Future Pinball

Now that I'm going to have a game room, I smartly subscribed to GameRoom magazine (great magazine so far). In the last couple issues, the were adamant about the coolness of a MAME-like pinball emulator project from Australia that's been around for a few years now called Future Pinball. At first, I was resistant. I have seen video pinball before and really just not liked it. If I'm going to play pinball, I said to myself, I want the physical aspects of the ball rolling around the table, and the clacking of actual flippers. Luckily, I caved and decided to check it out.

WOW. Future Pinball is just about as close to the real thing as a computer could get. It's light years ahead of anything I've seen before.



All you have to do is download and install the Future Pinball program, and then browse the collection of over 300 tables and download whatever you'd like into the tables folder within the Future Pinball directory. Then just launch the table, press "5" to add credits, and "1" to start. The shift keys work as the flippers, and enter launches the ball. There are many camera views to choose from, and you can either follow the ball's movement, or keep a static view of the whole table. I personally found that camera-scrolling with the ball was more exciting and gives you a nice view of the table details (F4 is my favorite view setting).

Many tables are recreations of actual classic pinball tables from manufacturers like Bally, Gottlieb, and Willams. The more complex tables like Addams Family and Medieval Madness don't seem to be there, but Pinbot, High Speed, and many others are faithfully recreated.



Some, however, are completely new creations. In my review of TILT, the pinball documentary, you may recall I said that George Gomez made me want to design pinball tables. Well, Future Pinball actually makes that possible to a pretty robust degree. Among the new tables I've enjoyed playing so far are War of the Worlds, Bubble Bobble, Halloween, The New Zealand Story, and Phantasm ("BOYYYYYYYY!..."). There's an Anarchy Online table, but surprisingly, no World of Warcraft-themed selection. Playing with your favorite theme will probably be one of the primary motivators for designing your own machine.

Future Pinball is one of those things that make you thankful for the intarwebz. Thanks, intarwebz! Now go check it out!

Geekumentary: TILT

In 1998 pinball was dying, thanks to a saturated market and shrinking player base. Williams, the world's largest pinball manufacturer, prepared to abandon the game that had made it a legend in favor of the more lucrative video slot machine business.

From its nostalgic opening jaunt though pinball history to its heartbreaking ending, employing remarkable animation throughout, TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball is a fascinating case study for anyone interested not just in pinball, but in the march of technology and the intersection of art and commerce.

I've never played a lot of pinball. I like the concept, like the lights and sounds and flipping those flippers, but it's not as if I'm good at it or a frequent player, certainly not a pinball enthusiast. But I'm on this geekumentary kick, and the only way I was going to see TILT was to buy it, so I did.

I'm glad I did, this was a really good one. Not only is the history of pinball an interesting one (it was years before the pair of flippers we're all familiar with were added to the bottom), the story of Pinball 2000 is one of those classic underdog tales. The subjects interviewed, mostly pinball designers and industry people, are not as colorful as the guys from The King of Kong, but I liked them, and I was pulling for them. George Gomez, one of the primary team members for Pinball 2000, made me want to be a pinball designer.

The Pinball 2000 project that the film documents was an attempt to update pinball by integrating video onto the pinball field. It was an exciting concept, and it looked great, and I was genuinely sad that I'd never gotten to see or play one. Only two models were completed, Revenge from Mars and Star Wars Episode 1, and as it turned out, Episode 1 played a large part in killing the project. And I thought I hated Jar-Jar before...

Not only is the feature presentation good, it comes with a bonus DVD packed with almost seven hours of really excellent extras, including a pivotal key note speech from a pinball convention, and a walkthrough on the process of creating a pinball machine. Even the Pinball 2000 launch video shown by Williams to its buyers. They really gathered together everything you could hope for on the topic of pinball.

This film caused me to do two things:

1. I looked for Revenge from Mars on ebay. And it was THERE. Tempting, very tempting. I always said if I ever got a pinball machine, it would have to be Theater of Magic, but now I'd be sorely tempted to grab a Revenge from Mars if I had the chance.


2. I headed up to Funspot to play pinball till my wrists hurt! Which didn't take very long at all (Pinball Wizard has such a carpal wriiiiist). Favorites from the trip were Pinbot and the Nightmare on Elm Street machine. Star Trek: Next Gen is also one of my favorites, but it was turned off that day, and they don't have Theater of Magic, my VERY favorite. They do have KISS and Adam's Family machines, featured in TILT.

