Wow. There's only one mode that sends it up there? As of now. Which is crazy for a feature that takes up, like, two-thirds of the back of the machine. Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of real estate. Like, that's what catches your eye when you look at this game. Yeah. I mean, it's basically the Twilight Zone, right? Yeah. It's a magnet. Magnet flips. So who cares? Right. but it was I had asked him that after I had already been playing it when you first plunge it's the mode that was lit so the second time I played it I was like oh the mode's lit let me just hit the mode start shot and I put it up there and I flipped around and it wasn't very clear what I was supposed to be doing up there and I was able to cape it up there quite a bit of time so okay it was alright it was okay to me it felt very much like what it was. It was a J-pop idea of a machine, like a super early prototype machine, quote unquote layout, that they're like, alright, let's bring it to life. And much like Magic Girl, at least unlike Magic Girl, all the shots went somewhere and did something. But it definitely felt more like oh, J-pop has an idea, but he really needed four other people to actually make this fun and cool to play.
    38:45
    and also there's a 3D printed diverter in the back that I found, but that apparently won't be in the final game. This is a prototype machine, so we'll see about that. I really wish I searched for it quickly. I didn't find it, but you heard, like, the jackpot call out of the game? Yeah, I couldn't hear anything, but it was bad. You've heard it before, right? I heard it on the promo video, yeah. Yeah, it sounds like Herbert the Pervert from... Jackpot. Yeah. Oh, grandpa. Like, I just remember somebody looped that. I'm sorry I'm forgetting the Facebook page or the group that looped it, but it was great. They just put that, like, on loop. And it's so bad. People are like, is this a placeholder? Like, ugh.
    39:33
    Yeah. If anybody can find a video of it, just treat yourself to that. Yeah. This is like the lights on the side rails. But again, this is like the ultimate game for somebody who just wants to say they have something rare and just sit in their room and look at, you know, and not actually play that much. 100%. It's for the diaper wipers out there. Yeah, 100%. So that was Alice. Oh, one thing I forgot. How could I forget? It's not actually a new game, but it was my first time playing it.
    40:05
    Barbecue, baby. I got to play barbecue finally. Where do you think that ranked in my Oh shit you never played that I had never played Barbecue Have you played it? Oh you played it at a member right? Oh yeah Yeah What did you think? I mean you know what I think I mean it's absolutely terrible What do you think? It was worse than Space Hunt Oh so it's the worst than the worst It was the worst Sorry Space Hunt You're not the worst Wow What stood out to you In terms of what makes it the worst though? You can't just say it's the worst. What makes it the worst? Let me set the stage here. So we were at Scott's place, and Rick and I were talking about this game. And we were like, I was like, oh, yeah, this is my first time playing barbecue. And I was just like, you know, we were like, what did you think? And I was like, I don't know. It was just kind of, and he and I both at the same time said miserable.
    41:00
    Unprompted, like that was the first word that came to mind for both of us simultaneously. There was like, the flippers were strong enough that I was able to shoot the ramps.
    41:13
    I locked a couple balls, you know, I did the things, and I saw the meat on the screen. That was really all I wanted to see. The drizzle? I saw the drizzle. And the gloves, the black gloves. Yeah.
    41:26
    That was the only game I did not finish a full game on. I played one ball, and I was like, that is enough. I'm going to spend my time doing something else. and also the American Pinball section of Expo is way too big I could just see Dave being like I need all this space for all my games and there's like never anybody over there um sorry sorry to Space Hunt I don't want to disparage you like that but you know BBQ is the worst uh okay Ninja Eclipse was kind of my surprise hit of the show I actually had a good time playing Ninja Eclipse um The art is really good on it. Probably some of the best art of the new games.
    42:09
    It looked like a Disney animator had drawn it. It was really good. The layout didn't have any outstanding mechs or anything like that, but it was just an interesting, cool layout.
    42:22
    The little ricochet shot from scoop to scoop is kind of cool. I will say the rules felt kind of grindy. you get into these battles and it was like nine shots to finish a battle.
    42:34
    So that felt like kind of a, kind of a slog. The one major concern I had about that was they flipped up the play field and the bottom of the machine is one massive circuit board. And I said, I showed Matt, our friend, Matt, he's an engineer. I was like, what is it? What's your engineering take on this? The bottom of this play field. He said, it's, it's clean looking, but you know, if that PCB fails, like what happens, right? I would be concerned about that. And that was my thought, too. Like, you know, if you have a Stern or a J.J.P. or a Multimorphic or, like, a Williams, and one piece goes bad, you just replace that piece. You don't have to take the whole bottom of the play field off to get the circuit board out to swap it. So that would be my – I mean, the other thing is, like, it's another new manufacturer. Are they going to be around to support this? It looks like all proprietary stuff. So those are all concerns I would have and reasons I would not be running out to buy myself a Ninja Eclipse. But it seemed to be, like, the darling of the show from the new games. A lot of people were talking about how they had fun on it. So good on them. They took the feedback, and they had that little baby cabinet last year. I don't know if you remember what it looked like. It was, like, in the weird coin door and stuff. So it's in a full-size cabinet. It looks like a Stern machine, basically. And, yeah, Ninja Eclipse was cool. Yeah, so they sold out all 100 of them that they said they would make Did they? I heard they were still trying to sell them, but According to their website, it says they're sold out the 100 Hopefully people actually get them Well, that's step two Step one is send money or order Step two is actually get Pinball Machine They actually had some built in at the show and they sold those ones So if you're taking one home from the show then you're good if you gotta wait, who knows how long you're gonna wait so we'll see Zavadoza in chat says they will so you guys have nothing to worry about they're gonna ship mark Zavadoza's words they will ship them how long will it take what's the timeline though is it gonna be like Dutch Pinball Big Lebowski timeline or is it gonna be a little faster than that hopefully a little faster than that X-Men was another one I played. The layout was cool, and that seems to be the consensus of all this cool stuff.
    45:03
    But from the owner's thread, I've been seeing lots of mechanical issues. People having problems with the plunge going around.
    45:11
    Weird trying to get it up certain ramps. It's problematic, especially on the LEs, it seems like. I only got to play the pro.
    45:19
    Honestly, they had all these X-Men. And visually, between the different models, it was almost impossible to tell the difference. They all look very similar. So at the one point, I was trying to – I thought we were in line for the premium. I was like, oh, I guess this is another pro. They just all look the same. So I played the pro a couple times, and it was fun. Yeah, the layout was cool.
    45:42
    Shout-out to Goldwings. That's basically Goldwings on the bottom third of the play field. and yeah, but the rules were, felt very stern-y you know, Saga mode and a multi-ball basic stuff and then the call-outs were bad, the animations were bad couldn't really hear the music great but yeah, it's got a ways to go, it's got a ways to go rules wise, so we'll see, it's not going to go anywhere rules wise with the team that's work on the rules. They like to just have a mode, you know, like it's just going to be rinse, wash, repeat, copy code, move on. Yeah, it's going to be your bit. It's Tanya O'Clay's doing the rules on that, right? Wayson, I thought it was Wayson. Oh, Wayson. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think so.
    46:31
    Yep. So that's X-Men, and the standout show of the game for me was Avatar. It was, I had no, like the theme doesn't do much for me. It was kind of like, eh, Avatar, Take it or leave it. Don't love it. Don't hate it.
    46:47
    But Mark's layout was really awesome. It had, like, the two upper flippers, lots of cool little, like, I was telling Mick, there was, like, a couple easy shots on each flipper. But then there was also all these, like, I was watching Mark play, and he was hitting these shots. I was like, man, how do you do that? I want to do that. So I kept stepping up. We would walk around for a while. I'd be like, let's go back and play Avatar again. And we'd walk around for a while. I was like, let's go play Avatar again. the first time I played it, I was like, alright, let's start off the right way. Let's play the CE first. And that's the one with the topper and everything. I was like, I want to get the full experience. And that was really cool. They had it in a tent at Expo, and apparently the play field was not final. They're still working on dialing in the UV stuff. That's why they had it in the tent under the UV light, to kind of show it off a little bit better.
    47:37
    They're still working with the manufacturer to get those 100%. but the, I thought that the UV looked really good on the, on the standards or the limited editions that were out on the floor. They had a ton of them there. So the lines were pretty long, but they're, they had a lot to kind of like spread people out, which was good. There's even one in one of the other distributors booths and stuff. They actually too, there's one kind of in the back left and there was one in the middle. So they're kind of strewn all about the show floor to, to check them out, which was cool.
    48:05
    Yeah. And the lower play fields were neat. that you didn't spend a lot of time down there, and they were interesting and different.
