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Lord Of The Rings Pinball Machine Announced

Posted by simoniker on from the makes-perfect-sense dept.

Thanks to Retrogames for pointing to the news that a Lord Of The Rings pinball machine has been announced, courtesy of sole remaining pinball manufacturer Stern Pinball Inc. There are no pictures yet, but the press release reveals features including "...a Balrog toy that pivots when hit by the ball, revealing the jump ramp that leads to The One Ring", and the fact that "...players can knock down Barad-dur, which also features the eye of Sauron." The game "will begin shipping in November, 2003", and follows recent Stern machines such as The Simpsons Pinball Party and Terminator 3.

28 comments

  1. um by Random832 · · Score: 0

    so, is this a good thing (more LOTR stuff) or a bad thing (corporatization,merchandising,etc crap)? I lost my scorecard

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  2. Worst News Item Ever by m_evanchik · · Score: 1, Funny

    OK. You win. I am unselecting "LOTR" from my list of viewable topics. This is too trivial to justify.

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    evanchik.net

    1. Re:Worst News Item Ever by mrshowtime · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, this is big news for those people who love pinball. Pinball is a dying art, or to whom you ask, a dead art. For a pinball machine to be released in conjunction with such a big name movie gives pinball wizards hope. If the layout of the pin and ruleset is anything near as good as Stern's previous pin (Simpsons Party Pinball) then LOTR pinball will be a very collectible and sought after item. Medieval Madness, one of the last games made by Williams before they shuttered their pinball division, is similar in tone to what LOTR will be and MM pinball machines now sell for over SEVEN GRAND.

      --
      "Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
    2. Re:Worst News Item Ever by siobHan · · Score: 2, Informative

      Absolutely true. And really, a lot more people love pinball than realize it. It's an indelible part of the American (and European) pop culture landscape yet it's in danger of totally coming to an end. Operators don't place or maintain machines anymore and the new generation doesn't even know what they are.

      K

      ps This will be a good pin, trust me.

    3. Re:Worst News Item Ever by bersl2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Netcraft confirms it: Pinball is dying.

      But seriously, pinball is the greatest arcade game: a well-made table can entertain forever. It is non-linear, unlike so many arcade games. It has a simple learning curve and is fairly intuitive, so anyone can play. It is also (almost?) always family-friendly so, once again, anyone can play.

      There are a couple of things I don't like about current pinball trends: 1) most arcades charge more than they have been previously; of course, it's the same with everything in the arcade now; and 2) while I do appreciate finese, most of the flippers today are gravely underpowered.

    4. Re:Worst News Item Ever by DZign · · Score: 1

      Keith J., is that you ?? :-)

      --
      Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
  3. Oooh! by daeley · · Score: 2, Funny

    This would be especially cool if the pinballs were translucent crystal-looking and glowed like miniature palantiri. :)

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  4. i'd hit it by Flunitrazepam · · Score: 0, Troll

    Am I the only one who thinks that the evil eye of mordor looks more like an evil vagina of mordor?

    --
    1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
    1. Re:i'd hit it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had to laugh at that comment. I'm never going to be able to watch any of those movies again with a straight face. :)

  5. Pinball? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bleh, I didn't even know companies still made Pinball Machines. I thought they were pretty much dead, like Colecovision. If you've played one, you've played them all.

  6. Does the Balrog spin as fast as Tolkien's body is? by Glytch · · Score: 2, Funny

    'Cause I don't think it can.

  7. Pinball is hardly dead by ReyTFox · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Results 1 - 10 of about 940,000.

    Certainly it's not the staple game of arcades and pubs that it used to be - video games have mostly taken over there since they can offer a wider range of gameplay - but in and of itself it's a unique game with lots of variations and evolutions in table design that's settling down to a comfortable niche in the world of coin-operated games.

    1. Re:Pinball is hardly dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Results 1 - 10 of about 17,400,000..

      As you can see, this objectively proves that Abraham Lincoln is not dead.

  8. It's too bad... by shadowcabbit · · Score: 2, Informative

    I happen to really like pinball, but it's impossible to find machines in arcades anymore. I actually spoke with the manager of the arcade near me, and he says pinball went out of style because the machines were too hard to repair. What's more, the Stern-brand machines are pretty poor in quality-- they arrive broken, or so it seems (every time I've played a machine by Stern, there's been something wrong with it). I'm excited that there's a new machine announced, of course, and I'll play it if I find it, but part of me wishes Sega or even Midway had developed it instead of Stern.