To conclude, if you're at all interested in pinball or documentaries in general, buy this one! You'll enjoy it, and it stands up to multiple viewings.

Read about other geekumentaries in my Top 10 Geekumentaries article.

Home Arcade Project Part 2

The Pimpening

So as I mentioned last week, I'm in the fortuitous position of overseeing the creation of my very own multi-cade machine. The road is long and fraught with tough decisions. Figuring out the control panel setup is actually an easy one compared to decorating the cabinet!

So first, to keep the original cabinet art or not? Our's is a TMNT cabinet, and the art is fun. I was very torn on keeping it vs. painting over it in black and looking for multicade-themed side art to replace it. Full-coverage side art of this kind runs up to $200, though you can get smaller sized stuff for $60. I may very well have kept the turtles, but their condition wasn't perfect, so we decided to go ahead and paint over it.

Bad-ass machine vs. Classic Arcade sweetness
This is the difficulty I'm running into on choosing the side art. There are two main types which I'll call bad-ass and classic. On the one hand, I'm immensely excited about the flat-out coolness of the thing, and flashes of lightning really seem to convey that (I actually semi-joked about making it all black with the KITT/cylon eye light flashing back and forth in the marquee spot).

At the same time though, the whole point of this is a nostalgia trip, tied to childhood. The classic art of pac-man and donkey kong and that ingrained warm and fuzzy reaction they trigger. It's a fierce tug-of-war, but I find myself leaning more towards this theme as the ultimate reason I want this machine, and I suppose the art should reflect that. At this point it's looking like this one:



It was during one of these intense battles of the soul the other day that I got the following text message from Shawn:

I TOOK YOUR GAME
APART AND CUT
THE FRONT OUT
WITH A SKILL
SAW. IT IS
COMPLETELY
GUTTED!

I love it, a classic gaming ransom note!

The Marquee
Hand in hand with the side art is the plexiglass title bar that goes on the front. You can even customize these to say "Rabscuttle's Arcade" if you want. I didn't feel that was necessary; it knows who its master is...

We'll probably go with an "Arcade Classics" version of this:



The next curveball came in the form of t-molding, the trim that goes around the edges. My knee-jerk reaction was black trim, but Shawn suggested that since the machine was now going to be all black, some color of trim would really stand out, and that I should look at KLOV for some examples. The indecision on the side art kind of gets in the way here, because if I pick, say, light blue trim, but go with side art that doesn't match it...oh noes!

About a day of bouncing back and forth between blue, red, and chrome landed me on red. The black/red contrast on many of the Mortal Kombat cabinets does look good, and would also look good, say, if I added a Knight Rider LED flasher to the top...hypothetically speaking.



PS - Gauntlet DS is coming in October!

Home Arcade Project

I've had my heart set on my very own Ms. Pac-Man table-style arcade machine for...ever. In the interest of variety, though, I realize it'd probably be best to build one of those MAME cabinets that are all the rage these days. I mentioned this dream of mine to my friend Robert, who said, "I know just who you should talk to about that!" and referred me to Shawn, world record holder in Zoo Keeper, and builder of custom arcade machines. As a hobby. You know, when he's bored. :)

JAMMA vs. MAME
Now at first, the plan was to use our old PC and do the MAME cabinet thing. Shawn suggested an alternative, using a JAMMA board designed for exactly this purpose. If you haven't heard of these (I hadn't), JAMMA stands for Japan Arcade Machine Manufacturers' Association, and it's a standardization applied to most arcade games made after 1985 (however, MANY older classic arcade games like Ms. Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Frogger are included on the multi-game JAMMA boards). The board doesn't have as many games as MAME of course (currently 1069 + 139), but it may be preferable to sacrificing your computer to the cause, it's designed to go in an arcade cabinet (and therefore, I assume, easier to install), and more titles continue to be added via upgradeable hard drive. Also, though some of the titles in the list are duplicates, it includes almost every game I could want. Plus there's a whole collector aspect of seeking out the individual PCB boards for any particular game you might fancy that's not already on the list (in my case, Primal Rage, for example). You can swap in any JAMMA PCB board you want once you have the setup.

