Three games. But only one is released. We'll see the second next week.

Then we see if jjPotC was a fluke and he has a sophomore slump, or if he's the real deal.

Definitely. I don't have the patience to listen to the poor production values of 90% of the pinball podcasts out there, and the blathering in need of a serious edit on the other 9.5% turn me off, too. It's EXTREMELY rare that I listen to even part of a podcast. The only Kaneda one I even sought out was the Franchi interview (that was Kaneda, right?) and even then I just hopped through that segment skipping the filler, and that's it.

With Axl's rep showing up VERY late for concerts, it's a GnR move though. On brand.

$1/play default pricing confirmed.

So has Kanadah gushed about it changing pinball, ordered his and then cancelled it yet? That's his MO, isn't it?

Given that the seller couldn't be bothered to change every picture from Sony to Yamaha, I'd pass. Is he selling a Sony setup or a Yamaha setup? All his others are Sony.

20% negative feedback for that seller in the last 30 days is the final nail in the coffin.

Mid level and up Yamaha receivers are fine. Denon receivers are okay, depending on the model. Sony is meh. Run from Onkyo and Pioneer. They're the same now and total crap, even in the mid-tier units that used to be pretty well constructed.

I used to be hardcore Onkyo until we had two different models of receivers (one was like $1500, the other was like $800) in two different rooms fail a few years apart because of poor components. Support was a nightmare to get them first to admit the problems, then to pay for the shipping to get them fixed (I wasn't paying for THEIR clear defects). They eventually made them both "secret recalls," but the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth and I was done with getting a new Onkyo every 3 years or so.

Rather than get a middling complete system, I'd put most of your money into a nice mid-tier receiver and just a couple speakers (in ceiling or stand up) and then expand the speakers as you can until you have a full, great system. You might also want to troll the bulk auction sites. Receivers pop up there pretty frequently that are open box with warranties left that sometimes sell for 20% of retail price. You might have to buy a lot of items on a pallet or something and sell the excess, but depending on your luck and how much work you want to do, you can end up with a much nicer system than you thought you could afford.

There are a bunch. Here is one example that happens to have Denon receivers up at the moment. They're too low-end, but it will give you the idea for when they have better ones up:

https://online.auctionnation.com/items/keyword_denon/hsearch_y

There's also liquidation.com, direct liquidation, prime auctions, etc, etc. The liquidation and surplus auctions are where you can get the best deals, but sometimes you have to work a little for it. If you have more time than money, that's not a problem.

I'm sure you have some smaller places that do this in your area or not far from you that you don't even know about.

Also, don't let distance discourage you. If the site allows remote payment, you can arrange to have it picked up by a freight company, or if it's just one item, you can pay a task rabbit person $30 or so (depending on location, the costs change, urban areas are way more expensive) to pick it up and take it to a Fedex shipping depot to have it sent to you. If the deal's really good, none of these expenses will change the value much and they open up a lot more possibilities. As long as you're dealing with a reputable liquidator of the types I mentioned, there's nothing to worry about.

Yeah, we're currently with all Denons except for one room with a Yamaha in the house and have been very satisfied.

So, on brand for a sex, drugs and rock & roll to excess pin?

Historically, I only make graphs for Stern, and usually only Gomez atrocities. That said, if JJP someday stoops to Stern level antics with unfinished code, etc, I reserve the right to change my stance. Stern's been behaving overall (JP topper DLC excepted), so there hasn't been too much to get up in arms about with Stern lately.

I have sent Jack some pictures to prompt him to spill the beans publicly on pinball's worst-kept, most anticipated secret, though. Today it was a bullet with a rose end...
GnR-Bullet (resized).jpg

You obviously aren't familiar with...splatter.

Toy Story is Lawlor. He ain't doing a widebody.

I think he meant before JJP shuts the book on Widebody pins.

I think you're basically saying you prefer what you've seen of Eric's talents over Pat's recycling old stuff he's already done over and over. I don't disagree. Hoping Eric doesn't have a sophomore slump with GnR. His work on jjPotC was only fully appreciated once you couldn't buy one anymore.

I'm just dead chuffed that Pat's preference for standard width pins won out and Eric can't do another widebody masterpiece with GnR. That's two terrible things Pat's influenced at JJP.

Remember how proud JJP was to point out that WoZ was the same dimensions as TZ way back when WoZ was in development?

"Oh, by the way.......the Wizard of Oz is a Wide Body Game! It is the same dimensionally as a Twilight Zone."

WoZ and jjPotC are better than anything Pat's put out with JJP so far. What do they have in common? Widebodies...and not Pat's rehashed, repurposed low-imagination stuff just recycled from his old pins.

You're right. But his terrible headphone jack placement move to your knees from the just fine placement on the door is a done deal and a change for the worse I can bitch about now.