    48:12
    So the first one was just a pop-mumber, and you're trying to, like, pop it off the pop-mumber to hit these targets, and then you advance to this crab battle. And the crab battle was cool. You hit the crab a couple times, and then you would get a multi-ball out of that. The second time you got around to it, it made it really – the crab gets the gimme-ly harder because you have to hit that Orbitz to finish him off. And so it's not like a gimme-lower play field. You've got to earn it. and then our Dave and I played that a bunch and our favorite part was when you don't beat the crab he does a little dance and he dances on you so he was like taunting you and we got to meet the guy that did the crab animation on the last day of Expo and Dave got his picture of him so we were like it's the crab guy because JP was talking to us and he's like oh this is him this is the guy that did the crab because we were telling him how much he liked the crab so shout out to crab guy we love your work yeah so Avatar was the machine of the show for me and I think that pretty much covers X-Bow. Is there anything from X-Bow that we didn't cover that y'all want to hear?
    49:16
    I feel like we covered it. So somebody asked when you were saying X-Men animations are bad, they said animations are bad compared to what? They're fine. What would you say they're bad compared to?
    49:29
    Anything else? Like Avatar is amazing. I think the art and animation on Princess Bride is really good even looked on like Alice in Wonderland looked like it even had better animation than it's better the quality of the art is better but the animation style is the same where it's just like puppetry and it's kind of like take a picture and move it around versus like full 3D animation fully rendered art the drawings themselves on X-Men are not good. The art of the characters is bad. I would prefer to just see the art from the 90s X-Men cartoons. At least then it would be a retro feel versus whatever. I don't know who drew those. Not a fan. That's not a hot take either. Pretty much consensus across the board.
    50:25
    If you've played Avengers Infinity Quest, very similar art style there. where it's just like, kind of like, hey, here's a character, and he moves around and shakes and stuff.
    50:37
    Diamond Lady was pretty amazing. Yep, Tony Hawk Pro Skater was good. We talked about that. If you're looking for the drawing, we do the drawing at the end.
    50:50
    Yeah, hashtag when to get in. You've got to be in Twitch chat to enter. Okay. So there you go. That's Expo. I also saw Metallica Remastered there that's not going to get machine of the show for me because it's the same game just reskinned although I didn't wait in line to play it because the line was super long they waited until Saturday to put it on the floor and then they only had two they had one LE and one premium so I walked by and I looked at it it's a good looking game certainly a different art style than the old school Metallica this is a game that I've played like a bazillion times so I have no desire to own one even though I'm a fan of Metallica they were one of my favorite bands growing up but yeah, no desire to spend $13k on an LE or $10k on a premium, but I know there's people out there that didn't have a chance to get one of the ones with Dirty Donny Art on it, so if you're looking for a Metallica, this is one you can maybe get, get yourself a premium Allegedly, the LEs are all sold out, but I imagine that means all sold out to distributors. Yeah. And they're still available, I would guess.
    52:06
    Nick, I've talked a lot. Get some thoughts on Metallica. You're a Metallica owner. I'm a Metallica owner. Actually, I sold it to Martha. Oh, that's right. But I'm happy I have Metallica in the collection still because it can be a total ass-kicker, and it's not a long-playing game, which I'm just so tired of long-playing games now. I want to get back to, like, the early 2010 Stern, where they just made games where you can actually play a four-player game with people and people don't fall asleep that you're playing with.
    52:37
    So, yeah, you and I were talking about this the other day, Kevin. I think this is a good move by Stern. I think it makes sense. This is a popular game. It came out on their older, what is it, SAM system. Right, so one thing that bothers me about the music pins from the SAM system is that they're in mono. And obviously bringing it to the spike system, these aren't stereo, which they should have been stereo. Wow. I mean, this is not even a big thing. But, like, you want the fidelity to be as good as possible on a music pin. Of course, you're going to need to upgrade the speakers on this. But, hey, at least the source is in stereo.
    53:17
    And what Stern did here is great. They, you know, like I said, they took a game that was popular. They kind of updated it and brought it into the new system, which now instead of a DMD, we've got an LCD with new animations.
    53:29
    They've added, I think it's eight additional songs, so they're up to 22 songs. They didn't just phone this in, right? They didn't just, like, use the same art, use the same songs, put in stereo, maybe, you know, update some lights, and that's it. They've got all new art. I think the art style looks great. I think the original art style looks great as well. I might actually prefer the kind of new art style, but maybe that's just because I like new shiny things. But I think that just speaks volumes, right? Like, they did a really good job. They took a chance of redoing the art style was loved to begin with, so that's great. And, like, MusicPin should have over 20 songs in them that come out these days. I like that they're using their lighting kit. What are they called, the side rails or? Expression lights. You've got to express your light. They've got expression lights on it. Yeah, so I think this is a good move by Stern. So great for anybody who's like a hardcore Metallica fan. I can see them selling the original version and upgrading to this. I'm not going to do that. Like I said, Martha owns the game now. We're perfectly happy with ours. But anybody who ever wants a Metallica, like, this is a huge win for you guys. And, yeah, you know, the premium pricing is like $9,600 or whatever they come out for premium pricing these days. So standard pricing on that.
    54:54
    I don't know. I think it's a good deal. I think it's a good move. It was a good choice of a pin to redo. I think they could probably even maybe reduce some of the other music pins and just bring them up to this kind of better sound, add more songs in their kind of situation. But great call by Stern. I think that's a win. Yeah, I like that they added a bunch of call outs. That's right. A lot of new call-outs from the band. So the band is obviously really into this too, which helps, right? So you get all the concert footage from the band. Your point about the sound quality is a big selling point, I think, and one I hadn't really considered. When I go back and I play my Tron after I play it, like I'll play Final Resistance. I'm like, oh, I should play Tron now because they're both like sci-fi games. And the sound is like really jank on the sound system.
    55:40
    So, yeah, that's huge. the rest of it, like, I prefer the Dirty Donnie art, but I like that they're using a different artist that Stern works with, or that Metallica works with a lot, so you get a different style of some of their art and a different take on an artist's rendition of what they do with the band, so very cool, and the metallic-looking art, the, like, foil sides were really cool looking on the LE at the show, so if you got an LE coming, I think you're going to like it. Yeah, total win, I think on certain spots. So good job. That's a worthwhile venture that they did bringing that back up. Okay. What else? One thing that I don't like about Sparky, he's kind of jank.
    56:22
    He's a little jank. He's kind of jank. Okay. I've got to see him. He's like, I don't know. The old Sparky was just so like legendary and classly. Oh, and before we move on from Expo, I have to give, when we were talking about pinball, shout out to the super loud guy that was behind me when we were waiting for the medals. he's like, you're going to talk about me on the show and I'll be like, I won't remember your name but I'll say the loud guy really helped me out or whatever. So there you go. I talked about you.
    56:49
    Okay. All right. The other piece of news is that, you know, obviously Alice in Wonderland came out, was announced earlier this month. Kevin talked about it. He actually got to play it so that's a nice review, like nice impression. Sorry, I almost got some Oh shoot.
    57:05
    Speaking of, I was hanging out Josh Coogler, and he was calling us out for our hot takes on some of his AP games. I was like, you know, it is what it is. There are impressions. We're giving our first impressions. It's a hot take, right? Yeah. And first impressions are, that's why they're so important, right?
    57:24
    But I think our first impressions. Josh, the handout with Josh was super awesome. Our best reviews are obviously games that we own, right? And you can spend a lot of time with it, and then it goes down from there. So there you go, Josh.
    57:35
    Yeah. Yeah, so what else can we say about it? They're only making 500 machines of these, and 300 are allocated for sales in North America.
    57:46
    The machines translated in pricing from euros to U.S. dollars is like $11,794. I don't know what they're going to sell for in the U.S. That's just kind of translating that price.
    57:58
    I mean, if you keep it under $12, at least you're at the Jersey Jack level. Do you get to see the topper, Kevin? Yeah, the topper was really cool. Does it do anything? So the eyes on it are little LCD screens, and they would change, like, this is like a game. If you like to do drugs, you buy yourself this game and just kind of trip out and play this game. Well, that's kind of like the thing with Alice in Wonderland, right? Yeah, you take some LSD, and you just kind of go in. But, yeah, the eyes were their screens. Let me see. I don't know if I can get in any closer on this.
    58:29
    And they would change, and they would be, like, swirly and fiery and all sorts of stuff. So, yeah, the topper was really impressive. It didn't move or anything, but the LCD screen and eyes were cool. Yeah. You know, I think they're going for, like, that Williams 90s game kind of feel and look to it. And, you know, I like the artwork on it. People are like, oh, it's like, you know, scantily clad women kind of deal. It's like, dude, that's pinball. I don't know what to tell you. I know in the last kind of 20 years it's been neutered a little bit and toned down, and we get, like, a lot of comic book stuff, and, you know, you never see, like, a sexy woman on a game anymore. But it's got it. Again, it goes kind of for the 90s Williams thing, and that's how decades of pinball have been. So if you don't like it, fine, but I don't see anything crazy about it. I mean, they know their audience, right? Well, I mean, again, that's pinball, right? Like, I guess you could have gone, like, the Disney route of Alice in Wonderland, or then you've got to kind of go the more adult side. So I'm for, like, the more, like, give me adult-themed games, like Guns, Scantily Clad Women. Like, I'm fine with that. I can handle it. I'm a big boy.
