266 · Rock N Ball

• Pinball is famous in video game history!
• NES Longplay
• Introductions
  • Like the back of the box states this is Pinball, but with many different twist modes
• Gameplay
  • Characters
    • Tom, Billy, John, Paul, Lisa, and Diana
      • Select: The little jig the character does on the character select screen.
      • Dance: Their victory dance.
      • Win: What they say when they win
      • Lose: What they say when you defeat them.
  • "regular pinball"
    • 50s themed?
      • TV
      • Shoe
      • Jacket
      • Burger
    • up to four players
    • unlimited tilt
    • In the bonus level, you will have to hit waves of bald guys, and guys with hats and glasses for points.
  • "nineball" where balls are knocked into a Pachinko Pattern
    • -The field is dotted with little pegs to randomize the fall of your ball. You can use tilt to influence the fall to some degree, but it becomes difficult to get balls where you want them.
  • "battle pinball" (which operates more like Pong instead of pinball)
    • There are three different variations to the "battle pinball" mode; "thunder," "bomber," and the basic "attack" mode.
    • All three of these options uses specialized flippers and a specialized pinball.
    • For example, the "bomber" mode has a pinball that explodes after a certain time limit has been reached and the player's two target switches have been turned into bombs.
    • A switch on the right-hand side of the board activates the special effects in the "attack" mode.
  • and "sports pinball" where the pinball game becomes more similar to a soccer or hockey field
• Japanese Version
  • Pac-Man. Pac-Man is in the game. The regular pinball looks like Pac-Man. Why would you lose PAC-MAN?! For some generic rock n roll thing?
  • Compared to the North American version, the bumpers in the Japanese version are further apart and the players have more room to guide their ball around the playing surface.
  • Special guest characters in the Japanese version of the game include Valkyrie from the video game Valkyrie no Bōken: Toki no Kagi Densetsu, Wonder Momo and Kai from the Babylonian Castle Saga series.
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • None
• EGL
• Next week - Top Gun: The Second Mission
• NEStalgia Byte - Captain Tsubasa II: Super Striker

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Rockin' Ball! Pinball is famous in video game history!

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean, who's currently on fire. And I'm Joe. Sorry, our listeners are gonna hear a pretty hardcore siren right now, so I thought I'd play into that a bit. Yeah, I don't know how I said so confidently that you weren't on fire. For all we know, you are the fire. Yeah, honestly, like the fire department is not coming now because you told them he's not on fire. Yeah, you gotta be careful there.

00:58 It's like a pinball machine. Haha. Great segue, Sean, because like the back of the box states, this is pinball. Um, whether pinball is famous in video game history, I guess is really debatable, especially this early on for something in the back of the box. Like, I don't know. I don't think of pinball machines as video games. They're pinball machines. And thus, if they're saying that it's famous in video game history, they're saying that like, video game pinball is like one of the most popular genres of video game genres is that like everybody always makes pinball video games.

01:34 Like, Super Mario Brothers Pinball, everybody loves that. Yeah, no, like, pinball machine is a, is a strictly analog device, uh, with physical objects. And it might have like a video readout and like some animations that play. But that's like, that's just a little accessory to the, it's closer to a board game. Sean, what do you say to the people who, um, now emulate, uh, pinball machines using strictly like digital solutions?

02:05 Then, like, you're using a, you're playing a video game based on a board game, like, uh, like, uh, like a card game, you know? Right, like playing Texas Hold'em. The game of life on PS1, yeah. Texas Hold'em's not a video game. But there are video game versions of it, yeah. Right, and so this is a video game version of pinball, but this is not what I think of as like the famous part of video games. Yeah, back of the box is kind of like, it's kind of like video game pinball. The thing you love. And it's like, well, wait a minute. You don't tell me what I love.

02:40 The last time we saw pinball on this console was at the very beginning, right? The original black box pinball game that Nintendo released. Since then, nobody has decided to put out, like, another option for pinball on this console. And I liked that. I liked the original video pinball. I mean, Mike, you remember back in our college days, we'd play a lot of video game pinball, and it brought me back to that. It's simple, but it, I enjoy it. But if I remember correctly, that game was a lot more, like, strictly pinball.

03:19 Where, I think that maybe we mentioned that in the episode, that, like, unless I'm totally misremembering, but that, like, being a video game that could have done some more things with it. Which I think that this game, I'm sure we'll get into, does do a few more things that, like, you can't do, or it would be harder to do with a real pinball machine.

03:36 Joe, you are a true nostalgia historian. We did say that in the episode. And we are definitely going to get into Rock and Ball's many different twists on pinball. Because while the game does have a regular pinball mode that is, like, 50s themed, or rock and roll themed, or diner themed, I couldn't figure out what they were going for. Because there's, like, cheeseburgers, and classic cars, and music notes and stuff. So I'm not sure if it was just, like, 1950s in general, or rock and roll that they were going for.

04:07 Generic pinball. Yeah, there's a TV, there's a shoe, there's a jacket, there's a burger. There's many other things, too. But, like, it's generic pinball at its finest. That is a, you know, one-player to four-player experience. And you don't need four controllers. You just hand it off to the next person when your turn's over and you compete for the high scores.