Choose Your Own Cabinet
So what will house this savage beating heart of 1200 games? In our case, because we wanted 4-player capability, we wound up going with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet, which has a 25" monitor (as opposed t the 19" CRT we would have put in if we went the MAME route). Gauntlet was definitely in the running, but it is a HUGE machine, and the monitor is set at a very low angle. I didn't think we'd want to play all games that way. I'm also fond of the Turtles, Rafael in particular. Watched the old cartoon, owned the Krang action figure, and yes, left the theater after seeing the first film singing the theme song with my brother and sister.

One could also make a cabinet from scratch, there are lots of schematics available online for that. In many cases, this will cost you about the same as an existing cabinet, but allows more customization options if you have something elaborate in mind.

Control Yourself!
Probably the most complex choice on a custom arcade machine project is the control panel. My husband and I favor different gaming genres - fighting games vs. straight up classics - and those styles require radically different control setups. Then there's the fact that you'll be playing hundreds of different games on this one machine, and it becomes quickly evident that you'll be needing a number of controls.

It took a LOT of thought and discussion, but currently the plan is to have 4 8-way joystick stations, the front two of which will have a six-button setup common to games like Street Fighter. The side two stations will have 3 (scratch that...4) buttons each, because our latest realization was that games like Dungeons & Dragons require 4 buttons, and above all, THOSE are the games we're going to want to play with the kids when they are old enough. It also turns out that 8-way joysticks are really not so good for classic games like pac-man. You need a 4-way joystick for that. And a trackball - don't leave Centipede out in the cold! And that trackball and 4-way are going to need fire and jump buttons of their own and...voila...5th gamer station.

And that's not even covering all the bases. Steering wheel games? Spinner games? Video pinball games? Shooting games? It's fairly impractical to have it ALL, so you have to prioritize what's important to you. The nice thing is, it's not a completely irreversible decision; it is possible to add some of these options later if you decide you just CAN'T go on without A.P.B. (d'oh...you'll need a gas pedal too!)

Next I'll dive into options for pimping the outside of the cabinet. That's a whole new can of worms!

Home Arcade Project, Part 2

Hello nostalgia, my old friend

I swear, you open the door to nostalgia, just a crack, and the next thing you know, it's on your couch eating cheetos and hogging the remote...

This morning, I made my usual visit to GraphJam, and caught the following:




I laughed, and then realized, gee, not everybody I know would think that's funny, because I know a lot of the young people, and the youths just don't listen to good music anymore. /shakes cane (OK, granted, I'm not old enough to remember that song's debut, but the problem here is that even I'm Gonna Get You, Sucka is rapidly approaching the realm of "old.")

Not a big deal. I've been nostalgic all week after that trip to the Funspot arcade, but in a good way, in a sort of warm and fuzzy way.

But just now, a distressing article caught my eye on digg. Video arcades' last gasp, about a video arcade called Gameland in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, that's closing this September, after 64 years of business. OMG. Now I'm feeling nostalgic in a panicked sort of "I want to cry" kind of way. To read something like this days after re-discovering my love for arcade gaming is actually quite upsetting.

It suddenly hit me that I am very, very lucky to live where I do, because I have access to another increasingly rare commodity; drive-in movies. The Milford Drive-in is where I recently both saw Indiana Jones over fries and cotton candy and witnessed a rainbow touching the ground for the first time in my life (true story, and if I could just get the picture off my cellphone...). Smithsonian.com recently posted an article wishing a happy 75th birthday to the 400 remaining drive-ins in the United States, and it occurred to me how sweetly symbolic it was to catch a rainbow's end in the field right next to the Milford Drive-in.

Drive-ins don't offer the cushy audio-video candy that IMAX and stadium theaters can deliver. The film can't start till the sun goes down. The picture is sometimes too dark, and you must periodically battle the fogging of your windshield, or the mosquitoes (your choice). But it's an experience, and the experience takes center stage, instead of the movies (and it still is a double-feature, if you can stay up that late). People show up an hour or more early, set up lawn chairs, and enjoy the carnival-style drive-in eats while their kids run around on the grass or swing at the little playground. It's great. Then the sun goes down and the vintage concessions stand ads start playing (you know, with the hotdog doing flips for its popcorn master), and THAT, my friends, is nostalgia of the warm and fuzzy type.