    59:38
    But, yeah, again, I think you said it best, Kevin. It's kind of like a diaper-wiper thing. But it's like, you know, it's an art piece, I think, first and foremost, and gameplay and everything else in that game is going to come secondary. So people who want to have, like, an art piece in their collection, I think that this kind of this looks like it does the trick right the sculpts are nice like they didn't spare any expense that mod maker stumbler did I think the at least the side rail lighting LEDs on it so obviously a visually stunning game remains to be seen over time if the game is actually can back it up with like gameplay and rules I think that's more of a dubious proposition but if you're making 500 of these then I think he'll sell 500, and I think the company will do well, and then they can move on to something else. Yeah. I mean, rumors they have Back to the Future, too. So if they have that, hopefully they make more than 500 of those. That's all I'm saying. That's a pretty dope theme.
    60:38
    Yes. I was listening to Zach Money's, what is it, the Pinball Podcast. I don't listen to many podcasts, but I was on the road, and he was saying something about Stern passed up Back to the Future. I think if I understood his discussion on that, which is crazy because I think they let kind of like the designing teams basically vote on and pick what games they want to do. So that's insane. That is like insane, dude. Like you should not let the design teams pick all of them or something. I understand you've got to be excited about the game you're making, but it's like you want your company to make money. Like that's the thing. Like Back to the Future is like instant money maker. That's it. The only thing with Back to the Future is it's probably like one of these situations where you're not going to get all the actors' likenesses, right?
    61:30
    So it could be a license where, yeah, you can't show Michael J. Fox or, you know, Doc Brown because, you know, they don't want to be in this pinball machine and they're all, you know, piecemeal themselves together. So I'm wondering if that's why Stern was like, well, if we can't get those characters, then people are going to lose their mind and they're not going to buy this game. But I think there's enough people who really love the theme who are going to buy it anyways. Yeah. And somebody tried to correct me in chat. It's not called the Straight Down the Middle podcast. It's the pinball show TPN with Zach Mennie and Dennis Crystal. So I'll give a shout out to them. I did like that podcast on it. Good discussion. There you go. My boy Zach. All right. It's your boy Zach. It's my boy Zach. Anything else on Alice? I mean, they got a lot of coverage. Yeah, we got double Alice.
    62:19
    No, there you go. If you want a 90s J-pop game without the support of all the people who actually made his games work well, then go for it.
    62:29
    All right, so quick note. So they had the Making of John Wick video came out in the last month since the last podcast. I watched that because I am, for some reason, I'm really interested in this game, even though I haven't purchased it yet. I need to sell a game first, which I'm trying to sell my Rush, but I think I going to yank it from the market because I don like to move in pinball machines to my house during the wintertime because I have a stage in the garage and that difficult blah blah blah You guys don need that exposition But yeah I mean Stern does a good job with these making videos I'm not sure if I've ever seen another one. I thought this was well done. It was, like, 12 minutes long, well worth a watch. So some things that I picked up on it and was interesting is, like, they were talking about, like, the music in this game back in 2022. Tim was talking about hiring the guy from Anthrax and talking about how he wants the music done. And so this game has been thought about for a while.
    63:21
    Tim was saying he's a big fan of the John Wick movie, so maybe that came up and he jumped on it to work on it, was motivating them to do it. It was supposed to have an upper play field like in WWE. That didn't work out. I'm glad they didn't do that. I think what is in the game works better.
    63:36
    But what's interesting about this game is somebody who wants to buy it, and I actually spent a lot of time in the owner's thread, just there lurking, feeling their pain. The owners are not happy whatsoever with the rules on this game. It's just very lacking. Like, they're starving for code. And it's kind of crazy to think that, you know, they were talking about this game in 2022. There's a video of, like, the upper play field being shown in January 2023. Like, so why is the code so, like, just not there on this game? Why is it so early? It's a bizarre thing. I'm kind of fascinated by it. and they spend a lot of time talking about the presentation in the game, and again, they've got it like the code in the game where it's like, oh, if you kill two enemies, it shows John Wick killing two enemies, and there's all these scenes. It's like, my God, guys, you're focused on the cherry on the top, but the core of the game doesn't exist. So anyways, the worse the game is, the lower the price is for when I want to pick it up, so there's that.
    64:35
    But, yeah, just wanted to mention that. You probably have no thoughts or feelings or comments about Destruction Town. My thought on this was that this feels like Nick is really trying to convince himself to buy a John Wick. Oh, I am. Yeah, yeah. No, I am. Like, I am, like, I would get one. If I had sold Rush and I had cash in hand, I probably would buy one, but it's also a weird time to buy because you know the price is going to plummet on that thing right now. Oh, yeah. It's a weird thing. I mean, if by miracle Tim puts out an amazing code and it could go up, because the one thing that people agree on is they like the layout and they like the speed and they like how it shoots, and that's what I'm addicted to in the theme. The code seems pretty rubbish. And I'm also concerned with Tim on the code because, you know, Black Knight Sword of Rage is not an amazing code. It's just serviceable.
    65:24
    So we'll see. Hopefully Tim can kind of knock out of the park and he's got some shirts up his sleeve that he's going to pull out.
    65:31
    Okay, here we go, guys. I don't think we've done this for a month or two. It's WTF American Pinball. You guys like this session. Yeah. The full title for this month is WTF American Pinball, Dennis Norman Calls Dave Fix a Liar. Here we go. Take it away. I like the title.
    65:51
    Legendary pinball designer Dennis Norman denies American Pinball's claims about him. So what's going on, Kevin? Are you up to speed on this? I got the Cliff Notes version. So basically, I'm actually friends with Dennis on Facebook, so I saw this. He posted on Facebook saying, you know, basically he heard Dave Fix on a podcast. So he's on the Pinball News podcast.
    66:18
    And basically everything he said about Dennis Nerman and his departure from the company was fake. And he also said that what everybody agrees is basically he had Whitewater 2 ready to go. He didn't call it Whitewater 2, but everybody's like, yeah, that's what he was sending out. and instead of doing Whitewater 2 which everybody lost their minds for he did the barbecue game instead so yeah just solid decision after solid decision I had some good day fix conversations at Expo 2 with people who used to work there oh man yeah we'll share some speakers offline Dave and I can give you the scoop the next time we're all together the viewers don't get to know this Yeah, no, because this is, you know, you don't want to divulge things that people are just saying to you one-on-one on a public podcast. Sure, sure, sure. Well, you don't have to name names, but I understand. Yeah. Well, things are not looking good. So somebody is either David's line or Dennis Norman's line. You guys can speculate here. But I'm going to read the quote, and this is Dennis Norman talking about what happened. So Dave Fix was on Pinball News in May 2024. I remember we listened to this one. We talked about it a little bit. And if you want to hear it for yourself, he says you can go to the 2-hour, 19-minute mark. I mean, just drop what you're doing and listen to this. So here we go. This is Dave Fix. This is Dennis Norman quoting Dave Fix. So here we go. Quote, you know, Dennis is not a young guy. He kind of came to us and he was like, you know, I could be doing better by, you know, being home a little bit more and, you know, being this, that, and the other thing. And we kicked it around a couple times, and then we said, hey, this is what we want to do. We want to lay you off. We want to put you to contract basis. We want to build your game. It's not the high priority now. It's not a shout. It's either other little things that can be done. Let's talk about this and have a contract made up, and we'll contract base this. And it's well open. You can come and, you know, do what we need to do, and let's do this. But, you know, we kind of got to lay you off from day to day. Okay, that's the end quote. That was Dave Fix. I have no idea what you just said.
    68:33
    So, Dennis, this is a quote from Dennis. None of this is true. I have no contract with American Pinball. American Pinball was not honoring my original contract, so I told Dave Fix I was going to work from home more days per week. Okay, so American Pinball, according to Dennis Norman, is not honoring contract. Dennis Norman continues, I wanted to see my next game go into production. It's an unlicensed theme, but it's a theme that everyone is familiar with, and it has an amazing play field. It's way ahead of barbecue and development, but Mr. Fix decided to put barbecue in front of it. Well, you know, this is my commentary right now. I mean, of course, because barbecue is amazing. You've got to get that out. He's got a hot item. The people want it. They do. Okay, so Dennis Norman continues. They offered me a contract that was completely unacceptable. They said if I did not accept that contract, I would be terminated. I asked why, and they said they didn't have enough money to pay me. I asked, do you mean if I don't sign this contract, I'm terminated? I was told, yes. I walked out.
