I am 100% guilty in this case. I thought Foo Fighters was a boring-ass theme (band quality aside), but I was proven wrong in spades.

Sticking to my guns a bit though, I really truly cannot imagine where to find any fun in the Godfather, despite being an all-time great film. Guess that's why I'm a keyboard commando and not a creator. Prove me wrong, Eric!

That's like 3 months in JJP years.

Hobbit has probably the all-time worst ratio of stuff under the playfield, to fun on top of the playfield, so I wouldn't throw a party over that photo.

Except for the Voldemort poster. That definitely means Harry Potter is next. Go crazy.

Guys.

They're neat, but I'm not sure I ever need the extra length, and they add a few pounds to an already backbreaking game setup.

We have a winner.

Would you like to place a friendly wager.

Eric clearly auditioning for next year's Pinball Life calendar.

Alright guys, acronym time. GF or G50? GF makes me think gluten free, or girlfriend. G50 sounds like a smartphone or a machine gun.

Would you like to place a friendly wager.

Someone else photoshopped it. Everything you don't understand is clearly laid out in this thread. Maybe turn off the internet for the week, give 'er another shot on Monday.

I'm too lazy to look up the dates, but is this their shortest time between titles? Makes sense they'd ramp up to speed with multiple designers on staff now.

"Easy" isn't the first word that comes to mind when looking at that photo. I guess I've never needed to get a Stern playfield all the way out of the cabinet.

Okay, when you put it that way, I can now imagine a Godfather crane. It's incredibly stupid. Quick, someone please imagine a better nonsensical mech to get this image out of my head.

Lebowski rug mech? Sure, I could see it.

Iceman's coffin lock sounds cool too.

Nah, you gotta make the CE more rare than the LE to make CE owners feel special. Stupid, right? I don't make the rules, I just report 'em.

Step one is admitting you have a problem. We're here for you.

Channeling my inner @slamt1lt, I'm pretty sure I was the first to make that joke.

This is why some of us don't lose sleep over a sheet metal head.

I love this place.

Yeah, as is often the case with a more-is-more design philosophy, the cheaper game actually looks classier. One of my friends likes to say Vegas looks like a mob bathroom. So uh, theme integration for the win?

I'm just curious to see how Godzilla shoots with mushy flippers.

Bring on the downvotes!

It's a bit more than that, but yeah, I don't expect this to play like GZ any more than Tron feels like Funhouse.

Hey everyone don't forget to post two giant screenshots every time you misremember an email address.

P.S. It's [email protected], jjpsales would be redundant anyway.

Mission accomplished! Theme integration looks off the chart from the featurette. And I don't mean superficial theme wallpaper like hit a shot, play a clip. They're woven every aspect of organized crime you could imagine into the actual gameplay. Their boardgame analogy was spot on. At first glance it's already like a KME Jurassic Park level of making you feel like you're actually playing the theme, not watching a film.

Massive kudos to Eric, Keith and whole team for what looks like a gargantuan effort to bring this thing to life. It's definitely not a plug & play theme like a superhero flick. So much creativity poured into every aspect. Layout looks super interesting as well. And those topper knockers, genius. Should cause a visceral reaction in anyone not expecting it.

All that said, if it feels mechanically like previous JJP titles, I will sadly have little interest in playing more than a couple games to sate my curiosity. They just don't feel like pinball to me. Please, please let this have real flippers & slings.

I will concede it's not my favorite style, but is probably as good as it could possibly look when dealing with an ancient, revered franchise with fairly dark/dreadful subject matter. Keefer said it best in the featurette, these aren't action movies, they're dramas. Hard to make something like that visually stunning but they've done a great job, all things considered. And it's a nice contrast to Stern games for those who don't like Zombie Yeti's color explosions (which I love).

Most of the things that make I and II great films would also make a boring game. You want a mode where it's just Fredo's monologue bemoaning his place in the family hierarchy?

If we're paying for it (and we are) I'd rather they spend the money on something I can see while playing, or just not spend it at all and keep costs "low."

Oof, you're not wrong. JJP needs to make a clean break from whatever candy crush slot machine sound library they've been dipping into since WOZ. Really breaks the vibe this game should (in my opinion) have. Sounded fine for TS4 I guess; not here.

Anyway, I'm playing it tonight! Will report back tomorrow during our regular 9 to 5 group therapy session.

Played a couple different LEs last night, some quick impressions.

Sounds are much less wozzy in person. I don't know why the video came across that way, but I wasn't really bothered in person. I wouldn't say I loved the music & sounds, but they didn't really stand out to me, for better or worse. Maybe I'm just accustomed to what a JJP sounds like at this point.

Flippers are MUCH improved. Easily shoots better than any JJP ever, hands down. I am one of the biggest longtime critics of their game feel, which I generally detest, but credit where it's due, they changed something, and it seems to have worked. There are a couple long ramp shots up the middle, nailed them consistently no problem, with strength to spare. If there's any fade I didn't play long enough to notice it.

Slingshots are better than TS4, which if I heard correctly actually had weaker coils than standard. These feel back to normal I suppose, no weak ping-pong effect but no hard Stern snap either. They're fine.

Gameplay is, I have say, overwhelming, borderline indecipherable. At first I can make sense of things when nothing is running, but it's pretty easy to start a couple of the multiballs, and when you get into one, hoo boy. Everything seemingly stacks with everything. All the games I played had at least one three-MB stack, and once I'm pretty sure I stacked a 4th, but who could tell. Each with its own rainbow seizure of LEDs going, plus whatever mode(s) you start without even trying.

Best comparison I can think of is, I'm not a good POTC player, but once or twice I've had like 4 or 5 of the movie mutliballs running, where the whole game just goes nuts. GF is like that, except waaay easier to start. I was getting the megastack every game. Folks who like that will love this. It's just too much for me.

I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay as described in the featurette, but I feel like most of the rewarding stuff or complex strategy will be obscured by the megastack, with no real feeling of accomplishment. I guess owners who study and play it a bunch will eventually gain comprehension of the rainbow multiball blur.

Other observations, from more of a mechanical/layout angle.

That long straight wireform to right inlane feed is AWESOME. Bounces off the target and feeds the flipper faster than seems possible. Love it. If you're not on your toes, power inlane drain. Never seen anything else quite like it. Some real layout/geometry innovation that I expect to get copied.

There are definitely a ton of diverters and whatnot. As you're making shots I hear stuff in the upper/back portion of the game clicking & moving around, but I can't make heads or tails of what is changing or why. Sometmes when you hit a shot it comes out one way, or another way, or stops the ball. Okay, neat, but it doesn't really seem to add up to anything. Like the parts are greater than the sum. It's more confusing than satisfying to put a ball up into that nest of shots and wonder where it's going.

There's a magnet in the back left corner that grabs a ball, drops a little diverter panel, rolls it into the back of the spinning disc, which then lowers the drop target to release it. Or at least I think that's what happens. I'm 6'5" and I have to tiptoe to see what's going on back there. It sure is a lot of stuff, but I don't know if it adds anything for me. Just seems like fancy ball stoppage.

Of the two I played, one had a horrible return off the big ramp u-turn. Every time you shot the right ramp and it came down the left ramp, straight down the middle. Like, unforgivably bad feed, death shot. Hopefully it was just mis-leveled or something. The other game was fine.

Good question! GF scores higher than any JJP, by a ton. I had seemingly average games in the 50 million range. A much better player than me put up 270 mil, including a single mode cashed out for 120 mil. A billion would seem to be in reach.

Cabinet and backglass are stunning in person. Vibrant, crisp, saturated but not cartoonishly so. Cab decals are satisfyingly slick & glossy. Very high-end feel. Really enjoy the art deco flourishes in the backglass.

The stained glass-like display/interface is work of art all its own. So many thoughtful details, like the border of the inner section being used for timers/meters. If only they could limit the stacking to let you appreciate one or two things at a time, it would be super useful to glance up at.

Godfather flippers feel pretty good, and I can't stand the feel on previous games. They definitely changed something.

They are. No "lead in" ball guide for the upper one, you just have to 100% nail it between two standup targets, Houdini style.
tiiight.png

Hater, haters, haterz. Why are you guys so worried about what someone else doesn't like?

Fredo still getting stepped over from beyond the grave, just brutal.

You don't say.

I keep hearing this, but it's a band-aid at best. I don't mind if one or two MBs are easy to start. What I mind is that when you start one, everything else follows. Okay, make them all harder to start. Now I get the megastack on ball three instead of ball one. What I want is to play a little bit of MB and a mode or two on each ball, spread out so I can enjoy them. And make me start a mode before the MB so there's at least a modicum of strategy.

So... not firm.

It's hard to get all the stuff to assemble machines. CEs have more stuff and all of it is custom. So they can either let the line sit idle and go broke to avoid "punishing" a grown man buying a $15k toy, or just crank out product and make payroll.

Maybe they design all the CE accoutrements last and just don't have all the custom parts in hand to build them yet.

"Everything but the fun!" ™

(I can't take credit for that line; a friend came up with it.)

I use a different brand of foaming glass cleaner seemingly identical to Sprayway, and it's by far the least streaky product I've ever used, any kind of glass.

Yup, not a fan.

Pretty sure the "fix" is to use the upper flipper every time it exits there, but I haven't played it enough yet to always know when it's going to do that. And during multiball I can't always look up. Might just be like the TZ autolaunch, flip or drain.

Sometimes pitch is a factor too, because a ball coming down at a slight angle tends to veer more to the side at a shallow pitch. Unless that Godfather feed is dead straight vertical, pitch will impact it.

I didn't realize what a difference it makes to light whole backglass all the way around the screen. Beautiful.

Hot glue, baby!

I always thought SW would be less annoying if the multipliers were always on, and hitting the button moved them one to the right (wrapping around of course). The fact that you can accidentally turn them off is especially punishing for casual players who barely understand them in the first place.

Probably the best illustration of bang for the buck in pinball history. Upvoted.

Wait 'til you guys see the third option.