I wouldn't want to see every movie like that, every time. Nor would I want to abandon my XBOX or PC games. But it's worth going out of your way to remember our roots now and then. Sort of like camping. So support your local drive-ins and arcades, if you've got them. And if you don't, come on up to New Hampshire sometime - we've got camping, too. :) While it's inevitable that we will see the day when both classic gaming arcades and drive-ins disappear entirely, we've done a great job of dragging our heels on that thus far.

PS - Before I forget, I read on the Twin Galaxies website that there's going to be a Billy Mitchell TOPPS bubblegum card. Personally, I'm hoping for a Pac-man rub-off game on the other side...

The Funspot Tournament, Part 2

OK, so where was I? Oh right, at the 10th annual International Classic Videogame & Pinball Tournament, talking to Billy Mitchell via Walter Day's phone. Whaaaaaaat?!

He was definitely in fine Billy Mitchell form from the get-go. I asked how it was going, and he straight away let me know that it was going really, really, really great, pretty much as good as I could possibly conceive, if I hadn’t heard (and yes, I had heard rumors to that effect). He’d seen my casting call, and wanted me to know, in no uncertain terms that his wife should not be played by a bimbo. She’s actually got multiple degrees including a teaching degree I believe, and all in all sounds like quite an achiever. I let Billy know, in no uncertain terms, that I view Jennifer Tilly as a great actress (Bride of Chucky), a dangerous Texas Hold'um player, and definitely not a bimbo! (If there’s any bimbo in my casting selection, it's Colin Farrell.)

We also found some common ground regarding the difficulty of attending events like this with kids. I know some of you will instantly cry "BS!" but after experiencing the rigors of just being spectators with two very well-behaved children in tow, I can only imagine trying to actually focus and play for scores (and kudos to Steve Wiebe for pulling that off!). Just because I can relate though, doesn’t mean I couldn’t come up with 15 reasons why he SHOULD HAVE come!

While I adore the film, and love rooting for Steve Wiebe, I guess I'm just too laid-back to consider anybody an actual villain (if I thought Steve was actually losing sleep over any of this, I might feel differently). Or maybe he's just the villain I love to hate. Either way, I get a kick out of Mitchell's persona, which may be leaning ever-so-slightly towards arrogant, but is undeniably entertaining. Of course, I haven’t yet been subject to the wrath of Billy Mitchell, and I liked Darth Vadar too. Until he turned out to be Hayden Christensen. Ugh. If Billy turned out to be Hayden Christensen, I’d have hung up immediately.

I think he takes all this nemesis stuff in stride, and honestly, I think he totally does it on purpose (draws controversy, that is…kind of like the Kirk/Picard issue). He told me that when he was discussing the movie with somebody, who started to kind of trash-talk him, he said that it was obvious that if the guy felt that strongly, the movie must have been well done to evoke an emotion of that nature. Which it wouldn't have done if it were about two nice guys. That’s what I’m talking about, and I appreciate a story that can provide that. It’s possible I’m evil too, though. I did display some elements of griefer back in my WoW PvP days.

So during this conversation, the hot sauce topic came up, because apparently closer to the beginning of the tournament (Thursday and Friday) there had been commemorative bottles of Ricky’s to be had, and alas, being a late arrival on Sunday, I’d missed out on that. Billy was nice enough to offer to send me some in the future. Now, what he doesn't know yet is that actually, I'm a buffalo wings FIEND, and have yet to encounter a boneless buffalo wing hotter than I can handle (the suicide hot ones at John Harvard's are pretty good, but the habanero ones that Chilis has right now…come ON guys, don’t throw a word like habanero around unless you mean it). I'm looking forward to seeing where this Ricky's rates, in scoville-ville. Bring it on!

Eventually I realize that I've been talking to Billy for probably longer than I ought to be, given that I'm monopolizing Walter's phone (he's a busy guy - there's a tournament going on and all) and so I say goodbye for now, hand it back with a grin and a big thank you, and head back in. My son's a little out of sorts by this time…ok, a LOT out of sorts, audibly so, and my husband looks half relieved/half annoyed to see me. "What kept you?!?!" he says.

"Well, I was on the phone with Billy Mitchell."

"Oh. Well…alright then." Aside from “I tripped in the parking lot and broke my leg,” I think that was one of the few responses I could have given just then that would have made things OK.