    69:33
    Dennis Romer continues, that's where it stands today. I have nothing to do with American Pinball. Mr. Fix told other people at AP that he would bring me back to finish game number two in June or July. Of course, that didn't happen. So there we go, Kev I think the back-to-back shows we had Josh Googler say that American Pinball owes him money we have Dennis Norman saying they had no money to pay him, so they basically weren't honoring his contract which is contrary to what Dave said so things are going bad over there not exactly trying to dance on their early grave at this point, but the prediction of them going out of business by the springtime still in play. All right.
    70:17
    We'll have to go back and clip that podcast where he made your prediction. Yep, that's right. We'll see. I might be wrong. I don't know how they still are going right now, but they don't have money to pay people. It's pretty amazing. That's Dennis Norman. Now, granted, to be fair, Dennis Norman did have the turd Galactic Tank Force. Okay? Like, he didn't. He pushed for that. Right? It's my understanding. It was his idea, yeah. Yeah, so it was his idea. They all, like, I don't know, like, that was not a good win for the company. So maybe if you knocked out the park, you'd be, I don't know. Yeah. But, like, you know. Yeah. Some of that was mismanagement, too, though, I think. Like, Josh was saying, like, why didn't you do 500 of the signature editions, right? Make that a, that's their super high FOMO item. like do like 50 of them and sell where they were like $18,000 or something you wanted for those yeah yeah okay we can move on there you go there's a segment there's always something there you go okay game room update time yeah I've got some show and tell from expo that I'm going to do for mine so let's bring it over here first up I got one of these guys Nick have you seen these yeah I was thinking about that the other day. I think that's a mod I do need. I want to hear your review. I haven't used him yet. I like he's got little eyeballs. You haven't used it? I don't know. Bring it back next month.
    71:53
    I've been away. I must clean my pinball machines. If you haven't seen this, this is the... If you have a pinball machine with ramps on it, you want to clean under the ramps, you take the rag and you attach it to the pin snake because he's got Velcro on him.
    72:07
    It's like a custom rag? Yeah. So how many racks did they give you? Just one. I feel like they should give you a couple. You can put anything on there. Any microfiber on there would work. Okay. You just put them on there, and there you go. How much was that bad boy? I think $40.
    72:22
    Yeah. Well, you know, I got it mostly for Tron because Tron drives me crazy with its white and yellow orbits. Basically, as soon as you play it, it gets dirty, and it's super hard to get back there in the orbits without taking the ramps off and everything. So it's my Tron-leaning device. Berg Bookie says, I bought it. It sucks. There's no downward pressure, so it basically doesn't do anything in terms of cleaning all the ground and black crap. Yeah, that's what I was worried about, right, Berg Bookie? Like, you obviously need pressure to get stuff, right? Like, you can't just kind of wave it around and hope for the best. So I was hoping that it would work out. And Kevin will give a review next time. We'll see if he's cleaning. Yep. Try to get his games dirty. That's what Brooklyn Penn disagrees. It works great on my games. All right. Whoa. There we go. Okay. Maybe, all right, Brooklyn Penn, if you've got any tips to help Berg Buki and the rest of us, yeah, let us know. All right. Here we go. Chad's blowing up over there. Oh, wow.
    73:24
    Another one, Game Club Central. Mine works very well. Okay. What do you guys put on it? Do you guys, like, spray some, like, Novus One to kind of get it a little bit wet? Because if you have it maybe a little moist, it will pick some up. You've got to follow the Pinsnake instructions Alright DSSS works great, there we go That's how you Pinsnake right there The guy was super nice too We'll give it a shot Alright, happy to hear, let's go Pinsnake hype Shout out to Charles Acosta Of Pinball Photos fame He hooked me up with the shirt The pennies He's got new characters, he's doing shirts and stuff he's like we were just chatting he's like here have a shirt so I was like alright I'll wear it on the show appreciate it we were walking around and Dave was like man how come I don't give free stuff you know because I need to be on a show I was like all it takes is hundreds of hours of your life thousands of dollars of investing in equipment and then you can get a free $25 shirt so it's totally worth it but no I appreciate People hook it up. Always good. This is another one that got gifted to me from the author is Tanner Walters. Art by Dylan Andrews. It's a pinball kid's book. It's pretty neat. I was like, what am I going to do with that? My kid is 17 now. But it's got like little whoop, whoop. You slide and play. So you can play pinball. And you open this up and the plunger comes out and whoo, play pinball, yeah. So actually I have a coworker who's pregnant, so I'm going to give this to her. So she can indoctrinate her children into the pinball club. Use the flippers. There's pop bumpers.
    75:12
    Pretty good. Pretty good stuff. You can get that at somewhere. Oh, the pinball scientist.com. If you want to get yourself a pinball book.
    75:23
    So thanks for that. What else? I got you something. I got you some Pulp Fiction stuff. I don't know if you got these already. They had the best gimmick of the show Is there any different? It's like the instruction cards I don't know It's probably the same But they had the Briefcase from Pulp Fiction And he would open it up and it would light up And he would hand you one And he'd close the briefcase It was really good It was a good gimmick What else?
    75:56
    I think that was it I've been playing a lot of Princess Bride. I didn't talk about that in my Pinball Expo segment because I already own the game. I play it all the time. Didn't wait in line to play it at Expo because I can play it at home.
    76:12
    Great game. A lot of people played it there. Got to visit with the folks at the booth with the P3 machine, so that was good.
    76:21
    We got a picture of all sorts of stuff. That's about it. I did a lot of Expo. I talked a lot about my game room updates already. You did good, Kevin. So I don't have massive game room updates. I can just say what game have I been playing. So my go-to game in the last month has been Pirates. I'm on the newest beta code. Really, really, man, I've really been enjoying that game. I feel like after all these years, I'm just kind of relaxed with it, playing it a lot, enjoying all, like, the nice polish they've put into it. Really looking forward to when that game, you know, is officially fully released and the final wizard mode is in there. It sounds like it's coming. Never thought I would see that day. If anybody can help me, man, I've got, like, ever since I updated that game, the newest code I've had problems with, my audio, it's getting pops. The audio also, like, locks on. Kevin, sometimes it will do this, like, and then the audio will resume. But, like, kind of like when a game freezes, right? Yeah. But, like, the visuals, the game continues on. Everything else works fine. The video, and then it fixes itself, like, two seconds later. So I don't know. Something's going on. If anybody can help me. It only seemed to happen after I updated the game. So I don't know. Yeah, so you're running the latest beta? Is that what's going on? Yeah, well, when I actually had the latest official branch on, my game was resetting. Like, it would just start resetting on its own. The beta at least fixed the reset on it. but I'm just getting some random audio pops and the audio will lock on sometime. So I don't know. Kyle says send it to him and he'll fix it for you. That's really nice. And he'll eventually send it back. You can come over and I've got a futon in the basement. You can hang out for the week and work on it and we'll feed you. There you go. Oh yeah, it could be the ground wave isolator. That'd be an easy thing to swap.
    78:14
    But why would that go eeeh? It might just be a lock on. Yeah, I don't know. It does feel more like a software or maybe a hardware thing. I don't know. Yeah, if you guys know how to reach me, feel free. If you guys know how to reach me, ping me, because I seem to be the only one on the forum that has that problem. So it's got to be hardware. Okay, I can give some updates on the Pinball Club. How does that sound? Pinball Club. Let's go. So hopefully opening up by the end of the year. We started opening up memberships. We've kind of just been doing a soft launch of that with, like, people who have expressed interest in the last year and a half of joining. So we're limiting what we call full memberships to 20 people only.
    79:03
    And the full membership is $1,200 a year. It gives you seven-day-a-week key card access to the club. The club should have a minimum of 40 games there. So you can go and play this collection, you know, bring some friends as guests. It's like a household membership as well, so everybody in your household can come. So I think that's pretty unique. I'm not sure if there's other clubs out there that do, like, kind of a key card access and limit it like that. Really excited. We've got 11 people signed up so far without really even trying or putting this out there that publicly. And then we're going to have another level. It's called, like, an associate member. That's kind of like a – think of it as like a tournament and league player member where it's like a $300 level for the year, and it gets you into all tournaments and leagues. We're not planning on having any additional charges for tournaments and leagues, so it covers like everything except if you want to do like some, you know, side pot of money or something. That's on you. But very excited. That's coming along. The place is all painted. Flooring is going to be going in soon. Once it's all up, once we have games in there, we'll do – I'll probably work with Dave Sousa. So Dave does an awesome job of videos. We'll make a long – he does really good short ones, but we'll make a long-form tour of the place and talk about it. So super pumped, super excited for that. Yeah. Pimple Club? And you gave, like, some tours of the – where is that right now, recently, right before league? Yeah, we've been doing tours and updates and getting hyped. So, like I said, I'm psyched because once that 20 fills up, like, you know, we will determine every year how many full members we'll have. So if in 2026 we decide to leave it at 20, that's it. So it's only when somebody drops out that somebody new gets in. So that's a limited time, Kevin. You know how you do it. You sell these limited – the LE. You get in and get early. You're not going to just up it to 500 and, you know, pull a day fix and be like, yeah. No, it's by you. It's in our bylaws. Oh, really? That's how we operate. Nice.
