Stern
Lord of the Rings Pinside Rating
This game received 1201 approved Pinsider ratings and currently rates 8.708 /10
Lord of the Rings
Top 100 ranking
This game ranks 2nd in the game group "Lord of the Rings ". The group itself ranks #8 in the Pinside Pinball Top 100.
Score breakdown
Score breakdown in the 4 main categories:
Game Design: 8.96
Artwork: 8.285
Sounds/Music: 8.471
Other Aspects: 8.816
Pinside staff rating
This is how we, the very knowledgeable (wink wink) Pinside.com staff & moderators rate this game. 9 of us have rated this game.
This title is part of group: "Lord of the Rings "
Found 763 ratings (with comment) on this game
There are 763 ratings (that include a comment) on this game.
Currently showing results page 1 of 31.
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8.600/10
18 days ago
Graham, WA
Lord of the rings just plays great. The flow of the shots make it seem easier than it is at times. Great theme integration if you’re a fan of the books and movies. Hitting the ring shot is super satisfying.
8.865/10
64 days ago
LOTR is a fantastic game. Let's see how it rates...
GAME DESIGN:
Playfield Layout: Excellent 6/6. For a fan layout, this has to be in the top-5. Every shot is satisfying. The Path of the Dead is kind of meh and slows the game down, but it works with the theme and doesn't take up too much real estate, so I'm okay with it. The Legolas ramp is really great although the ball ends up in the shire a lot because it's moving so fast it jumps the habitrail.
Game Rules: Good 5/6. Just about everything rules related is straight forward and easily understandable except how to get to Valinor. I'm still not entirely sure how to do it even after watching guys explain it in YouTube videos.
Toys and Gimmicks: Excellent 6/6. Balrog bash toy, ring magnet, Aragorn's sword/ball lock, Barad-dur shakes when ring is destroyed. Lots of great features. Nothing groundbreaking but it all fits the theme so well.
Game Play: Excellent 6/6. Oh my gosh this game feels so good when I'm in the groove and hitting my shots. Lots of good combos. It's wide open with good visibility to all areas. I love it.
ARTWORK
Playfield: Decent 4/6. Putting the group of characters near the bottom is just lazy. The upper 2/3 looks good though.
Backglass: Good 5/6. I like it. This is where the main characters belong.
Cabinet: Poor 2/6. Could it be any more grainy?! If it was clear it'd be great because it's a cool picture. So annoying.
Animations: Good 5/6. With the color dmd it really has some great graphics for the time-period the game came out. It draws me in and reminds me just how much I love the movies.
SOUNDS AND MUSIC
Sounds and Speech: Excellent 6/6. Sound effects and call outs are awesome. Love how they announce each fellowship member. Love the TO WARRRRR!!! call out. So many other lines straight from the movie I can't list them all. So good.
Music: Excellent 6/6. It makes me feel like I'm watching the movie, or in it!
Quality: Good 5/6. I have Pinsound which makes it 6/6 but it wouldn't be fair to rate it that because factory stock was good not great.
Variation: Excellent 6/6. There are so many different call outs and lines from the movie that I never feel like it gets repetitive.
OTHER ASPECTS
Game Lighting: Decent 4/6. Not much to say here. It's okay. You could argue it's a little dark, but that kind of goes with the theme.
Lastability: Excellent 6/6. Definitely makes me want to play it over and over, just not in a row because game times can run long.
Theming: Excellent 6/6. They absolutely killed it with this category. I cannot imagine better integration than it has. Very well done.
Fun: Excellent 6/6. Oh yes it is! Tons of fun to play. There's only a couple games I like better. Such an amazing machine. Thank you Stern!
GAME DESIGN:
Playfield Layout: Excellent 6/6. For a fan layout, this has to be in the top-5. Every shot is satisfying. The Path of the Dead is kind of meh and slows the game down, but it works with the theme and doesn't take up too much real estate, so I'm okay with it. The Legolas ramp is really great although the ball ends up in the shire a lot because it's moving so fast it jumps the habitrail.
Game Rules: Good 5/6. Just about everything rules related is straight forward and easily understandable except how to get to Valinor. I'm still not entirely sure how to do it even after watching guys explain it in YouTube videos.
Toys and Gimmicks: Excellent 6/6. Balrog bash toy, ring magnet, Aragorn's sword/ball lock, Barad-dur shakes when ring is destroyed. Lots of great features. Nothing groundbreaking but it all fits the theme so well.
