My local pinball museum got an LE and I spent most of yesterday playing it also. I know JP2 is well received overall, but everyone has their own likes and dislikes, so we each have to try it for ourselves.
The T-REX head moves fairly smoothly and looks pretty cool. It is kind of snake like and creepy. I think they did a good job with it. I love when he swings over and drops the ball on the wireform ramp. The angle you view the head from is sort of top down which is not optimum. When you shoot the ball in to his mouth I think a magnet grabs it, so as long as the ball makes it up in to his mouth, it does not reject. Unfortunately this LE was having issues with the lower right flipper yesterday and getting it up in to his mouth and making the ramp shot was harder than it should have been. The flipper was a little week and would droop a little when holding it up to catch a ball, so it needed repair, and the owner of the museum was not around. One other issue I noticed with this LE was the left fence post was leaning on the T-REX and would rock left/right when the T-REX moved, so something was loose there. Hate seeing a new pin with issues, but that's pinball.
That being said, the pin was fun to shoot. From my play, and watching the streams, I noticed the upper right flipper could be dangerous. When trying to repeat the loop, and missing a fast moving loop shot, the ball often came back diagonally and headed for the outlanes. If the ball is going too fast, hold the flipper up and the ball will hit the target there and bounce back to the flipper for a more safe and controlled upper flipper shot.
The toys were fun to shoot. The truck/newton ball was fun to flip back and forth. The motorized door in front of the raptor pit was fun to hit and knock the locked ball around in there. The spinner is fun. Dialing in all the shots to spell CHAOS is tricky, and hitting the "amber" shot up through the pops was satisfying to start CHAOS. The light show was also well done. There was a ton of stuff going on with the rules that I was not yet familiar with, so it seems like there is plenty to do if you had this in a home environment. The CGI graphics on the display were decent, so Stern is making progress there. The sound package seemed fine for as much as I could hear. I really love the 'spitter dino' spinner sound, which is probably the best spinner sound in any pin yet!
The mirrored backglass is REALLY nice, but the cartoony truck they added does not fit the artwork IMHO. I think a beat up generic vehicle would have been much cooler.
MORE THIS:
This (resized).jpg
LESS THIS:
not this (resized).jpg
Anyway, its a pinball machine and not a truck documentary, so who cares. My overall take on the pin is that I like it (which I don't often say about new pins) and it does not diminish the fun I have with my Data East JP. I don't have any plans or space to get a new pin, but If I were in the market, it would be between this and Wonka LE which is also fun to shoot.