    81:01
    We've got some sweet perks. We've got a jukebox that Dave Sousa found for us, and all full members will get to put at least, what is it, five CDs in there. There you go. So you can customize the music in there for you. Put all the Michael McDonald in there that you want. You can do that. Okay. All right. All right, let's move on. We've got a, oh, my God, we've got a review finally. We've got a review. Yeah. Oh, hey, let's play the intro. We've got a video for that. Here we go.
    81:32
    I am okay. Despite the war, I know he's not that great. But I'm ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready for it. I am.
    81:49
    Shining time! Yeah, we're reviewing The Godfather, released by Jersey Jack Pinball in 2023. Game design by Eric Menier. Software by Keith Johnson. artwork by Christopher Franchi and Jesper Abels animation by J.P. DeWin and Mark Molitor yeah pricing is $12,000 for the LE $15,000 for the CE that's the standard J.J.P. pricing for the past few years and Nick why don't you kick it off with some thoughts on the rules I'll show off some pictures while you talk about the game thoughts on the rules so I love the rules on this game this is this game utilizes is a couple of fundamental rules that I like, which is multipliers. I do like that. I think it makes scoring dynamic and interesting, you know, and certainly choosing when to activate the multipliers. And it also has a push your luck mechanic where when you're playing a mode, you'll get points in that mode where you hit the ball with a scoop. It says, do you want to cash out or do you want to keep on going? I really like that, right? Like, oh, do I want to, do I really want to, am I feeling it right now, do I really want to try to rack up a score, or do I cash out this mode? And when I do cash out the mode, it actually gives you, like, perks. Like, it will increase the multiball scoring in one of the multiballs or give you an additional ball during multiball. So people tell me they're confused by this game, and I'm not really sure why. I'm trying to be charitable and understand it, but I've had numerous people say that. the game is pretty think of it this way it's pretty straight forward hit it in the scoop start a mode you can play the mode at certain moments the scoop will have an insert that you can put it in the scoop again it will ask you if you want to catch it or keep on going and that's it you kind of play through the modes there's four special modes in the game where you kind of get locked into it You can't just kind of, like, time it out. You actually got to play through that and beat it. So it kind of stops you from just rushing through the game, which is nice, because you could just, instead of trying to play per score, just start a mode, cash out as soon as possible, move on. Which, again, it's nice. It offers the player optionality and decision-making. So these are two things I really like. Obviously, again, multipliers, pushing your luck mechanics. And then another thing, maybe add a third one, is kind of the path of play. if I want to focus more on score or if I want to progress the game. Now, if you progress through the game, obviously you can get a great score as well because you kind of get perks that will make things more valuable. I think the rules to me are very close to perfect in terms of, like, the style of the game. And I'm really starting to appreciate, you know, like, Keith Johnson rules over kind of like the traditional Stern rules where you get locked out of things like, Like, oh, my God. Like, I'm starting to think of how bad and frustrating it is where in a Stern game, you start a multi-ball, and you're like, oh, my God, I don't have a mode running. I'm wasting this multi-ball. Like, I almost just want to – I can't make progress through the game anymore. I need to just drain or just play this multi-ball and pick up points. I really like the Keith Johnson rule of, like, everything is, like, always on the table. Right? You can always just – you're always progressing through the game, whether you're multi-ball or not. When you're multi-ball, you can start modes, and you're just making progress. It seems a little chaotic. I get that because there's a lot happening, and it takes time to kind of figure out what's happening. But as a player, that makes the game always interesting to me, and I think it speeds up the game as well. So big fan of the rules. A couple things on the rules. There's some bugs in there still. One thing that's aggravating is the mode timers still continue, even when the ball's in the shooter lane. That should not happen. and that seems like a super simple fix. It's kind of pretty annoying that that's not been addressed now. And also the wizard mode. So we're coming up on two years of this game being out. We're over a year and a half, and the wizard mode is missing from this game. So sitting next to Godfather's My Pirates, it's also missing the wizard mode, which has been missing now for going on six years. and allegedly Keith saw Kevin at Expo and he's like, just, it's coming. It's coming. So, but right now it doesn't exist. So we'll talk, that will deeply affect the score of this game. I will say that. But I will say also Keith is right now my favorite rules designer. I love the rules philosophy of never locking the player out of progress. that is how I prefer to play a pinball machine these days. Yeah. I think where the confusion might come from this game is they've integrated the terminology of the game to the theme, which is good, but then I think it confuses people. So like, what are soldiers? What does your family do? What are these jobs? You know what I mean? So it's like you just have to kind of translate a little bit. So the jobs are the modes, right? and the soldiers are basically just like hitting your qualifying shots so if they hit enough shots you get enough soldiers and then you can play a mode so I think if you figure those little things out that'll help one of the comments in chat is that the confusing thing about JJP is that it's so many lights on all the time and I agree I think that can be confusing because usually it's like shoot the thing that's lit for this mode but But to Nick's point, with Keith's rules, there's always a lot going on. So you're not just in a mode. There's usually other things happening.
    87:46
    But it's a balance of, like, they want to use all these crazy LEDs to put on these awesome light shows, but also maybe it's not quite as obvious to figure out when you're playing on location what might be happening, which I think that's fair. But it also makes it more interesting when you're playing at home. I think the playfield multiplier system is not totally obvious when you first start either but as soon as somebody explains it to you you're like oh that's cool I like that basically if you don't know you shoot a spinner and it fills up there's like the brass knuckles in the middle of the game on the playfield and at first it'll go to what I think 3.5x and then you hit the button 3 or 4 times that lights it uses it but the next time you use it or the next time you want to use it you can build it up to the next level. So basically you always want to be using that multiplier, building it up so you can eventually get up to 10x playfield, which is pretty crazy.
    88:40
    Yeah, that is the most confusing. The playfield multiplier is the most confusing thing. It's hard to figure out on your own without taking the time to learn how it works. So I'm telling you, you're looking up the rules. Now, look, I think if you have a pinball machine that you just step up to out in public and you expect to understand everything about that game or intuitively pick up on everything, it's probably not much going on. It's probably not going to hold your long-term interest. Yes, you might understand it, but I don't think that's what any of us really want, especially when we're reviewing these games. I'm really doing it from the perspective of, is this game worth buying? You know, I'm putting it at home and spending time on.
    89:22
    And now that they have aged, like, go to tilt forums, read how to play the game. But, yeah, again, it's a mode-based game. So multiply is a little weird to learn, but once you get that down, you can certainly start enjoying it. All right. I think that's good for the rules. Let's talk about the art. Thoughts on the art?
    89:42
    I'll bring up some pictures. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the art on this game. I mean, I'm not the best art critic in the world, but I think it's very – I love the black and the red.
    89:54
    It's not too busy. It's detailed enough. I think the play field in particular is really well done. There's certain areas that are quite detailed, but then it's got a lot of space that is just kind of like solid colors. So contrast this to like a zombie Yeti thing. There is detail. It's very well done. But my eyes, I don't go like cross-eyed looking at it because I can actually focus on certain details and focus on certain things and segments of the machine. It doesn't exactly have shot lines, which I like, but I don't have any problem at the same time really finding the shots that much. It does have some. I think the shot lines are pretty well done, actually. It's blended nicely with the play field. So the art to me is like a 10 out of 10. I love the art style. It's about as busy as I want to see a pinball machine get. It kind of just reaches that max and knows not to go over it. Yeah, it's a sharp-looking game. I really like the look of the LE in particular, the black trim and the red cabinet. The CE is kind of over the top with the gaudiness, which I think fits the theme. But here, let me see if I can find it here. But I'm not a huge fan of, like, it's got this crazy gold trim and this really gaudy, like, art around the – or sculpture around the action bar.
    91:17
    The cabinet itself. Let me see if I can find those. The horse head thing, which I'm never a huge fan of the weird shooter knobs, but, you know, shout out for the horse head. There's the leg attachments.
    91:32
    Super cheesy. But, yeah, the people that get it, they really go all out with the gold trim and everything, and the CU does have the inner art, which is, I can take it or leave it. I actually kind of like the plain black on the Ellie. It kind of goes nicely. It's a good-looking game.