About this time I took a breather, played some Dig Dug (nothing fancy, just to the 9th board or so), and realized, “Oh cripes, I’ve been carrying around the cover insert for The King of Kong all day to get it signed, and I totally forgot about it!” Luckily, I ran into Joel again after this revelation, and he did the autograph thing. Then we wandered over to THE Kong machine, which was right next to one of my childhood favorites, Timber (hey, I grew up in Montana, what can I say?). Chris kicked off a game of Dr. Mario that lasted a looooong time, as in we took the kids downstairs after a while, let them play whack-a-mole and some other games, went back up to check…nope, still playing…went back down, got a drink…maybe you should try his cell?...nope, he’s not picking up – I don’t know what his score was, but he’s always been really good at that one, he probably gets to the Dr. Mario kill-screen multiple times on the same quarter.

I caught up with Walter again later in the afternoon, and he introduced a couple world record holders for various games – I mean, you couldn’t swing a dead cat in there without hitting a world record holder. We got to hang out with the record holder for Elevator Action and hear Walter talk a bit about transcendental meditation. This is a very interesting topic, and I don’t fancy I would do it justice trying to paraphrase what he said, but I do plan to check it out. As we joked at the time, anybody with kids could use some re-centering and stress relief.

There was a lot more I intended to ask, but before I knew it, he was being pulled away on another mission of great urgency, to help organize all the big names in the building for a group photo finale out front. He said if I was able to stick around for a while longer, I’d be able to get some great shots! (Sadly, the kids had other plans for us.) Before he raced off, I did pull a final fanboi maneuver, asking if he could autograph my cover insert. Which he did, because he really is a nice sort.

I hope to talk to Walter and others I met there at greater length in the coming days. I don’t think he’d argue (and has in fact stated) that there have been mistakes made through the course of Twin Galaxies’ existence, mistakes that have been dragged into the limelight and turned around to bite their masters. But if somebody hadn’t started keeping track of video game scores back then (and boy must it feel like it’s more trouble than it’s worth sometimes!), there might never have been a 10th annual International Classic Videogame & Pinball Tournament, and you probably wouldn’t be reading this, because my favorite movie of the year would never have happened.

And thus our day was at an end, and it was time to go. As we drove by, I could see several arcade machines outside, and a crowd starting to gather. We were almost able to stay long enough to catch the group photo, but those meddling kids just weren’t going to let it happen. So instead we drove away with an awakened sense of nostalgia, a little regret at missing so much of the tournament, and I with a renewed sense of determination to acquire a Ms. Pac-Man tabletop and Theater of Magic pinball machine for our basement.



BUT…






Billy? Steve? I hereby put you both on notice; your days are numbered:

PS - July 4, 2008 - You can read about the 48 new world records achieved at Funspot X at the Twin Galaxies website. There was a Donkey Kong kill-screen, among other things!

The Funspot Tournament, Part 1

Act 1: They Meet

So this past weekend was the 10th annual International Classic Videogame & Pinball Tournament at Funspot. Guinness was on tap (heee) to document any official records, and I was bound and determined to be there, too! The caveat was that if it was to happen, our two toddlers were going to have to come along for the ride. So on Sunday, around 10 AM, we loaded them into the car, picked up our good friend Chris, and headed north.

The Funspot Angle

When we first got there, it was a little overwhelming. This is it? We're really here, at the Funspot? The place is HUGE, much bigger than it looks from the outside. We started in the lower level, which contained a bowling alley and tavern on one side, and a kiddie area with little bumper cars and kid-style rides and games on the other. My daughter had a BLAST on all that stuff, and it was nice to know that there was something there for her too.

And then we went upstairs. Oh MAN, it was unbelievable! There was a whole row of pac-man series games, and almost every arcade game I loved as a teenager. I mean Crossbow, they had it, and Timber, Moon Patrol, Spy Hunter, Qix…I would go so far as to say they had a plethora of games. There were these weird surreal moments, like when I was walking past Wonderboy and heard the sounds coming out of that game, it was a complete auditory trigger, like suddenly being 18 again, just for a flicker. Almost like the Butterfly Effect movie. It's hard to describe, but it literally brings you back.