Game Play: Excellent 6/6. Oh my gosh this game feels so good when I'm in the groove and hitting my shots. Lots of good combos. It's wide open with good visibility to all areas. I love it.
ARTWORK
Playfield: Decent 4/6. Putting the group of characters near the bottom is just lazy. The upper 2/3 looks good though.
Backglass: Good 5/6. I like it. This is where the main characters belong.
Cabinet: Poor 2/6. Could it be any more grainy?! If it was clear it'd be great because it's a cool picture. So annoying.
Animations: Good 5/6. With the color dmd it really has some great graphics for the time-period the game came out. It draws me in and reminds me just how much I love the movies.
SOUNDS AND MUSIC
Sounds and Speech: Excellent 6/6. Sound effects and call outs are awesome. Love how they announce each fellowship member. Love the TO WARRRRR!!! call out. So many other lines straight from the movie I can't list them all. So good.
Music: Excellent 6/6. It makes me feel like I'm watching the movie, or in it!
Quality: Good 5/6. I have Pinsound which makes it 6/6 but it wouldn't be fair to rate it that because factory stock was good not great.
Variation: Excellent 6/6. There are so many different call outs and lines from the movie that I never feel like it gets repetitive.
OTHER ASPECTS
Game Lighting: Decent 4/6. Not much to say here. It's okay. You could argue it's a little dark, but that kind of goes with the theme.
Lastability: Excellent 6/6. Definitely makes me want to play it over and over, just not in a row because game times can run long.
Theming: Excellent 6/6. They absolutely killed it with this category. I cannot imagine better integration than it has. Very well done.
Fun: Excellent 6/6. Oh yes it is! Tons of fun to play. There's only a couple games I like better. Such an amazing machine. Thank you Stern!
7.635/10
68 days ago
The power of theme. I'm a big fan of the movies and enjoy the pinball machine a lot, but when I sat down to rate the game objectively I found that the ratings I was giving it in various categories were good but not great. The layout is good but some of the shots are a bit clunky. The sounds and music are good but not exceedingly so. The modes are fine, but nothing out of the ordinary until the player gets near the end of the game and tries to destroy the ring.
One thing it does have is toys. The tower, the sword, the Balrog and lots of little figurines of characters from Middle-earth. And then there's that crucible--whatever it's called--that you shoot the ball into to destroy the ring. This is all great stuff and the game gets high marks for that.
But then there's the art and animations. Underwhelming to say the least. I don't necessary dislike an art package just because it uses photographs instead of hand-drawn art--Jersey Jack showed with the Hobbit that it was possible to create an outstanding art package with photoshopped images--but Lord of the Rings falls short. It's too dark, and the selected images are bland. Still, they're better than the DMD animations which I'm sorry to say are pretty bad.
Intentionally or not, i think part of the idea of the game was to make it the long adventure that the films and books depict, so there's not too many moments of great excitement that then get overused. This was an unusual approach back in 2003 when games were marketed almost exclusively to operators rather than home users and games were intended to be brief. It's more common now, though more so for Jersey Jack than Stern. In that respect I think the game does rather well; the game feels like a journey.
Despite the missed opportunities or deficiencies I enjoy the game very much, and judging by the ratings it gets apparently a lot of other people do too. Maybe George Gomez and his team managed to create a game that's more than the sum of its parts, or maybe the audience just loves the theme so much that the negatives don't matter.
One thing it does have is toys. The tower, the sword, the Balrog and lots of little figurines of characters from Middle-earth. And then there's that crucible--whatever it's called--that you shoot the ball into to destroy the ring. This is all great stuff and the game gets high marks for that.
But then there's the art and animations. Underwhelming to say the least. I don't necessary dislike an art package just because it uses photographs instead of hand-drawn art--Jersey Jack showed with the Hobbit that it was possible to create an outstanding art package with photoshopped images--but Lord of the Rings falls short. It's too dark, and the selected images are bland. Still, they're better than the DMD animations which I'm sorry to say are pretty bad.
Intentionally or not, i think part of the idea of the game was to make it the long adventure that the films and books depict, so there's not too many moments of great excitement that then get overused. This was an unusual approach back in 2003 when games were marketed almost exclusively to operators rather than home users and games were intended to be brief. It's more common now, though more so for Jersey Jack than Stern. In that respect I think the game does rather well; the game feels like a journey.
Despite the missed opportunities or deficiencies I enjoy the game very much, and judging by the ratings it gets apparently a lot of other people do too. Maybe George Gomez and his team managed to create a game that's more than the sum of its parts, or maybe the audience just loves the theme so much that the negatives don't matter.
9.700/10
3 months ago
This is a great game. The theme is well integrated; there are three movies each with their own mode and multiball. There is a bash toy that comes into play. There is a magnet that suspends the pinball in the center of the ring. There is a tower that moves. There is an upper plafield of sorts for the path of the dead. (This is a little weak). Mods adding ghosts to the path of the dead (POTD) helps. An upper playfiled flipper might have been better here. The sounds are great and not too repetitive, this game is timeless and a lot of fun, even if you do not know anything about the movies. This game holds its own. I am not sure if its bolted to the floor or not, but it is on the line. I hope I never trade it and have regrets.
9.200/10
4 months ago
My longest tenured game, for good reason. What an amazing, fun game, arguably Sterns best DMD era game, especially with a color DMD. It’s a blast to journey through Moria along with Frodo and the gang before destroying the ring and getting there and back again. Center ramp ring shot is one of my favorite shots in any pinball machine. Only way LOTR could have been better was if it had the large LCD screen like newer Sterns to incorporate the movie clips.
8.780/10
5 months ago
Dream theme for me and the pin represents well. Ive owned it for a few months and still haven't beat it. Very challenging and epic adventure which is fitting to the theme. Can be less forgiving then newer modern sterns which is good for good players and frustrating for me at times. Definitely has staying power in my collection for a long time.
9.700/10
5 months ago
Just an absolute classic, amazing integration of the theme and so deep. So much to explore and so much to do. Fun to shoot and great flow as well. The only negatives are perhaps some of the playfield graphics and overall sound quality, but really it’s still very good. One of the best trilogies ever and one of the best pins ever as well.
9.044/10
6 months ago
Huge LOTR fan so this naturally was right up my alley but even if I wasn’t this game is fantastic. The playfield is rich with so many things to do and the toys just go on for days. The music quality is showing its age and the animations could use an update but I won’t hold it against this pin just because it otherwise holds up so well. Tells the story of the LOTR if you’re good enough to keep going (I’m not but I got a good taste). Would love to own this one day.
9.736/10
7 months ago
Budapest
I love this game. Really cool, would love to own a nice one with pimped sound system. The playfield is great, love the mood. Really immersive. Just the mediocre quality photoshop pf graphics...
update: I managed to buy a nice machine, I put shaker, pinsound, nice speakers, some mods. oh yeahh.. this game is something else now.. a real LOTR experience where you really feel you are flipping through an adventure. insanely good...
update: I managed to buy a nice machine, I put shaker, pinsound, nice speakers, some mods. oh yeahh.. this game is something else now.. a real LOTR experience where you really feel you are flipping through an adventure. insanely good...
7.932/10
7 months ago
Overall enjoyed owning this game. The layout is unique and does flow much better than i expected. The center ring shot into the magnet is great. Great theme integration. Overall fun game just did not click with me like other games have. I can definitely appreciate it and may circle back to it at some point. Longer game times and a bit tough for my skill level.
8.548/10
8 months ago
Owned for three years- bought a beautiful stock HUO 3 years ago.
Initially played by my older son- very good player- was finished with it after a couple of months. Younger non-pinball son really enjoyed it for a couple of months. Me? Never really grabbed me. I can’t remember how far I have progressed and never felt the urge to deep dive into it. Not sure why because the shots are interesting/fair and code for the time is very good. Pinball league players seem to be impressed by the machine, but it does not get that much play compared to all of my more modern games.
I have held on to it for a while because of its perceived value and wow factor- will be trading it. Someone else will get the enjoyment that I missed!
Initially played by my older son- very good player- was finished with it after a couple of months. Younger non-pinball son really enjoyed it for a couple of months. Me? Never really grabbed me. I can’t remember how far I have progressed and never felt the urge to deep dive into it. Not sure why because the shots are interesting/fair and code for the time is very good. Pinball league players seem to be impressed by the machine, but it does not get that much play compared to all of my more modern games.
I have held on to it for a while because of its perceived value and wow factor- will be trading it. Someone else will get the enjoyment that I missed!
Västerås
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