04:27 But more interestingly, you have, like, characters to be. It's not enough for you to clearly be the person hitting the buttons that are the flippers. You have to pick the character that has no other personality. Just a name, essentially, and a sprite for them. And then you'll never see them until you get to the score screen again. But they are the person that you are playing the pinball machine as. It just feels like a complicated step in pinball because I never really thought I was playing as somebody else while I'm playing pinball. But I guess, you know, if you want to be Tom or Billy or John or Paul, Lisa and Diana are all in this game.

05:06 Yeah. I think it would have made more sense to, you get into, like, a character creator like The Sims. And you create two characters. And you would be playing the character that would sort of combine the DNA of those two people. So that you're creating the parents of the character that you end up playing the pinball with your hands with. Yeah, that's if you really wanted to simplify it, though.

05:35 Yeah. But I also think that, like, yeah, it is way too simple. Like, I'm always for, I'm all for giving the player some sort of, like, agency in this, like, immersion at the beginning. But, like, I feel like you gotta go a little farther than, like, pick a character and you'll see their face at the end of the game again. Give them a stat or something. Put their face on the bottom of the screen, make it look like they're doing something. Joe, remember Casino Kid? I do. Great game. Love it. In that one, you face off against a lot of other, like, actual characters who have distinct personalities and tells and levels of skill.

06:14 That feels like what they should have done with this pinball character mode for everybody other than, like, who you are. Like, it would be a mistake to say you picked Tom and now you're better at flippers, right? But Billy gives the ball more speed, right? Like, that would be the mistake. Like, but if you're gonna verse these people, right, just selecting them, like, go through, you know, Tom is really good at saving the ball, right? Like, he's more on it. But Billy's great at knowing, like, how to do the trick shots. Like, that's fine because they're computer players that you're choosing to play against for specific scores or whatever.

06:48 It's really just difficulty modes, if I'm being honest, as I'm describing it. But I think they were smart not to give these people any actual stats, which is weird because I would say the opposite in almost any other kind of game. But here, since it's just, like, an additional piece of flavor, it's not something that we should prolong much longer.

07:05 But just to be clear, the characters do have, like, a victory dance and they do say something when they win or if they lose. So there is a little something extra. There is a reason for them to exist. It's not just an additional screen that's a chore before you finally get to play pinball. But it's not enough for me. I'd say that you're giving it more credit than it's due, but I'll allow it. So the regular pinball, let's start there.

07:33 We mentioned the weird theme around, like, you know, things that kids in the 80s probably don't give a shit about. We're in 90s now. But the 1990s is really, like, still the 80s, right? It's the 1990 itself. I mean, you know, where you draw the line. Yeah, exactly. Like, I think, like, you gotta, it takes, like, five years before you get to the new genre. Yeah, we've gotten to this. Okay.

07:56 So this is just pinball themed around what their parents would be interested in. But, hey, go for it. The rules are the same as all other pinball machines except for one very, like, I don't know, just weird rule that you can unlimited tilt in this game. You can tilt as much as you want. And that is not true in real pinball machines. They do allow for a light tilt if you can, you know, be sensitive enough. But any pinball machine worth their salt is going to tell you that it's going to say tilt and all of a sudden the flippers are going to lock and your ball is just going to go out. And you're going to be caught cheating. In this game, they're encouraging the cheating.

08:36 And, like, I get it. I appreciate that there's a little bit more to this than just the flippers. I think maybe giving it, like, you get a couple tilts. Like, if you wanted to go for a closer analog for the real life pinball experience.

08:57 But I kind of like it as more of, like, we're adding this feature to pinball so that there's more interaction. And it's not just left and right. Yeah, I mean, I liked it, too, as someone who's really never played any serious pinball. Like, I mean, I've played a pinball machine in my life, but, like, I really don't know much about it. So that didn't even come across my mind. Like, oh, how come I can do this unlimitedly? I just assumed, like, oh, yeah, that's normal. I think if they branded this game a little differently, like, as if it were, it was, like, pinball for rebels.

09:30 And this was, like, the MLB, not MLB, NFL Blitz. Yeah, NFL Blitz version of pinball for, like, hardcore kids. Like, that would help sell it a bit. In my first three minutes of playing regular pinball, I was using the tilt function because, you know, I read the manual beforehand. I knew that I was allowed to tilt as much as possible. And it was great because it was it makes it, like, easier to get your ball stuck in those bumpers and then just constantly racking up points in them.

10:03 What I didn't expect is that on the lower half of the screen, there is, like, two on the right-hand side. There's, like, two bumpers that score some good amount of points. But, you know, they're kind of, like, in an odd position. You're not expected to hit them or whatever. Well, using the tilt as it was coming off the edge, my ball got wedged between both of those bumpers and was stuck there permanently, just racking up an infinite score.

10:31 Interestingly, the game can only count a certain amount on the screen. But when you do go to the, like, put in your high score after you run out of all three balls, it reveals the much higher score. I was surprised how far it was able to count up. So how long did you leave it on? Maybe, like, four minutes.

