I played 6-8 games this weekend and really enjoyed it. Everything about the presentation is extraordinary.

Not enough games to fully judge the gameplay, but it shot extremely well. Flippers were strong, the ramps were easy to hit, and for the most part I felt in control when I was supposed to. My max score was about 400,000…I’m not a great player, but it was a satisfying experience.

I couldn’t really figure out how the modes worked. I could see when I was “qualifying” them, but I didn’t know what, if anything, I was supposed to do next. Something that will come with time, but it was a little frustrating to feel like a newbie again. I just don’t have the visual literacy yet to parse all of the information they present on both the huge screen and the book. Collecting dwarves was easy though.

The four trolls on the playfield will be crazy entertaining for casual players. I can see a lot of people dropping in a few bucks just to play whack-a-mole for a few minutes…very easy to understand what you’re supposed to do and quickly gets you to a multiball. Extremely clever.

So the game was fun overall, but there was at least one technical issue during every single game:
- Every fifth or so time I locked a ball for Smaug, the VUK couldn’t get the ball up. Extremely annoying.
- The worg “troll” popped down right when I hit it, causing the ball to wedge between the playfield and top of the mech. When it went into ball search the top piece was stuck up, impeding gameplay and causing at least two cheap drains. Luckily the operator was there and fixed it after I finished.
- The ball got stuck behind the orbit twice, but I was able to shake it free (1 warning, 1 tilt).
- It seems like the ball search takes a LONG time to initiate. So long that it felt like the game was broken. That was an issue, since I triggered it at leas three times in just a few games.
- The ball fell off the left habitrail return multiple times. Sometimes it got stuck to the left against the cabinet, sometimes it rolled off to the right and went a little wild.
- On a few occasions the ball bounced out of the right habitrail straight into the outline. Not sure if this is intended and I’m supposed to nudge when the ball drops.

It feels like these things can be easily remedied in the home environment, but made a poor impression on location.

Outside of those issues it really does feel luxurious and in a class by itself.