You have really bad taste. And not just in Pinball.

Wow! MM and AFM tied on 164.

Ha....happy u think so....thank god...be painful living inside that head of yours

Yep....suspect the early leaders won't hold up....

No shit. Reality bites.

The license integration is light years better on LOTR. This is what really draws you in. Tron shines in this area as well. And the rules & modes are probably the best ever. Nothing on JP gets me as pumped as Fellowship Multiball & DTR.

JP has has no movie assets besides the main song, no likenesses (besides Nedry), fake call outs, etc. Feels generic in that department, so my connection when playing is not as strong. Notwithstanding what KE did with the pin (layout & rules) is amazing.

Due to minimal utilization of the JP license & movie assets LOTR deserves to win. Everything came together seamlessly on that pin.

Hoping to see LOTR vs MM as final match up.

MM and AFM still tied!! Nailbiter to the wire, I betcha...

JP might come on late.....

Consider trying to set it up differently. You should not be getting that many auto-drains, something isn’t right.

I enjoy long ball time games but I also like playing pinball with other people. My wife won’t play with me on Star Trek because she gets bored. She will play with me on BSD or Iron Man because she knows she won’t be standing around watching me play, she will be up playing every couple minutes.

It isn’t.

My Vote .

100_0044 (resized).JPG

I like afm much more than mm . Also lotr is a great game all around while JP has a neat layout that's where it stops for me and I'm surprised how well loved it is .

I owned LOTR for eight years...I now own JP premium.

Theme integration - LOTR wins big time
Music - LOTR wins
Call outs - LOTR wins

Rules - tie

Layout - JP wins
Best toy - JP wins
Pure fun JP wins....I voted JP.

LOTR over JP... that's insane. LOTR is nice but is an extremely repetitive game with straightforward shots. JP has so much more to offer.

I have. 3 of the 4. I have never had the urge to own LOTR.

Of these 4 I would vote

MM
JP2
AFM
LOTR

But i think TZ is above JP2. JP2 is a blast to play, but the art and call outs are pretty middle-of-the-road.

Pinside rules #1: be nice ..too

This thread is nice and debating is nicer

I have 2 games of the final four (MM and JP), and had the 2 others.
My main complain with AFM is...I was preferring playing MM! Just a matter of taste. And there is no way to own 2 similar games in my small room. Design playfield are the same, MM playfield artwork seems to me better, the castle toy is the best ever made imho, trolls are incredibly fun to play, and I love the way to reach and play all the MB together. Jackpots callouts are so enjoyable to hear, so fun. However strobes effect (when it works) is incredibly fun to play. Both are smooth and humorous games. Just can’t stand after a while the alien toys, feel just noisy at the end to me. So MM all the way.

In the other semifinal, really tough decision for me. There is no match regarding theme, don’t really like LOTR saga...but the sound is really enjoyable specially during MB. You really feel you are going to the war, the adrenaline is soaring all of the sudden and this will be an epic fight. I always thought the sound package of LOTR was as good as MM. I miss this game...
JP is the best game I have played since some years. Theme is matching for me (without being my graal) but what I really like is the playfield design, creative and smooth to shot in the same time. This is what I was looking for, a fast and punishing game with deep rules, I mean deeper than an IM or BSD that I respect as they are. Rules are already good and still in progress, I just hope the code could allow to stack MB (I love stacking MB) (I heard it was possible to stack Trex and raptor but it seems to me not clear or doable). My only complain with JP is the playfield artwork...shame that it didn’t benefit a Franchi or zombi yéti processing. I voted JP....but it could have been LOTR!

Enjoying following this and loving how close they are ... time will tell.

Have 6 of the top 8 and 3 of the top 4, just so hard to pick clear winners as I love them all for different reasons.

The suspense is killing me! This has been a lot of fun. Thanks for putting this together!

All really valid points. I can easily see why you would feel this way. I really wanted to love JP, and I'll readily admit its a very fun game with a great design/rules, etc, but the fact that Stern acquired essentially zero assets killed it for me. They did a nice job with what they had, but it could have been so much more.

Try playing JP with the alternate soundtrack

This, my buddy has it and it’s a huge difference.

totally agree. LOTR is a dust collector in most collections.

Stern puts out a great game. As long as somebody hacks into the software and installs all the stuff it should have had from the factory.

I heard there was a guy adding sounds and video assets to the game, but that Stern somehow was trying to prevent it from happening? I saw a brief clip and it was very nicely done...not sure if this is true or not?

Great thread!!!

LOTR is the last game that I would sell but I am a big fan of the theme and the theme integration is second to none. Ball times can be a bit long but there are a lot of settings that you can change to help with that. Take your outlane posts out and set your tilt properly with a single tilt warning and make the multi-balls harder and disable extra balls - then watch your ball/game times drop.

I generally don't like long ball times either and typically prefer fast and furious games. LOTR, the game, like the story is a quest. It has modes, multi-balls, wizard modes, a bash toy, great theme! If you don't like the theme - well that will kill it for sure but if the only reason is the long ball times - that can be dealt with a certain extent.

This is a fun thread!!! Great idea

With Pinball Browser, yeah. It's apparently not working on newer versions of JP code, along with some other recent games.

I'm fine with JP's default sound and effects but to each their own. When it comes to voting for stuff, I personally only consider the original "factory" version of a game without any mods...but again, everyone's different so whatever.

I'd have to go with AFM on this one. Of course, these are all fantastic games. I would be al little reserved to give it to JP at this point since its hasn't been out long enough to test its staying power. Many people are still in the honeymoon phase.

Can feel the tide turning.....T-Rex is getting hungry, and the Castle's wounds have about healed.....battle on!!!

All great games and tough choices.

I voted MM because I like the theme and gameplay a little more than AFM.

Went with LOTR over JP2 but they are both great. Guests really enjoy playing LOTR as most seem to "luck" into one of the multiballs and the voice acting really draws them in. JP2 is a solid shooter with many fun shots, Keith designed a great machine.

My personal overall #1 got knocked out last round (JJP POTC) but I recognize it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

They built an entire new storyline to get around the lack of assets, and created a killer ruleset to go with it. I'll take gameplay over assets any day. LOTR also has great rules but the playfield is weak. Weak assets... weak playfield.. gameplay is most important, playfield wins.

Not disagreeing with u at all, but hard to argue that if they had any assets it would be more enjoyable....they basically got the logo and the theme song.

If my wife were on Pinside, she would also vote for LOTR. Soooo.....give it an extra vote, please.

Thank you,

-The Husband

Possible to hear somewhere?

...and Nedry

LOTR playfield weak? Have to disagree there. LOTR has a rather fast and unique playfield design. Also, LOTR has two shots (really 3) that are hidden shots that are controlled by mechs. Those 3 shots are the the balrog moving to reveal the ramp, the divertor that reveals a shot to the Path of the Dead VUK, and the ring magnet that creates a shot during Destroy the Ring. Having mechs that reveal a hidden shot is always a big plus for a game in my opinion.

Also, a vast majority of the callouts in JP are just average due to limited assets and no custom callouts by an actor from the film. Stern created a new story but they also used existing characters in it from the first film and then used outside voice actors to rather poorly replicate the films actors. Stern got not one but two of the actual actors from the Lord of the Films to provide custom callouts. It's a shame Stern couldn't have hired at least Wayne Knight for custom callouts. With that being said JP is an excellent pin, I just don't think as an entire package it's as good as LOTR

This discussion has been had many times. LOTR is a journey...so you can't handicap the settings to make it harder. I mean, you can, but then you never get anywhere. It's all about the journey. The problem lies in that its a HUGE ass journey! Which is great...once or twice...maybe three times. After that, I got hesitant to turn the machine on for fear I might be playing one game for well over an hour (had one game go just over 2). So if I set it up super hard I couldn't get anywhere (and who doesn't want to at least see "There and back again"?), and if I kept it factory I might (might) get caught up in a super long game. Again, it lasted a long time...but got played less and less as time went by.

What's opposite of LOTR? Iron-Man! I swear if I can play that game longer than 5 minutes I'm having a HUGE game...personally, I love that!

Just seen that over a hundred more people voted in this round already then in round one. Would have been nice if everyone had seen it earlier and voted. Could have changed how this turned out...maybe.

great to see JP is beating LOTR. AFM all day over MM. JP vs AFM would be great. Damn what a choice

I think the closeness of the vote shows how accurate the previous rounds were.

Personally, I would want to see LOTR vs. MM and I'm not sure which I would choose.

It's like a battle between the old king of pinball-adventure-feel (LotR) vs. the new king of pinball-adventure-feel (JP). Other games are about adventures, those two send you on adventures....

LOTR is my favourite and IM is my number 2. I love em both but obviously for different reasons. Variety is the spice of life. I have owned both for a very long time - both are keepers (I think).

I think that right there is why I need to get a JP premium. I'm always searching for pins that offers a LOTR style ruleset, not many pins have successfully pulled it off as well since LOTR was released.

Calling up my cousin who has owned LOTR for 10+ years with 6,000+ games on it to vote for LOTR lol.

Well said and accurate as well. Can’t agree more!

So unique he completely reused it for Sopranos!

The balrog is cool, but underused.. only active during FOTR multiball, and consolation balrog if it's enabled. Very satisfying shot during FOTR. The tower mech direct shot isn't nearly as satisfying... *clunk* *plop*. The Ring magnet is more a toy than a diversion, but nice when it's working right.

Rest of your post is about callouts, and I reiterate: gameplay over assets. Not to mention the fact JP absolutely nailed its most important callouts: dinosaur roars! Nedry and the dinos are the true stars of this film. T-rex multi intro rocks!

I'm in the minority but I cant stand the audio in LOTR.