I really wish I'd had more time to play the games (and the presence of mind to take more pictures!), but I did get to visit some of my old favorites - Crossbow, Dig Dug, Gauntlet, and Timber.

I'm just so thrilled to know that there are still places like this around, and thanks to everyone at The American Classic Arcade Museum there who makes this bastion of classic arcadia possible. I’m told they had even more machines there this year than the year before, so it seems they're still adding games. Please, Funspot, can you get Kiwi Kraze (The New Zealand Story) for when we go next year? I never did get much farther than the whale boss at the end of the first stage, and I'd love to try again!


The King of Kong Angle

I’d just like the record to reflect, I am NOT a King of Kong groupie! Err…well, maybe I am. I admit, that’s what drew us to Funspot in the first place, and I was very much hoping to see some of the faces from the movie. I didn't see anyone I recognized for quite a while, though I was pretty sure I'd seen Brian Kuh walk by (he’s local, so I fully expected to see him there), and that guy there eating pizza in the café looked a lot like Todd Rogers. It wasn't until after lunch, though, that Chris said, "Hey, I think I just saw the Xybots guy!" I said, "Where??" and naturally, the reply was, "Playing Xybots around the corner." Duh.

We stealthed on over, and sure enough it was true. I didn't really know what to do (I often wuss out on this stuff in person), so my husband basically just walked up and said, "Hey, aren't you the Xybots guy?" Thanks, honey! He was indeed Joel Hedge, the Xybots guy.

He was really nice, and talked with us for quite some time about Xybots, Funspot, and so forth. The subject of "the wall" came up, and I hadn't seen it yet, so he took us over to see it. "The wall", really is more "the hall" as it is quite expansive, incorporating both sides of the upper entryway (there is actually a third section I didn’t capture). And a very large portion of it belongs to Brian Kuh.

You know when you have a really, really favorite pair of pants, or maybe a shirt? I'm talking an article of clothing that is just so "you" that it feels like it was made for you, you regard it as almost on par with your actual friends, and you just want to wear it all the time? I mean, like, you'd wear it every day if you could get away with it? Brian, you totally get where I’m coming from! (j/k...Brian actually achieved all those records on the same day!)

So towards the end of my conversation with Joel, we noticed Walter Day walk by. I'd corresponded with him a bit before the tournament, and had been looking forward to meeting him. So I made a mental note of where he'd gone, and shortly thereafter, Joel headed off for some more gaming, so I went to try and track down Walter. Now I had the perfect greeting line all prepared, I was going to walk right up to Walter and slyly say, “So, I hear you’re good at centipede…” Alas, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray. I caught him on his way in the other direction with two official-looking people (tournament registrants, I believe), and only managed to choke out a "Hi, Walter?"…which was enough to make him pause, at least, and I introduced myself. I was psyched that he did know who I was, but asked if he was busy. He said yes, at that moment, but that he'd try to catch me later.

Right after that, I saw this Brian Kuh fellow in the hallway, and, buoyed by my recent success, decided to go ahead and speak up. He was indeed Brian Kuh, and though he refused to reveal the secrets of retiring at 30, he was amiable enough (I think he's used to being recognized), and said he'd check out my remake casting choices (really, I've got to find Steve Buscemi an understudy, because Brian's WAY young for Steve to pull it off I'm afraid). I asked how the tournament was going, and he said that unfortunately he’d lost a high score (and now I can’t remember on what, curse my swiss cheese memory!) but overall it was going well. We didn’t talk for too long, and I figured it was about time to check on the family, who I’d sort of left to fend for themselves.

What happened next was utterly serendipitous. Colin was starting to voice his displeasure again (i.e., prepping a tantrum), and I said, hey, let me go grab him a bottle out of the car. As I walked out the entrance, I passed Walter, on the phone. He paused and said he'd be free in just a minute, and I said, great! I went to the car, got the bottle, and as I was coming back, Walter gave me the universal sign language signal for "hold on a second" (you know, the pointy finger in the air). He says to the caller on the other line, "Billy…" and my internal monologue went, no way…are you kidding me? as I realized what was unfolding. "Billy, I'm about to do an interview with someone here, but I thought she might like to say hello."

Next thing I know, I'm on the phone with Billy Mitchell.

TO BE CONTINUED... (tomorrow!)

PS - OMG, Robert Mruczek posted the following sequel teaser on the official boards...had to share: