People can complain about the SDTM reviews all they want, but as I’ve said for a couple of years now, I encourage anyone to use the same categories and with the same keyboard used to question our work, type up your own grades with short explanations in each category. Hell I’ll add up the totals for ya.

I love pinball. I love information. I love data sets used to rank and quantify things.

We are the only ones doing thorough reviews in pinball and I’m open to others. Go on, give it a try.

Yes, linear would be terrible. The issue was (at the time I had it) nothing was gated - all the content just randomly cycled so even if you played badly you would see it all. There was no reward for getting to 10 adventures so I’m glad they added that.

And no, we still haven’t seen Pure Imagination on Wonka. We’ve only made it to the 4GT mode (Most Secret Machine) 3x - 2 for Susan, 1 for me. And it is a hugely exciting and rewarding mode. That’s what I’m talking about, I want to have to work for something and be rewarded when I do.

you do understand what you are looking at is simply the difference between a 1 piece box with folded sides vs a 3 piece box with cap and bottom pieces?

you also admitted you weren't aware of pretty well known pinball designs and implementations. I'm still confused why people goto the ill-informed for 'reviews'

Wait, stretching saying I’m ill-informed only works if you can back it up. If you’re referring to the ramp mech then that doesn’t work. NGG is not the same mech, neither is RFM, neither is MNF. Very similar to goldeneye mech, but TS4 Duke Kaboom ramp shoots and feels better than all of those. Plus, the Benson posts that come up beside the ramp is an additional bonus.

What am I missing? Or are you just making an attempt to target me as an idiot to make yourself feel worthwhile? Either way, you’re being a turd.

That's kind of an odd statement. Is there an accredited pinball reviewer out there who has gone through some rigorous course of study and apprenticeship that people should be going to for reviews?

A 'review' is just an opinion piece, AFAIK SDTM just does them for entertainment purposes. The only way a review has any relevance imo is to find reviewers who seem to have the same taste that you do in whatever they are reviewing and go from there.

What's this whole "Benson Posts" thing in the game? Are they just up-posts?

I think you've been drinking too much .... I've owned all CGC remakes along with most of the originals, and I can't tell the difference nor can the dozens of people who have played my games.

The posts are a necessity to keep shots from going astray - not a value add.

Focusing on the mechanical implementation in the mech itself when preaching about the entertainment uniqueness is spin doctoring to make something seem more than it is. It’s a disappearing jump ramp. Not a new idea.

I like it’s play value - but the hyperbole is dumb and misleading.

Speaking of hyperbole?

You should re-read what i said.

“ I'm still confused why people goto the ill-informed for 'reviews'

It wasn’t saying he can’t do what he does. I said I’m confused why people take it for a worthwhile review.

The people who have a mission to always be positive tend to lose their objectivity and if I just want a commercial I look forward to their promotion pieces.

Just the up posts that narrow the approach to the jump ramp. No other uses implemented yet

Really the only satisfying shot in the game, and I played it a good deal yesterday. Feels good hitting it and watching the ball go through the hole/hoop/ring of fire (whatever it is) on the upper playfield. Is it better than NGG though? No way. In that game, once it gets up there, multiple things could happen... the single best shot in pinball, which is the hole in one, you could blast the golf cart for points, or the ball could simply pass through and land back on a ramp.

Is that worthy of being renamed in "Benson's" honor?

Fair enough. But if you read about what I was saying, no pinball reviews are "worthwhile". They are all subjective, based on the reviewer's biases. I would argue there is no such thing as an objective review for anything, unless it is testable things like vehicle safety for cars or patient mortality rates in hospitals.

If you watched the review, SDTM was critical of some elements of TS4, wasn't A+ across the board. I disagree with some of their grades, but overall felt it was fair.

Not sure why positivity is an issue. If you are looking for negativity in general then yeah, their reviews are not for you. I see a difference between criticality and negativity though. Some reviewers think you have to tear something down and crap on it to be "fair", I personally can't watch reviews like that, YMMV.

I don't question your love of pinball/info/data. You guys clearly enjoy what you do and it shows! I don't watch your reviews often, but when I do, they are entertaining.

The only valid criticism is the inherent conflict of interest (since you are a distributor of pinball machines). You are much more likely to pull punches rather than speak your absolute truth...trying to avoid biting the hand that feeds!

There is still a big difference between people that are experienced and well positioned to assess a product’s attributes and qualities verse someone just giving their personal perspective. But the world now gravitates to entertainment rather than actual substance.

I didn’t say I’m looking for negativity- but there are lots of people who make a conscious choice to focus on promotion through good. I am saying those types tend to lose their criticality and you don’t get the whole picture IMO

I am in the middle of the review, I like they way you shoot and edit these reviews, well done..

I will say you are probably correct it's a solid B/B+ overall not the best not bad at all. My main issue with the pin is the price and the because TS4 is not my favorite film with Forkey and Gabby.

Guess I just don't understand what you are expecting. Both Greg and Zach have years of experience in the industry both as enthusiasts and as part of their careers and have relationships with multiple manufacturers. They have reviewed multiple machines from multiple manufacturers over the last few years. That is more than 90% of the people in the hobby right now.

Their reviews are broken down into weighted categories and they go through each one and discuss in detail. Its like you are trying to equate them to some TikTok video reaction from someone seeing a pin for the first time who went "Toy Story! Cool!"

Who exactly is out there doing reviews right now that you feel have the proper experience and are well positioned to give reviews that people should find worthwhile?

I agree, SDTM has a vested interest in giving generally positive reviews since they are selling the pins. Still find the reviews worthwhile though while keeping that fact in mind. They do good walkthroughs of the game and their reasoning, guess my expectations just aren't as high as yours.

I think it’s too bad that the distributors are having to “sell” the benefits of this machine to the public on JJPs behalf. All of the hype and defense of TS4 should fall on JJP. Unfortunately the distributors have become the bag holders. JJP needs to adjust their MSRP and bail those out who are stuck trying to move inventory.

Bail out distributors?...please. Distros should be well aware that some titles are hot and some are not. With GZ Premiums, many distributors were cleaning up selling above MSRP. Should they be forced to give Stern the extra profit they were pocketing? Of course not. So, by analogy, expecting JJP to "bail out" distributors is ridiculous.

Or not selling them and trading them to get whatever LE or CE they were trying to get. It got old seeing GZs and DPs being "traded" and not sold. Thankfully I found a great distributor that sold me both at MSRP.

I would love to know what criteria I need to meet in order to be knowledgeable. I’ve been in the industry a good while, I study machines more than most that I know, I contribute quite a bit to the hobby Id like to think, and my full-time job is Pinball.

You’re a sounding a bit like ol Dave Fix now…

Good news!

I'm offering a master class in pinball knowledge! I'm taking applicants now for a 3 hour 1 semester course.
Tuition starts at $15,000.

Only a few slots available!

is this an online class?

Yes, you will receive a PDF degree making you fully qualified to post your opinions about pinball.

What is crazy to me is not so much the SDTM rating of the pin, but where it stands in the list compared to the other pins. I don't have a lot of time on TS4, only played it several times. I just did not want to waste anymore money on it. There were so many other machines at the location I preferred to play, and many of those are below where SDTM listed TS4. I would much rather play/own Tron (ranked the same as TS4) Monster Bash, Iron Maiden, Adam's family, WOZ, Metallica, Cactus Canyon, AIQ, all of which are scored lower than TS4. That is just crazy to me. But I do understand it is just someone's opinion, and I do enjoy you two guys' banter back and forth lol.

The location I played TS4 was here, and you can see the other great pins they had:
https://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/13651-einstein-s-pub-amp-arcade-richmond-tx

https://einsteinspubarcade.com/pinball-games/

Are cold cuts and Shasta included?

Cold cuts AND Shasta? What is this, Oxford?

Demonstrate it. I know many find your content entertaining, but frankly I've never been swooned by any of the commentary or perspectives shared in the stuff I've seen -- in fact I've found most to be a detriment. You guys found an audience and with your production and on-camera skills... working that into something much larger, including gigs with manufacturers. Kudos - you guys are the premier pinball youtube content generators. But frankly none of that brings credibility in actual game topics for me - that just means you are respected talent when it comes to video content. I love Jeremy Clarkson... but I would never turn to him for ownership insights. He's not there for knowledge or true perspective - he's there for entertainment. He was a journalist before - not a mechanic.

Your following didn't come from your pinball savviness - it came from being a polished form of media and entertainment that evolved into being a source of news and professional content. So you're a great conduit of information for people and you created a platform to curate other new creators. I applaud you for that success. It doesn't mean I hang on any of your commentary -- the shows I've listened to or watched mainly came from what else was brought to the show (a person, a product, etc).

I have to agree. This analysis is dead on. Entertainment and information is not the same as knowledge and insight. Too often it’s flash (nice presentation and production) with little substance with both of you falling into the trap that so many do limiting pinball to “anything that’s happened in the last few years”. This was painfully obvious during the broadcast on Wayne Neyens where every comment was essentially a nod or an “un huh”.

That doesn’t necessarily make the broadcasts bad but these are for the most part thinly disguised sales videos that showcase very little of your actual knowledge of the history of the industry and hobby, the designers and innovations that made pinball what it is today and/or how the current generation is pushing the envelope.

This isn’t unique to SDTM either so this shouldn’t be read as Greg and Zach bashing - just a commentary on the podcast generation where filling air time seems more important than insightful and factual reporting.

There is a mini side mode where gaby gaby says meet my good friend Bensen. The object is to hit the captive ball as many times you can and those posts will go up and down randomly to preventing you from hitting the captive ball depending on which flipper you are using

See this is the kind of nuance I am looking forward to seeing.

My takeaway was I'm amazed at how much people want to watch pinball topics, even if it's just strangers playing.. and this contributed (IMO) to the 'anyone who can put together a decent stream gets an audience' phenom in the beginning. I don't know if so many people were isolated or on 'pinball islands' that they were so hungry to just see other people play. I think I've been spoiled that for decades we have had access to every notable game in the larger mid-atlantic through papa, events, and sizable private collections. I recognize not everyone has that same access... or maybe a lot of people just don't have local scenes where they get that kind of engagement with other hobbyists. (I find it even more peculiar when people are in the area, but stick to online instead of taking the best of online and RL.. but I digress).

I greatly appreciate we are getting more professional level videos at game reveals from people like Zach/Greg and Deadflip before he went full send Stern. But the idolizing of many of the content creators has been downright disturbing to me. Topics like TWIPYs and whatever other things just stir that teapot up even more. The whole pin-celebrity worship stuff is incestuous and cringe worthy IMO.

Thx for calling that out. I couldn't recall if it was doing that independent of the ramp stuff or not. You hear the callouts but its been so busy that I had a hard time isolating the full game effect there.

Keep up the good work Zack. I have a feeling that if the few on here that are criticizing your work would try to make content we all would be bored to tears within 2 minutes. It’s real easy to criticize someone while hiding behind a keyboard.

I like Zack and Greg and the reviews. I am aware they might not agree with my personal reviews, but that's fine, I like to watch the streams and the reviews, play the games and see them with my own eye and make my own opinion. I know some people don't like SW at all and yet it's my top pin (or one of the top5). If I made a review video it would be different than Zack or different than Flinnibus or Iceman. But the point is we all love pinball and love playing most machines some more than others. I didn't care for GnR and not a huge fan of TS4 but they are still fine games. One thing, I only rate games I have owned. I see a lot of reviews where they say they played a few games and then they rate that game sometimes super low or even super high, one guy I see here on Pinside will have 50 games rated and he has them all rated as 10. That is just clown talk to me, if every game is 10 the rating has no meaning.

In fact now that I watched the review, I think TS4 is better than I had thought (I played it an hour but didn't know half of the details they talk about on the review). Now when I play it in the future I will probably like it more.

I played TS4 again along with Halloween. How can Halloween be more fun? Crazy

Halloween is a lot of fun because the layout is so unique. Plus it really does justice to the theme.

It's funny that you say that. There was also an Ultraman at the place where I played TS4. I seriously had a better time with it. Since I know nothing about Ultraman, it simply felt like a fun, unlicensed theme to me. Was it awesome? No. Was it more enjoyable than TS4? Yes.

Cough Bullshit cough

If you are talking about the TS4 at Marvin's, that specific game plays terribly.

From what I've seen, the ball gets stuck going down the left in lanes (making the Duke ramp time out), the kickback was never setup right and always misses, the multi ball lock is janky and starts spitting out multiple balls in the shooter lane after a lock, the ball often falls off the right ramp wire form, the gabby gabby pop-up isn't setup well and rejects many shots, and the slings will phantom fire.

I like TS4, but that one really isn't worth the quarter drop until it gets some maintenance.

The TS4 at The Arcade plays much closer to how it should. Their Ultraman on the other hand plays poorly and last I knew their Halloween is completely down.

Haven't played Ultraman yet, would love to see how the code is coming along. But yeah, in the lineup, TS4 was the least fun (bland layout with epilepsy lights) and the most fun was the JP LE. Dinosaur head was working perfectly, that thing is a trip, it keeps giving you different side-eyes to intimidate you as you play, then goes into crazy tantrum mode after catching a pinball. Now THAT's a toy.

Yes, it was at Marvin’s. The frustrating thing that I noticed was that when you put the ball into the saucer for the upkicker to deliver it to the upper right flipper, it would never come out clean so that you could even get a shot off from the upper right flipper.

Lawlor is like the Metallica of pinball. The first half dozen years or so were legendary. And then they’ve been living off former glory ever since.

Why are you ignoring Greg? He do something to piss you off?

Last I checked he rated many of those games HIGHER than TS4….

Well then he should DEFINITELY contact @greatwichjohn. He's looking for people like Dave.

Wonka and Chaos in Quantum City are badass pinball machines!!!!