10:53 Okay. I wanted to test the limits because I wanted to see if it had, like, a kill screen or something. Yeah, yeah. Arcade games kind of have those, so why wouldn't a pinball machine? But the pinball machine only counts to, like, 999,999.

11:07 The high score machine theoretically could count up to 999 million, I believe. Wow. It's interesting that it doesn't have the digits on, like, the regular screen, but it is, like, internally keeping track of it and, like, still knows how to display that.

11:22 Right. Like, is it distracting? I don't know. Otherwise, though, this is just regular pinball, and, you know, I have a lot of thoughts about pinball as a, you know, as a form of play. But I don't think I want to talk about the placement of the ramps or the bumpers or, like... Well, yeah, this pinball, this standard pinball, like, you know, with most well-designed pinball machines, there are usually, like, several different kinds of, like, objectives. At least in the newer... You probably know, like, what the era of pinball would be, but from what I remember from our little forays into it, like, there's a couple things that, like, oh, do this X times, and then it'll open up this ramp or whatever.

12:10 Whereas in this, there's, like, one thing like that, and you have to knock down these, like, temporary bumper things, and once you do that, you have access to this other thing, and when you hit that, it opens up a door to, like, a bonus stage, and you can spend pretty much however long you can survive in this bonus stage. But, like, that's really the only, like, bell and whistle on this board. Yeah, and we're well ahead of all of that, you know, what you're referencing of missions or objectives and stuff like that.

12:44 That was... that was even as far back as, like, the early 70s, really, the idea of that. Before that, it was really just, you know, there was a nine-ball pinball machine that looked like pool, and you had to hit all the pool balls, and that would, you know, trigger something. But it was still, like, a simple just hit the bumpers, ring up some points. But by the 70s and definitely the 80s, you know, you have games that want you to, like, you know, they're doing some storytelling.

13:12 Yeah. So, yeah, it does make for a rather uninteresting regular pinball game because you are just scoring for points when there are other modes that make pinball more complicated, right? So this is maybe scratching the itch for somebody who doesn't want to spend unlimited quarters at the arcade playing real pinball and realizing that they're not nearly as good as they thought, which is a thing.

13:50 You know, you could be good at video game pinball and go to a pinball, a real pinball machine, and realize you just don't have the same, like... I don't know if it's cognition or whatever, but the flippers behave differently in real life for sure than they ever do in a video game. Yeah, one thing that I wished that you could do in this is sort of have, like, a light touch on the flipper.

14:11 But... Yeah, you can't do that here. Yeah, I thought maybe, like, if you hold it, you do a hard touch. If you hold it for, like, a half a second, and if you literally tap it for, like, a millisecond, it would be a light touch. That would have been nice. I don't know technically how possible that is, but I feel like we've had things like that with jumps, character jumps and stuff in games. And that would have made... That would have given me, like, a little more... Another tool in my arsenal to do something other than, like, trying to hit it when it's, like, at a certain distance away from my flipper or something. It gives you a little more agency.

14:42 The one thing you can do with the flippers that is definitely a beginner skill in pinball is you can use them to hold the ball in the place. And then, so this way, you can release it and figure out exactly when you want to hit the ball with the flipper to hit exact spots. So, it's good that that's possible. It's not that hard to do. I don't even know if they would have to program that just based on the size of the flippers themselves. But that's a great way to hit things that you want to instead of just constantly having the ball come down, hitting the flippers, and hoping it hits something. Right. So, moving on from regular pinball, we have...

15:23 I actually don't remember what the mode's called, but it's, like, a gambling form of pinball. Is it, like, the nine ball thing? Yeah, the nine ball. Yeah, balls are knocked into, like, a pachinko pattern where beforehand there's a bunch of holes on the board, on the pachinko board, and you stop. You press the A button to stop these numbers that are floating around on the holes, and there's just ones and twos. But, basically, when you stop it, those numbers become locked, and then you want to get your ball in those holes in order to win your bet.

15:58 So, you bet, like, you know, a hundred bucks or whatever based on the ones you see, and then you hope that you get yours into, like... If you get it into a two, you get double your payout. If you get it into three ones, you get... That would be triple your payout. So, you know, it's just a mode like that. What do we think about the pachinko aspect? Is this even pinball?

16:20 Well, there's... Okay, so... Also, if you get them in, like, a line, like a... Like an XO thing, like, you can also score points that way. It counts that as something. But this is a mode that can take a very long time, because there are a lot of... Obstacles that this ball can hit, and it could be a very... It could take a while for it to even hit, like, the bottom of the screen where your flippers are for you to, like, shove it back up there and take its time again.

16:57 But... And, like, as the game goes on, as you get balls and more holes, those are now other places where the ball can't go. So, it's... It can take a while, and... Um... It can also...