Yelobird is right, though. I'll save my righteous bitching for things that a designer did, not things that he may have influenced but haven't happened yet. But when that DOES happen, open season on bitching about it, like the inexplicably terrible headphone jack move on JJP machines from the convenient location on the coin door to the wildly inconvenient area by your knees.

If it does, it's poorly designed. Widebodies just allow more toys, interactions, and action. In the hands of a good designer, it can be great.

Twilight Zone, Indiana Jones, WoZ, and jjPotC are all widebodies and all have great action and toys. ST:TNG is a little slower, but still great.

Judge Dredd, Demolition Man, Popeye, and Roadshow are B/W widebody clunkers IMO. All the Data Waste and SEGA widebodies are clunkers. Go back to the solid state era pre-dmd and almost all the widebodies are slow clunkers by today's standards (though all the Ataris sucked, even back in the day).

Guns n Roses, Batman Forever, WWF Royal Rumble (worse than Sterns, if you can imagine it).

I'm not saying YOU can't like WWF Royal Rumble, but it's a crap game, IMO, and market pricing reflects that.

GnR and Batman Forever are just okay. WWF? Nope.

The pricing reflects that. WWF is about 1/3 the price of a GnR and half to 2/3 the price of a Batman Forever.

When you don't tend the field, it becomes overgrown with weeds.

It caught fire months before the chest mod came out, only about a month or so after JJP discontinued it. It had to to with people finally being able to play one and realize how awesome it is.

You know, on second thought, I think you're right. The price acceleration started in Dec-ish, and I think that was a month or two after the chest mod info was out.

Hated Deadpool Pro. Loved the Premium. Give the Prem a shot.

The main thing is the lack of a right flipper return because there's no ramp to complete the orbit. But the missing drop targets and disco ball definitely changes the experience. Same reason I hated Star Wars Pro, but liked the Premium. The missing death star shot changes things.

TMNT got some pretty overwhelmingly positive response to leaks just before the official stuff. But for every TMNT there's half a dozen that are destroyed from the pics.

Eric will bring it. The only downer is it's not a widebody.

And not all for the better...

Seems like the area below the lower inserts is a 6-shooter gun barrel.

Pretty sure there are exit 1" rubber on the apron side with a switch in each like on WoZ, jjPotC, etc.

And two out of three were disappointing games. There's a million ways to slice the data...

Wait, so how did Kaneda explain coming back from exile? I thought he was out of pinball.

I hope Eric knocked it out of the park, I'm a huge fan of what he did on jjPotC. But just remember when Kaneda was freaking out ahead of time about the underwhelming Willy Wonka with protein-chain superlatives being drizzled all over his podcast. None of them were actually true once people got to play it.

It wasn't just you. I've been around pinball for a long time and I almost got locked out of jjPotC after I got hit by disc-gate and trunk-gate and canceled my preorder. Fortunately I was able to change course once it was obvious it was a masterpiece and got a NIB literally a few days before they dried up.

But Wonka? We'll have to agree to disagree there. It's the only JJP I never bought (I even bought Hobbit!) because every time I play it I get hung up on it's failure to come close to its potential with recycled PL ideas and a dearth of toys compared to jjPotC.

Fortunately GnR is Eric again and I'm hyped for it.

Probably a playfield lighting effect that's similar to the star map idea on jjPotC.

My question is, who is that 7' tall dude at the end of the line? He looks like a giant.

Could be trying to pay homage to the Data East by putting a G and R on the playfield in lane guides.

That explains why you look enormous. Thanks for clearing that up!

Oh, and while you're here, for your next pin, PLEASE look at using AC power cords for the main machine connection with server style clips so they can't wiggle out over time. Just did troubleshooting on another machine where tried a bunch of stuff and it turned out that the power cord was just barely making intermittent connection on the back, having wiggled loose over time. They're likely around $1 or less in quantity.

Something like:
http://www.mca-midwest.com/stcableclip.html

They should have swept the awards last year with jjPotC, but the late rollout and limited access by voters to actual machines really screwed them (and Eric) over.

6:06AM would be pretty awesome, in honor of the first GnR first show on June 6th 1985.

But then again, JJP could do 6:06PM in honor of Axl and the classic band being notoriously late to concerts in the years since.

Noooooo...

eric-nightmare (resized).jpg

Get rid of the bandanas and neck gaiters in that picture and that's a model group of mask-wearers. According to a recent study, neck gaiters and bandanas actually spread 125% of the virus that hits them by breaking larger COVID bits into smaller ones that stay airborne longer. It's the reason they're now outlawed at DisneyWorld - science. Clear face shields without a mask used in conjunction do exactly nothing according to that study as well.

I didn't know there had been followup, but that article doesn't say the conclusions are wrong, but that they were "overblown and misleading." It seemed like their biggest sniff was that the researchers measured the masks with only $200 worth of equipment, so it couldn't be good.

I couldn't find any followup that said their conclusion was wrong. The complaints were the low-budget testing and that they only tested one kind of neck gaiter. So, I'll keep recommending only non-woven surgical-style and N/KN95 masks.

