Episode 2 - The Ritchie Brothers Steve vs. Mark

Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast

In this double length episode Alan and Alex talk about the brothers Ritchie, and discuss their favorite games from each brother, their individual styles and trademarks, address the Ritchie haters, and Alan tells a couple of anecdotes from the time he met them both at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019. 

Hear us discuss the legacy of these two talented brothers, and compare their catalogue to one another, with the occasional curse word thrown in because we are some passionate boys, and talking about the Ritchie brothers gets us fired up!

Transcript

[00:00:15.260] - Speaker 1
Hello. Welcome back to another episode of the wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan. I'm one of the owners of wedgehead in Portland, Oregon. We're a pinball bar. I'm joined by my co-host, the Waterboy, Alex. Say hi, Alex.

[00:00:46.310] - Speaker 2
Hey.

[00:00:47.110] - Speaker 1
What are we talking about today?

[00:00:50.110] - Speaker 2
Oh, today we got a good one for week two. We're talking about the ritchie Brothers, the Wayne Gretzkys of pinball designers.

[00:00:58.500] - Speaker 1
Twin Gretzkys, dude.

[00:00:59.940] - Speaker 2
Anyway, he had a brother. I think the two of them hold the all-time combined family record for most goals scored in the NHL.

[00:01:09.020] - Speaker 1
Yeah, one of them scored all of them - I think.

[00:01:11.350] - Speaker 2
One of them won as.

[00:01:12.540] - Speaker 1
His brother. -all of them. I love you bringing hockey into this, knowing nothing about hockey. But yeah, so we are talking about the Wayne Gretzkys of pinball.

[00:01:29.900] - Speaker 2
Yeah, these ones are a little more balanced. Mark and Steve.

[00:01:33.850] - Speaker 1
Mark and Steve. I think everyone that's ever played pinball at all has probably heard the name Steve ritchie at some point.

[00:01:47.480] - Speaker 2
Yeah, if you've talked to anyone about pinball, they're going to name drop Steve ritchie probably immediately. If you're going to know one pinball designer, it's Steve. If you're going to talk about a significant figure in pinball that isn't Roger Sharp, it's going to be Steve. He's just a big figurehead for the hobby.

[00:02:07.980] - Speaker 1
Yeah, he's called the King or the King of Flow. He is responsible for a complete change in the way pinball machines were designed, developed. He introduced a lot of things that we take for granted in modern pinball machines, such as locks, physical locks. The concept of locking a ball to get a multiball, that's literally Steve ritchie.

[00:02:40.540] - Speaker 2
Yeah, pretty much everything that makes pinball fun, Steve can claim credit for or will.

[00:02:47.400] - Speaker 1
Claim credit for. He will probably claim credit.

[00:02:50.710] - Speaker 2
Yeah, but we don't need to get into history too much because if you want to check that out, I'd plug another podcast, Silverball Chronicles does a really good job of diving into a full history on both of the Ritchie Brothers. We're going to give you a little rundown today and just talk about our feelings on them, some of their design characteristics, stuff like that.

[00:03:11.780] - Speaker 1
Yeah. You probably heard of Steve, and if you're deep in this sickness, you've heard of Mark. Mark is treated as the little brother. He's the literal little brother of Steve. But also as far as respect and notoriety. But I think that Mark's made some fucking kick-ass games.

[00:03:39.150] - Speaker 2
Yeah, he's undeniably one of the best designers, I'd say, of all time on his own right. Even if you remove Steve from the equation altogether. I agree. It's hard to discuss them and not compare them.

[00:03:52.290] - Speaker 1
But if.

[00:03:53.390] - Speaker 2
They weren't brothers, it would be I'd still put Mark maybe on the Mount Rushmore. I'd have to really make a whole list of my top four. But he's definitely up there. He killed it across all eras. I guess he hasn't done modern games. We'll get into that.

[00:04:10.470] - Speaker 1
I look at Mark a lot like another designer that we'll talk about later in a different episode. But I think of him like a Dennis Nordman, like a guy that's an awesome designer that gets slept on. Yeah, they're disrespected. There's a sign of disrespect when people talk about Mark ritchie, and I'm not here for it. We're going to end that on this podcast. If you have a problem with Mark ritchie, fuck you. The man is a legend. Okay, Steve's a legend. Mark's a legend, right?

[00:04:54.270] - Speaker 2
Yeah. Oh, 100%. Yeah, I'm just staying quiet because.

[00:04:57.340] - Speaker 1
I don't. Yeah, I'll get off my... I'm sorry. I'll put... I'm just going to put the baseball.

[00:05:01.040] - Speaker 2
Bat down. This is going to turn it on us, like gassing up, Mark ritchie for the next 30 minutes. But yes, the man made some very good games, some of my favorite games of all time.

[00:05:11.320] - Speaker 1
Okay, so we'll get into it. We're talking about Mark, and I think some of his most famous games are games like FishTales, Indiana Jones, The Pinball adventure, Taxi, Diner, and one of my all-time favorite is Sorcerer. Oh, yeah. And so, man, Sorcerer fucking rips. All those games are fucking great.

[00:05:36.870] - Speaker 2
I mean, his... Well, I don't know if we have any structure here, but his first published game was Firepower 2, sequel to his.

[00:05:47.470] - Speaker 1
Brother's- To his brother's Firepower.

[00:05:49.320] - Speaker 2
-monster hit, Firepower.

[00:05:50.180] - Speaker 1
Yeah, and Firepower is that's the game that introduced locks. It also introduced lane change. When you use a flipper button to change the lit lanes, the thing we take for granted didn't used to exist. Steve's like, Well, that's dumb.

[00:06:12.440] - Speaker 2
I think that speaks to his design philosophy is he doesn't want anything boring. He doesn't want you to be sitting there watching the ball fall. Obviously, once you're in pinball for a while, you're never really that passive. You're nudging the game constantly. You're always doing stuff. But I think that's a big thing for Steve's games is that they're a lot of fun, especially for their eras, for players of all skill levels. That's a good example of the philosophy he brought.

[00:06:39.070] - Speaker 1
Into that. Yeah. A recap of Steve's best games or an abridged version, because he has so many: High Speed, one, and two. The first game that's credited with having a story is High Speed, and it's based on his own personal experiences of buying a sports car and driving really fucking fast and the cops chasing him and him running from.

[00:07:11.410] - Speaker 2
The cops. Yeah, what a story it is. It's just great.

[00:07:14.620] - Speaker 1
It's so Steve. Two, that's the thing is just like I was... Rhodesieh and I, my business partner, the other half of wedgehead, who you'll get on this podcast soon, we got to meet Steve and Mark at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019. We got to meet both of them. But Steve is every bit the character that you've heard that he is. If you haven't seen Steve, you should look up a picture of Steve. He always wears a black turtle neck type of shirt, and he's got this crazy, mad scientist shock of white hair, or at least over the last 10, 15 years. But he's bombastic. He's loud. He's very... I'll tell these stories now. We got to meet both of them. When we met Steve, the first time we saw Steve walking down the hall, my partner, rhodes, he reaches up his hand and goes, High five, Steve. And Steve gives him a high five and then does a prat fall on the ground and then gets up and shouts to a room full of hundreds of people at the expo and goes, That guy hit me. That guy hit me. Did you see that? That guy hit me.

[00:08:39.520] - Speaker 1
And that's Steve. Like that.

[00:08:43.680] - Speaker 2
It's like, no.

[00:08:48.340] - Speaker 1
But I heard himself on a documentary call himself a mad scientist in a toy factory. I think that sums up his personality and his philosophy. Then Mark, who we met there as well, he's total opposite personality. Deadpan, like a Sam Elliot type, like handsome, quiet, that stoic cowboy.

[00:09:18.040] - Speaker 2
He just always comes across so cool. He's the coolest. I've never met either of these guys in real life, but just from videos and interviews and stuff. He just always comes across very calm and collected and just cool.

[00:09:28.790] - Speaker 1
Yeah. They were next to each other at an autograft table, right? So people can bring their back glasses and whatever and have people sign them. I remember this woman walking up and goes, Oh, can I get a photo with you and your brother, you and Steve? Mark's just like, I can't stand that guy. It's like they have that sibling relationship that you would expect. It's very funny. They're almost like their own comedy duo. But Mark's super cool. We gave him a T-shirt. We talked about Kurt Russell movies, which is another passion of mine. He just started quoting lines from Tombstone. I was like, This fucking rules. I'm just talking about Tombstone with Mark ritchie.

[00:10:24.930] - Speaker 2
You're like, This guy made Firepower 2.

[00:10:27.270] - Speaker 1
He made Firepower 2. But okay, we're getting out of order here, I guess. But Steve's games that you may know are high speed one and two, which is number two is one of my favorite games of all time, getaway, the whole Black Knight series.

[00:10:44.940] - Speaker 2
So.

[00:10:45.410] - Speaker 1
Black Knight, Black Knight 2000 and the best one, sword of rage. Those games are famous for having kick-ass music.

[00:10:57.850] - Speaker 2
Yeah, also introducing multilevel play.

[00:11:00.540] - Speaker 1
Fields to pinball. That's it? Yeah. The first double-level play field, which then everyone copied. There's a whole era right after Black Knight.

[00:11:10.650] - Speaker 2
Came out. Yeah, almost all of them are bad. No, it's not true. That's really not true.

[00:11:14.700] - Speaker 1
Flash Gordon's good. Yeah. But so many of them are bad.

[00:11:18.230] - Speaker 2
Black Knight won right out of the gate, did it a lot better than a lot of guys that had a lot more time. It's funny.

[00:11:25.230] - Speaker 1
But that's because Steve's the king.

[00:11:27.510] - Speaker 2
Yeah, he knows.

[00:11:28.310] - Speaker 1
What's good. He knows what you want before you want it.

[00:11:31.500] - Speaker 2
Yeah.

[00:11:32.370] - Speaker 1
Other games, Terminator 2, Star Trek: Next Generation.

[00:11:37.950] - Speaker 2
So many of these are in the top five best selling. T2, Firepower, Flash, which I noticed you omitted earlier. All of those are some of the best selling games of all time. The guy dominated. Him and Pat Lawler, who I'm sure we'll talk about at some point, really just dominate the charts.

[00:11:55.420] - Speaker 1
We'll definitely talk about Pat in a future episode. Made NASCAR, of course. Oh, I admitted Flash for a reason, we'll get to that. But he also made Star Trek: Next Gen, Sterntrek, Spiderman, Firepower, and a game that you own, No Fear. Oh, yeah.

[00:12:15.780] - Speaker 2
Which is- The sickest. It's like if you condensed him into one singular game, it would be No Fear.

[00:12:22.100] - Speaker 1
He is No Fear. Yeah. He loves riding motorcycles, driving fast cars.

[00:12:29.450] - Speaker 2
I mean, he voices the flaming skull that yells at you the entire time.

[00:12:33.400] - Speaker 1
You play it. He's also a voice in Mortal kombat. Yeah.

[00:12:36.900] - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's something I'm pretty sure... I don't know. Him and Mark, they both voice characters in each other's games often. There's a lot of overlap.

[00:12:44.600] - Speaker 1
Yeah. I have a tidbit of Mark ritchie that maybe not everyone knows that I thought was interesting when I was researching this. Steve is well-known for his voice-over work, his hyper macho voice-over growls. But as you said, Mark was also... Because that was back in the day where they were like, We need some call-outs for these games. Who's here? It's just people that work there.

[00:13:12.570] - Speaker 2
It's how like gottlieb did their art during the premier era.

[00:13:15.500] - Speaker 1
Yes. I love that type of shit. Yeah, so Mark apparently, fun tidbit, Mark apparently sang the song on riverboat gambler. He didn't design that game, but he was working there. I would love to hear the full story. If I get to see Mark again, I'm going to ask him about it.

[00:13:44.380] - Speaker 2
It'd be like, Hey, yeah, I really loved your work in Riverboat gambler singing.

[00:13:49.180] - Speaker 1
That song. That's so good.

[00:13:51.940] - Speaker 2
Yeah, have him sign that translight. That's great.

[00:13:58.230] - Speaker 1
Yeah. We're talking about Mark and Steve, but they each, despite being brothers, they each do have their own style.

[00:14:08.830] - Speaker 2
Yeah. I think that's part of what hurts Mark's reputation, like we were talking about beforehand and why we both feel the need to defend him constantly, is because I think a lot of people will just dismiss him as a knock-off Steve or whatever. A poor man, Steve. That's not the case at all. His games have their own flavor. Like I've said many times already, some of my favorite games of all time. They definitely each have their own, I don't know what you'd say, like tropes for designs, the recurring things.

[00:14:39.330] - Speaker 1
Sure. Yeah, they're trademarks.

[00:14:42.120] - Speaker 2
They're signatures. There's a better... Yeah, signature design pieces that you see across their games.

[00:14:48.430] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I would say Mark likes to do crisscross ramps. That's maybe the most obvious. He doesn't do it on all of his games, but he has it on Taxi, he has it on FishTales.

[00:15:02.080] - Speaker 2
Wait, Indiana Jones doesn't have crisscross raps. Never mind. No.

[00:15:05.820] - Speaker 1
But he does it famously in a couple of games, and then it becomes like, Oh, that's his thing.

[00:15:14.140] - Speaker 2
He's just a big cross. Well, I mean, big guns, they crisscross. There's not ramps crisscrossing, but balls crisscrossing.

[00:15:19.490] - Speaker 1
That's true.

[00:15:21.060] - Speaker 2
Big game, sick game.

[00:15:23.050] - Speaker 1
Yeah, and that brings up the other thing that I think Mark is well known for, and that's collaborating with Python.

[00:15:34.220] - Speaker 2
Yeah.

[00:15:35.230] - Speaker 1
So Mark works a lot with Python on a number of games from Police Force to Big Guns to FishTales to Taxi.

[00:15:48.790] - Speaker 1
-Taxi. And so they had a close working relationship.

[00:15:52.780] - Speaker 2
We got to slow down. You're making the assumption that people know who Python is. Python, Anghelo, is an insane artist or was. He's a late artist that worked at Bally Williams.

[00:16:03.820] - Speaker 1
a Renaissance man.

[00:16:05.110] - Speaker 2
Yeah. He came up with a lot of designs. He did artwork himself, and he was the art director for a lot of those games. So even if he didn't actually do the art, he was behind the themes and stuff for a lot of those.

[00:16:16.590] - Speaker 1
From the stories that I hear, and he's no longer with us, but he's an idea man. He's a Willy wonka.

[00:16:28.890] - Speaker 2
Of pinball, right? He sounds fucking crazy. And every story you hear. He sounds great, but he really does sound like a mad man in a lot of the stories that come up. Yes.

[00:16:38.070] - Speaker 1
I think it's funny when you know Mark is this reserved, stoic, cool dude, and then you hear of this lunatic and Python and how they worked on so many games together. Right. I can't imagine... Steve's not letting Python tell him shit.

[00:17:02.870] - Speaker 2
Right. Right? And I think that's what makes some of the Mark... I mean, that might be what makes some of those games so good, is that he wasn't afraid for it to be a collaborative process. Yes. It's like, we'll get into Barry Oursler at another time. But I think Barry Oursler was the king of that, of taking other people's inputs and ideas and making kick-ass layouts to match him. And Mark did that good, too.

[00:17:25.140] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I do think that. Yeah. And then I think the design hallmarks of Steve are the term flow or a flow game. Games didn't have... They didn't really have ramps. They didn't really have shots that fed other shots so that you can hit one shot, then another shot, then another shot. And so he credited with creating flow and combos and games. And so he termed the king of flow, his games, not all of them, but most of them have a really good flow. Yes. Like their flow games, you'll hear people talk about a game being... Steve gets compared a lot to Pat Lawler, and Pat has what they deem a stop and go playstyle where you hit the ball somewhere, it stops the ball, it does something.

[00:18:26.570] - Speaker 2
Yep, pops out somewhere else. You're constantly picking individual shots off those tough shots of Pat.

[00:18:33.160] - Speaker 1
Yeah. And then Steve is usually portrayed as the opposite of that. Now it's obviously a spectrum. Every game has some flow and some stop and go. But when people think of a flow game, they think of Steve ritchie, and usually Pat is the foil to that. People are like, Well, what do you mean by flow game? And you're like, Well, have you ever played Twilight Zone? Yeah, that's not a Flow Game, right? Right. And you go, Have you played Getaway? Exactly. You're like, Those are the different. But I don't think that Mark's games feel like Steve ritchie games.

[00:19:23.570] - Speaker 2
No, I don't think they do.

[00:19:25.630] - Speaker 1
I.

[00:19:25.790] - Speaker 2
Think they think they do. They're definitely, I mean, they're still flowy. There's still a lot of fast-moving action... There are a lot of those games that I think of have hurry-ups and combos and stuff emphasized in them, but they definitely don't feel the same. I'm trying to think right now about Mark ritchie games if there's any with Upper Flippers outside of Big Guns. He doesn't really do like the three because that's one big thing I think of with Steve is the repeating upper loop shots. That's the other thing? That's the other thing? What do you call that?

[00:19:53.200] - Speaker 1
Yeah, the picard maneuver.

[00:19:54.520] - Speaker 2
Yeah, it existed long before that, but that's what everybody calls it, I feel like, on a lot of the shots.

[00:19:59.230] - Speaker 1
Well, I think he put that flipper there in high speed. That was the first where... That's another thing that Steve did before anyone else, is where people normally put an upper flipper now, if you see a three-flipper game, that's Steve. Yeah.

[00:20:21.340] - Speaker 2
Well, I mean, Flash, I know that there was other EMs or something. There's been something prior to Flash with a repeating upper flipper shot, but I think Flash was the first one that you could actually do. When you play a Flash at setup, you can rip that upper loop multiple times in a row.

[00:20:40.080] - Speaker 1
Unlike a SeaWitch, where it's like it has that loop, but you can't repeat it.

[00:20:45.200] - Speaker 2
Yeah, but see, which was also two.

[00:20:47.080] - Speaker 1
Years later. Yeah, yeah. Everyone's a copycat on Steve. Yeah.

[00:20:52.110] - Speaker 2
It's easy to take his stuff for granted when you look at it through modern lens.

[00:20:55.170] - Speaker 1
Because everyone else takes from Steve. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, Steve's the legend. I think it's safe to say that we love both of them. I think you and I are both ritchie guys. Yes. And I mean, ritchie meaning Mark and Steve.

[00:21:15.380] - Speaker 2
I like them both. I think we're both really eager to jump to defend Mark because we feel like he's the underdog or underrepresented. But I will say- I love Steve's games just as much.

[00:21:27.570] - Speaker 1
I feel like there's a little bit of a tide or I'm just feeling spicy. But I do feel like with new players, people that have got into it in the last few years, maybe the last five years or so, the pinball hobby, I think that there is a permeation of the idea that Steve is old or his designs are derivative.

[00:21:57.310] - Speaker 2
Of himself. Oh, yeah. Big time. I mean, we were recording this episode prior to the Chicago Expo. We haven't seen Elton John, his first game from JJP yet. But right now on the precipice of that being revealed, you're seeing tons of guys online talking about how he's washed up. His last few games have sucked. All this stuff. People are really quick to say, Steve's done. And I just firmly disagree.

[00:22:20.820] - Speaker 1
The fucking disrespect, man. It's like, How dare you?

[00:22:27.920] - Speaker 1
Fuck that. I can't... Those people... I look at it as like, Listen, everyone has a right to like or dislike games and certain games speak to certain people. I think that's the beauty of pinball. We all like different things. I think it's okay to point to some Steve Ritchie games and be like, I don't really like this one, or maybe this one some people like, but I don't. If you don't like any Steve Ritchie games, you're an idiot.

[00:23:06.050] - Speaker 2
I mean, it's an insane opinion. I'd just be like, Really? You don't like any of them? You don't like any of what are widely considered to be some of the best games of all time?

[00:23:16.190] - Speaker 1
I think that it's that weird combination of he's been doing it for so long since the '70s, and he's still doing it. So that's 50 years. Coming up on 50 years.

[00:23:33.790] - Speaker 2
It is nuts.

[00:23:35.230] - Speaker 1
And so like-.

[00:23:36.630] - Speaker 2
Yeah, I've been trying to think when his first Atari game started coming out.

[00:23:40.350] - Speaker 1
'78, '79? I think it was Superman, wasn't it? Yeah, I can't remember. Was it the first game? Which is fun.

[00:23:45.070] - Speaker 2
I never played that one.

[00:23:46.630] - Speaker 1
It doesn't feel like a Steve Ritchie  at all. It's a super wide body and it feels floaty, but it's good. It's good of its era. It's just so funny how a couple of years later you start getting Flash and Firepower and you're like, Holy shit. This is a different fucking game. The game has changed now. He has changed the game.

[00:24:18.750] - Speaker 2
It's funny because it doesn't take very long for Pinball to start feeling very modern to me as someone that didn't grow up with any of that era or whatever, just got into it within the last five years, really. You take a firepower from, is that '81? I can't remember. That is still a killer game. If you had spooky reproduce a firepower, I would go buy one, I think. You're like, It's a phenomenal game and it's still a lot of fun. It still feels fast and frantic and it's awesome. But I will say you go back much further than that and it's a little bit of a question mark. Because I owned a Flash for a bit.

[00:25:02.150] - Speaker 1
No. Yeah, Flash is... Okay, so- I.

[00:25:06.320] - Speaker 2
Feel like I maybe didn't give Flash a good shot. No, Flash is a- Because I've played ones that are set up better than mine since then, and it made me think that maybe I was just mean to it.

[00:25:16.020] - Speaker 1
Flash is mid. Charitably, it's mid. I think at the time...

[00:25:23.110] - Speaker 2
Okay, so he- I mean, it sold 20,000 units. It must have just blown everyone's fucking minds.

[00:25:28.260] - Speaker 1
Yeah, a million of them. Yeah, I mean, he is.

[00:25:30.610] - Speaker 2
I've seen people play it in turn. That's the thing. I've been watching tournament streams of people playing Flash, and you're like, Okay, when you get that thing set up mean and it's playing fast, it just makes me think maybe mine just... I never did Flipper rebuild while I owned it. I thought that's just how the flipper's felt. Now I'm like, Huh, maybe I should have taken a couple of windings off.

[00:25:50.420] - Speaker 1
Yeah.

[00:25:51.040] - Speaker 2
Something. I'd like to give that one another shot personally. I'm sure I will because they pop up for sale constantly.

[00:25:58.310] - Speaker 1
Yeah, because they made a million of them.

[00:25:59.520] - Speaker 2
Right. Right.

[00:26:00.350] - Speaker 1
Right? And it's not Firepower, it's not Black Knight. It's not the more desirable titles. So you'll always be able to get one. You could always be able to buy one. But this segue is nicely into we've been doing a good job of building up Steve and Mark and why we think they're the best. But like anyone, there are some games that.

[00:26:28.600] - Speaker 2
The missteps.

[00:26:30.000] - Speaker 1
Aren't as good. I think Flash isn't very good, like we said, and I don't.

[00:26:36.390] - Speaker 2
Think that- I think some old guy is angry with that one. There's some Flash fanboys.

[00:26:40.570] - Speaker 1
Yeah. You know what? I would be happy to hear that because what I feel like I hear in recent years is people dogging on Steve, and that pisses me off. So if you want to find me and be like, You're wrong about Flash. Leave Steve alone. I'm like, You're right. He deserves more respect than what I gave him.

[00:27:03.780] - Speaker 2
Yeah, you're like, I'll never argue that. It is funny because, yeah, as far as if you're talking worst games from each of them, or I should say, which are my least favorite, because I'm sure there's something for everybody. I really don't like Steve's early games for Stern, I would say. World poker tour and Elvis, they're just not there. They've both got cool features on them. I'm sure if I played them with a big fan and someone could sell me on those games, I bet. But those are two that I would usually watch.

[00:27:38.170] - Speaker 1
The game I will say that's decent is 24.

[00:27:42.310] - Speaker 2
Oh, 24 is pretty cool.

[00:27:43.610] - Speaker 1
24 is pretty cool. It's a game that they only made a few hundred of. It's in the dark days of Stern, but that game is fun. I agree World Poker Tour. I was playing Elvis a few months ago for the first time in a long time. What's interesting about Elvis is how loaded that.

[00:28:04.610] - Speaker 2
Game was. That thing has so much shit going on.

[00:28:08.190] - Speaker 1
Compared to.

[00:28:08.750] - Speaker 2
What Stern puts in- Have you ever seen the flyer they put out for that? No. It's like, Elvis, the king is back. Because it was, I think, Steve's first game for Stern. It was the return of ritchie, that king, obviously Elvis the King. Yeah, that game, they put everything in it. I'd like to see the sales numbers for that. I wonder if it worked for him.

[00:28:29.860] - Speaker 1
I've heard that they've been on the brink a couple of times in their history, and the games that supposedly saved them were Lord of the Rings and then later on ACDC. No, then later on, Iron Man and then AC/DC.

[00:28:51.180] - Speaker 2
Apparently- AC/DC, man, we can talk about that.

[00:28:53.720] - Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you think about ACDC?

[00:28:56.200] - Speaker 2
I do not care for that band at all, but that game rips, and they made so many versions and runs and re-releases and everything. And you're like, It's good.

[00:29:08.190] - Speaker 1
And the reason why we keep getting old rock pins were because everyone's like, This game.

[00:29:16.440] - Speaker 2
Rips. Yeah, we have AC/DC to blame. So next time you're complaining about all the old rock band pins, it's probably Steve's fault for making such a damn good game.

[00:29:24.430] - Speaker 1
If you're going to be mad at.

[00:29:25.220] - Speaker 2
Steve- -probably Steve's fault for making such a damn good game.

[00:29:27.970] - Speaker 1
Exactly. If you're going to be mad at Steve for anything, be like, You brought in double-level play fields and then people made a bunch of crappy ones. Or, You did an awesome old man.

[00:29:44.180] - Speaker 2
Band pin, and.

[00:29:45.640] - Speaker 1
Now that's all we get. That's, I think, a fair assessment. I will say that Mark did was listed as a designer for one of the worst games I've ever played. What's that? Road Kings. Have you ever played Road Kings?

[00:30:03.950] - Speaker 2
I've never played a Road Kings. I'm always curious about that one.

[00:30:07.700] - Speaker 1
It's.

[00:30:08.570] - Speaker 2
A center ramp, right? All day.

[00:30:10.680] - Speaker 1
It's got one.

[00:30:12.350] - Speaker 2
Center ramp. It's like the little.

[00:30:13.730] - Speaker 1
U-turn center ramp. It's a little U-turn center ramp, but then it has two feeds to either lane.

[00:30:18.730] - Speaker 2
And so it flip flops. It has that little the dead divider thing that just changes every time we're all go through it. Yep. I've never played one.

[00:30:26.120] - Speaker 1
It's not good. It's got a cool Mad Max, like bootleg Mad.

[00:30:32.670] - Speaker 2
Max theme. Well, it's like Roadrash.

[00:30:35.760] - Speaker 1
Yeah, it's like a.

[00:30:37.280] - Speaker 2
Motorcycle guy with a fucking chain or.

[00:30:39.690] - Speaker 1
Whatever, right? It's a very boring game with nothing to do.

[00:30:44.250] - Speaker 2
I think we're going to have to find one of those to go play.

[00:30:47.660] - Speaker 1
We'll play it.

[00:30:48.430] - Speaker 2
I mean, it's- It's probably still pretty good.

[00:30:52.470] - Speaker 1
It's still pinball. But oh, I see in our notes here that I wrote Big Guns, and then you wrote, Big Guns is sick.

[00:31:03.480] - Speaker 2
So explain this. Okay, I played a Big Guns when I first got into the hobby, and it was half working. I thought it was... I was like, This is the worst game ever. It was one of those ones that stuck with me. I avoided actively because it was so bad when I played it. I just played one recently that was actually playing really well. I was like, This game is sick. It's one of those ones you can sit up top because there's two flippers up top and camp up there.

[00:31:30.980] - Speaker 1
It's a symmetrical play field. It's completely symmetrical. It's completely symmetrical. It's got four flippers, but everything's oriented in the exact... It's just a mirror.

[00:31:41.930] - Speaker 2
Which is funny because Steve, I know would make fun of symmetrical play fields when he first got into the hobby. It's funny, his little brother just went and made one of the most symmetrical possible. But it's got big guns, man. It shoots the balls.

[00:31:58.140] - Speaker 1
It's cool. It's got Python art.

[00:32:00.520] - Speaker 2
It shoots balls into wire forms, which is absurd. I can't believe that doesn't rattle the whole game apart.

[00:32:07.070] - Speaker 1
That's true. The max, doing the thing in big guns is fun, but you can do that on one ball, right?

[00:32:19.270] - Speaker 2
You can see the thing because without that thing, the game, there's not much to it. So it's like they couldn't hide that after... They couldn't make that.

[00:32:27.850] - Speaker 1
Too hard. Listen, I just put this on here because we can't just be raving fanboys. Yeah, you can't. We're not.

[00:32:36.240] - Speaker 2
Just here to dick ride.

[00:32:38.060] - Speaker 1
We're not going to be allowed. They're going to be like, I got weird stalkers. We're not going to be allowed to go to a pinball festival where Mark and Steve are there because like, Oh, here's those weirdos that just are in love with you guys.

[00:32:51.930] - Speaker 2
They just made good games, man. It's not weird.

[00:32:55.780] - Speaker 1
They did. You touched on it briefly, but both of these guys recently moved companies. I think Mark's been working at Raw Thrills for a while, which makes those big arcade shooter games.

[00:33:11.110] - Speaker 2
You make the modern arcade games that actually make money for operators. All of the big shooters. I don't know if they really do redemption games, but I just associate them with the big racing cabs and stuff like that.

[00:33:26.590] - Speaker 1
Those big sitting cabs, whether it's Jurassic Park or Alien, you sit in, you have a big gun, and you're just...

[00:33:33.260] - Speaker 2
Yeah, you're just pumping quarters in as fast as you can because you die no matter what you do. Yeah. So Mark's been there, and they recently designed Pulp Fiction, which I'm guessing everybody that would listen to this podcast is aware of. Has heard of, yeah. Yeah. It's sick. It got announced six months ago, and we're obviously, as fans of Classic Solid States, we're both very hyped on that one.

