LOTR never lets me down! And it won’t this time either! 17 years strong!

My Pinside ratings: https://pinside.com/pinball/my-pinside/ratings

And my LoTR review:

“I tried to be objective. I rated the sound poor. Sound quality stinks on the game. But after that, it's ALL GOOD baby. Or actually, mostly excellent. Unbelievable integration of theme and rules, amazing music. This pin takes you on a journey like no other....sometimes epic. It can be so fun and addictive. It's almost the perfect game. Great toys and satisfying shots. You can't ask for more. It's a masterpiece.“

I’ll add that when you can keep a notoriously long ball time game in a small collection FOR YEARS, which I did and many others have, it really says something about the game.

I just watched the Tolkien movie that came out recently. It’s about him as a young man, at Oxford and in WW1 and all that influenced his writing. I found it excellent.

Because they aren’t 1 and 2 on other people’s.

Yes, there is a way. Feel free to debate.

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

No shit. Reality bites.

What are you going on about? 3 of these games are at least 17 years old. 2 of them over 20.

And yet...

In my heart of hearts, I knew LOTR would beat JP2. Yet I’m still surprised? The recency bias and the fact that JP2 is very strong had me a little doubtful. But LoTR is what got me back into Pinball after 20 years (this was 10 odd years ago) and I have yet to play a game more perfectly integrated, clever, fun, challenging and just downright jaw dropping.

2 ball Destroy the Ring is the greatest shot in pinball, ever, and beyond this the game just has no weaknesses. I’ve played many games for 10 minutes and walked away bored. Overboard. And self assured. But not LoTR. I may not always like spending 45 minutes on the game and having to leave the machine to go to dinner, but I always return happily, on the epic quest to Valinor.

So long AFM. It was nice knowing ya!

LOTR and AFM. To WAAAARRRRR!!!

Exactly. Do it for 5 years, let alone 10 or 20 and we’ll talk. EHoH is in the Pinside top ten for god sake. ACDC was the flavor of the year for like 2 years. Now it’s an after thought. SM was considered an all time great once (still is to me), but after a decade of brand new pin enthusiasts entering the hobby and buying all the new games, the ratings are skewed.

Which is fine. We all know, deep down, what‘s good and what has staying power.

Tell you what, I am stunned at how good XMEN LE is. So much hate for so long, but now finished and mostly forgotten, the games shines. Been playing it nonstop lately. Can’t believe how much I like it.

There was a really invoked, multi stage battle royale that someone staged a couple years ago. Took like weeks to complete. Can’t remember the format, but it was well done and fun. Be interesting to compare those results to now.

PS, LoTR art better than JP2.

It’s the whole package man. Frankly, I don’t get the complaints about LOTR art. For a cut and paste it’s well done IMO. I loved the way the game looked in my home. It was warm and earthy and moody and gave you everything you needed to capture the spirit of the movies and the depth of the game.

JP art is just kinda ugly to me. Nothing special about it at all. Borderline Data East in style. Not my cup of tea.