Slash would agree. Axl would disagree. See? On topic again.

Best music was not Iron Maiden (and I like Maiden music). It wasn't even original music. jjPotC has a FANTASTIC soundtrack. Like, Oscar-level stuff. I would literallly catch myself musing at how awesome a particular theme was while I was playing.

Best theme - yeah, I do not think jjPotC was a great theme so you can have that one.

I'd like to think I was reasoning, but I'm not going to get into a shouting match about it because big picture it's not that important.

I do think Eric and the whole jjPotC team was robbed of the accolades they deserved by achieving the level of game they did due to timing and residual effects from Disc and Trunk-gate. Hoping with jjGnR things are a lot different if it's as refined as jjPotC.

It's just weird that @ltg, one of their support people, wouldn't be one of them.

Sam. Of course.

sam_got (resized).jpg

It's mostly the set list from the Not in this Lifetime Tour. "Used to Love Her" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" are notable omissions as are some of the other covers, but it's essentially the Tour setlist.

~150 of those extra CE lights are on the back and bottom of the cabinet, so not really IN the game.

I don't know. I'm assuming you still get the modes, but get an instrumental or a substitute song. Maybe one of the Slash originals he made for the machine?

JJP pins have generally awesome, granular control over LED levels, so I'm assuming you can turn them down to comfortable levels, and I definitely would. "Eye bleeding light show" isn't an attractive selling point to me, but I do like the light shows they have, just at more reasonable levels.

What happened to the launch streams? I thought the people that got it in advance were supposed to be streaming it today...?

Six songs are blocked if family mode is on.

Which one are they streaming? LE or CE?

Thanks for clarifying!

I initially said 4 when I made the list, so that may have come from me, but I corrected it to 6 within the first hour.

All is explained here, with a link to TWIP that backs it up.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-jjp-game-announcement-coming-soon/page/65#post-5888757

Five songs on the list have F-bombs, there are no radio edits, and one song is unlockable, so 6 songs will be excluded out of the box.

"You Could Be Mine" seems pretty mild with just a bitch and some drug reference, so it may actually be there and the "missing" song may be the unlockable one that's on the list.

TWIP says "The game ships with 15 songs enabled – the 6 containing explicit content are disabled by default" - but I think they probably just are wrong, counting the locked song as a missing explicit content song, when it's really 5 explicit songs and 1 locked song that has to be earned which results in the 15 of 21 songs enabled out of the box since it ships with adult OFF. 5 more are enabled as soon as you turn on adult mode and the last one has to be earned.

I updated the track listing I posted to reflect this, which is what I think is the correct info.

That whole period was BS. There was a Janet Jackson album that had one or more filthy songs on it that you could buy at Walmart, no problem because her image had been clean to that point, but known "bad" bands with much LESS controversial content were rejected.

I'm actually very glad this isn't a Beatles situation with crappy still photo montages and short 45 second song clips. Looks like a hit.

I think a Nintendo Worlds pin would be a better idea than picking just one property. There's a TON of great IP in Nintendo's portfolio and you could do all the popular stuff and also tuck in weird stuff like Tingle or Captain Rainbow, too.

If they weren't done after Hot Wheels abysmal sales failure.

AP has a management problem that is probably too far ingrained to fix at this point. Spooky has way more direction and game than AP, with way less financial backing.

Houdini was on the cusp of profitable with like 700-750 units sold, then Oktoberfest, the theme no one wanted or asked for, sold about half that. And Hot Wheels, by my estimation, has sold half Oktoberfest numbers. That is a DIRE trajectory. 150 games is an abject failure. And the lack of operator support on Houdini by letting a bug that literally made the audits unusable for more than 6 months showed that AP wasn't serious about the location/operator market. We were done after that.

The bar owner at the location we put jjPotC said that about it the day it was installed. He kept raving that it was the best pinball experience he'd ever had. And that was no small statement since we kept that location stocked with AAA games like AfMrLE, Iron Maiden Prem, Batman '66 SLE, WoZ, etc.

So I'm happy to hear that based on your friend's raving, Eric may have avoided the sophomore slump and hit another home run with jjGnR.

I just want to see some truly new toys/mechanics from him. Lawlor is deep into career-recycling mode for his last, what, 5 pins? I've owned most of them and am just not feeling it. At least he was TRYING with the micro pinball feature of Shrek/Family Guy (which were not great pins), but it wasn't fun, unfortunately. Fingers crossed that I don't see a collection of rehashed features on Toy Story. Eric at JJP and Keith at Stern have spoiled me with fun and innovation at both ends of the pinball BoM spectrum.

Even edgier - Hairy Pooter and include the period pieces.

I love Breaking Bad to death, but I just don't see how it would make a fun pin. Might as well try to do Schindler's List:The Pin.

On KISS the Gene head locks balls and "spits" them onto the playfield.