17:11 Get into weird spots where it'll just bounce, like, perfectly on top of a thing over and over. So... I found this one kind of frustrating and not too fun. See, I would think this one was a little more fun if this, like, gambling element had a little more purpose. Like, you get these credits. It's fun in a vacuum. Well, not in a vacuum, but it's fun to think about, like, oh, okay, like, I can bet however many of these credits I want, and then I can, like, get double what I bet based on, like, if I get it into this hole or if I, you know, get a straight line here or whatever. I can, you know, build that up, but there's no purpose to these credits, right? I mean, you just bet more credits on your next game if you want.

17:55 Like, I don't know what exactly I would want them to do, but I feel like it would be cool to be able to spend them in other modes or, like, I don't know. Right. The credits should be what you have to play the other modes. You need credits. Yeah. To play, like, regular pinballs, you have to bet your money. Or, like, to play some special version of the other modes or something or some bonus levels during the other modes or get a free ball in the other modes or something like that because this feels almost like it's a bonus type game to the rest of the game that offers no real bonus. Like, it's just a distraction.

18:30 Like, oh, look how many credits I have that don't mean anything, which would be nice to be able to spend them somewhere. I know that's kind of, like, a weird, like, criticism of this mode, but, like, I think that that, for me, is the only way to make me care about this mode. I think it is kind of fun as a little mini gambling, like, distraction.

18:46 It just would need to matter. It's just such a large board, too, where nothing particularly interesting is happening. There's just a bunch of holes, and you have ten balls to get into these holes. So to Sean's point of just how long it takes one to go into a hole, especially the hole you want it to go into, you know, especially with the unlimited tilt, you could be shaking this thing around for a long time, or it could just go in right away.

19:12 It's kind of a potluck in that regard. But because the board is so big, I just think that, you know, this could have been something where it's actually like Pachinko. Your skill is using the plunger to hit that ball into the, you know, into the filter, and then it just kind of naturally, with, you know, with some of your tilting assist, maybe, it just kind of naturally falls through. But it has a hole to fall into, not just, you know, go down to another set of flippers with a, you know, with a fall at the end.

19:49 More exciting than Nineball, if that's what we're going to call it, is Battle Pinball, which operates kind of, it's more Pong than pinball, because it's you versing another computer. And yeah, instead of paddles, you have sets of flippers, but the goal is still the same. You want to hit the ball into their goal, and then that's how you score points. There are three different variations to the Battle Pinball mode. They call them Thunder, Bomber, and Attack mode. All three options use specialized flippers and have a different type of layout that's different from the, obviously different from the regular pinball, but just different from each other's modes.

20:35 So, what did we think about this spin on Pong that's also, you know, it's definitely more pinball than the gambling one, but is it, you know, is it competitive enough? I would take exception with calling this Pong, more Pong than pinball, like, Pong is too simple a concept. Yeah, but this is Pong with obstacles. Yeah, but, like, it's pinball. Yeah, I kind of agree with that, too. It's exactly pinball, there's just another player.

21:07 Yeah, like, Pong, you could then say that any, like, racket game is Pong in real life. Oh, I would. Anyway, I like these because there were modifiers and all of the, and you could, like, switch where your paddles were and to sort of, like, put pressure on your opponent if they're having trouble getting it out of their area. Um, by also, like, you know, risking leaving your area open because there is a bit of a delay, um, in moving the flippers. And those, like, modifiers that you could turn on and off by hitting certain things with either randomness or skill, uh, kind of made up for some of the, uh, lackluster, uh, variety that we found in regular Pong. Oh, my God, you're making me say it. In regular pinball. Just say what you believe.

22:09 Um, but yeah, I liked these. Um, I think that, you know, some of this creativity could have been helpful in the single player mode because I think a strong single player mode is important. Even though there is a computer player that you can play against, but it was fun. Yeah, I also love the kind of risk reward of, like, keeping your flippers as, like, the goalie or putting them, I guess, technically, like, on offense sort of is what it looked like to me. Um, but I, I thought this was, yeah, definitely much more fun than regular, the regular pinball mode for me.

22:46 And it initially made me think, okay, yeah, this is doing what I was hoping, um, like, a pinball video game would do is do something that you can't do in real life. And then I realized, like, wait a minute, you can do most of this in real life. Like, does this exist in real life, this kind of, like, one-on-one pinball? Because if not, I feel like it should. I don't know. Yeah, I've never seen a machine like that, but you make a good point, Joe. If we have, if you think about even just arcade cabinets that are, uh, I forget what those are called, but they're, like, bar top arcade cabinets or whatever.

23:18 Yeah, where four players or two players can just sit across from each other and then also put their beer glasses down and play against each other that way. Why couldn't you do that with pinball? Uh, it's a good point. You know, now that I'm looking at it, too, I'm kind of thinking about, and obviously this is more true in the sports section, but this is also, maybe, maybe if Pong wasn't fair for you, what do you think about, like, air hockey? Well, that, well, we get, I'd say the sports ones were kind of like a combination of air hockey and foosball. Right, right, but with pinball elements, and so, uh, you know, that's why I'm saying this is Pong with pinball elements, but I get it, it's not.

23:56 I would say this is pinball crossed with Pong. I would agree with that. But I wouldn't say it's more Pong than pinball. It's more pinball than Pong. It's definitely more pinball than Pong. Yeah. There's one reason. You can, you can move your, you can move your flippers to the center with a risk-reward system that we've been talking about, but you can't move your flippers, like, across the screen like you would a Pong paddle. And that's the, you know, that's the difference.

24:23 That's more like being a goalkeeper. This is just using the pinball flippers as your sole source of protection. Yeah, it's like playing. Otherwise, you have no say. It's like playing pinball, but instead of the ball just rolling back at you because of gravity, there's like an attacker on the other end hitting the ball to you, and you better hope that you can flip it back.

24:41 Oh, Joe, maybe that's why this doesn't exist in real life. Because the, the, I guess they could just make it so this way it, uh, it's like pyramid shaped. Yeah, that's what I imagine it'd have to be. That's what I would imagine. In fact, in the, uh, like, after you finish this game, when you have, like, the winner screen, um, it shows, like, a side angle of, like, the people playing, and it looks like the, the machine is, yeah, like pyramid shaped like that, or, or like, uh, it slants downward on each side.

25:10 We'll have it confirmed, like, after this episode airs, I think. Like, if it exists. Somebody that actually knows what they're talking about, yeah. Yeah. There's no experience necessary on this podcast. Not at all. We haven't talked about the particular modes, uh, Thunder, Attack, and, uh, what was the other one? Bomber. Bomber, yeah.

25:33 Yes. Um, you know, it's nice that there's actual variety in these boards, and somewhat different rule sets, if you want to, like, you're still scoring the same exact way, but, uh, just the way you can score is a bit different. Did you feel like there was enough variety, or was it more like, one's the easy mode, one's the, you know, let's add a couple more things, and then the final form of it? Um, I guess there wasn't enough variety for me to remember exactly what you could do in each. Um, so, maybe there wasn't all that much. It was just sort of different board shapes, um, with different, like, spices of modifier.

26:13 Um, so maybe, maybe not, maybe not too much, and one or two is fine. Uh, but one thing that I wanted to, to mention as an additional, uh, factor for the multiplayer modes is that now this, this, uh, bump and tilt that you could do in the single player modes, which is more so, like, cheating. Um, now just becomes a, like, symmetrical extra, like, strategy that you're, that you're using to try and just mess up your opponent, and, like, it looks like they're trying to line up a shot, so just bump it, and they'll, they'll just whiff or go exactly where they don't want it to go. Like, I, I like that there's that extra layer, um, that not just, like, simulating cheating in pinball. Yeah, yeah, it makes it, like, nice and competitive.

27:08 Um, and as far as, uh, the different modes, I'll be honest, I really only spent a significant amount of time with the bomber mode, so I don't really know what the other two modes offer like this, but I know that the bomber mode, like, there's a way that your ball can turn into a bomb. Uh, and then you have to get out of your section before it explodes. That is a nice little, like, wrinkle. If it's in your section for too long.

27:32 That's right, yeah. But, like, that's a nice little wrinkle on, like, the game, so I'm actually curious if you guys know what the thunder or attack modes have. Yeah, so the, the bomber mode, as you mentioned, has a, like, panel on the right-hand side that you can hit those things to trigger, uh, things like a, a bomb, or, um, if you hit the lightning, your partner's flipper will stop.

27:52 Uh, the skull makes the, uh, flippers disappear, so all these are, like, borderline power-ups slash, um, you know, uh, uh, difficulty increasers, depending on who's getting, who's the receiver of them. Um, thunder is basically the, the simplest mode of it all. That, uh, it's just, they've put some things in the middle of the screen to kind of block perfect shots going back and forth between the two sets of flippers.

28:19 And instead, there's, like, some ramps that shoot off into different directions to maybe make the way the ball enters, uh, the other person's zone a little trickier for them to handle. But otherwise, there's no upgrades or special abilities in that one. And then the attack one, uh, there are switches on the, uh, right-hand side for both players that have the, it says, like, attack, help, or stop.

28:43 And, um, I didn't, I didn't play too much of this one, but the idea is basically that the, um, when you, when, you know, when you hit one of those things, it triggers something else on the screen to do some work for you to help you against your opponent. Okay. That's cool.

29:00 True that. Moving on to what probably would have been the, uh, biggest source of enjoyment for me, uh, as a kid playing this kind of game, the sports pinball section. And not because it's sports-focused, but just because of the, uh, the twist on the competitive side of pinball here that wasn't, I don't know, it was just maybe, like, a little too complicated in these, uh, in these battle modes. The sports pinball takes the, uh, hockey and soccer that we all know and love, as Sean was saying, uh, air hockey and foosball, and includes the pinball flippers as the, as the only players. So instead of having rows of foosball players or your, um, hockey, uh, what, what is that? Is that, you call that a stick still in air hockey?

29:48 Uh, I mean, it's a dude. No, but you mean an actual air hockey, the thing you hold? The pole that you're twirling? Oh, sorry. The thing you hold, yeah. Okay, sorry, I'm thinking of, of bubble hockey. Uh. Which would make sense because, yeah.