    91:54
    Sound. What do you think on the sound? Yeah, so, you know, after our boy left, JGP. Oh, David Thiel? Yeah, David Thiel. Huge David Thiel fan.
    92:09
    JGP sounds, you know, not great. Like, I do not like the sound on Guns N' Roses at all. I think it's pretty terrible.
    92:17
    However, I think the sound – let me do the sound on this. I have it wrong. I don't have sound. No. Okay. So, I did the sound on this. I think it did a good job. A lot of clarinet. I think it fits the theme. I think it's good. The music's good in the game. Here's the – the sound effects are good when it hits like – they added it in an update. I mean, now it's probably a year ago, but, like, when you hit the ventures, it has, like, a sound effect for the ventures, which is nice. There's a lot of, like, ventures in the game that you do. Like, a horse racing venture will have, like, a sound associated with that, right?
    92:55
    What I struggle with to talk about the sound is the character kind of call. It's like the narrator's fine, that voice, right, that tells you kind of what's going on in the game. but it does the stereotypical Italian kind of almost... Bada bing! Yeah, very comedic.
    93:21
    Sopranos was like that, the pinball, right? You almost think that Sopranos was a comedy when you play that pinball machine.
    93:27
    So it has a tonal problem, right, where Godfather is a very kind of serious, dramatic, slow movie. there are some kind of comedic moments but very few like it breaks the tension but again these are kind of cartoonish mobsters I don't know I mean I could see somebody not liking it I kind of don't I'm kind of totally fine with it I'm not a huge Godfather movie fan in fact I never even saw the movie until I the movies until I got this game so I'm not bothered by it, but if somebody criticized that portion of it, I would understand, right? It's not lost on me. Yeah, I agree. I kind of the same way Until I knew this game was coming out I had never watched the movies Now that I watched it I watched it multiple times It an amazing movie obviously but there a reason why it one of the most highly regarded movies of all time.
    94:28
    But yeah, I could see if you were like a diehard fan of this movie, it'd be like, especially, and we'll get into the animations and stuff, where like, who are these people that are shown during these battles and stuff? It's the people from JJP. It's kind of cheesy. and some of the call outs and stuff are a little off like you were saying but I do like they have a lot of voice calls from the movies you'll get full clips with sound during like the intros for the modes and things like that so I think good integration of assets without going too overboard with stuff either. And I did hear the other day I made this request on the podcast when it came out like look how they massacred my boy Sorry, that's not, I got to, you know. But, like, they have that in there, so thank God. Yeah. There you go. That's good. Yes, good point, Kevin. I would have missed that. Yes, they do have a good amount of call-outs from the movie. I think totally it's kind of at odds at times, but I'm not deterred or bothered by it. It just doesn't, like, crush the theme, I guess, right? Like, the theme integration is a little off, maybe. It's a little quirky, I would say. A little quirky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Toys, let's talk about toys It's got one main Big bad guy in the middle, that's the main toy, right? I know, so the Playfield toys, which gets people Right, like This is where the Bill of Materials went, and this game is all the Diverters in what the game's doing Moving the ball, which That's where I'd rather the money go, personally So what we're left to talk about Is there's the gangster toy, the gangster toy Kind of turns back and forth He's got a little Tommy gun LED that he'll occasionally shoot.
    96:12
    Allegedly he follows the ball, Kevin. Is that what allegedly he's supposed to be doing? Oh, I don't know. If he does, I don't really pay attention. Yeah, I thought I heard somebody say that, but I don't really pay attention. I don't think much about him. And then he's got a, underneath him is like a spinning disc. So after you get, like, so what the bad guy represents is, you know, you're fighting like the head of the family or somebody in the family, and you've got to kill, I think, or take down. Is it eight or ten of them? I think it's eight or ten of them. Maybe.
    96:41
    Okay. Eight or ten of them. Anyways. So they become progressively more difficult as you go on, of course. There's a nice little health bar, which I think is done by the Hot Rails, which looks really good. I like how that's represented in the game. That's his health.
    96:57
    When you get to, like, the third or fourth bad guy, then there's, like, the spinning wheel mechanic up there that the player can control, like a spinning disc. and you use the flipper buttons just to spin it in either direction. And I think a hit counts on when you hit that metal bob in the middle. That's when you score a hit on the backhand. You've got to beat him up. And then once you do it enough, it puts the ball back into play.
    97:22
    So that's like the toy. I think the concept doesn't work that great. I'm fine with it in there. I don't, like, hate it. But it's pretty easy to hit the bad guy a lot of times when you're spinning it. Eric told me one time that he got so good at that they had to actually, you know, after you get a couple hits they had to drop it back into play and I can see why so it's the toy is not amazing, it's okay it's almost like a stern toy right, like I mean to be honest, it's like a stern level toy yeah, it's a little bit better than that but yeah, it's not great at best a little bit better, I mean we're not, we're so far removed from like the Jersey Jack Pirates like moving pirate ship kind of deal Yeah, I do like that after a while you have to shoot it around the orbit, and then it goes in the back and you fight it that way, so it kind of changes it up after you've been doing it a while, so it's not always the same. But, yeah, I like that.
    98:13
    It's kind of all right. It's dangerous, too, which I suppose is good, but if you're shooting it up the middle, it can sometimes get you. Yep. It makes sense because you're fighting the bad guy, so. Yep.
    98:26
    Other toys, I mean, there's other cool mechs. I wouldn't call them toys. I like the little compound area where you shoot it into this little horseshoe, and it locks up there, and it's got these two walls, and it can turn into a little captive ball area. That's pretty neat.
    98:41
    Anything else? Like lots of diverters and lifting ramps. Yeah, that's the thing about the diverters is, like, the ball just moves in so many different ways. Like you shoot one shot, and it comes out of this other things, and it changes during gameplay.
    98:56
    That is really, like, I call it Toys R Max, if we're being generous. That is really where the game shines and just all the diversion in the game, changing the path of the ball. It really makes this game, we'll talk about this in gameplay a little bit, but it really makes this game dynamic and interesting with what it does with the ball movement. So very, very cool and innovative what Eric Minyer did. And it's like you don't see these really diverters happening. Like it just moves the ball. It's all happening underneath the play field. But it's very creative in what's going on in this game.
    99:29
    All right. Let me bring in some video while we talk about the – you can see Rob Metzler play. Remember him? Yeah, I don't really remember him. That's probably the last time I saw him. It has to be. He's still alive. Let's talk about the display and lighting. So, again, when I got asked earlier what is better than X-Men, I mean, just take a look at this. Look at the display work on this game. Dude, it's amazing. It's so good. The display in this game is just so well done, so good. JP DeWin, he's mastered it. Yeah. Every time I see him at a show, I give him a little extra thanks. It's like, really appreciate what he's doing. And he's bringing on other people who are just as talented. So, you know, they do this seamless integration. Like how that full screen went onto that newspaper and then it spun out. Exactly. Now it's like in the center. You know, when you step back and look at what's actually happening, It's pretty amazing. And then in the upper right, it shows you what your ball locks are. And bottom left, all this. And, you know, they kind of take a little bit of a different approach per game. But, you know, that's also good because it's like building the theme into the display too.
    100:46
    It's a thing of beauty. You can just watch the display and just marvel at it. I love the stained glass effect that they went for in this. It's just so well done. Yeah, it's really good. The only thing I don't like on the display, I mean, Like they use the, sorry, love JJP, but they use like the JJP employees as kind of the bad guys that you're fighting.
    101:07
    And either their pictures are animated of them. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what you do in that case. You know, like I get the predicament, but I'd rather probably they just use some like generic or made up some folks. I have no idea. It's a little cheesy. What if they use stock footage of barbecue meats?
    101:26
    Whew. no not so much I'm speechless Kevin you can actually change that so this is the video I'm showing is when I first got the game so this is kind of how it comes stock and this is an older version of the software at this point but you can switch it and I switched mine to have the static images no static is stock oh is it and now you have to turn on the animations yes okay maybe they switched that or maybe I just don't remember right but I like it better with the static personally and lighting it's got the if you've seen a JJP game you kind of know what to expect it's got the hot rails down the sides full lighting effect so when you're in main play like you're seeing right now on the stream it's just solid white when you get stuff going it freaks out in the bottom left there of the playfield camera you can see the health bar for the bad guy which is pretty cool what else yeah lots of bleaky flashy lights If you like LEDs, you'll like this game. It's a beautiful game. Yep. All right.
