I had a a chance to play many games of The Hobbit at the Silver Ball museum recently. I'll focus more on the game play.
The Hobbit was a lot of fun to play even though I didn't know the rules (what happened to rule cards?). From what I could tell, locks are lit on the right ramp through the four L-O-C-K roll overs. I am not sure how modes were qualified, but the modes were started on the right ramp as well. Within a mode "time" could be added by shooting the left ramp. I think before a mode is started it can be changed by shooting left ramp when "BOOK" is lit. By the way, both ramps could be back handed. I also think available modes changed depending on the characters you collected by hitting the various drop target and other shots.
I know the game is supposed to have 30+ "modes", but a lot of the modes I played were very basic, such as a right ramp countdown hurry up, a orbit hurry up, shoot the hole, and the like. Some were more advanced, such as shooting moving sets of drop targets. Some, were more complicated and required multiple shots like repeatedly hitting a pop up monster. There were a few "frenzy" modes in which the "time" ramp increased the base value. I can't say how well the modes tied into the theme or stories in the movie. Modes can be stacked with multi-ball, and even started during multi-ball.
The pop up monster targets are fun to shoot at and seemed to be activated by rolling over any of the four in-lanes. I think hitting a certain number of monsters started a multiball that I think could be stacked with the main multiball. I like how these pop ups were not only a target, but also blocked important shots (ramps and orbits) from time to time. It seemed like a hit from behind also registered.
The game has at least 4 skill shots. A hard plunge to a moving drop target, a medium plunge to the far left drops, a softer plunge to roll over the lock targets, and a very soft plunge to the in-lanes. The in-lane skill shot was my favorite and seemed to score the most points (close to 10K).
The pops were reachable through a shot from the flippers, or a weak shot around the orbit. They didn't seem to play in to scoring as much as I could tell.
It appears the spinners advance your progress on the map but I am not sure how this played into the progression though the game.
It took some time to learn where the shots were on this wide body machine. I found the two holes were the most difficult to hit consistently and one hole is sometimes blocked by drop targets. Flippers seemed to deliver enough power to easily make both ramps and to wail on the spinner. I wouldn't call this a fast or a flow game, but it didn't feel like a "stop and go" game either.
The Ring button (much the fire button on ST) was a bit of a mystery to me. It appeared switch hits built up the ring's "power" and pressing it would award points or another awards such as "light Thorin". No idea what this did, though the Thorin shot appears to be the captive ball. I also was unsure what values the "Mystery" target gave, but it seemed to be lit by in-lanes.
Scoring seemed low, but not as low as WOZ. I liked this as it made the high value shots seem even that more valuable. Grand Champion on this machine was around 1.5 million.
Although the playfield is quite empty (when monster targets were not up) The Hobbit seemed like it had a lot to do and shoot for and having a better understanding of the rules would have made game play even that much more fun. Most drains came from the right out lane (the left had a kickback, but not sure how this was lit). The center post came into play quite a bit and I really enjoyed the expected and unexpected bounces back into play.
The art, light and sound package was top notch and really put you in to the game. I didn't find myself looking up at the screen too much but when I did I found the video sequences to be amazing.
Overall I really enjoyed playing The Hobbit. It was definitely a shooters game. My lack of rule knowledge made my games feel more like a journey. I'd definitely own this game if I could as I see a high replay value (once the rules are figured out).
One more thing, I can't figure out why they went with a third flipper. I could not see any advantage to using it as all shots could be reached with the bottom two. Maybe there is something I am missing?