30:01 That was the foosball analogy. Yeah, the, um, uh, the paddle. I'd say it's a paddle. The paddle, okay, yeah. So that paddle, like, you're free to move around, whereas your flippers obviously are locked, but instead they are at the center of the screen, and you have a goalkeeper in your, um, in, in, you know, guarding your net that you can freely move around as well. So, uh, that is true in both games, uh, ice hockey and in, uh, soccer.

30:29 What did you guys think? I thought these were cool twists, uh, and they're kind of the same game, uh, but they each have a, a key difference to make it closer to the sport they're, they're using as a coat of paint, uh, whereas in hockey, the goal is sort of pushed forward a bit to mimic a, like, an actual goalie net in a hockey rink where there is, uh, the, there is, like, behind the net area, behind the icing line, and, uh, there's just a bumper back there to spit it back out, um, and then in soccer, there are these little nubs you can hit the ball into that sort of simulate corner kicks, uh, and you can just call for it to get popped out to the center of the pitch and then try and, like, one-time it in. Uh, I thought these were cool.

31:26 Yeah, this is probably also my favorite mode of this game, um, and I would say that this is the mode where I think we stray the furthest away from pinball, like, really the only pinball thing, other than those corner kick simulator little things and the bumper behind the hockey net, um, is, like, that you're, you're controlling a flipper, but it does move horizontally across the whole rink or field or whatever, and the really only thing that makes it a flipper is that it flips, but it doesn't really, like, act like a flipper because it flips, like, 360 degrees around every time. So it is, like, kind of, it's kind of a new game. Like, it's a different game, and you're also controlling, like, an actual little person.

32:09 So, like, it's really gotten, that's your goal, I should say. So it's really gotten away from pinball, but it is also, um, I don't know. Like, it's hard for me to say, like, oh, yeah, this is doing that thing that I said where it's, uh, it's doing something that a real pinball machine can't do because it's also, like, well, yeah, but is this even really pinball anymore? But, uh, regardless of that, I don't know why I keep coming back to that as some sort of, like, rubric, but this is very fun. Did you guys know that you can actually change the type of kick or shot with your flipper depending on how you, what you press on the control pad? Yeah, I was, I mean, like, you mean directionality?

32:53 Directionality, yeah. Yeah, like, if you do left, it'll go clockwise. And if you do right, it'll go counterclockwise. And, uh, if you get that wrong, there could be some really hilarious moments where you just own goal. Yeah, you, like, dodge the ball instead of hit the ball. Yeah. And, and like that, it's, I mean, this is, like I said, air hockey, but now this is closer to bubble hockey or foosball, uh, just very simplified and with less moving parts.

33:21 Would you have liked it if it was even more like foosball with additional flippers placed around the screen? Maybe the, maybe the actual board needs to be a little bigger, but the idea that, you know, you only press one button and they all flip the same way, but that you're in control of all of those and not just like this center, uh, flip. I don't know if, if it was actually simulating foosball or, uh, or bubble hockey, I don't think that there's enough buttons on the controller to make that work. But if it's just at like keeping the same rules of this, but adding more, I don't think it's necessary. I think this is like goofy and simple and fun enough to work on its own.

34:02 Yeah. I think it could be cool, but it would probably, for me, it would probably get a little cluttered because just that directionality, um, difference honestly was confusing to me. Like not confusing. I understood how it worked, but like in the moment I screwed that up so many times. Like there's a lot to think about in a very short amount of time already for me. So, uh, I, I like it as it is. And it is nice that the, the goalies are, are not flippers. Yeah. They're just, uh, they're, they're pong. Thank you. We got there.

34:38 So the Japanese version of this game, uh, which was called family pinball, uh, the regular pinball mode is actually all Namco themed and specifically Pac-Man themed board. It's, it's Pac-Man. Pac-Man is in the game. The whole board, instead of being a fifties diner rock and roll theme thing is, is a Pac-Man themed board. And the characters you pick are, um, you know, either Pac-Man or characters from, I, I don't know any of these characters. I imagine they're from Japanese Namco games, uh, Valkyrie and wonder Momo and Kai. I don't know. Wonder Momo. Oh yeah. Wonder Momo. Of course. Uh, anyway, Pac-Man is in the game.

35:23 When did Pac-Man not become sellable anymore? Why would Namco decide in 1990, like, you know what? Pac-Man's actually dead. Uh, and see like that goes back to the whole pinball is famous in video game history. Pac-Man is famous in video game history. Put him on this game, put them all over this game, call it Pac-Man pinball. Why don't you? And make everything themed around that. It's weird to strip out Pac-Man, right? Like he was huge in America. People had Pac-Man fever. They wrote a song about it.

35:55 Uh, I, I'm really sorry, Mike, about all of this. I can tell that you're visibly upset. Uh, I've seen censorship in our games before, Sean, but not like this. We truly are very oppressed here, but. Was Pac-Man not in good favor with the, uh, with the Western people at the time? Maybe that was like, oh, like they don't, no one must see Pac-Man after, uh, after what he did. After he like revealed himself to be like a Soviet sympathizer. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was probably something along those lines. I'm just looking to see what, what Pac-Man was up to in 1990. Like maybe, maybe they actually released too many bad games by then that they were like, there's no way we could put out another Pac-Man game. Like people are dumb with him.

36:41 But that just doesn't seem, I don't know. That doesn't feel true. Right? It doesn't. Pac-Mania came out in 1987 and that was like that weird 3D one where, um, he's still, he's still a giant sphere. He doesn't have like, uh, in the, in the promotional posters, he still has his arms and legs, but not in the game. Thankfully. I don't think you would have the arms and legs in the game until the, the Pac world games. Yes. Yeah. Let's see. The next Pac-Man game is pro, yeah.

37:12 Looks like Pac-Attack. This is now a, uh, save Pac-Man symposium. We're no longer talking about rock and ball. Well, here's the crazy thing about the next Pac-Man game. Okay. It's Pac-Attack, which is a Tetris game. All right. It's a, it's Tetris, but with Pac-Man. So they think that's fine to send to America, but do not send pinball with Pac-Man. Well, yeah, because pinball stands on its own. All video gamers love pinball. Who's ever even heard of Tetris?

37:44 Yeah. And like, I would get confused if my pinball, which is also a sphere, were to look like a cute Pac-Man. Uh, I would be upset with the, the, like the analogy, um, that would just make me irate as I played the game. And the thing about the, the pinball ball, marble, whatever it is, is that it's a solid color. So it can be rolling. If it's Pac-Man, like he's got like a mouth and an eye. Okay. So like, if he's rolling, you need to see that, like, you can't just have him being like a solid Pac-Man moving around. That isn't like a ball rolling anymore. No, it doesn't. And see, I played family pinball, uh, just to see what the Pac-Man elements were. And I was kind of surprised that Pac-Man wasn't the ball.

38:30 Why wouldn't he just be the ball? It's not like, you know, it's not like you also have to have the ghost roaming the screen or something, or, you know, they didn't really make it look like a Pac-Man maze or anything like that. They didn't go crazy. It's not a complete. Redesign from the regular pinball that we have in this game. But I don't know.

38:46 Like you said, Pac-Man's a sphere. Make him the ball. That would have been another nice touch. So Namco missed. You can have a mode in this game where the whole pinball machine is covered in pellets or dots or whatever they are. And you have to try and scoop them all up as many as you can by hitting Pac-Man into them. I just feel like whether it was the Japanese version or the American version, Namco made a misstep on both, on both accounts. I agree. And I think they should not be forgiven.

39:15 But you see, they weren't the publishers in the North American one. So NTVIC was. And I don't even know. I've never heard of that. Yeah, that's the reason. But I'm saying like, so they bought the game off of Namco and we're like, yeah, we know we can't use Pac-Man, but we're gonna reskin the whole game. We just want to own the rights to this pinball game that you made and remove all mentions of Pac-Man. It just sounds like a crazy pitch. Maybe it was just like on sale if you didn't take the Pac-Man license, you know? Like I know this for a fact, actually. Joe, I've been trying to look up what they call the pinball ball because you raised a good point about it.

39:56 But I don't have an answer for you, though. It's not something. Is it not just a pinball? Right. I would think it was called the pinball. But then I didn't want to sound stupid and be like, actually, no, it's just the whole machine is the pinball. And the ball is a marble. It's the pin. I can't tell you.

40:12 Well, we all know that like a base, like the ball we use in baseball is actually called the pigeon. I always thought, well, the baseball is the field, right? Well, you play it on a field, but you hit the pigeon. Yeah, yeah. You play on a field, which is called the baseball, right? Called the baseball field. But Joe, I do know what you're saying. So don't worry. I'm not. You don't have to explain it to me. I was joking. Yeah. Is he not joking? Okay. I thought he was joking. No, he is. He is. I know. I know what he's saying. All right. We're all in on this joke together, right?

40:44 Right. See, yeah, because I'm in the glossary for pinball terms. And it's not when I get to the P, there's no like pinball referring to the ball. But pin game is another term for a pinball machine, according to the pinball glossary. Pin game. Hmm. I think it's just going to be. I think it's going to be called the. I think it's going to be called the marble, guys. I think it's going to be called the pinball. I would like to call it the pinball, too. But think about this, Sean. We don't call the football strictly the football. We sometimes call it the pigskin. I'm going to call it the pong ball.

41:19 Yeah. I mean, sometimes we call it the rock. Yeah. The rock, the pigskin. And so I'm just going to say it's the pigeon. Okay. Now listen to this. Everybody's familiar with more complicated variants of pinball, such as like when you get the multi ball bonus and a bunch of other balls spill out from all over the place. And you try to keep those for as long as you can, because as long as two or more are there, you still have like technically an extra life on screen. Yeah. That's called multi ball.

41:45 And the pinball glossary says when several balls are in play at one time. Now, hold on a minute. They're not saying when several pinballs are in play. So just the ball. It's just a ball. All right. I mean, it could also just be like single ball. Well, I think that the single ball. I think that this confirms that the ball in pinball is the base form of a ball. Every other type of ball is a variation on the ball in a pinball. Yeah. It's the platonic ideal. Yes. Of ball. We, I think we started this conversation at the 35 minute mark.

42:19 I'm really happy. 15 more minutes then. Yeah. You may not like it, but that's what a pinball ball is called. On the sequels and spinoff. Yeah. On the sequels and spinoff side, none. Absolutely none. I can't find anything about NTVIC, except for in the manual,

42:41 their international corporation is located at 50 Rockefeller Plaza, which is pretty close, not the exact address, to where the Nintendo New York City store is today. And I just find that funny. That is funny. Ha. Not like laugh out loud funny because I'm not laughing, but. The joke gave a ha. Yeah, it was a ha. And then I had a real genuine laugh after that, but it was at my own joke. Yes. You know what is no joke? What? Joke. Because we have to be really serious about it, is when we vote for games on the essential games list.

43:17 Rockin' Ball is video game pinball with a lot of different modes, and we've covered them at length here. I did appreciate the twist on pinball. So if you have like another player to play against, maybe not the computer, although the computer offers a fine experience and at some points can challenge you too.

43:37 I just think that this is the kind of game that you want a friend to play along with you, so this way you have that competitive itch inside of you. That would definitely be true in the battle and in the sports pinball modes, the two highlights of this game. The regular pinball is just so lackluster and boring, and there's only one bonus mode, and it's very easy. You just shoot into a ramp, and then a car just goes out of control and just keeps like going up and down and up and down,

44:04 eating its way through the board until you move into the bonus mode, which is just hitting a bunch of people to score points. My point being is just that the regular pinball, which is what the game is trying to sell you the idea on, is so lackluster that I don't think I can put it on the essential games list just for that. It does get some style points though for all of these other ideas of pinball created, and I would have liked to have seen it take that further.

44:30 It seems weird that battle pinball can really just be, well, how many sets do you want to play? Like maybe they should have played around more with the idea of competition or what that could have been if they really wanted to stretch that mode out. A little more of that, and maybe we'd be talking about something, but because this is all there is, I don't think it's on the essential games list. Joe? I honestly don't have too much to say about this one.

44:56 Like you said, the main pinball game mode is pretty generic. It's a generic, as far as I know, pretty generic form of pinball. I do like the variations. They're neat. They can be kind of fun in some instances. Other instances, they're a little pointless.

45:15 I definitely don't think this is essential. Maybe if you're a pinball enthusiast, it's a curio that you might want to take a look at, but I wouldn't say that it's essential in any world. Sean? My biggest question with this game is why do they call it Rockin' Ball? I get that they changed the theme of the single-player board, the only single-player board, that's trying to just be pinball, into a kind of, sort of, vanilla,

45:49 50s rock. Those are what the little icons are. But it's the only thing that has anything to do with rock. It had me questioning, why is this called Rockin' Ball? I was like, oh, because it's like kind of, you know, it's kind of rock-themed, but not really. And it's like one little mode. Like, it should have just been called Battle Pinball or keep the family pinball name. And that's really my biggest problem with this game is the naming convention. It wasn't interesting enough to call itself that. I mean, I had some fun with the multiplayer modes, but yeah, also it's not essential. Are all the characters that you can play as, are they like rock stars?

46:37 No. Okay. They look like them. Who are Lisa and Diana to you as rock stars? Oh, I'm not saying they're literal, real world rock stars. Lisa, Left Eye, Lopez. They're all dressed kind of like they would be musicians or like stage, you know, Diana Ross. I thought they looked like they were going to a sock hop. Like, look at Billy. He's kind of got like an Elton John thing going, sort of, or maybe an Elvis thing. I don't know. It's hard to tell on these pixels. Built in John. And then like, John has a guitar. I don't know. Tom's got pink hair.

47:07 They all look like they could be stage performers. I don't know. Pink hair is one of the surest signs of rock and roll. That's true. That's the role. Well, we've all had complaints about the marketing of this game at one point or another during this episode. So I'm glad that we can all agree. If we can't agree on how close to Pong pinball is, we can at least agree that rock and ball really dropped the ball.

47:33 Next week, we have Top Gun, the second mission. If you didn't listen to our first Top Gun episode, you probably should because there's one funny thing about that Top Gun game.

47:46 We talked about it in the episode, but we've had so many people on Twitter come to us and say like, wow, I never knew that about the landing sequence. So if you want to know what we're talking about, either Google it because it'll be very obvious or listen to that entire episode again or for the very first time if you don't go back and listen to the other episodes. Top Gun, the second mission, very much like Top Gun Maverick, will not require any sort of information on the first one. You'll be able to get the gist without ever having to listen to the first episode or watch the first movie.

48:19 If you're not interested in Top Gun, may I recommend our Nostalgia Bites series over on patreon.com slash nostalgia. We have our Captain Tsubasa episode coming up and that's, instead of pinball soccer, that's just cinematic soccer.

48:40 We'll be right back.