[00:33:57.920] - Speaker 1
Dude.

[00:33:58.530] - Speaker 2
I think it's funny because Mark ritchie, his first published game, I know he had worked on some prior, but his first actual game that got produced was Firepower Two, which has a ramp. It's really early ramp era, but it has a ramp prominently featured in it. This is his first game, as far as I can think of, without a ramp. You're thinking, sorcerer has got a ramp for.

[00:34:22.410] - Speaker 1
Bullock, right? No, you're right. It's Sorcerer has one, right? It's that era of the one ramp. So he.

[00:34:26.870] - Speaker 2
Started in the one ramp era, and this is the first time hes the one that's going to make one. And so it's the first time he has a cute cabinet. It looks good. The whole thing is good, and I think he killed it.

[00:34:38.160] - Speaker 1
I played- So you got to play one of these. You went up to the Northwest.

[00:34:42.120] - Speaker 2
Pinball show. Yes, Northwest pinball and arcade show in Tacoma, in Seattle area.

[00:34:47.660] - Speaker 1
You had to wait in line, but you played it. I haven't played it yet. We have one on order. It will be at wedgehead when.

[00:34:55.290] - Speaker 2
They ship. Whenever they start shipping.

[00:34:57.570] - Speaker 1
But give me your opinions on the gameplay.

[00:35:01.040] - Speaker 2
It's cool. It's very straightforward. It feels like a solid state. There's some cool stuff going on that you wouldn't expect to see in a game actually from the era. It's emulating. You know what? There's a magnet that grabs the ball. It's takes the ball and throws it around. It's got little lock shots that shoot into a buck and actually lock. I don't think it has physical locks, but it's cool how it does it. It hides the ball behind the apron and stuff. Or not behind the apron, behind the back wall, whatever you call that. It's a cool game. The ones we played at the show, I think it's the downfall of a lot of show games, were set up very friendly. Sure. That skewed my perception because it was like, Huh, these are some long ball times for what I was expecting. But it also has a center post installed from the factory, and I know you can remove that. It comes with a little cap and everything. It's meant to be removed if you want. I think with a couple little tweaks or once you just have it at actual pitch that you'd play it at, I think that game is going to be awesome.

[00:36:01.290] - Speaker 2
I'm very, very excited for you guys to get your copy.

[00:36:04.590] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think it's cool because for anyone that hasn't seen pictures of it, google it, you'll see. What I think is cool is, per Quentin's request, apparently, or demands, is that they started with a modern game based on Pulp Fiction with ramps and modes. And he was like, That doesn't look like pinball to me. And they're like, Well, this is what pinball... And he's just like, No. I want a game like that, and then started showing them old Solid State games, which is time-appropriate for the theme. So they really went out of their way. The Coindoor looks like an old Bally Coindoor. The package is amazing.

[00:36:53.630] - Speaker 2
They did a phenomenal job.

[00:36:55.620] - Speaker 1
With everything.

[00:36:56.460] - Speaker 2
The art package. It's really slick. It's got alphanumeric displays, no DMD or anything. They've got these cool animations on the displays. It works really well. It's like, Hey, every other company, why didn't you do something like this? Because it had a very positive perception.

[00:37:12.520] - Speaker 1
I can't do somebody else do this. Yeah, well.

[00:37:16.540] - Speaker 2
Stern tried.

[00:37:19.140] - Speaker 1
That's another episode. Let's touch on that later. I have a lot of thoughts about that.

[00:37:28.750] - Speaker 2
But yeah, pulp fiction is cool. Then as far as upcoming games for Steve, like I mentioned earlier, were right on the precipice of Elton John being unveiled. They've been teasing it. They confirmed it was Elton John, and that's going to be tomorrow. This is the last time we'll talk without having seen it, actually. Yeah, we're recording right before we see it. You had a great time to record this.

[00:37:51.870] - Speaker 1
Yeah, but we weren't going to get to play it anyway. That's true.

[00:37:54.890] - Speaker 2
We were looking at pictures. It's like our opinion is not going to matter.

[00:37:56.860] - Speaker 1
But yeah, he recently jumped ship, a long-time stern employee, went over to Jersey Jack pinball. The confirmed rumor at this point is that it's Elton John. How do you feel about that?

[00:38:16.240] - Speaker 2
About the theme? Yeah.

[00:38:18.500] - Speaker 1
Everything like him being at Jersey Jack, the theme.

[00:38:22.750] - Speaker 2
I am optimistic that Steve will remedy the issues I have with Jersey Jack games. I say this is someone that owned The Hobbit and enjoyed it, and I see the merit for a lot of their games, but they're just not what I'm into lately. I'm really hoping that he can make JJP that feels right to me that actually shoots and feels how I want a pinball machine to feel. That's hard for me to describe, and it's a cop out because everyone will be like, What are you talking about? But I'm just hopeful that Steve brings that because his games, one thing they do is they always feel good. He has never made a game that feels bad. I'm hopeful as far as the theme, I don't really give two shits about Elton John, but I don't really care about most of the bands that have had pins made. I think it'll be cool to have, I don't know, what's that? Saturday nights all right for fighting. That's a good song. I can imagine that in the pinball machine. There's some Elton.

[00:39:23.020] - Speaker 1
John bangers. Okay, so I like Elton John.

[00:39:26.210] - Speaker 2
Okay.

[00:39:27.180] - Speaker 1
I think he's a fucking awesome entertainer.

[00:39:29.670] - Speaker 2
I like him as a person. I just don't.

[00:39:32.230] - Speaker 1
Know his music that well. Listen to Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.

[00:39:36.130] - Speaker 2
That's what that Saturday and Saturday is all right, right? Is that on there? Yeah.

[00:39:38.990] - Speaker 1
It's a double album. It's dope. He's got other albums like Brown Dirt, Cowboy. He's unequivocally a legend. I do like his music. It's not something that I listen to all the time, that I grew up on. My parents are from... They're kids of the '70s. I grew up with Elton John being on in the house. I enjoy Elton John. I don't typically enjoy band themes.

[00:40:10.470] - Speaker 2
Right.