    102:32
    Gameplay. Nick Lane, take it away. Yeah, this is – I love the gameplay on this. I don't think it's perfect, but I do love it. And I was talking about this earlier in the podcast. I think I even talked about it last month. but we're in this time where game length and game time in pinball machines have crept up to, you know, Lord of the Rings level, right? It's gotten out of hand. I could see myself selling Jaws in the next year just because the game is just way too long playing, way too safe of shots that, you know, I've played it enough that I can just play way too long and it gets boring. This game, to me, is the kind of perfect, like it just came together so well. It's the perfect difficulty in length and play for me. And that's like it's got an open play field, a lot of shots in back. But what keeps it from being this kind of monster long playing game is that the lower portion of the play field can be brutal and challenging. Eric has like this slingshot that's above the normal slingshot. It's on the side left wall that will throw the ball, you know, kind of left to right action. He's got the lower right pop-upper, which can send the game going crazy. If you try to hit the compound shot to lock for two-ball, multi-ball, which is a great shot. It's like it's right there, man. but what keeps you from constantly going forward is that there's a lot of danger, and if you miss that, there's a good chance you're going to drain. So I can play this game, and I can have a lot of, like, short-playing games where I'm just, my game's over very quickly, and I love that. I absolutely love that because I can be on a break for lunch, and I can play this game, and I know I can play this game where I can't play Jaws. I'll run out of time probably, right? Like, and it makes me hit the start button again because, like, oh, man, I got a bad break. I'll get it. I'll get it next time. And sometimes I do get it next time. This game can certainly, this game is deep, and you can certainly go into it long, and you can certainly have a longer playing game, but it's not every time. And to me, that's the perfect game, right? You're chasing that long playing game. You're chasing that deep game. But a lot of times you're just getting brutalized. It's that randomness of pinball. It's the ball is wild, which a lot of games being made today has forgotten that. There's way too many safe shots. There's not too many shots in other games that the ball is coming back at you. This game will keep you on your toes. The ball is constantly in motion, this game. The game rarely holds on to the ball for a long period of time, which is nice.
    105:18
    So I don't know. I think Eric did just a phenomenal job here in level of difficulty, level of the ball is wild. How do the shots feel? I like hitting the left and right orbits. I like ripping the spinners. We talked about the diverters. I like how the ball changes paths. I like that right ramp that it comes down and kind of goes to the right and hits a stand-up target and then comes and swoops to the right flipper. That's very cool. I like the up-and-down flap on the shot to the left of the bad guy. where when it's up, it will hold the ball for it and then release it, and you try to shoot it in the hideout. I like that on the upper flipper shot, there's several shots to hit from that, and they're not easy. If I have maybe one criticism that I can think of right now is that, you know, that shot from the upper left flipper to that upper ramp, it's not the most smooth thing ever. I mean, you really got to nail it and get it wrong. A lot of times you'll kind of hit it and the ball will roll back down, which, you know, doesn't feel great as a pinball player. Obviously, that's my fault as a player for not hitting it perfectly, but I'd rather it be an all or nothing. I'd rather if I hit the shot it just works rather than a shot that kind of goes halfway up and comes down. That might be my only criticism, and it's so slight and so small. And then we probably could have talked about this in rules, but it's also gameplay. way, there's a lot of skill shots on this game that you can play around with. Kevin, do you remember how many there are? Dude, there's so many because there's like standard skill shots and then super skill shots. There's more than 10. I mean, there's like between like 10 and 20 skill shots. So just a lot of optionality with the game. It's not like you need to know and memorize what the skill shots are because it's not going to make a profound difference in the game. If you have a good game, you're going to get through the game or you're going to get a good score. But it's just, it's a nice thing. and there's so much here for this game.
    107:24
    Did you talk about, I really like the return of the right ramp. I did. Super fast. It flies up into that X target, the multiplier target, so it's really cool.
    107:37
    Yeah, I think you covered all the things I like. All the diverters are great. The thing I like most about this game is the interesting layout, and I think it's, you know, two ramps and a couple orbits, It gets really boring after a while. And this does a good job of making a creative layout, but also something that's approachable for the most part. Now, a lot of the shots are far back. So if you miss your shot, you can usually recover. But if you send it out of control, then it's going to get into those dangerous areas like Nick was saying.
    108:12
    Yeah, so you got to be on your toes. It'll definitely keep you on your toes. And that when this game first came out, the ball savers were a lot longer on it, so it did become one of those just like get a multiball going and then plow through a bunch of modes. Now you have to play it a lot more deliberately, a lot more carefully, and that definitely made it a better game, I think, even though it's a lot harder. That's a great point. I like that Keefe toned down the multiballs. I think that's a great choice. And again, yeah, it makes you keep on hitting the start button. I think people have forgotten that pinball machines are not supposed to be baby games, like these long, like every pinball machine is not supposed to be this long playing baby game. And I can't help but wonder if some people don't like this game because it is hard. Like, but that's what makes it good. That's what makes you go out and buy hard games. Like, don't go out and buy a game that you're going to be in no time or sit there playing for an hour. Have those games in the collection. They're fine. But get a game like this where it'll keep you on your toes and you've got to learn how to nudge and you've got to get better. It's, it's, I love it. I'm kind of bummed because so many games are just veering towards let's make them super long and super safe and super easy. Yeah. You know, that's what the people who make the mods, oh, my God, tangentially.
    109:28
    Have you visited the Labyrinth thread lately where people are making all these outland mods to baby-fy the game? No, this didn't, like, guys, this did not. I got in the hobby in, you know, December 2010. Well, October 2010. Okay. this is a new weird phenomenon where people are dumbing. Like, these games are easy enough that they're releasing, and people are making them easier. Like, why do you want the game to be that long? Just get better.
    109:56
    It's so cool to have a game that is like, oh, man, I owned that game for five years, and I finally got to this in the game. Like, there's more to do. Like, that's great. Like, get better. See progress. That's life.
    110:09
    Have some challenge, people. Have some challenge. Yeah, like, earn it. Like, that's fine. Like, we all, like, start off sucking at something. And, like, the way you get better is an investment of time into it. Well, that plays into our next category, which is last ability, where, you know, if you've got a game that provides a challenge, it's going to have more last ability than a game that you're just, like, plowing through and, like, okay, I did all those things, right? So, like, you want a game to be challenging. If you want, you know, on a game like this, if you want to make it easier, there are ways out of the box to make it easier. You can do it in software settings. You can do it. You can change it. your outlane post settings, but you don't need to go reconfiguring the geometry. The designer knows what they're doing, right? I think the best way to describe, like, what's the phenomenon in these games is, like, when I'm playing Godfather, I need to be alert and engaged because one false move and I can drain, right? It could be a dangerous game. When I'm playing a game like Jaws, I'm almost, like, in autopilot, super casual, relax, or rush, right? Like, they're just – I feel like I'm half there. I'm half playing the game. I could be half asleep and I'm not worried versus a game like, obviously, it's not Ironman, which is super brutal. But, like, I want to be on edge. I want to be focused. I want to be prepared that the ball can go in a direction where I need to make a major save or move the machine a lot, right? Like, that's fun. That's keeping me on the edge. That's how pinball should be. Anyways, we can move on. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, obviously, the game that lasts because there's a lot to do in it, rules-wise. Also, it can be tough to play. That's kind of the bottom line. What's interesting is a lot of games these days have a lot of content, so they're like, oh, well, we've got to make it so the player can play long enough to see some of that content. This game didn't sacrifice. This game's got plenty of content, but it didn't make it a baby game so people can get in there and see all the content. Right. So that's what I like. But I believe I can. I believe I can get to the end of the game, and I'm sure you can believe that as well. You can do it. Just have faith in here. You can do it.
    112:20
    Quality, once it takes on the quality. I feel like it's a quality game. When I put quality, it's like build quality. Okay. Have you had any significant issues? You had something going on with, like, your light boards or something, right?
    112:34
    So, yes, knock on wood. I really haven't had mechanical issues, but I have a problem where my game has locked up with the light board. It tends to happen in, like, longer games when I've been playing for a while. Like, I'm really deep into the game. So it's hard for me to replicate it. I don't really know what the problem is. I don't know how often it's going to happen, if it's a fluke. So that's one worry. It's happened to a friend of ours. I think it's happened to some other people. Yeah, I've had it happen on mine before, too. I think it's what you do with, like, a waste cable. I reseated USB cables. okay yeah hopefully it's just that so yeah uh two things that i've had to to repair on mine when i first got it the bad guy like wasn't like configured right out of the factory or something and it needed some adjustment there where they were just like yeah we'll just send you another one so i just swapped him out and then i did have one of my light boards uh freak out at the beginning where i had to swap the light board um but but in both instances jjp took care of it they sent me parts and I sent them back my other stock part for no cost so all good easy fixes they stand behind their product which is good yeah quality's been good on it does this game bring you joy Nick Lane? I love this game absolutely love this game and I think what's even more impressive is like the theme does nothing for me at all like I just think this game stands on its own merits of just being a really well done great game. It checks all the boxes for me. It's a game that I can't ever see myself parting with. It's just it's so good. I love playing it. I love the artistry in it. I love all the diverting shots. I love the uniqueness of the play field that Eric created. Shots are satisfying. I think this game I have just a blast playing. I think it's so good.
