you're listening to the head-to-head people podcast find us on facebook email us at Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 90 and my name's Martin and with me... It's Ryan C. Ryan, how are you? Good night. The fans have asked for my monthly appearance, so here it is. I did see another note on Pinside. People, like the fan is requesting you to come back. Yeah, just once a month, if any one fan just requests me, I will magically appear. Poof! I'm here. Well, not sure that's appropriate What's news this week, Marnie? I'll tell you I am going against one of Christopher Franchi's Golden Rules Which is? There's many of them and they grow each week But if we had t-shirts We're not allowed to talk about it But we've got t-shirts that people can buy now Yes After two years Probably So we will put a link in the show notes But effectively, spreadsheet You can, when you go there You can either pick the Australian store or the US store Look, here's the deal The shipping isn't great to Australia However, it's still going to be about $30 a t-shirt Which is actually reasonable So just go and buy them And if you're in the US It's like $3 shipping, someone said shipping. That is super cheap. It is really cheap. But what was really interesting, I've been researching these places for a while, and this particular one that I decided to land on, you can do your t-shirt designs, it's great, but then you can also add additional merchandise. So, I did, because it's easy. So, if you do want an apron, a head-to-head apron, you can get one. Or a mug. A mug's a good thing. a tote bag sure I don't know yeah it was there you could actually get iPhone cases but I didn't add those because I think that's a bit silly so did you did you add that dog one just for Christopher Franchi my fellow guys yeah okay you can buy a dog bandana so I expect Barlow with a head to head dog bandana on it just very soon so make it happen Chris tell me Chris just a quick segue to Christopher Franchi have you Did you hear the Slap Save podcast segment with Christopher Franchi? Yes, I did. Holy shit. That was, yeah. That was a missed opportunity. I didn't know he was available for, like, 10-minute rants every week. That's pretty golden. I must have, I will say that I was tipped off, so I knew it was happening. Okay. And it's hilarious. Yeah. He's pretty unhinged. but um it's a nice way of putting it unhinged well done yeah so I mean the store Marty how soft is the material because I think that's the key the key ingredient if you're listening to the podcast you like head to head surely enough to you know represent our brand this big global brand that we're trying to build Marty right so it's a nice design you've got the logo on the front and you've got this amazing design on the back. Designed by? Yeah, done by Paulie Balls, an Australian listener. So how soft is the material, mate? That's what everyone wants to know. How soft is the material? So when you say everyone wants to know, who in particular has called out the ones that know that? Just me, mate. I don't know, but they're premium brands. I think they're like Hanes shirts. I've ordered some, so they'll come to me, and then I'll tell you whether they're soft. Okay. It's just like when people receive the T-shirts, no one says, like, what else? How can you review, you know? People take a bite into a cake, they're like, mm, moist. Do you know what I mean? Like, what else? Moist. One of the worst words. Moist. Moist. Or the best, depending on your situation, Marty. Yeah. Anyway, moving on. It's best. It's like, you know, the mugs that you buy, is that going to make your coffee taste amazing? I don't know. It's going to make it taste like jizz. Either way, you're on a winner. So go and buy one and find out if it tastes like jizz. Welcome back, Ryan. This is the chemistry that people have been missing. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to talk about that kind of stuff if you're, you know, if you're asking people, like, who are you, Joe Lemire? Why are you on the show? You can't talk about that kind of stuff straight away. It's going to be a couple of episodes in, right? And you know what? Speaking of which, thank you for joining me, and thank you to everybody that's been guest hosts. We've actually had a lot of people write in saying, get Joe on some more. So it was a good episode. Yeah, it's refreshing. I think this is working out well, because we've got good chemistry, but if we talk about the same shit every time... So there you go. Well, let's get to the pinball news. And first one really is very minor, but we believe that we will be getting our Willy Wonka in Australia this week. And when we do, I will be streaming it. And we're also trying to organise a launch event in Melbourne as well. So for those people in the area, we will have some information for you soon. But I'm keen to play it. Yes. And the feedback is that people that are playing it, we've seen some that are on location, people are getting machines. people are saying that it actually plays really, really good. Yeah, I mean, you've covered the reveal kind of, I guess, in the last two episodes. But, yeah, I mean, the hype was crazy, as everyone has said. People were expecting something that probably wasn't deliverable. And I was actually watching the stream with my kid, you know, seven years old, and even she got excited. I don't know who that guy was he was doing a speech and then they cut to the straight down the middle video and she was like Daddy, you gotta buy it it was the first time ever and I was like oh shit, I do have to buy it and then it kind of cut to the gameplay and then the cord got pulled out and I don't know how long the stream was down for but I couldn't get it back up for like 10 minutes the moment was gone it was 15 minutes I did have a chat with the boy and apparently they had to move a cable, so they had to change networks or something. Yeah, and then it was just people that were just really bad at playing pinball. But my kid didn't know. She was still like, yeah, get the red version, you know, the CE. And I was just like, no. If I get any version of Blue Monk, it's not going to be the red version. I don't have... $20,000 version. Yes, no. Yeah, I mean, with kids. I told her, like, this is $20,000. She's like, so? She wouldn't care. Like, how much are your other pinball machines, Daddy? And I'm like, well, this one's 10. Like, yeah, so it's just, you know, plus 10. Yeah. So then what are your, because obviously you haven't been on, what's been your overall impressions of it? Would you want one if it was at a good price? It's really hard. I mean, I was thinking about it, and what's the last pinball machine, Marty, that you saw revealed and you played and you just thought, like, out of the box, it was amazing. You know what I mean? Like, it just doesn't, like, by the time it gets here, the shine is kind of worn off. I know, I know. This is the maturity of distance. We just get them so late, so that excitement sort of just dies down. Yeah, and you kind of, you lose that discovery, which, you know, you've talked about a lot, and I've kind of dismissed it a bit, but after... Yeah, you get it now. Well, yeah, after playing Johnny Mnemonic, I was just like, I want every machine to be like this. I want every machine to just go in, like, not knowing anything and just not reading, not watching any tutorials, just... And it's hard, especially talking about pins on a podcast. You have to kind of know a little bit about them. But I'm just looking forward... I haven't really watched that much of the stream. I'm looking forward to playing it. The layout looks awesome, but it does... I don't know. I hope that the software works well with the flow right? because you know Pat Lawler has awesome layouts but then sometimes he makes you shoot dead end stuff that kind of stuffs the ball and we'll see, we're going to be able to play it this week so I'd rather talk about it after than just guess from a stream Yeah, fair enough. All right, well then, speaking of new pinball machines, which really isn't a new pinball machine, but it is and it isn't, we did see somebody do a re-theme, and I'm going to say this, that I don't know whether I said it on air, but I had actually said for a long time, if there was ever going to be a game that I would want to be re-themed from Stern, it would be Mustang, because I actually really like how Mustang plays. I really like the layout, the flow. I love the ramp on the left that sort of, you know, has multiple levels. I've just really never liked the theme Mustang just because Mustang's never really been a massive brand in Australia. We've always had to import them up until the last two models, so we don't really have a culture based around Mustang. In fact, I don't even know whether the US really has that much of a culture, but somebody has rethemed on Ryan. Yeah, and Matt Hardy. Matt Hardy. Well, I do know who Matt Hardy is because you know I'm all about SmackDown. Wrestling? You wrestle? He wrestles. So he and his brother Jeff, they're the Hardy brothers. Yeah. Is this like the Hulk Hogan era of... Okay, now you're asking me to remember stuff outside of what I read on Wikipedia. So, I don't know. But surely you were convinced that I knew who this person was up until that moment. Yes, yes. You saw shit, pal. When I started watching this video, I thought the guy was bald, and then I kind of looked again, and he's dyed the middle of his hair, like he's bleached a little blonde. That's his look? Yeah, that's a weird look, man, because you look bald and you're not. It doesn't look so bad when he's got his hair out, but when he's got it tied back into a ponytail, yeah, it looks a bit... Yeah, I think it's because it was in his arcade and it was dark. Yeah. Okay, I'm giggling. His wife, I believe, unbeknownst to him, teamed up with a guy to completely re-theme Mustang into what's called Matt Hardy's Expedition of Gold. And the first thing I will say right out the bat, I think it looks amazing. I love what they've done with the art. I love what they've done with these sort of neon glow effects. It's almost like purple and green. They've removed, obviously, the car in the middle, so you've actually got more of an exposed middle playfield where you can see all the pop bumpers. from what I can tell as well it's actually got custom dots and call outs and music but I think this isn't like a shitty re-theme this is like an expensive one right? I looked on the website, if you go to hardypinball.com just some fast facts there's 5,180 customizations added 5,422 lines of code 548 days in production. This is a monumental task. Yeah, and... I mean, we've seen... Like, who's that rich family, the Beverly Hills 90210 family? Oh, the spelling, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was like a re-theme of... Was it Lethal Weapon or one of those machines? I know Lethal Weapon was... Like, when we were talking to Joe Kamikau and we were going through the list of games that it worked on, And, you know, there was at least like 12, you know, once-off pinball machines there that were just kind of, you know, they just kind of slapped some new art on there and changed some things around. But, like, and they work for the company, so they've got, like, the ability to do all this stuff. But this is just a guy, like, he would have charged a lot to do this, right? Like, this is a... Yeah, this is a once-off kind of amazing thing. But as you said, like, yeah, with... It was Lethal Weapon 3, So it was Aaron Spelling, Pimble Machine. And also, was that the one that was the basketballer, whatever his name is? Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan. You know me. That basketballer. I'm all about my basketball. But yeah, so this does look like it's actually not just a coat of paint. And some of the shots have been slightly adjusted with ramps and stuff like that. This is one of the best. I would call this, rather than a rethink, this is a conversion. It really is. Yeah, and it's cool that they did it on a new machine. Like, we talked many months ago about that Australian company that was re-theming a bunch of, was it Fire Powers or something like that? Yeah, they looked like Fire Powers, but they were completely custom. Yeah, but, like, you know... They move a pop-up around, move some targets around, but it's still all hardwired and coded. Plus, you know, how much does a Fire Power cost to get all beat up and do it up versus a Mustang? Probably not that much difference between two Mustangs. Actually, no, sorry, Mustangs actually aren't cheap now because they sold so little of them, they're like sought after now, right? Like the cult classic Mustang. That's right. So, but let me tell you what my favourite part of this was, and I don't know whether you saw it. It has a hologram topper. Yes, yes, I saw that in the video. It looked cool, like really cool. I'm not sure I love the shape that it does, but the fact that it's got one, and when it happened, And Matt just went, whoa, what the hell is happening here? That's what people wanted for Star Wars. They wanted Luke Skywalker's hologram. Yeah. To Leia, whoever he was talking to. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was, you know, Leia when she was talking to R2-D2. You know, Obi-Wan, help me. Yeah. As you can tell, I'm a really big Star Wars fan. So, you know how we talked about Deep Root last week? Yeah. Shall we talk about him again? Sure. So they were at a panel at the Salt Lake Comic Convention And you would ask yourself This is a comic convention Why would a pinball company be at a comic convention? I'm hearing you ask that, Ryan I haven't read the show notes, Marty So this is all you Well, in actual fact The two teams that work on Deep Root One's based in Austin, I think Oh no, San Antonio and the other one is actually at Salt Lake City. So they've got a team there. You know what? Just get in your car and turn up to a panel. This is at arcadeheroes.com. We will link the article in the show notes. But I thought I'd add this because there is some additional information that was gathered from this panel. So, I don't know. Are you interested? Yeah, go for it, man. Okay. So they've said they have a strong team of experienced animators. around 40 people with experience at Disney. Lucasfilm, Weta, I don't know what that is, EA and others. It says, while this talent favours the film industry, they also have people with experience in creating video games. Because of this, expect their games to have high-quality animations and artwork. Yeah. It said their official slash unofficial motto is Pinball for the Masses. Was that their motto? I think it was every... Yeah, every pinball is a family. Every family is a pin. Yeah, that's correct. So they're saying that they're trying to convey that their designs are focused on more than niche themes. Probably means that another heavy metal rock band isn't high up on their list. So, anyway, we'll get to Rush later. They're working on both licensed and non-licensed themes. We knew that. They've hired people who are established in the world of pinball. We do know that. Obviously, Barry Osler, Nordman, John Papadiuk, etc. Machines will use a combination of traditional parts along with new 3D printed parts. Yeah, we kind of knew that The wait for their new games will not be years Also knew that They're trying to work out new ideas with audio So that games are more accessible for new players While still offering the depth that pro players have come to expect from a game of pinball What could you do with audio? I don't know Bluetooth headphones? Yeah, yeah Actually, that would be kind of cool That's not revolutionary, no No, but that would be kind of cool Especially in tournaments, you know, where people have headphones you can actually listen to the machine. But the question was asked, will they have a display on the playfield like Highway Pinball did? And they said no. They've said no to a lot of things, but at this point, they wouldn't... If they answer every question, then people are going to figure out what they're doing. So they would just say no to everything. They're still going for the element of surprise. I still struggle to believe a lot of things they say about how much the factory is costing them to run per month. when they delayed the five days of the Gritty Texas Timberwolves Festival, they're like, it's costing us, what is it, like $700,000 per month? Yeah, something like that. It's like, well, I don't really think many companies could survive on that, but maybe they're trying to think, lure their competitors into a false sense of security and then be like, damn, here we go. It was costing us nothing. I don't know. There's a big debate on Pinside and I've tried to read through a bit of it, but it's a bit painful, but about kind of technology in there. You know, if they have this many animators and they're trying to progress pinball through technology, is that what the buying community and the pinball playing community wants or needs? And it's one of those things that people are never going to agree on, especially with, you know, like there's even a debate about whether certain pinball should put their machines online. And, yeah, one side of the debate, Marty, says Pimble has survived and is popular enough at the moment because it hasn't changed that much, right? It hasn't evolved to something that is so far away from what it originally was. And the other side says that it's one of the only things that's kind of being, like, you know, mass-produced at the moment that still uses such old technology. and, you know, there's talks of having kind of like a camera on the head box that would track the ball so you would just eliminate every single switch in the pinball machine because, you know, it would know where the ball is and give you points based on that. And people are just arguing back and forth. And I just wanted to, like I've said many times, just to come out. Yeah, tell us what he did. But, you know, this is what we were saying last week when Joe was on. Everybody's got a voice at the moment, right? Everybody can say it. So when you say there's people that want new innovation and new technology and there's people that say, well, we're just happy with what we've got as long as the core pinball experience is still there, you've got a lot of people saying both things. So it's not like there's a clear majority. So what's a developer to do? What are they supposed to do? How will they know what to do when everybody is yelling what they all want at once? And, yeah, it's always the case of do people know what they want Or do you have to, kind of like what the iPhone did, you know, give them what they think they don't want, but then they get it and they're like, holy shit, this is amazing. Like when the iPhone first came out, I'm talking about not now, you know, they don't know what they want. So, yeah. Well, the cleverest people in the world are those that predict exactly what people want when they haven't really been told what they want. They actually look at what's called an unmet need and they deliver to that need. Now, what's the unmet need of us pinball players at the moment? What are we not getting that needs to be rectified? For me, it is the online connectivity. And I don't want anything serious. People get into arguments over, oh, each machine is set up differently and this, this and that. It's like, I want to play you, Marty. I want to play Bruce in New York. I've got my Beatles, which I don't. I've got my machine, he's got his machine. Let's play a couple of games and have a race to see who can get to half a million first. And we'll have headsets on while we talk. I don't know, it's like social interaction, right? I know Jesse Jack, like, hey, you can tweet your score, which I'm not sure how many people use. But I don't think it's going to turn people into this big thing. but that's why Facebook became popular, because it's commenting and liking things and interacting, right? Pinball tournaments in Melbourne are growing slowly and steadily. I think that's also got to do with having a Facebook page where everyone goes and talks about the tournaments and what's coming up. You need that interaction, right? Well, yes, you do. but interaction via Facebook, yes, you're creating a community. But whether the pinball machine itself needs to do that or not... It doesn't need to do it, but, I mean, where else can you go? Like, where else can you innovate with pinball? Yeah, but that's why it's sort of... And I'd actually love for people, if you could, write in to us at headtoheadpinball at gmail.com and sort of let us know what is your unmet need, meaning something, not, oh, you know, I want three ramps and I want this. It's like, what about the pinball and the future of pinball? Do you think we're just not getting? Now, obviously, you know, interaction's one thing. I think if you put connectivity in these machines, kind of like, not necessarily when the iPhone came out, but when the iPad came out. Because when the iPad first came out, people sort of went, oh, okay, I see what it did, but I don't know what its use is. well once you get into people's hands and you've got a platform for people to develop they then work out what it's being used for and I think Score, we talked about that scoring system is trying to do that as well where it's actually just building the infrastructure for these things to be connected and scores to be uploaded it's then up to the community to decide how they're going to use it but without any connectivity you've got no use so that's what I'm saying I know you're saying you've got a specific need you want to be able to talk to Bruce and play your Beatles together. But if you actually had that connectivity, what else could you do? And the community will work that out. Or they will say, you know what? We actually don't really need it. We actually just prefer the face-to-face interaction. You won't know until it's out there. Can you imagine, though, like, the power it gives the manufacturer of knowing? Like, right now, like, you can test out Munster's code if you want, Marty, and you can email Dwight Sullivan, you can say, you know, here are my opinions and this is what's happening and here's my audit file. You can kind of like dump the audit and email it to him. Can you imagine if like every, you know, within a week of production there's a couple hundred Black Knight Swords of Rage out on location and Stern are receiving audits in real time and they're like, holy crap, like this drains too much out the left and the right. So we need to adjust the software in comparison, right? Or, holy shit, we've had Avengers out for a month and no one's hit the Black Widow ramp. Like, let's fix this fucking issue before we make more of them. No one hit the start button. What? Oh, gosh. Yeah. Yeah, but you're saying exactly what I'm sort of saying as well, is that just put the technology out there and people will determine how they're going to apply that technology. Well, Stone's going to do it, and I can't remember if it was Mike Vinicola or someone said that, like, don't expect it to be like, bam, here's our online platform, and it does everything. We're going to roll it out over three years or something. It was either him or George Gomez. So when it comes out, it's going to be something very, I don't know, very shallow, I think. Maybe just, I don't know, online updates or something. You don't have to stick a USB stick in. Who knows? For me, my unmet need, there isn't any. I actually am really happy with the state of pinball at the moment. I don't care too much for online. I mean, admittedly, I get that through streaming anyway. I sort of have, you know, semi-two-way interaction. No, I just want machines to just continue to evolve. Yeah. We're in a pretty good state at the moment. and I know more and more pinball machines are going to come out over the next couple of years. And, you know, like, is this the greatest kind of time in the last 20 years to be into pinball, or will it be next year or the year after? Like, it's pretty good. It's just we're spoiled. And when you're spoiled for choice, it kind of naturally, I think it's a human condition to become more picky than, you know. Like, when there was, like, one or two, you know, when there was, like, two certain pinball machines coming out per year, like, people were really excited about those machines. and where their excitement were met. But now it's like every three months you have to learn new rules and that's just from Stern. Then you've got all these other companies coming out. So you can't hold that much information in your head. You can't know and have an opinion about, you know, 15 pinball machines a year. It's kind of overwhelming. So you naturally have to say, well, these are the good three that I like and the other 12, you know, they're for someone else. Yeah. or you get to play them on location for some of them anyway so I think it's a great time I'm really happy with I'm really happy with what's coming out at the moment I don't feel like we're getting duds, you know nothing that you would think, oh that's awful I would be happy if that was on a scrap heap good times yeah, and just one thing I didn't mention about Wonka the fact that it's now $1000 less in the US and it was kind of met with, ah, I can't believe they took the Wonka, you know, the Wonka Vader out. It's like, holy crap, like, that mech does not cost $1,000, and they lowered it by $1,000. It's a good thing. Like, everyone should be celebrating, like, hey, I couldn't afford a Jersey Jack machine because I was priced out. Maybe I can get one now. No. Just complaining. Well, and obviously, you know, the difference here, I think, is what, it's $12,500 for the, what are they calling it, the standard? Standard, yeah. 15 for the limited edition and 20,000 for the collectors. So 12 is a reasonable price It really expensive yeah It is but it just a little bit more than a premium stern It would be nice if it was a premium stern thing but Yeah. Yeah, and I know there's different markups and pricing, so, yeah, we can't really complain. No, and what I'm hoping is... I know that you've had a Jersey Jack on location, so did I. I have one now, Matty. Yeah, what have you got now? Dilding. Dilding's on location. So we've actually got two dialed-ins on location, right? You had a Hobbit. There was a Wizard of Oz. I had my Hobbit. But really, you don't see Jersey Jack machines on location. And the discussion I had was it's because there's so much more in it, therefore it's more likely to break. Now, dialed-ins you can have in there because there's actually less in it, less likely to break down. Oh, no, there is not, Marty. There's a lot of stuff in there. It's just hidden. No, I know. I know. But what I'm trying to make here really is, this could well be the first Jersey Jack machine, which, I don't know, is geared more towards location, and maybe we'll see more of them on location. I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, when you get a new release from Stern, you know, and it was one of the reasons why I sort of backed out of my pre-order with Black Knight, because I just knew I will see them everywhere at some stage. Are you saying that if someone puts a Willy Wonka on location, you're more or less likely to buy it? I've decided I'm not going to buy it. But it's a separate discussion. I don't think those things are related. All I'm saying is I'm just hoping that now they've got that lower price point which puts it just a little bit above a premium that operators will look at it and go, okay, well, that's actually now financially going to make sense and I'll put them out on location. Yeah, I think in the US, yeah, in the US, definitely. In Australia, let's cross our fingers because it's still expensive. There's still the Australian mark up there. Yeah, no, I know. I get that. Okay. So there we go. So, social media watch. There you go. That's what we've missed. Just a couple of things. So, Ryan, you're into bondage, aren't you? I am a BDSM Dungeon Master Level 5, Marty. Yeah, I'm all about dominance and submission. Yeah. So what we saw is that there's actually a new... I don't know what we're talking about. Yeah, I know what we're talking about. So there's actually a new TV show on Netflix called Bonding, which is all about a dominatrix, right? Sure. Why not? That's what it is. and the reason why we're talking about this is because there is actually one of the episodes, episode five, in fact, that is filmed at a very well-known pinball location in New York. Yeah, John's Jack Bar. It should be called John Bar. Why is it called Jack Bar? I don't know. Yeah. Maybe John can write in and let us know why he hates his name and didn't call it John Bar. Yeah, we both watched the show together, didn't we, Marty? We were strapped up in leather. I had a ball gag in my mouth for sure So Jack Bar is famous for having like You know, being a cool location But he's also like very Like he responds to like every single Yelp review, right? Yes, I know He's hilarious I met John at Pinberg last year He is freaking hilarious Alright, I've got Yelp over now I've got the Jack Bar thing loaded up. Let's have our review. No, don't. I was at Jack Bar last night. Wanted to play some pinball. All of a sudden, someone grabbed my ass. Oh, stop. Next thing I know, I'm surrounded by leather men. Great Bundy session. Five out of five stars. There we go. Well done. Excellent. So we'll see how he responds to that. The point is, they've got this whole episode where most of the episode does take place in Jack Bar. And the machines look in great condition, some of them being serviced wrong. Yeah, it was, I mean, obviously there was a reason for it, but they were in front of Twilight Zone and Star Wars, and it was in the service menu. I'm not sure if they didn't want it kind of, like, rotating around on the screen. I don't know why, because you can clearly tell, like, they blurred out kind of the play field and the trans lights. They left the side. Like, you can clearly see Star Wars there. So I'm not sure what happened in the editing department, but... Well, maybe... Do you know what? Maybe it is because... Well, actually, it's probably because there's movement in the background, and that detracts from the two people in frame. I would imagine it's distracting you from that. It's not. It's not. It's not. I know. Thank you. So anyway, if you want to see the adjustments menu on a Twilight Zone, please watch Bonding Level 0, Episode 5 is what it is. So we also actually had a note from somebody on our Facebook page saying, it's actually the Raza video that we were talking about last week, saying, is it just me or does this voiceover sound like Jeff Teolas with effects? Are you going to insert the voice in there? No, I'm not. I couldn't be bothered. I'm done with editing. But we were talking about this beforehand, and we sort of said, if Jeff Teolas had done some voiceover work in a pinball machine, would he have told us? Yeah, I don't know. He's been gagging for a long time. Oh, for sure. I mean... Drop the beat at any bloody time. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, bare-naked ladies, dude, Ed Robinson, he's a Canadian, and he got in before Jeff, so he must be just bursting at this thing now. Yeah, it would be absolutely killing him knowing that I was in a pinball machine before him. just destroying him. It's, um... Yeah, I can't tell if anyone is, uh... Unless he says the word at bounce, I can't tell. I am... As soon as we finish recording, I'm going to listen back and I'm now going to have my my Teolos radar going just to determine whether I think it's him or not. But I didn't think it at the time. But we do know that he is very good at doing very different voices. so I don't know how we would know that he knows people well we've heard but he knows people it could happen you never know okay who was that who messaged in oh that was Rich Benton holy shit my review for Jack Bauer is now live you don't even need to like I haven't been here before that's what Yelp is you don't even like just anyone can leave any review and it just it's there yep alright done it's not bad awesome so Ryan I believe you've got something special for us this week yes this is my contribution to the podcast this week so many podcasts do top 10 lists top 5 lists top 3 lists top 1 top 1 top 32 stern thermal machines not of all time because we're not including anything before 2000 right so we're gonna you know instead of just giving our opinions on a couple we're doing 32 pinball machines right now Marty I've seeded them in a 32 single elimination bracket yep we're calling this the Stern Battle Royale ah is that what that is yeah no it's a mic it is okay you know title of the podcast correct But, yeah, so basically we are going to rate these pinball machines. Now, obviously our personal opinion is going to shine through, but we're going to try and be as objective as possible. And the criteria for this is the best game. Now, the best home game, the best location game, and the best tournament game. So out of the two, we have to kind of pick which one shines through better. and the best home will include things like art, obviously, more than that would take into effect with the best tournament game. No one cares about the art in a tournament. It's more about rule balancing and things like that. The best location game will take into account theme, art, replayability. So we're going to go through... I don't know how long this is going to take, but strap yourself in. I know there's going to be a lot of freaking arguments because me and Marty have wildly differing opinions. We do, yes. If we cannot decide on a game and it's locked and none of us wants to give up, we're just going to randomly... We should have another person on the podcast, Marty, to adjudicate, but we will leave it up to a random number generator to see which one gets through. I'll let you do that on your phone because mine does the... and it'll take too long. Yours is a lot quicker. Okay, gotcha. Alright, so we're going to go now through the first bracket. We're going to eliminate 16 machines. And these ones should be the easy ones. We're going to make this quick. Otherwise, we'll be here for hours. Yeah. So, Lord of the Rings versus NASCAR, Marty. It's Lord of the Rings, easily. But this doesn't mean NASCAR's terrible. I like NASCAR. Monsters versus Game of Thrones. This might be hard for you, Marty. Why have you made this bracket so hard already? Okay, this is 16 versus 17 seed, so this is meant to be the hardest one. We're allowed to argue about... Okay, Game of Thrones. Yeah, I agree with Game of Thrones. Munsters might be ten times better once code is done, but we have to judge it for now. So, yeah, by the way, this is seeded by their pin-side ranking. Tron versus Batman Dark Knight. Don't disappoint me, Marty. It's Tron. And again, Batman.9, I was talking about it last week. I actually really enjoy it. But Tron is, yeah, it's a better game. The Walking Dead versus Sopranos. Walking Dead. Yep. ACDC versus T3. That's ACDC. ACDC, yes. Okay, this one might be a point of contention. Iron Man versus Pirates of the Caribbean. Iron Man. I agree with Iron Man, but if we're judging it by the best location game, Like, people love... Pirates sold just shit tons, right? Yay! But I also think because Iron Man is so quick, it probably makes more money. Ah, yeah, you're right. Best home... Yeah, okay, let's go Iron Man. I'm not sure how far Iron Man's going to make us. It doesn't matter. Batman 66 versus Family Guy. I'm... You go first. Batman 66. Yeah, I would nudge that ahead I'm not crazy on either Yeah, it doesn't matter that much Because there's Star Trek coming up And that's going to go against Fantasy P6 And I don't think, yeah Okay, so Star Trek versus Elvis Star Trek Star Trek Okay, the other side of the bracket Metallica versus Avatar That's Metallica That's Avatar for me Yeah, right Do you want me to push that? No No, because you did I can't believe Avatar gets eliminated so early. Put that up against family guy. Na-V. Ava has heard you. What's a better call out, Marty? Ava has heard you. And Blue Jackbox! Aerosmith versus X-Men. Aerosmith. Yeah, I'll go Aerosmith as well. Deadpool versus Kiss. Ooh, hard one. Both have good art. Deadpool's better. both have decent rules. Deadpool's getting better by the day. Is it done? Is it not done? This is an interesting one because, you know, when we talk about the criteria, we've got to consider home, location and tournament settings. I, for me, hands down, if Kiss came up in a tournament, I would much rather play that than Deadpool because I think Deadpool is too random and it's a brutal tournament machine. In the home, I would much rather Deadpool. On location, I reckon Deadpool would do better. At the moment, it would, but Kiss is like that never-ending brand. Kiss don't actually go away. Kiss pimmel machines, like not the old belly kiss, like pro pimmel machines, they never come up for like six grand in Australia. They're more than what they sold for originally because it's KISS, right? Which has to count for something in this test. I don't know what I'm saying. I don't think there's a clear winner out of these two. But let's not forget the history of KISS, which was just, you know... Rubbish. Rubbish for so long. Whereas I think... Hardware issues. I mean, Kiss, you know, a lot of them throw the ball down the middle all the time. I mean, it is the only kind of toy on there. Gene spits his balls down your middle. Yeah. Deadpool, you know, the game has to be set up right. Otherwise, you know, the katana ramp might not get it up all the time. I think Deadpool just inches out ahead. All right. It's the first part of the bracket, so it doesn't matter too much. Okay, Spider-Man versus Mustang. Mustang for me. But it's got to be an objective opinion, right? I think most people would say Spider-Man because people really like the layout. I'm not crash hot on the rules, is my... I clearly don't understand the rules of Spider-Man. Like, in group chat the other day when Josh Sharpe was talking about it, and I'm like, what? Like, that's the rule? Like, newer games are copying off Spider-Man, and I didn't even know Spider-Man had that rule. Yeah. It never forces you to play the modes. Like, you can blow up the game by just getting into two shots into multiball, use that to get into the other multiball, you've got two multiball stacked, and then you just play villains all day long. Yep, that's right. So I think there's a whole misting. I mean, people are probably listening to this now going, you guys are fucking idiots. You know, there's a whole other side of this machine. There is, but you don't need, it doesn't force you to play it like other games. The games that force you to play modes, I think, are the ones that really chimes through. It's never like, someone says to you when you're playing Spider-Man, make sure you have a mode running before you get to multiball. I mean, it does help. I did win a tournament the other day by doing that. It did save me, but it was a fluke. hitting all the... It's the only game where getting into a mode is fucking hard. You have to hit every shot in the game and then you can't start a mode during multiball. Yeah. It's one of those... Yeah. But it shoots like it's fucking awesome. It shoots awesome. I like the way it shoots. I do kind of feel that it was relatively safe as far as a playfield design goes. I mean, he used that to then do Star Trek, which is very similar. Yep. It's going to be hard because whichever wins this one goes up against Deadpool, and then there's no clear winner in that either, so... Yeah, okay, well then, what are your thoughts on Mustang? Have you really put a lot of time on it? Yeah, I mean, I've only probably played, like, you know, 30 games on Mustang, and, you know, most of them is in a tournament setting, so I kind of know how to get the points, and I really like the design. It's very multiple-centric. You know, you can kind of be multiple for a very long time. But Colossus is Spider-Man, make it interesting. Yeah, I would... Again, it's one of these things where I feel really bad that Mustang doesn't get through because I think that it is such an underrated game. And obviously we were talking about it before with Matt Hardy doing a re-theme of it. There's potential there, but I just think all round, Spider-Man's just a better game. Yeah. It's better for pinball in general than the machine Mustang. Like, Mustang didn't do much for the pinball community. That's just what Spider-Man did, right? Yeah. Okay. Iron Maiden versus Avengers. Well, Iron Maiden. But again, I still feel that there's potential with Avengers. I think that there's a good game somewhere there. This is Seed 3 versus Seed 30, Marty. Yeah. All right. This might be hard. Star Wars versus Guardians of the Galaxy. Star Wars versus Guardians of the Galaxy. Okay. If you think about all the elements that go into a machine, rules, layout, visuals, the way it makes you smile, for me, Guardians beat Star Wars. Yeah. I mean, Star Wars is probably going to make more money in location because it's Star Wars. I don't think people know what they're doing when they play the game I mean you can say that about a lot of games but at least Garden of the Galaxy has like two really accessible multiballs six shots up the middle or six shots to the orb and you're in multiball you're in a mode automatically when you plunge the ball there's a two ball multiball you can play versus Star Wars where yeah there's an easy multiball in TIE Fighter TIE Fighter multiball but people that play on location don't press that button. Yeah. And I also think when you think about tournaments, I mean, when we're in your tournaments and you say to somebody, okay, you're up on Star Wars, they will just groan. Whereas if they say, you're up on Guardians, it's like, okay, cool, I'll come play Guardians. I think it's a better comp game. I think Star Wars is a better location game. I think they're both good comp games. I mean, Star Wars is brutal because of the plunge. No, but that's what I mean. That's why people would prefer Guardians over Star Wars, just because you get into the game. Yeah, that Star Wars game that won Angie Rosa that championship, I was on the edge of my seat, but I wish it was a better game because I want to see a really good player execute the strategy, right? You want to see high-level players doing that because people know the rules of Star Wars now. It's just, yeah. there's a big resistance to put it in in big comp so yeah main stage Timberg this year so yeah let's put Guardians but it was it's close-ish right yeah for sure god this might be hard Ghostbusters versus the Beatles I know which one that I like more but if we're going by this argument I'm not sure if it wins oh well Beatles has like nothing on it right which me and you might say well it's not important it's about the shots It's about the fun. And I think Beatles is a lot more fun. Ooh. Is it for... It's for me and you, but is it for the average player, Marty? People love fucking playing Ghostbusters. Well, I mean, once you dial it down and fix all the out-of-the-box issues, which they never fix. Yeah. Wow. I mean, what would you rather have at home, Ghostbusters or Beatles? 100% Beatles, but I'm not sure... I'm going to go through them. What would you rather play in a tournament, Ghostbusters or Beatles? Beatles and you know what earns more on location probably Ghostbusters right I think Beatles is a better game how I mean not many of them come up for sale in Australia like how often can you play the game without you know before you get bored I don't know it's a classic game with an inflated new box price so I mean whatever wins is probably going to go up again since it was the pinball party so So it'll win, yeah. So it has to be a good game, I think. I don't know. Again, I thought it was sort of what I was saying before about, you know, Kik and its history. Ghostbusters hasn't had a great history, you know? It's still got the ball that jumps over the outlands. You know, that there is... And it's still got that ridiculously wide flipper gap. it's still got a rule set that just locks you in and, you know, if you don't get the skill shot, and this is what happened to me in a tournament the other night where I was going for a video mode, didn't make my shot, bang, I'm locked out. It's like, oh, come on. So, at least Beazle's feels complete. Yeah, yeah. I just also, yeah, the other thing for Ghostbusters, it has gotten so many people to buy their first machine. It's gotten, you know, as soon as people expanded about pinball, it was the first game that had, like, zombie-eating art was introduced. Like, it's a killer theme. I know Beatles is an amazing theme as well, but Ghostbusters, like, people have just amazing nostalgic feelings about Ghostbusters. Let's just go Beatles. Yeah, Beatles. Ghostbusters sucks. Simpsons pinball party versus somebody once told me the world. It's a Shrek. Oh, well, Simpson's Simple Party. Even I know that. Fuck, that's going to be hard next round. Alright, we're down to the final 16. Okay. Here we go. What's in the 16? Quickly run them through. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Tron, Walking Dead, ACDC, Iron Man, Batman 66, Star Trek, Metallica, Aerosmith, Deadpool, Spider-Man, Iron Maiden, Guardians, Beatles and Simpsons. Holy shit, if you had that as a 16 pin collection, that is a good collection. Right there. Can I just say right there? Stern, You're amazing. There's 16 great machines there. Yeah, and that's from the year 2000? Yeah. That's about one a year. That's one really good game a year by CERN. Okay, here we go. This is where Mike gets some heated arguments. Lord of the Rings versus Game of Thrones. Oh, wow. Okay, so... Both have shit art. Yeah, but both of them have aged well. meaning no one gives a shit about the art anymore. Like nobody actually says about Game of Thrones oh yeah, but the art. You don't care anymore. And Lord of the Rings, yeah, it's got low res and it's pretty blurry but it still is functional. It's still quite pretty. The only thing people don't like about Lord of the Rings 90 is how long it takes to play a game which might deter people from hitting the start button in their home on location. They might use that to hit the start button you get good value for money. It's pretty much never in tournament's money because it would just delay the entire tournament. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People have had to, you know, take rubbers off and put lightning flippers on it to make it. Yeah, and I included it in my tournament and, you know... Brutalised it, yeah. It wasn't so much just brutalised it by... I just made it not Lord of the Rings. It wasn't Lord of the Rings anymore. It was... Like, if you got into multiball, you won. Like, you won the match play game because it was that hard to get into it. Yeah. Which then, you know, it's still Lord of the Rings, but it changes the way you play it so much. I watched a bunch of people play Game of Thrones for 20 minutes last night on location, Marty. I was next to them. I was playing 8-Ball. And it is one of those games where if you know what you're doing, you can get billions. If you don't know what you're doing, like 10, 20 million. You start no multiples because, you know, you might not send the ball sideways. You know, you're not really starting modes. When you start a mode, you don't know what you're doing. It is one of those games that the people in the know know how to play it. It's not a Ballywins game. Ballywins games are intuitive. They tell you what to do. There's no call-outs. I would say the opposite. Similar scenario but sort of different criteria is the same for Lord of the Rings. And I, you know, have said a number of times that I never knew the rules. I knew how to get into multiball so what I think that means is for people that are playing Lord of the Rings is they will get into multiball but multiball is not necessarily worth a lot of points on Lord of the Rings? yes it is it's worth a lot of points it is but if you're not doing anything outside of that game if somebody just comes in and also you've got to make sure you hit all those shots like if you get that one where you've got to hit Balrog and then the ramps and all that kind of stuff that's quite a difficult multiball to be able to unlock the points. Yeah, for sure. And then perhaps the one where you need the Path of the Dead, most people don't get into that because they don't know that they've got to get Path of the Dead to be able to unlock them. That's the hardest one, yeah. Right, you know what I mean? But they might flail around and get Gollum. They might get into the Scoop and Battlerog will come out and you hit him a couple of times. I think people find that game more satisfying than... Like, the most fun these people had, like, there was four of them and, like, there was such news that they didn't even know how to start a full-player game. They were just playing. They put enough money for 15 credits, and they just played one at a time, and I was just checking my head. The most fun I had, Marty, is that one of the girls got into Mystery, and I went over, because they were about to take the gold or something, and I said, choose video mode, and then mash the right button as much as you can. And they did that, and then they got $20 million, and they all cheered, and she won. She ended up on $25 million, and that was the highlight. I'm like, that's a sad kind of state of a pinball machine that the most fun they're having is just smashing a button, and I have to tell them to do that, right? If that same group was on Lord of the Rings, would they have had as much fun? I don't know. I don't have my Lord of the Rings on location. No, I know. But we would have sort of just, like, suspended disbelief here by looking at it and thinking, well, ultimately, what is more fun on location? And, you know, I guess because you made the point about Gamma Thrones, you know, you've really got to get into multiball or you've got to see those modes through. And most people don't even know how to do that, let alone blow it up. But if you don't get into multiball, you lose. I think with a lot of the rings, you can get into multiball, but you've got to get into the deeper game to be able to get the big scores. What's your decision, Marty? I would say Game of Thrones. It's the number two seed, mate. The number one seed is a lot of the rings. You can't eliminate number one seed in the 16 bracket. Lord of the Rings it has an amazing call out it's a game that provides you value for money at home because you well I'm sure you're going to sell yours soon Marty but yeah I'm looking at from a personal point of view which is if I had to have one of those two machines because I had Game of Thrones we owned it together yeah that's right and I've had Lord of the Rings for five or six months if I got rid of both of them and could only have one back I'd pick Game of Thrones that's because it's yeah because Steve Ritchie and you get a hard-on for Steve and Jean. No, it's not just that. I just feel that there more on offer for me rules I can get to Hand of the King or then I can continue and get Iron Throne or I can choose different houses I've got more choice. But it's kind of the same thing every time, right? Like, the modes don't feel that special, and then, you know, you just want to kind of... You do two or three modes that you like to score big with, and then you're like, I'm going to do Zac Stark and just, you know, a couple of shots up the middle, and then the right ramps and just finish it off. I don't care how many... Yeah, and then you're like, okay, Hand of the King, how can I just kind of blow it up? And you get out of there, and you're like, okay, we'll now have to pick off the other three modes or whatever it is, or two modes to get Iron Throne. So here's what I'm saying. If it was me, I would pick Game of Thrones. But I believe that universally, Lord of the Rings is a better game. I would put that through. Okay. Cool. Lord of the Rings wins. The next one, Tron versus The Walking Dead. Walking Dead. Okay. So Tron has a more satisfying... You're argument is hard. Go for a little while, okay? Okay, go. They're both highly sought after. Yes. Both have really average art. On location, The Walking Dead is not really relevant anymore. Like, no one watches it as much as they did. It was very hot when they brought it out. Tron has amazing sound and call-outs. It's Walking Dead's pretty bad without the... It's Walking Dead. It's Walking Dead. I'm trying to convince myself. I know. You can step through it as much as you want. And, you know, I've grown to really like Tron. But again, I just think side by side, more people, regardless of if it was tournament, home or location, more people would pick Walking Dead over Tron. You know, on paper, like, you like those simple games, Marty. like, you know, Avatar, Big Bug. Yeah, Tron is a very simple game. So you should like it more than Walking Dead, which is one of the most complicated games. Well, it is, it is, but it also has a simple mode as well. Like, you can go up there and have a simple game, or you can then go the long game. The fact that it's got both is amazing. The layers of the onion, man. The layers of the onion. It really is. Yeah. But both have great multiball modes, like, very easy to get to. Like, you know, Light Cycle can get a couple of shots, Hit Cora up the middle. But again, Walking Dead has... Yeah. Yeah? Well, I was going to say, with Walking Dead, it just has something that is just inexplicable, which is the most simple mode ever in pinball is the most satisfying mode in pinball, and that's barn. Like, how is that even possible? Yeah. This is crazy. It's the point. It's the brutality of the pinball machine. I know a lot of people don't like it because of the brutality, and I think it does suit a slightly better than average pinball player than the average pinball player. I think the average pinball player will have more fun on Tron. I have more fun on Tron simply because I'm just obsessed with the light show and just a little sidetrack here. You know how you talked about Beetlejuice, was it last week? Yeah. And, you know, George Gomez saying, like, hey, if no one's passionate about it, then, you know, we don't make it. And that was, like, that was such a horrible comment because it was true, and I realized that no one at Stern has the same interest as me. You know, like, no one was passionate about Guardians of the Galaxy. They did it, but they weren't passionate about it, you know? Like, do you know what I mean? They weren't passionate enough to get, like, all the assets and, you know, they're passionate about heavy metals. Like, they're passionate about, like, anthrax. And I'm like, ah, that's, like, headache stuff for me. Anyway, I had to add that in. I was listening to the podcast and, yeah. ACDC versus Iron Man ooh ah you know what interesting isn't it ACDC I think it was like Keith Elwin described it as like it's a pure points based game right like yes there's a theme but it's all about like what's your strategy to max out points and but that's from a tournament players perspective yes yes yeah so If you're a casual player, is that your objective is to get points, or is it to, I don't know, get the multiballs? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you've got three very accessible multiballs again, but it really, it kind of irks me a little bit that people choose a song, and they can play it over and over and over again, right? So they play it the same. What other game does that? Like, can you imagine Guardians of the Galaxy if you can just do, like, Yak-A-Hero all day long or something? Right, yeah. so and I know he wants to possibly put a you know mini wizard mode at like six songs in but if there was a way to force people to play maybe not lock them out but just give them such a big bonus of finishing a song and choosing the next song I think it kind of like transforms that game into like one of the best games ever and it is one of the best games ever but something like Iron Man is like in my opinion like the perfect like I don't want that in my house I've had it twice in my house and it's just fucking boring as batshit after a while but I would probably prefer to play that in a tournament than ACDC because correct right once you do something you can't just go straight back into it right I can't just hit backhand five ramps in a row and be back in jam multiball yep okay so so then home environment which one would you prefer? ACDC like all day long I would say that too tournament Ironman location I think ACDC wins location because well especially in Australia it saved pinball and it has cool toys Ironman was always meant to be this like the super cheap let's see how little we can put in the pinball machine and get away with it and it just somehow turned out to be a good game because of the voice encoding. And it was a weird one because at the time when it came out, people were just really rubbishing it, and then it just became a tournament player's game, and that's how it got its resurgence. Yeah. And they, yeah, they vaulted it, and then they re-ran the vault, and the demand for the fixer itself, and ACDC as well, but I think ACDC has to win that one. I think so too. All right. Batman 66 or Star Trek? Okay. Well, I mean, do we even argue? It's Star Trek for me, and it's Star Trek for you, and you're about to tell everyone why, Marty. I think Batman 66 needs more time to determine how legendary it is. That's what I think. Yeah, there's a lot of Star Treks out there, not a lot of Batman 66s. just like Beatles, the price dictates how many I purchase. I think it has become a lot better game than what it was, and not a lot of people sell them. They're holding their value really well. I find it incredibly unsatisfying to shoot, and that's a very important thing to me and what I like about pinball is the satisfaction of how the ball rolls, and you might think that's not important, but that's, you know, you might find something else. You might jizz over Christopher Franchi's art. And, you know, that's all it gets you off. But to me, like, Star Trek has horrible art, but it's not about that. It's just, it has very easy shots, very easy, Marty. And it, yeah. It does. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. I know that it does. But I also remember when it first came out, because it is a Steve Ritchie and because of the pace of it, it's got some easy shots but also if you miss those shots it's death right so I think that it's maybe yeah that's when it came out I mean I think you and I have played it so much now ah yeah I know what to not shoot for I can do it with my eyes shut these days yeah right I practically could but but I know I know and this is okay Jordan Treadway I've said it before he does not like Star Trek and he just says I just I can't get my shots. I can't do it. He hasn't adjusted to it. You and I have played it so much that we just look at it second nature. But at the time, if you missed your shots, it was game over. Yeah. Jordan likes to trap up and take his shots. So Star Trek kind of awards you for playing more on the fly, which I love, right? Every shot that you hit in a combo just doubles. And if you do that in multiple, you just really blow it up. so um batman is not a bad game but star trek is seeded five okay people think it's the fifth best stern of all time and it's because like home location tournaments it makes people feel good right i almost sold mine like six months in because i got so bored of it because i was i had only like maybe five pins at that time but every single person that came over that that played all my machines to play one game each or something i said which one do you like the best it was always Star Trek. The light show, the sounds. It's one of the very few Stern machines that I think they nailed the sound because everything is reactive to what's going on in the Bill Moore machine. Yep, and everything is really distinct. I don't know if you've ever noticed it, but whenever you're watching a tournament on stream and there's a Star Trek in the background, it just cuts through every bit of audio and you go, I know someone's playing a Star Trek. You can just hear those unmistakable sounds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, Star Trek wins. All right. Let's go to the other side. Metallica versus Aerosmith. Let's do a quick one on this one, Marley. It's Metallica. It's Metallica. It's Metallica, but again, I think they are very close because Aerosmith has become a really enjoyable game. In fact, you know, there was a tournament the other night and I got to choose a machine and it was either going to be Aerosmith or Metallica. And I picked Aerosmith because I think, for me, I much prefer to play Aerosmith in a tournament. Yeah. But home game, I would have Metallica over Aerosmith in a heartbeat. As far as earning goes, and on location, I think Metallica probably has paid for itself repeatedly, and Aerosmith, just as a theme-wise, sort of struggles a bit. Yeah. Deadpool versus Spider-Man. You go first. I just don't know. And it's going up against Metallica next, so it almost doesn't matter. And it's just one of those hard ones that I don't... I haven't played Deadpool enough, but I've owned Spider-Man twice and kicked it out of my house twice. So right now, I would definitely take Deadpool over Spider-Man. I would take Deadpool as well. And look, I'm not a big fan of Spider-Man. I just... Whenever I see Spider-Man, it never inspires me to hit the start button or, you know, even before that, put money in. And when it comes up on a tournament, I'm like, yeah, okay, I don't mind playing it. I can blow this up. So can everybody else. So there's just nothing that's really quite unique or special enough about it for me to say. If Star Trek didn't exist, it, I think, would be a better game because the layouts are so similar, right? And I know it's just different and the rules force you to do different things. But because Star Trek exists, I have to say, well, it's an improved layout on Spider-Man. Very slightly, but it doesn't... But an improved rule set as well. Yeah, exactly. So, all right, Deadpool wins that one. Iron Maiden versus Guardians. Seed 19 versus Seed 2. So, seeds are irrelevant because you're talking about pin-side seeds, right? Okay. So, it's irrelevant. What do you think, buddy? Well, if it was for me, I would have Guardians. Easy. Easy over Iron Maiden. Because it makes me feel more joy playing Guardians than Iron Maiden. That looks quick, that one, Marty. No, I know. I know. I know that Iron Maiden is a better machine. It is. Hands down. But for me, I think Guardians just has more joy in it. And it's not because it's got better rules or a better layout or better sound or better video or better bobbly bobos. I don't know. There's something about Guardians that the sum of everything for me personally brings me more joy than Iron Maiden does. But I know that Iron Maiden is a better comp game. I don't even know whether it's a better location game, really. I mean, Guardians is a good... Okay, Guardians was a good comp game until I saw Keith Elwin at Pimberg just go for multiple. And he didn't end up winning. But there is a thing to that. Like, Lonnie D. Rupp games, if a multiple was easy enough to get into, like, Aerosmith is not, like, super kind of easy. But the multiple jackpots, when you can, like, multiply stuff and hit it in a combo, are worth so much. There's a 96 million jackpot in Guardians. When you have double scoring, you've X'd the shot, and you hit up the middle in a combo, and you have a couple of balls locked. There's a whole bunch of stuff, like 96 million, which you have to finish an entire mode to get there. So I think tournament-wise, you have to choose Iron Maiden because it's more balanced out. location wise I think Guardians wins because it's probably right now a more recognisable theme and I think it's more satisfying for people versus Iron Maiden for the home I guess it's probably Iron Maiden because but that's not for me I would say at home and again it's just personal opinion is that it's the reason why I sold it, because it was just too serious all the time, and that felt like a grind every time I started the machine. It was every time I played Guardians of the Galaxy, I think it's because of the colourful art, because of the videos, because of the way the modes and the progression is, it's just a bit more fun, a bit more light, and that's kind of what I need. So that's, for me, I think, I agree on the other two criteria. for me, the only difference is, I would say, for a home game, I would much rather Guardians and Iron Maiden. So what does that mean? Yeah, I'm just thinking, though, it's because, like, it's because you pretty much only play your games when you're streaming, so Guardians would be that perfect game for you versus Iron Maiden, which, you know, it's one of those games you can just get lost in trying to get soul shards and this, this and that, whereas, like, Guardians is the only game that I've, recent Stern that I've finished. Like, I got to the Wizard mode, I finished the wizard mode. Like, I won. And then it's like, ah, well, I guess I just have to kind of like do it. And it was fun enough. It's just one of those weird things. I was talking to someone about it the other day. I've got my Guardians right next to Metallica. I enjoy playing Guardians more than Metallica, but I appreciate Metallica more because I know what's... Yeah. What I haven't unlocked and what I can get to and crank it up in those moments. Yep. But I only get there like once every how many games and it just punishes me where every game of Guardians is satisfying every game. All right. So, and something that I'll call out is, what is it, Cherry Bomb multiball? Yeah. That is fucking fun. No. I think that is so much fun. Yes, I do. And I think it's a very simple bit of fun, but I just love it. There's fucking balls everywhere, and you've got to hit some shots and then get Groot, which, you know, sounds really easy, but when you're in the moment, it's just panic stations. Can I tell you why I don't like Cherry Bomb multiball? Of course you can You have to finish four modes to do it So noobs aren't going to I'm not talking about how you get there I'm just talking about the multiball I'm saying When I get into Cherry Bomb multiball these days I call my wife or my kids from the other room Like here, play this mode Because it's six balls And it doesn't divert the balls into the pop-up as money So you can't drain on purpose Well you can try, but you drain on purpose the balls are flying back straight away. So trying to hit that Groot jackpot in the middle while his mouth is opening and closing right? You have to save the ball on the left flipper you have to make sure there's no balls coming around which the balls land on the left flipper when they shoot around. That's what's fun about it! But it's more random than... Yes! But that's what I'm saying is enjoyable about it because everything else in that game, you're in control you know what you're doing. This is just this random mini wizard mode that just happens in the middle and it's just a bit of fun. The point of it is just the shits and giggles. That's all it is. That's why it's fun. Random number generator. Where are the shits and giggles in Iron Maiden? When you drain out of a mode and it's like, oh, flight of bricolage, bitch. It's more like flight of bricolage. No, it's... Yeah. Okay. I appreciate Iron Maiden a lot I love the shots I wish that mini flipper didn't exist because I'm so bad at using it if I could use that mini flipper I would like you know that would shoot up so much higher than what it is in my books but people are going to be screaming like it's clear that it's Iron Maiden but it's not that it's almost a 50-50 because they're polar opposite pins right one's super serious the other one you know has decent rules but it's the opposite so let's just put it to 50-50, Marley. So one is Iron Maiden, two is Guardians. Okay. Okay, Google, pick a number between one and two. Okay. One. Iron Maiden it is, Marley, sorry. Iron Maiden, there you go. Okay. Beatles and Simpsons Timber Party. Now that's an interesting one because you know how much I dislike Simpsons Pimple Party. And let me elaborate for those people that haven't listened. I hate the layout. I hate the rules. I hate the art. I hate the upper play field. I hate everything about it. But. It's the Iron Maiden thing where you're like, you appreciate it because you know the house. I do appreciate it. I'm fucked up, Marty. Like, why does this exist? Like, why do people like and appreciate games that they don't necessarily like playing. Yeah, that's it. Just because it's not for me doesn't mean that it's a bad game. I know how much people love this. Like, absolutely freaking love it. I think for me, if I spent a lot more time on it, I would probably grow to love it. You know what I mean? So I just know that I've had enough experience with games to know just because I hate it doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's not like Rolling Stones, where just because I hate it and everybody else hates it, we all know it's a terrible game. This one, I can appreciate that there's something there that I'm just missing. Okay? So I think out of those two games, right now, if I had to have either Beatles or Simpsons People Party at home, I'd have Simpsons any day. Okay. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, as I said, Beatles is a great game, but I'm not sure how much longevity it has, because I like playing my Soul Estate games against people. They're not as fun to play alone. And I've been absolutely loving playing Beatles in the local tournament. I think I'm possibly undefeated on it because the geometry is just an improved version of Sea Witch, which I know where to hit the shots. But yeah, Simpsons has those moments. A-Invasion is an amazing mode. the love and care put into that pinball machine is almost unrivaled. And yeah, it's great for pinball because it's Simpsons. Everyone knows Simpsons. It has amazing call-outs, etc., etc. Simpsons wins. Okay, we're down to our final eight. Lord of the Rings, The Walking Dead, ACDC, Star Trek, Metallica, Deadpool, Iron Maiden, and Simpsons. Fucking hell. I own one, two, three, four, five of these eight machines. Okay. Cool. Okay. Alright, so Lord of the Rings versus The Walking Dead. If you think it's just easy and you just say what you think it is and maybe I might agree. Walking Dead. Yes, I will go Walking Dead. Ooh, okay. Alright. Okay. Were you expecting that? Really? Okay. No, for a long time Lord of the Rings was my favourite game because it was everything and then I got into shorter playing games and I like the previous argument, I appreciate Lord of the Rings more than I do Walking Dead, but it's just too long and it doesn't give me as much satisfaction like I can have a quick game of Walking Dead and because of the scoring is kind of like exponential if you do really well in a mode. Like doing CBC perfectly is just one of the most satisfying things, right? whereas Lord of the Rings, if you finish the mode perfectly by hitting every shot in a combo, you're going to have like 10, 15 million, right? It's not... Yeah. Yeah, that's what I think. Walking Dead, I think, is the perfect risk-reward machine. I mean, it had a very risky layout, and I think the reason why people didn't like it at first because there wasn't much of a reward for all the risks that you've got there, but now everything that you do... So we talked about barn before. The reason why barn is so exciting is because if you nail that shot, it's a satisfying shot, but you know that that shot is going into the pop bumpers of doom, right? So you're deliberately putting yourself into danger for a reward. You're deliberately hitting that ball up the middle to the prison where there's a magnet. You're putting yourself in danger. If you survive, you feel great. and when you do get jackpots and when you do get certain things, the visuals and the audio reward you. So you just... Use all your good arguments for the next one, Marty. It wins, it wins. Okay. ACDC versus Star Trek. Oh, this is going to be hard. Both designed by Steve Ritchie. Yep. One programmed by Lime and Cheats, the other one programmed by Lonnie and Delight. both very flowy layouts. For me, it's got to be Star Trek. And I've got to try, at some stage, and hopefully next round, I will take my Star Trek fanboy goggles off. But even with this, I do like ACDC, but I don't like it in tournaments. And that's a real no for me. Yeah, this one's really hard for me because I enjoy both games a lot. You'll find me dancing while I play ACDC because the music is that good and that kind of conducive to pinball. I think Star Trek shoots better as a shooter. I know because every shot is a flow shot, right? Like both orbits kind of go all the way around always. The, you know, what else? you've got your ramps that return to the flippers. ATV kind of like stops the ball a bit more. That's not like, you know, slow ball isn't a prerequisite to which one wins. This one, I actually don't know. This is like a 50-50 for me because I know ACDC is probably better on paper, toys-wise and rules-wise, but I kind of enjoy playing them equally. Yeah, I do. For a home game, I think that ACDC has got a better rule set. So if you take your tournament mentality out and you think, right, I'm now going to try and play to get to the wizard mode and you have to work through all the songs, I think that's actually a lot of fun. I've never, ever done that, Marty. No one ever does. It's so far out. I know. Yeah, people just... Yeah, but so is 5E Mission. Like, who's going for 5E Mission? Yeah, but naturally, by playing the game, you're working towards that. You're progressing it to it. As I said, you can't play Space Jump ten times, right? Like, you do it, you finish it, on to the next thing. Yep. And I think because of that, I know a lot of people aren't going to agree with this, I think Star Trek wins until Lyman does that final update on ACDC that I don't think he's ever going to force it. I think we asked him, like, we ever force, like, lock people out of modes, and he's just like, no, it's like pure, you know, like it's a torn pinball machine, you know, like, I want people to choose whatever they want to choose, but until you are more heavily rewarded for playing more songs, maybe there's a bunch of rules that we don't know. I know there's that album jackpot thing where, you know, on the song there's this and that, right? But I just wish everyone just played a mode and then went on to the next because it is mostly about getting into... I remember asking Peter White when I was playing against him in a tournament in Queensland and I'm like, you know, because he's a great player, I'm like, do you ever stack multiballs? And he's like, no, never. Never. He goes, you use multiballs as your safety net and you just make sure that one is kind of like ready the next time you're at a multiball. You're at a multiball, get back into multiball. Correct. You're using multiballs to play your modes. Yeah. whereas with Star Trek you're pretty far from that you've got the easy one up the middle five shots of vengeance but then you know if you manage to get into what's the main multiball called Mike? Klingon? Klingon to get in there again you've got to be sending the ball sideways a lot right? so I think Star Trek wins on this one yeah I agree okay and I hope we've explained it enough that people you know oh I fucking love the CBC pitchforks and bloody torches yep Metallica vs Deadpool Metallica yes correct easy okay Iron Maiden vs Simpsons you're going to go Iron Maiden I will I will go Iron Maiden what do you go? yeah I go Iron Maiden okay cool okay the final four how about this as a four four here we go what have you got? The Walking Dead yes Star Trek yep Metallica yep Iron Maiden. Fuck. Wow. Lyman Sheets, Lyman Sheets, Keith Alwyn slash Rick, and Lonnie and Dwight. Lonnie and Dwight. And what have we got? We got John Borg, John Borg, Keith Alwyn, Steve Ritchie. Okay. Here we go. You ready? The Walking Dead versus Star Trek. Ooh. Walking Dead for me. Okay. Let me explain. I... I feel that with Star Trek, you get to a certain point where you think there's no real point in me going on. You know, like... What's that? Right after Kobayashi Maru? It is probably right after Kobayashi Maru. Like, there's these next two bloody levels to play, but certain point where you go, you know what? That's all I need to do. I'm never going to get to see the end. What I really like And it actually really interesting that these two machines have come up because I think both these machines are probably the most not even Metallica there as well but they both really situational games You can go in and start the ball and say, I'm going to go for Vengeance multiball, but all of a sudden something else happens and you can change your strategy and go for something else. And that's the same thing that happens with Walking Dead. You may think, I'm going to go for Prison, or I'm going to go for Bloodbath, or I'm going to go for Whirlwalker multiball, or I'm going to go for Modes, and that changes as you play through the game. It changes when you're in a tournament and you're playing one versus one, you know, head to head. That can change depending on what the other person's doing. In a four-player game, that can also change depending on what's happening and where everybody's at. I think with Star Trek, it's a bit more linear. You are sort of locked into a certain destiny whereas I think Walking Dead just has that much more variety. So when you push the start button, you don't know what you're going to get. At the same time, Marty, what you're saying about Star Trek, when I watch you playing it on the stream, you do play it almost the same way every time. You usually don't dig down into level 2 and level 3 modes before you get into Kobayashi Maru. Correct. But there's a lot of strategy with that, right? If you want a full set of gold medals and you've played almost all your modes. You can play a level two mode and get a gold medal on that and then you'll get a full set, depending on what ball you're playing on, whether you'd like to risk that. Finishing three levels deep will permanently multiply an entire shot. I think that there's a lot of strategy, but just people don't usually... It automatically selects the next mode for you, kind of thing, like, hey, would you like to play this now? It never says, would you like to play Destroy the Drill 2? Yeah, I understand. So, by default, when you're kind of just in, like, you know, because Star Trek does force you sometimes to just flip, right? Like, you can almost mindlessly play that game because it is so easy and nice to shoot, right? Yeah. Whereas Walking Dead, if you mindlessly flip, like, you're finished, right? So, yeah, I agree. I think Walking Dead is the better game, but I think you're maybe discounting some of Star Trek because you are stuck. You are stuck on Star Trek. It's almost like you cannot progress. But I think if you change the way you played, Marty... But what am I progressing to? If I go down to level three modes, what am I doing? I'm improving my score. Big fucking deal. I'm not interested in the score. I want to progress through the game. Yeah. Get to Enterprise and it's really exciting when you start to score big in level two and level three modes. I remember watching a stream where a guy called... I can't remember, like, Austin something. And he got, like, I think a two billion on Star Trek. And, like, Steve Bannon and Tim Sexton were commentating. It was, like, Games Done Quick about two years ago or something. And that was one of the most satisfying games of pinball I've ever watched because he was just scoring insane mode points all on the fly, right? And it wasn't like Walking Dead where, you know, there's so many animations going on that you might not see, like, this big payout and there's some crazy multiplied shot where it's like, oh, he just scored 150, you know, million. and I didn't even see how he got it. Like, you could clearly see everything he's doing. So, as I said, I still think it's Walking Dead, but I think Star Trek has stuff deeper on. You just haven't figured out yourself how to get there. Well, no. No, I actually have figured out how to get there. I'm choosing not to because I don't find it appealing. So, for you, the game is just Kobayashi Maru is like the wizard mode and then... Yep, that's it. Yeah, okay. Once I've done that, I'm done. This is what I like about Game of Thrones. Sorry, Game of Thrones. about Walking Dead is that I feel that even though, you know, the end, get your 100 walkers or whatever it is, and horde, is, you know, relatively far away, it's achievable, and I've got multiple ways I can get there. I like that. Anyway, there you go. So, Game of Thrones. I can't say that. Walking Dead. Anyway, so there we go. Walking Dead. Metallica versus Iron Maiden. there's been a lot of arguments about this online, which one is the better game. For me, I... And maybe this is the way that... We were just talking about how maybe I don't know the rules all that well. But as I said, I like a game that surprises me and allows me to change my strategy as I'm going through it. And whilst Iron Maiden has a much better rule set, I believe, and Metallica, I still feel I want to play it a certain way, and I do, and I lock myself into this routine. Whereas with Metallica, it's situational. I may be going for Sparky, but all of a sudden I accidentally rebound and get a couple of grave markers down. I'm then going for grave, or maybe I've got into the snake, and the snake's actually a really easy feed. I might go for snake, or on a premium and early, if you get a bit of sideways action and it starts locking them into coffin multiball, oh hang on, I can now do that. Or I can then be focusing on getting into crank it up and then I've got four different crank it ups. That's kind of what I like is the fact that I've got choice as I go through. I think Iron Maiden still gives you a lot of choices with loop, jackpots and building up your power features. I think it still is situational but I guess the main difference is Iron Maiden is a mode based game, even though there's only five modes. And Metallica, there really isn't. I mean, there's features that start, but they're not necessarily modes that you're choosing. So, probably by default a non-mode based game would be more situational than a mode based game. But I agree. I like playing them both. Metallica, I think wins for me simply because it has good shots. Probably the shots aren't as good as Iron Maiden, but you have toys in there as well, okay? You've got the Gravemarker toy, you've got Sparky, and you've got the hammer that hammers the ball into the thing. And the snake. Yeah, and the snake, which is basically a glorified scoop that will sometimes spit the ball directly in the middle to eliminate Marty from my competition. Correct. Sorry, Marty. That's all right. So, Metallica, but it's close. It's very close. All four of those machines, Even from the top eight was relatively close, but the top four, really close. And this is what we say, right? It's non-binary. Fifty Shades of Grey. Fifty Shades of Stern. So the top two are The Walking Dead and Metallica. Both John Bork machines. Both Lime and Sheets coated machines, matey. There's something about that, isn't there? Yeah. What? this is hard because they're both good they both win I want them both to win I actually want them both to win we've actually stopped going by our guidelines we're just talking about the game now versus what's better on home location than tournaments because that was just to weed out some of them because they're all pretty much equal amongst those things now so it's now just to our personal opinions oh man let's just make it nice and simple and just do this If you walk into a room now, Marty, and there's Walking Dead and Metallica sitting right there, which one would you play first? Metallica. Okay. I would go Walking Dead. Right? Okay. If you were driving the bus in a tournament and they said, right, you've got only two machines that you can pick to play your final round. You know, it's three games apiece. It's best of seven. You've got one game to go, and you've got a choice of Walking Dead or Metallica. Which do you choose? I trust myself more on Walking Dead. I think I have a better strategy than other people. It's way more random than Metallica. I would pick Metallica over Walking Dead any day just because I feel I know the rules better and I'm more comfortable with the layout. Crank It Up is one of the best moments in pinball. You know what this is? I would probably choose Metallica if my Metallica was nicer, but it is just the meanest pinball machine that I've ever had in my collection that I've never sold. Yeah, it really is. It's not fun. No, but I haven't done anything. No, I'm not saying whether you had to or not. It's just not fun. Your particular Metallica is brutal by default. And the guy I bought it off, like, you know, Mark. Hi, Mark. Like, he said, like, it was fine at his house. Like, I didn't adjust the slings to be more sensitive. And I've just got to make it easier. I've been saying this for a year, but... Because, I mean, Lyman now has made... I don't know. I mean, the latest Metallica codes, you could almost just keep on backhanding cross, you know, the grave markers. And it's just four shots to get into multiple, and then you can do stuff from there and work towards cranking it up. Yeah. some people think that he's made it too easy. Like, the scores have gone crazy now. Not my machine. My machine's still fucked. Whereas, yeah, he made a lot of things easier on Walking Dead as well. Like, Bicycle Girl happens kind of all the time. Crossbow happens, you know, more often. I mean, what's your strategy from Walking Dead? You pretty much, you've got to start a multiple, and then you go for a mode. I love... Well... No? No. No, my strategy is work towards bloodbath first. So especially first ball, you're trying to get at minimum two sets of targets down. Ball save on, obviously, right? Correct. Yeah. Take the ball save off. What's your strategy? No, even on ball save off, ball one, I'm going for bloodbath. If I don't get it. Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. So I'm trying to at least knock some down. The reason being is I want to get to a stage where if I do happen to then decide to go for a multiball, I've got enough targets down that it's more likely the next set of targets, the first target that it hits, will be the one that I want, be it into food or first aid or whatever it is. And what mode are you going for first if you're not... Barn. Barn. Every time. Just to get some points on the table. The next one after that is Riot is what I would go for. I know you're probably saying CDC. CDC is my third, and then the two right ones are my last. Yeah, it depends if you're playing the pro or the premium. I've disabled the ramp flap on my premium as well, so I've pretty much made it into a pro. So you can get that nice feed and a big kind of CDC payoff if you're kind of spamming that ramp. But, yeah, I mean, my strategy is to go for one of the two multi-balls and work on that and then get into multiball and then go for a mode because I think it's just too risky to send the ball sideways. And I know kind of getting into multiball is risky, but if you get into a multiball with a mode, you can kind of like accidentally stumble across a decent score. Whereas if you, yeah, it's different. And that's why in tournaments at my house, I always disable the ability to start modes during multiple because I think that brings out a way better strategy and it weeds out the weaker players from the really good players. Yeah, the way I see it, for me, simply I'm just in my mind visualising what I would do. If the ball's on the left flipper, I go for prison. If the ball's on the right flipper, I go for... A glancing shot that will go up into riot, a two-for-one. Yep. No, I'll go for Bloodbath until such a point where I'm like, that's enough. And then I will just keep trying to get Prison and then get a mode started. So you think it's Metallica? I think it's Walking Dead. I think it would be a pity to put it up to a random generator number. Why don't we have this as our weekly vote for it on Facebook? All right. People are going to vote for Metallica because it's just Metallica, right? I think they will. I think this is going to be really close. But yeah, as we were just talking about it now, I was hoping that you would suggest that because it just seems silly for it to be actually binary and it just to be a flip of a coin. Both of these machines are spectacular. Both of them. in different ways, but in the same way, in that it makes you feel, as a player, great playing the machine, drip-fed in certain ways, with big payoffs at the end. Yeah. Metallica obviously has better art than Walking Dead. Best home game, they're both going to provide you with great value for money in deep, meaningful rulesets. location wise I think they both do well I think Metallica has been kind of taken off because they were just everywhere for a long time the tournament one is funny we were just talking about it before anyway but Metallica like a person who wins Metallica in a tournament is probably usually the person like on a high level tournament that plays crank it up the best would you be right in saying that? you're going to get good points in multiple but if one person gets them to crank it up and plays it well, they're going to be in a good position. Whereas the mini-wizard modes or wizard modes in Walking Dead, I think, are deeper in the game that it's whoever plays the modes and multiballs the best. Yep, correct. Agreed. Right? Absolutely. So, yeah, that's your tournament argument. I think that's the hardest one. I think... Yep. I don't think it's the winner. Yeah, Mataka has better toys, though. Come