It was great to see you there. It was a great expo for sure. I also really liked cyclops. Pinbrawl was fun. Glad you had a great trip.

I respect that you enjoyed it but find it a bit insulting to lump everyone's opinion into a "group think" mentality. You seem to be a very competitive player who is very focused on deep rules and scoring strategy. But for so many pinheads like myself .. we're more blown away by mechanically complex toys, light shows, playfield art, etc. etc. Controlled drop targets? Neat. But not something that makes the game "one for the ages" on its own. Not by a longshot. And certainly not at this price. But to each his own.

I'm curious where you felt the P3 was still lacking? (or "almost"?) I tend to agree and have my own thoughts ... I'm just curious what yours were. Thanks for the write up!

Thanks for the rundown. Any other AZ guys make the trip with you?

I missed seeing you pinlawyer!

Great feedback, thanks! I've felt the same on some of your points but I cannot say I've yet had the chance to play it. But watching many videos ... there are some aspects I think need continued work (but they're heading in a direction with a lot of potential.)

Thanks again.

Greg it was great to meet you!

Cool. I will be meeting Mark on the 25th, and I'm guessing I will be meeting you then as well.

EDIT: I didn't know Xpin was local. I've followed the America's Most Haunted build from the beginning and that display looks great in that machine.

I don't see how p3 can "not feel like pinball". It is pinball not a vid. It has flipper and a real ball. The physics cant be off. They're actual physics not emulated by software. If they feel wrong, then the perception of what they should feel like is the problem. All that being said, I'm buying a p3 preorder as soon as I get my hobbit preorder money back.

So did I. Was looking forward to meeting another classic Stern lover.

Good critique. Let me go a bit further. Bear in mind, I love the P3 concept. I was a cheerleader for it after I played the original demo unit. The problem isn't P3 - the problem is this game, Lexi Lightyear. It's a bad game. Multimorphic are pretty brilliant engineers - but they're not artists or storytellers and they NEED one on staff. You hit start, you see warehouses....bland warehouses...it's all grey and green. Boring text font and arrows telling you what to shoot. You can start modes like Bigfoot farting around a swamp or helping some redneck guy assemble something. Where is Lexi!? Where's the space adventure!? Why is the mascot of the game absolutely absent? It's like playing a Super Mario game where there are just mushrooms and turtles running around.

All of the video stuff is too "literal" to the view of the pinball player....that is, everything is as though there's an overhead camera. You're looking at the top of Bigfoot's head, the redneck's head. It's visually unappealing and the wrong way to go, IMO.

Speaking of visually unappealing, the graphics and art are just terrible. They've changed to a bit of a cel-shaded style, but it doesn't help. Everything is still grey and green and drab. These are graphics from 1995....and this massively hurts the product. If the idea is that this is going to be out on route and attract new players - these graphics will TURN THEM AWAY! I think in Multimorphic's mind, the mediocre art is acceptable because this is so new for pinball...that's Pinhead Logic...but to the Average Joe who's lived through 4 Playstations and 3 Xboxes, they're going to look at the Lexi graphics and think this is an OLD game from the 90's. Visually it's that massively backwards.

I've always said I love Revenge from Mars cuz it's just an awesome, fun and appealing game - not just because of the tech. P3 needs a game that blows you out of the water with - this tech with poor presentation completely defeats the entire project. They need to hire a professional art director/character designer, animation director/storyboard artist. With that giant monitor - I imagine you pressing start and a really cool intro movie begins, showing Lexi on some space mission...maybe while the movie is playing, the ball launches to "warm up" the player...and when you flip, the ball hits Lexi's ship, causing it to crash...which begins the game and gives you a connection to the story - so you don't feel like Azpinlawyer did when playing!

One more thing - I love the idea of the art on the monitor reacting to the ball, slings, and flippers. There was a cool burst or explosion effect that comes off the slings. I think using this for cool presentation over gameplay might be the way to go. The problem is, when you're trying to "hit" things that are on the monitor, there's no tactile response, so it lacks the satisfaction one gets of hitting physical things in pinball. Also, there's an issue of thinking you hit something but it not registering. There was some small trinket I was supposed to shoot and "collect"...I clearly "hit" it, but it didn't give it to me....that was annoying. I think the screen will be more fun if the ball is making animated paths/trails, doing funny stuff to characters, and dynamically changing to different types of "animated playfield art" based on game progress or modes.

I was able to meet both of you guys this year for the first time. Met Greg in Expobrawl and talked to him a few time in the hallways. He does have a lot of nice classic Sterns and may have him convinced that he needs a Cyclopes too.

Bill, loved, Loved, LOVED your Quicksilver. That was one of the games that kept making me go back to the free play annex room. I think my ears are still ringing from that sub that was connected to it!

Greg, as always nice chatting with you. The clunker game and I made it back safely.