    114:31
    I'm pretty shocked that it's only sitting at 50-something and prices have plummeted on it. That's like I don't know. Sometimes I think I understand what makes a game sell well and do well and be great. I'm really shocked about this game. It's got obviously a very, very well-known theme. I think it's just so well done.
    114:55
    I don't know, but yeah. The joy factor is like 9 out of 10 for me. I think the only thing I would put a 10 out of 10 is if I like, it was like my dream theme or something. Right. That's really missing. Yeah. I'm a little less on this. I think I actually, I listed mine for sale not too long ago, just because I want to like, like eventually you get to a point where you got to sell something to buy something. That's where you're at with rush too. Like you like that game, but it's got to go right. If you want to get something new.
    115:23
    I don't know. It's like, I don't find myself playing it a ton these days. I played it a lot for the first year, year and a half that I had it. and it's kind of fallen off a little bit. Maybe if like a code update came out that polished it up a little bit, I'd get back into it.
    115:39
    Again, it's like the theme is kind of whatever. The rules are fun. It's a challenging game. I don't know, just for whatever reason, it's not like clicking to where it's like this is an amazing game that I have to keep forever. Then that's art. That's games, like different games and different things appeal to different people. And for me personally, it's like, oh, maybe I'll move this on. And actually, I might end up getting an avatar.
    116:05
    But it's like, oh, man. Like you said, prices just drop. So it's so hard to pull the trigger on a new game if the price is going to go down. You know what I mean? Yeah.
    116:16
    But it is fun. Like, I think if you're sleeping on this game, it's a good one. You're going to have a good time with it, even if you're not that into the theme. I think the layout is interesting enough that it's worth playing and giving a shot to. All right, let's put a final number on this. So before we run through the table, I will say I sent Nick a screenshot of this. On Pinside, I went into the Domino's Pinball Adventure thread because I have a lingering interest in that game because Nick and I, our voices are in it. And, you know, we know Adam, and we went down for the stream. So I went in there, and it's like they never finish the code on this. if you ever watch Buffalo Pimble and they talk about a game being a box of lights, then this is it. So shout out. I haven't even participated in that thread in forever.
    117:06
    Our key, our scoring key, if you're new here, 0-2 is a burn it. That's your barbecue. Appropriately, barbecue would fall in the burn it category.
    117:17
    Expensive nightlight is 3-5. 6-8 is a solid game. 9-10 is a get your wallets out. Where you at on this one, Nick?
    117:25
    All right, here it is. This would be a 9 out of 10. It would be. However, it's going to have to pay a huge penalty because it's now a year and a half later, over a year and a half, and there's no wizard mode. The final wizard mode is not in it. You've got ball save timers that haven't been fixed and still run. So it is a 7 out of 10. Big penalty. I think if you get past a year and it's missing the main wizard mode then that is totally unacceptable. You shouldn't have to get to a year. You really shouldn't. Like six months is like pushing it in my book. But man, a year and a half is just unacceptable. I said it last time. I'm not buying any more Keith games until he starts correcting not finishing his game. So that is a stain on this game for me. I absolutely love it. It's a 9 out of 10 if it was in there and everything, but I can't in good conscience give it that. To Keith's credit, apparently Avatar has the wizard mode in there, so there's that. But to me, this game, even if it had a wizard mode in it, I would probably still have it at like a 7.5. It's terrible taste. That's about where I'd put this game. It's a solid game. That's solid. It's solid.
    118:41
    I rated it higher than Nick, but it's not going to change if the Wizard Mode. I mean, maybe the Wizard Mode's amazing and the code update will tweak the other things, but that's kind of where I'm at with Godfather. Alright.
    118:55
    There we go. I think it's time to pull a winner. So if you haven't yet, hashtag win. We're giving away a set of Penn Stadium Neo Adams. We'll show those off. If you haven't, you've got to be in Twitch chat. Hashtag win will get you in. It's going to go to somebody who hasn't won before. So if you're making off with all the Penn Stadiums, we're going to give them to somebody else.
    119:19
    Yeah, this is your last shot. $399.95 value. So it pays to listen to Brody even talk pinball, especially to watch this live and hang out and chat. If you haven't yet, if you're listening to the podcast version of this and you're like, man, I'm among the thousands of people who watch this or listen to this after the fact, follow us on social media. go to, best thing to do is just go to Twitch and turn on your alerts and then you'll get the alert when we go live. And then you can tune in live and win yourself a set of, a $400 set of pin stadiums. Alright? So let's go ahead and pull a winner. We're up to 67 entries. We're going to draw an entrant. Oh, somebody else sneaking in here at the last minute.
    120:03
    Oh, it's Blasto. Blasto is the winner. We're going to announce you in chat. That's good because I don't think Blasto's ever won this before, so there we go. Blasto says, fuck yes.
    120:17
    Blasto. Oh, you guys, it's 69 entries. Good job. Oh, nice. Yeah, some of you guys got in there too late.
    120:23
    Good job, Blasto. I assume that means you accept, so you go ahead and accept. Good job. I will send you a private message on Twitch, the Twitch Whispers, and we'll get your contact information over to Penn Stadium, and they will hook you up ASAP with the hot set of Penn Stadiums. So congratulations, Blasto. Thanks for watching. You did it this month.
    120:49
    Wait, we got something else, right, Kevin? We do. We're not done. We're not quite ready yet. We've got to give the plugs, though. If you haven't yet, go buy some merch, buffalopinball.com. Click that merch button and get yourself a hot Buffalo Pinball shirt to wear to the next Pinball Expo or your next pinball show. So somebody was asking Dave about his skull shirt, and he thought it was pretty sweet. We were at a grocery store. We weren't even at a pinball show, and he was asking about it.
    121:18
    Follow us on social media. We're on all the ones at the bottom of your screen. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook. I said Facebook already, but Facebook twice. And Discord. We're Buffalo Pinball all over the place there. Send us an email, talkpinball at gmail.com if you want to give some feedback. Again, follow and sub the Twitch channel. We got Twitch Prime. It's a great way to subscribe to the channel and support us at no extra charge and get double your entries on those high giveaways every month.
    121:47
    And drop a review. If you like what you're listening to, tell a friend. Check out Brody. You can talk pinball every single month. And leave us a review. Go ahead. I'll give you permission. and give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to the show. Tell everybody else how much you love the show. Make anything else before we send it to Topper Talk episode 25. I don't want to delay Goran's time in the sun, so let's do it. All right. Here's to what you've been listening for. Topper Talk, baby. We'll see you next month.
    122:24
    It's Topper Talk with Goran right now. Let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly bill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Goran.
    122:51
    Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Goran. The part of the podcast where Kevin and Nick give me about three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now, for today's episode, we'll be talking about the new Attack for Mars topper from the Electric Playground, so let's head into the office and talk about that now. Okay, so here we are in the office, so let's dive right into this topper. Now, this topper was not put out by CGC, who most recently made the Attack for Mars remakes, but it is officially licensed. It's made by the Electric Playground, who has made some other toppers that are quite cool and interactive, and I believe we've covered on Topper Talk in the past, but this is their first officially licensed one. It costs $1,279, but is limited to 300 units and is compatible for both the remake as well as the original Attack from Mars from Valley. So let's take a look at some of these pictures. The artwork is done by Brad Albright, and I think it's phenomenal. It looks great on the game. It reflects the rest of the artwork in the game, but it's something a little different. You got your number plate here. Although expensive, there's a few different things that we'll talk about in a second that makes the experience premium, in my opinion. It lights up, it's fully interactive. There's a solenoid or two as well that corresponds with movement in the game. We'll see that in a second. Yeah, so each of the different lights on the playfield correspond to a light for the topper. It can also do multi-ball strobing as well as a rainbow light show for the video mode. And then, yeah, the alien head and saucer also move with a solenoid and bounce up and down, which is really neat. It's got that multi-layer plastic to it to give it that three-dimensional feel. And I feel that it just looks really great. Now, it does say that it has about a 45-minute install time, but they have a full video installation guide, which, once again, I feel just adds that premium experience of great documentation with this and support. Yeah, this is licensed through Planetary, as we can see here.
    125:02
    And we can check out a little video of it right here as well on the game. It really looks great. I think this is a great looking topper. Yes, it's expensive, but with the art and the three-dimensional feel to it, I think it's potentially worth the price if toppers are your thing. Like I said, it's limited to 300 units, and I think it's fantastic. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Topper Talk with Goren. Tune in to the next podcast for another episode, and as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk.
    125:44
    you