on. It has better toys. Yeah. The toys on Walking Dead are actually frustrating because you've got a big bash toy there. Yeah, I know. The prison doors don't work. The prison doors work. They're the most sensitive switch you could ever make, but because of the shape of the head, there's a dead spot to the right, which is just frustrating, right? So you can table the doors. You've got the bicycle girl chick, which is annoying, doesn't do anything. more light on it without a mod and you got the crossbow, which Yeah. Eh. Awesome powers. But, that's how good the game is. What we know about this is, it was the rules that absolutely transformed this game. And do you know what? It's the same thing with Metallica. When Metallica came out, people were like yeah, the layout's good, but rules-wise, it's a bit meh. And then bang, something happened and they've both become Game of Legend. And that is your Stern Battle Royale, which we didn't finish, but it still took us like an hour or something. And I'll put that up on Wednesday or Tuesday. No, do it later. Give enough people enough time to get through this, and then they can vote. Okay. All right. So what did you get up to in pinball this week? This month, you mean, Marty? Yeah. Give me some highlights. Highlights. I won my biggest tournament ever, which is 38 people or so. Got some decent whoppers for that. Yeah, running tournament. I've got, I said Johnny New Monarch, yes. I did a swap for, a temporary swap for Whitewater and Johnny New Monarch, and I pretty much never played Johnny New Monarch, maybe one or two games, kind of in a busy area. Never watched any streams of it. So I was playing a 90s Battlegrounds game for the first time, and I love it, man. Like, I know it has that exploit, which is kind of hard to pull off. I know, you know, top 50 players will just do that all day long, but to do that exploit, Marty, you have to hit the left ramp, then right ramp three times, then spam the spinner, and then start working on your bonus X, and it's not something that you can just hit over and over again like an old game. Like, just shoot, get up top, get it up top. It's not that. So I've been ignoring that exploit and playing the game. And it's true. It's a fast game, buddy. It is. People say it's too fast. I think I actually almost agree with that. It's really fast. It's so fast. But the layout is so good. I mean, the only thing I'd ever change would the pop-up exit, shoving it directly onto the slingshots. But on my game, it hits the lower part of the sling, and you can trip up on the left easily. I like those games, Marty. You like cheesy games. Yeah. Like, the sound package and the whole, like, theme. I know it's a shit movie. Like, that's what I like. And that's what I was talking about before with Stern. Like, all the people at Stern don't like the same things I like. I like Johnny Mnemonic as a theme because of, like, the weird computer sounds that come out of it. Yeah. That's why I like Star Trek as well. Like, it's pleasing to my ears to play that game. The shots are satisfying. obviously still in the honeymoon period but man, if one comes up cheap like, go for it guys if you want a cheap pinball machine from the 90s Johnny Mnemonic isn't a bad game I know you don't like the glove, Marty I actually like the glove No, you know, you can disable the glove so it's actually easy done but what happens when you disable the glove? Do you get a random award? I think that's what actually happens That's part of the strategy The part of the strategy is No, I love Johnny Mnemonic I think it is a great underrated game. What other game allows you to choose what jackpot shots you'll have in multiball, right? Because there's nine different ways to get jackpots in multiball, but you have to choose three of them. You know that, right? Yes. So there's a grid, three by three, and you drop your balls. And wherever you drop your balls for multiball, right, that's your jackpot shot. and there's a little plastic that tells you that. And if you choose three in a row, your jackpots are tripled. So you have to kind of choose the best three. And some of them are like all the inlanes at the top, sorry, the pop bumper inlanes. So you can just have the left, middle, and right inlane be the jackpots. You're just shooting up top all the time. You can have left ramp, right ramp, and spinner. That's pretty cool, man. That's unique. What other game in history has done that? There might be one, but I don't know. Possibly. I don't know. Bring that back. Bring that rule back. That's a cool fucking rule. Choose your jackpot shots. Yes. Awesome. That's about it. Okay. Nothing else significant. Well, something you would know about is that, I mean, you've been saying to me for ages now that I should build a mobile streaming rig. Yeah, just after you spent like millions of dollars on your, you know. No. Well, I'm going to, for the large tournaments, I'm still going to have a multi-camera setup. because particularly on those events, you don't know where the action's going to be, and I don't want to have to stop and move something around. And because it's going to be three days, you know, you can just set it up and it's fine. Switch-a-roo, it's all done. But at Bayside the other night, my mobile... What is it? A little bit confusing, but my mobile version of my setup, which is by my laptop as opposed to a PC rig, just stopped working. So the switching wasn't working, so I ended up just having the play tools being able to be switchable via a hub and then I just had a score cam on a stand that I just moved around and I just thought for events like that absolutely I am now going to be building a mobile rig so that's going to be a bit of fun I am just putting it out there that I may or may not be going to Pinbird so you might not be I might not be work? yep ooh so we'll see we'll see how we go there's actually not just work there's actually a lot of things that are all happening at the same time which are leading me to think ooh maybe I shouldn't so stay tuned okay that was tight yep but there's and there's one other thing that's happened in this week and if you remember last week you know I made the point that everyone's talking about wanting a Rush pinball machine. Okay, yeah. So I didn't get it because I've heard of the band Rush. I've never even heard any of their songs. Well, you know, Tom Sawyer, which is arguably their most famous song, I know of it and I've probably heard of it. Didn't necessarily like it. So I've got to say, I had that many messages from people through the week saying, are you crazy? And, you know, our good friend Steve Gervea, He of the Monkey Mod and the Red Witches. He of the Monkey Mod. He of the Monkey Mod. He's like, apparently, he said, I'm a ginormous fan. So he gave me a list of albums to go back and listen to. And I've done that this week. I've been listening to Rush to determine whether they would make a good pinball machine. And no, God no. But their music is really good. It's actually really good. I mean, it's very sort of, it's bluesy, progressive rock. They did go through that synth phase, which I really like. I do prefer Signals, that album through all the others from that era. But they make really good music, and I love the lyrics and the content. It's all sort of sci-fi fantasy, which is kind of cool. Everything's very layered, their sound. It's actually good quality music. I just don't think it would make a great pinball machine. Okay, there you go. I've done my research, you know. I've done my research. Everyone just email in headtoheadpimble at gmail.com and just your favourite band and Marty will listen to it and determine if it would be any good. Do that. No, honestly, do that because, you know, movies. We talk about movies. If you get me to watch a movie, ugh, could be fucked. But music, I love exploring new music. And funny enough, when I went to TPF, I watched Bohemian Rhapsody three times on the plane, and I've watched it once since. And I decided that... Three times on the plane? Correct. You know, I had a lot of flights. Yeah, I watched it on the way over, one of the domestic flights, and then on the trip back. It's a freaking amazing movie. But, you know, I was born in the 70s, so, you know, I was always aware of Queen. I was never necessarily a big fan. so I went back to the very start so 1973 for the first album Queen and then Queen 2 and then I think it's She Heart Attack and then you know Night of the Opera Night of the Racer Day of the Racer I've literally gone and listened to the entire discography of Queen over the last two weeks so I love exploring new music so Rush I'm really enjoying exploring this band So, people, if you think a band that you love, just not Led Zeppelin, I've heard enough of Led Zeppelin, that you think, go back and listen to all their music, write to us, head to headpinball.gmail.com and I'll do it. How well do you know Queen, Marty? Well, I saw them live. It was actually my very first concert I ever went to with Queen with Freddie Mercury. So, I think 1985, it was the Works Tour. I know them extremely well. What's that song? I used to have a Queen playlist I used to listen to in my car like five years ago, and I've lost it. And there was a song that played, and he was like singing almost like classic opera, but it was in like a different language. And then halfway through, it just turns into like this really high-energy music. I'm probably like screwing up all the like the order of how that happens, but do you know what I'm talking about? It could have also been some of his solo work that he did too. Oh, no, I'm pretty sure it was a Queen's, like, a Queen best-of compilation, like, album or something. Right, okay. No. No, actually, no. It's hard to know because their music is so theatrical. That could be any number of their songs, so... Right. But can I just say, can I just say that there's only one song through that entire discography that I had on repeat, and therefore I recommend everybody, please, Go and watch this video. I will put this in the show notes, but watch the video for Queen, The Invisible Man. I am the invisible man. Do you know that song? Yeah. I never knew. I've never heard of that song. It's on the best of. I am the invisible man. Yeah, I've never listened to that. It's got the best. It's right through me. It's got the best bass line ever. The CIA and the FBI. Yeah, I know. I'd never heard of that song until two days ago wow you've got to see this film clip it is hilariously bad okay two more things that I just thought of before we're going to finish up have you mentioned the Do or Die podcast from Raymond Davidson, Marty? no, I haven't no, okay, yeah so if you're into competitive pinball and you want to listen to the world's best player currently Raymond Davidson has his own podcast he's been on our show before and basically he just goes through his tournament experiences and also gives you insanely good tips on his strategy towards playing certain games and what to do and what not to do and what I've kind of discovered from this Marty is that good players often find themselves in really bad situations and it's more about how they recover from that, it's not like yeah, I put up a billion on my first ball and kicked his ass like he's on the ropes all the time. It's how they recover from those shitty situations. And it's good, man. I like the podcast. Yeah, same. I think it's great. I'm going to listen to anyone do a ball-by-ball thing. It's going to be Raymond. Yeah, for sure. So check that out. I think he's got his own website. We'll link it in the show notes. And secondly, the Brisbane Masters. Is it called Brisbane Masters this year? Yeah, BPAC. BPAC, yeah. Yeah, Brisbane, Pimble, something. Yeah, the 10 days thing, we've talked about it before. There's a Pimble Australian competition, maybe, I don't know. They have announced that Bowen Kierens will be attending, right? So it's probably your only chance to play against Bowen in Australia. I'm not sure how often he's going to come. And today they announced that Steve Ritchie is coming down as well. I'm not sure. I don't think Steve Ritchie's going to be playing in the comps, but you can get pictures with him and he can scream at you and you can record your ringtone and all that kind of stuff with him. Yeah, exciting stuff, Marty. Yeah, I reckon that's awesome. Yeah, we might be able to get Bowen down here to Melbourne, possibly. We're working on it, but we will announce that if and when it happens. Awesome. That's it. Ryan, always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you for coming back, and thank you, everybody, for telling Ryan. I would recommend everybody now get on every possible social platform and constantly harass Ryan to come on the show. That would be amazing. Thank you. Harass Gary Stern. Nope. Bring Gary on. Yeah. That is funny. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Danny. Bye. Bye.