By the time I read this, this had 33 downvotes and no upvotes. WTF is going on on Pinside now? This is NOT an immflamatory post! True, Mr. Dr. Frightener has posted plenty of polemic stuff, but not this. Clearly people are just downvoting without reading.

Be better Pinside. In fact, Be Best.

Why is plain JP cab cool and iconic but Willy Wonka plain cab is a disaster?

That’s something I obviously care a lot about. Now you have me worried about it.

Right. People slam Wonka because of asset misuse. JP has NO assets and gets off scot free? Doubt that.

Exactly. Thank you for admitting it.

This is what the world is these days. Pinside is simply an extension of our lazy, ignorant world. Proudly expressing opinions literally based on....nothing. And in the US, it comes straight from the top.

Dude, are you from Canada or what? What’s with the constant “aboot”? If you live in MI, write Amercan!

Sometimes I read his posts and sometimes not. And yeah, most of the time he’s talking out of his ass. The only reason I even read the long post in question is because I expected it to be ridiculous and incendiary. And it had 33 down votes. But it was actually a reasonable, fairly well informed post that was hardly insulting or provacative. And yet it had 33 downvotes.

I don’t take most of the dude’s posts very seriously, but I won’t take people seriously at all that downvote any pinsider posts that they do not bother taking the time to read.

Totally fair point, but I think most of us will agree that the reason we go apeshit over our favorite themes is because of the movie - and all the relevant assets - from the movie!

X-MEN and Avengers, to name two, are two very good games that absolutely got eviscerated because they weren’t based on the movies. That’s what we WANT! That’s why themese are popular in the first place. A JP pinball machine in 2019 with an LCD screen and stereo sound THAT DOESNT HAVE MOVIE ASSETS is a freaking FAIL!

And people complain about Star Wars! SW has every asset you want, VERY well integrated with the game. The ATTRACT mode in SW is better than 90% of every game ever, themewise. And it’s a fast, hard game (The King!) with deep addictive rules to boot, and it just gets shit on over and over.

The new JP may be fun as hell, with a great layout and great toys. But to tell me the movie assets don’t matter for this game is just a disingenuous, lame fucking lie.

Uh, wut? You’re joking right? The fact that neither of these games had call outs from the movie actors is basically what sunk them. X-MEN suffered from bad code out of the gate, but Rare Hero’s incessant rants about the callouts gathered critical mass and eradicated any hope that improved code - WHICH HAPPENED - could save the game.

Avengers was doomed from the start for the exact same reason. Yes, there were QC issues, but the fact that the Avengers movie actors weren’t in the game doomed it.

Both games are good, but the lack of movie assets sealed their fate.

Are you really disputing this?

What movie animations? There are none. You’re barking up the wrong tree here Flynnabutt.

Whatever. I guarangoddamntee you that if Hugh Jackson and Halle Berry’s voices are in XMEN from the get - go, all early code sins are forgiven and it goes down as one of Sterns best modern era games. But now LEs - packed LEs! - sell in the 4’s. The market decided this, not you or I on Pinside.

You’re conflating the benefits of comic art (versus actor based photoshop) with the notion of an actual theme. Comic books don’t really have a theme do they? Oh, well, maybe, if you’re a dork.

The fact is that people want what they saw in the movies. Your false equivalent is akin to cover bands - or karaoke mixes - taking the place of the actual fucking songs in a music pin.

I can’t believe I’m even arguing this point. Twice! Pinside has spoken and the world, as ever, has voted with their wallets. When the movie assets aren’t done right, the games lose their luster. Every. Fucking. Time.

Don’t be obtuse.

I’ve owned both game dude. I know all the history. Do you? Grayson‘s dad might be a little slow.

You’re talking art dude. Not theme integration. Any moron can agree that hand drawn art is better than photo shop. The rules were fixed. And X-MEN is fucking loaded. So why do LEs sell in the 4’s? You know why, because nobody gives a rats fucking ass about comic books (X-men or otherwise) aside from cool art.

Do comic books talk? Do they have a soundtrack? Do they have MASS CULTURAL APPEAL and iconic status? I’ll answer for you. No, they don’t. You know what do? Movie franchises. People fucking lose their shit over the good ones. They gross billions of dollars in days.

I feel I’m arguing with double digit IQs tonight.

You've probably been speaking American every single time you’ve uttered a word in the English language for as long as you’ve lived. But whatever man. You do you.

Ok, so why did they tank? Give me the #1 reason.

Bullshit. Every person in the world that has spoken a word of “english” in the last 50 years is basically speaking the American version of it. And Europeans speak better English than Americans.

Ironic isn’t it?

Better classy than ignorant.

You really haven’t played very much pinball, have you?

I think I agree with you there gramps, but seriously, you should watch a movie sometime. Good bang for your entertainment dollar. Of course, not as good as a solid record album.

LOTR. Photoshopped playfield, and yet arguably the greatest fucking game of all time. Why?

Ok.

Love ya Grzzzz. Not even sure if you’re on my side here, but doesn’t matter. You rock. You rarely (not never ) say stupid shit!

Eh, yeah, the code is great. But so is the code on BM66, and that game can’t hold LOTR’s jock. It’s the call outs! its the movie assets! And the Gimli actor doing the custom work. MOVIE Gimli, not the book’s Gimli, who can’t really talk now can he?

The MOVIE. Not the book. I’m sure 90 purists out of 100 will say the LOTR book trilogy is more satisfying than the movie. But books do shitty callouts. And so do comics. And cartoons? They suck the most.

You come to NYC and the hardcore club and dinner/booze is on me.

Hey, do they still make that beer with the jalapeño pepper in it in Cave Creek? Because THATS what this thread should be about.

I’ll let you define “hardcore”.

For the first time in history, Pinside has decided not to care about movie assets. Progress!

There’s a movie?

Lol dude. BKSoR is a lot closer to BM66 in the ratings (27 to 20) than BM66 is to LOTR (which is #5 with over 5 times as many people rating the game).

You were railing on me earlier for “my opinion”, and now you’re ragging Hazoff about “consensus”.

And yet you’ve rated 54 machines on Pinside. Don’t you have anything better to do?

You said that my saying BM66 can’t hold LoTRs jock “was just my opinion.” An opinion shared by over 1,000 other Pinsiders and probably 100,000 pinheads worldwide. The numbers really don’t lie in this case.

Just like BKSoR. You then say the “consensus” (not opinions?) is that the game sucks - based on what? Anecdotal evidence by a bunch of Pinside haters? Pinside says that BKSoR is pretty decent (ranked 27th). Almost as decent as BM66.

No, I don’t care about ratings, but they seem to bear out your hypocrisy in this particular matter quite well, and took all of 1 minute to verify. So why not?

There’s not a lot of empirical evidence to support this statement. The Pinside archives show some sold for a little more than NIB...but they are often modded with hundreds off dollars or more worth of stuff. Many for sale were pulled back. I’d guess because asking prices were not being paid.

Kaneda admits he has over $3k in mods on his SLE, and yet can’t sell it at $18k.

Back to JP2, this game seems promising. The layout looks fantastic and Keith’s rules for IDMN were terrific. I’m not sure how interesting or captivating the storyline will be without movie assets (besides Nedry) but we’ll see. Actually, I’d probably pick Nedry over anyone else for callouts anyway, because his character is hilarious and this could prove to be excellent.

My point earlier wasn’t that movies assets were better, just that Pinside has been highly critical and intolerant of games that didn’t use them (Avengers to name an obvious example). With a franchise as massive as Jurassic Park, I’m surprised there’s isnt more disappointment or outrage.

But I know full well Jurassic Park 2 can still be an excellent game. Avengers is, cartoon callouts and all. And so is Deadpool, to cite a more recent example.

JP2 is looking good.

Exactly. Those games are the best. The JK Simmons call outs for Spider-Man are a great example. At first blush, you think huh, really? But it totally works with the game. He taunts you constantly, and it’s awesome. Way better than Toby McGuire could ever be.

And if I may say so, the movie callouts from the original SM game are way better and more fun than the callouts on SMVE (which are from the cartoon or something? Which few people know, and they’re just not as good as JK Simmons). Of course, I prefer the art on the Vault, because comic art is cool and photoshopped actors are usually boring. One exception for me is LOTR. I actually think the playfield art on that is balanced and well done. The photoshop doesn’t bother me in that one. SW is OK, but they missed an opportunity there, I think.

So Nedry is a very good call (out)!

I’m exhausted watching Elwin play. Wow.

Game is amazing. A lot of work went into it.

This really says it all for Willy Wonka. They kinda screwed up. Wonka might have had a chance to be more impressive than JP, but at this stage, it’s not even close. JP is just way more “pinball”.

I do wish the JP music was a little more rockin’. The game just goes crazy sometimes, an absolute frenzy, and if there was some heart pumping music it would be, er, better IMO. The seemed pretty tame and soundtracky, but I might be wrong about this, as I was concentrating on the gameplay and mostly other stuff. But because I didn’t really notice the soundtrack, I’m worried it’s kinda tame.

But even so, you’re battling dinosaurs and shooting missles and in Wonka you’re collecting Wonka Bars.

Oh shit...Spoiler Alert!

I agree. The animations are great, but there aren’t enough of them. More variation would make the animation package more impactful. It seems the same animations over and over, and since there isn’t a traditional mode based “story” to a music pin, the animations feel a little static.

But the game kicks ass, and Dirty Donny’s art is outstanding. JP art package not close. And I’ll be interested to see if the JP animations and voice actors get a little old or grating after awhile. We’ll see.

Yeah, and an all green, flat, “candy land” game board...without the candy... taking up the entire middle of the playfield is so much better.

Wow, was that an oversight/mistake by Trudeau or Stern? Or intended?

That would be a trip if the entire geometry of the game was based on his traditional gap, but in reality the gap is twice as wide as usual.

Ok so this. Which should (negatively?) impact all the shooting angles? I actually don’t mind how it shoots. I mind how some of the ramps reject the ball or slow it down.*But wait, Stern probably orders playfield multiple times, depending on long term, demand. So do some tables have a smaller flipper gap? If not, why not?

JP’s shots seem pretty locked in, if you hit them correctly. Keith’s timing on that upper flipper after a loop return is downright jaw dropping. His reflexes are pretty amazing. And his touch, and shot making and decision making.

Dude should be a fighter pilot!

So is the playfield art.