[00:40:11.300] - Speaker 1
Because I don't think that the story... Not that I'm a big guy because I love EMs. I fucking love EMs. We called the bar, wedgehead. We love EMs. I love Solid States. But if we're playing a modern game that has modes and features and things that you're building towards, it's like, I like a game to... I want to know what you're doing. So it's like.

[00:40:45.980] - Speaker 2
In AC/DC- Are you what? You're sick of going on tours with dad rock fans? Yeah. It's like every rock band, it's like, Let's go on a tour, boys.

[00:40:53.960] - Speaker 1
Collect the band members, collect the drum sticks, change the jukebox to a different... It just gets goofy, dude.

[00:41:04.330] - Speaker 2
Well, see, Foo Fighters just.

[00:41:07.290] - Speaker 1
Ignored- They ignored it.

[00:41:08.690] - Speaker 2
-the band. I think it worked well. You can have problems. You can have complaints about the execution or whatever. I know you don't like the voices and stuff, but I think.

[00:41:16.880] - Speaker 1
It works really well. Throw me under the bus here. Give him my hot takes away on a game that everyone loves. You know what Alan says?

[00:41:27.120] - Speaker 2
This guy hates Foo Fighters.

[00:41:29.160] - Speaker 1
I do not hate Foo Fighters.

[00:41:31.680] - Speaker 2
But all I'm saying is that's a really good example of what to do with a band license, in my opinion. Some bands lend themselves to that better than others. Some bands, like Iron Maiden, comes with that. It has its own iconic characters and everything.

[00:41:46.720] - Speaker 1
I think that was smart. And that works really well. The way they did Iron Maiden was smart because.

[00:41:52.090] - Speaker 2
They- It doesn't feel... It's not just planned concert footage. Some people like that, but the people that like that are people that were going to be fans of the band pin no matter what. Sure.

[00:42:02.610] - Speaker 1
They're fans of the band that.

[00:42:04.870] - Speaker 2
They made- The people that love JJP's Guns and Roses are huge Guns and Roses fans. They love Guns. You're like, Well, they like it. It's just plain footage of the band they like. What the band theme needs to do is appeal to people that don't care about Guns and roses or whatever. I'll be curious with Elton John because Steve, like we talked about with Getaway, was like a story guy. He lost some of that with some of his stern pins. I don't think it's necessarily his control. I'll just be curious to see what he does. I'm excited for it.

[00:42:35.460] - Speaker 1
I think that he's famous because of AC/DC. We get all these bandpins now, they can be attributed to him. Ac/dc is a great game, but there's not the story. Again, pinball doesn't need a story, but I.

[00:42:55.700] - Speaker 2
Like- It needs to feel cohesive for me to- Yes. -like you play like... We're playing Grand Prix. We're going to keep bringing that up because it's sitting right near us. But we're playing Grand Prix and it feels like you're a race car. You're ripping through these orbits. You're a spinner. It's a fast game. You're a spinner, yeah. I don't know. It feels thematic. You play a big game. It's another game sitting here, and it feels like you're getting hunted by a tiger. It feels like you're going to die all the time. It's the fastest, wide body ever. You're like, That's why I like those games.

[00:43:23.630] - Speaker 1
But even when you get to the modern storytelling era, games like... When you're playing Whitewater, you feel like you're rafting.

[00:43:33.070] - Speaker 2
You feel like you're- The modern storytelling era, you start with the.

[00:43:37.140] - Speaker 1
30-year-old game. Well, I mean, modern games are... To me, the modern era starts at the DMD era or like System 11, where you have ramps and modes. When you have modes, that's when it becomes modern. But you feel like you're riding rapids, right? You're there. If're- The.

[00:44:00.560] - Speaker 2
Ones that stick with us the most, I feel like, have.

[00:44:03.890] - Speaker 1
Good stories. Think about attack from Mars. You're defending cities on Earth from Martian invaders. So good. You get it, right? Yeah. Those games, you understand what you're doing. And even Black Knight.

[00:44:20.390] - Speaker 2
We're talking about- Yeah, you're fighting monsters and fighting the Black Knight.

[00:44:22.580] - Speaker 1
You feel like you're fighting Black Knight and his minions. I think with band themes, you don't get that.

[00:44:29.930] - Speaker 2
Yeah.

[00:44:30.750] - Speaker 1
I can- Foo Fighters does it different because they're like, Here's this alien evasion angle, and we're doing this scooby-doo shit.

[00:44:38.640] - Speaker 2
Yeah, there's a lot going on in Foo Fighters to the point... Almost to a fault, I think it works, but there's a lot going on story-wise.

[00:44:45.790] - Speaker 1
I will say that I prefer that, though, than No. Even if I'm like, This is a little too much. This is a little bit pasted on. It's maybe a little too much. I'm like, Thank God there's something going on here, though.

[00:45:03.160] - Speaker 2
Because it's like- Versus, I don't know, Metallica. Pick a different Metallica song.

[00:45:08.380] - Speaker 1
Yeah, I hate that about band- And I.

[00:45:10.760] - Speaker 2
Love that game.

[00:45:11.900] - Speaker 1
No, that's another great game. But there's just...

[00:45:16.820] - Speaker 2
And I.

[00:45:18.340] - Speaker 1
Love Metallica.

[00:45:20.120] - Speaker 2
It's hard to judge, Metallica and AC/DC specifically because those were the first two big band- Yeah, two big ones. -band-pins in the modern era, right? Totally. And so it's easy to look back at them again, like we were talking with Steve in general. It's easy to look back at games and be like, Well, they did this wrong or whatever. And it's like, at the time, that was a.

[00:45:37.220] - Speaker 1
Novel idea.

[00:45:37.990] - Speaker 2
Totally. But we've seen enough of it. We don't need another 10 years of bandpins where you hit a ball into a jukebox and select a new song. Absolutely. Be curious to see where... I don't know. I'm curious about Home John.

[00:45:51.860] - Speaker 1
Well, I think that's.

[00:45:55.510] - Speaker 2
About it. That's just our feelings on the ritchie Brothers, huh?

[00:45:59.010] - Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, we could talk all fucking night about the ritchie Brothers.

[00:46:03.070] - Speaker 2
But I think- We can't even touch No Fear.

[00:46:06.000] - Speaker 1
Dude, No Fear rips.

[00:46:07.830] - Speaker 2
That's all we need to say about it.

[00:46:09.550] - Speaker 1
That's all I need to say. That's a game that is usually crapped on because of its theme. Although Alex here will tell you, The theme is the best part.

[00:46:18.700] - Speaker 2
The theme is the best part. It's such a good game, dude. I'm just blown away that other people don't see that. But we brought up, I think if you lived through the peak 90s, No Fear, Cheese, you're like, Well, this thing's dumb, whatever. But I don't know, to me, it's just hilarious over the top and it's a great game.

[00:46:40.350] - Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, I agree it is a great game. If you get a chance to play No Fear, play it. That jump ramp off the upper flipper is the best. It's so addicting. It's the best. And that's Steve being Steve. Fast, fucking punishing, shot to shot to shot, combo, combo, combo.

[00:47:04.350] - Speaker 2
So many hurry-ups and like- Yes. Yeah. That's all that game is. He always gives you- Every mode is like hurry-up shots. Every mode rewards you for hitting stuff faster and faster and faster. Then you smoke a post and you die and then you press start again.

[00:47:19.570] - Speaker 1
Dude, we just need to play that shit right now. That's what we're going to do. What are we talking?

[00:47:23.750] - Speaker 2
All right. But do we need to have a conclusion? We don't need to be like Mark versus Steve if you can one's games.

[00:47:29.620] - Speaker 1
What do you think? If you had to pick one.

[00:47:31.820] - Speaker 2
Well, entire lineup versus entire lineup, Steve's obviously had more bangers. If I had to.

[00:47:38.860] - Speaker 1
Pick- He's also made more games.

[00:47:40.370] - Speaker 2
Exactly. If I was going to have two games from each of them or whatever, or if I could have two from one of them, I mean, I might go Mark.

[00:47:50.300] - Speaker 1
I don't know, though. What games would you pick?

[00:47:52.610] - Speaker 2
Sorcerer and Taxi, I think. Oh, that's good.

[00:47:54.510] - Speaker 1
I.

[00:47:54.740] - Speaker 2
Love both those games.

[00:47:56.980] - Speaker 1
I think I would take FishTales and sorcerer.

[00:47:59.800] - Speaker 2
Yeah, FishTales is so good, too. Yeah. If you're going, Steve, what would you do?

[00:48:05.320] - Speaker 1
Man, that's hard.

[00:48:07.220] - Speaker 2
I do.

[00:48:08.070] - Speaker 1
Sword of rage Pro. This is going to, as much as I want to be like, Dude, yeah, a popular opinion. Mark's actually way better than Steve. Honestly, Steve has probably made four machines that are in my top 15 games of all time. Getaway, Sword of Rage, Star Trek: Next Gen, Firepower. Those games to me are the best.

[00:48:46.850] - Speaker 1
That's about... And Sorcerer is there too, and FishTales is there too. But that's two to four. I can't.

[00:48:54.830] - Speaker 2
Believe I didn't think FishTales in retrospect. I'm just burnt out. I've played a lot of FishTales lately, so I'm burnt out on it.

[00:48:59.920] - Speaker 1
Sure.

[00:49:00.130] - Speaker 2
But yeah, they're both just phenomenal.

[00:49:05.600] - Speaker 1
Anyway, I think we ran a little bit long on this one, but it's because we're passionate. We're passionate boys.

[00:49:14.010] - Speaker 2
Yeah, we are.

[00:49:15.800] - Speaker 1
But we thank you all for listening. This has been a fun little experiment, and I think we'll record a few more of these for you all. Until the next time, go out and play some fucking pinball, man. Go on location, put some money into a pinball machine.

[00:49:35.200] - Speaker 2
Put quarters into games, play Steve ritchie stuff.

[00:49:38.180] - Speaker 1
Yeah, you know what? Prioritize playing some ritchie stuff. Yeah. But you heard the episode, go play them.

[00:49:44.390] - Speaker 2
Right. Go play Led Zeppelin. It's awesome. You guys are all wrong about it.

[00:49:50.340] - Speaker 1
Yes. Alex and his lovely wife, Megan, have some great wedding reception photos at wedgehead. They're in front of Led Zeppelin. Yeah, that's a lot. Now you're always tied to.

[00:50:05.560] - Speaker 2
That game. Exactly.

[00:50:08.280] - Speaker 1
I don't think it's that bad. Anyway, sorry, we're trying to...

[00:50:09.920] - Speaker 2
I love that thing.

[00:50:11.040] - Speaker 1
Yeah, it shoots well. Yeah, it's cool.

[00:50:14.980] - Speaker 2
The game is cool, man. He doesn't make bad games.

[00:50:18.690] - Speaker 1
I think so too. The thing about Steve is even his lesser games.

[00:50:25.890] - Speaker 2
I enjoy. They're all enjoyable.

[00:50:27.490] - Speaker 1
They're all enjoyable in some way. They're only not enjoyable because you're comparing him to his heights. If you get caught up in like, Well, this isn't as good as Getaway, or This isn't as good as Spiderman or whatever, then you're like, Okay, but it's still fun.

[00:50:47.640] - Speaker 2
Right. That's, I think, going to be a recurring theme with this podcast is pinball is pretty much always fun. It should be.

[00:50:54.910] - Speaker 1
You.

[00:50:55.860] - Speaker 2
Don't have to like everything, but I don't know, it's all fun.

[00:50:59.990] - Speaker 1
It can't be fun. I think you can have a lot.

[00:51:03.940] - Speaker 2
Of fun. Alan's shaking his head right now.

[00:51:05.660] - Speaker 1
I think you can have a lot of fun.

[00:51:06.930] - Speaker 2
Playing- That is not the purpose of this podcast. Pinball is not all fun.

[00:51:10.190] - Speaker 1
Pinball is not fun. It's serious, dude. Okay, you got to treat it like a monk, okay? You can't just allow crap in because then you get crap out, okay? You got to be a disciplined warrior. No, I agree. I have a lot of fun playing bad games. Quote-unquote, bad games, which will be a thing that we'll talk about in the future. Yeah, we'll talk about that. But thank you all for listening. Go out and play some pinball, play some Steve ritchie games, play some Mark ritchie games if you can find them. And we're going to go play a Steve ritchie game right now. All right, thanks for listening. Till next time.