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    1. Re:It's too bad... by DZign · · Score: 1

      Stern took over the pinball division from Sega..

      --
      Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
  9. Stern by borg1238 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I, for one, actually consider this news. The creation of a brand new pinball machine when most arcades subsist on "sit down driving games" and "light gun games" is a fortunate thing indeed. Now if I could only find a place that has them. Oh wait.

    On the other hand, Stern is no Midway. A lot of their games have fairly uninspiring themes/designs IMHO (Roller Coaster Tycoon). And while they've finally gotten better parts for their recent machines, they do have pretty shoddy quality control. My Simpsons Pinball Party (TSPP) had such "powerful" flippers (Stern's older machine's were notorious for weak flippers) that they would shake when you held the flipper button down. This was due to a misalignment in the flipper coil. It came from the factory this way! Stern "tech support" gave the following suggestion to fix it: hit it (the flipper coil) with a hammer. Uh, yeah... I'm sure there won't be any more problems with the machine after I whack it with a blunt object a few times.

    "What are you going to do with that hammer?"
    "Mongo fixing pinball!"

    Speaking of TSPP, they say in the article that the same designer is doing the Lord of the Rings pin. I hope they do a better job making it clear what the player has to do to score points then they did with TSPP. There's a fine line between a deep ruleset, and simply confusing the player. TSPP is a fine game for home use, because you get to take the time to learn its rules and idiosyncrasies. If I was playing it in an arcade, I doubt I would have taken the time to figure it all out.

    That said, Stern is getting better and better with every new machine. It takes guts to stick in a market that everyone else has abandoned. I wish them the best of luck and hope they keep making new pins.

    1. Re:Stern by borg1238 · · Score: 1

      Self correction:

      The article says "Excitingly, the game is supposed to have deep rules. That's certainly believable as Keith Johnson is responsible for them. He created the wonderfully complex rules for The Simpsons Pinball Party - widely praised amongst pinball aficionados."

      But then says: "But perhaps most interesting of all is the one detail missing. Who's the designer? It's been generally believed that George Gomez would be in charge on this one, but there's no mention of the designer in the press release at all. Hmmm."

      So I guess the guy who created the rules of the game isn't it's designer. I'm not sure how you can create the rules for a pin and not have designed it, but whatever... I stand corrected.

    2. Re:Stern by keefer · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, I've been brought out of my 2+ year shirking of /. because of this article. Hope you all are satisfied!

      The "designer" the pinball news article is referring to is the PLAYFIELD designer. I'm not a mechanical guy, though there's really no reason that I couldn't draw a playfield some day as plenty of other programmers have gone that route.

      I consider myself to be the game designer, or experience designer, or whatever, since I'm pretty much in charge of coordinating what's on the display, sounds, music, speech, writing the rules, etc. etc.

      It just depends on who's working on the game who the designer is. With other teams, the playfield designer is also the rules designer, and the programmer is just a code monkey. I'd sooner quit before that happened to me though.

    3. Re:Stern by borg1238 · · Score: 1

      Well, I've been brought out of my 2+ year shirking of /. because of this article. Hope you all are satisfied!

      Yes, yes, my evil plan is now finally coming to fruition. :)

      Thanks for the info.

  10. Re:Does the Balrog spin as fast as Tolkien's body by borg1238 · · Score: 1

    I've never understood why the Lord of the Rings series considered so sacred. Anyway, let's face it, the series was "sold out" well before a pinball machine was created using its license.

  11. Pinball2000 by emptybody · · Score: 0

    I only wish that there were more pinball2000 systems coming out. Perhapse if they made a more servicable system - the operator of the gamroom could pop out a faulty flipper/bumper/whatever mechanism and pop-in a new one without the machine being out of order for a week...

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    1. Re:Pinball2000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pinball2000 was a pretty big flop. It was also the final nail in the Williams pinball coffin. The pinball division was told almost 2 years earlier that the end was near. They were told that if they wanted to continue their employment, they would have to come up with something that sells. Their collective future was in their own hands. Pinball2000 was what they came up with.

      As far as being able to repair the machines, it was just as difficult to repair a pinball2000 as any other pinball. None of the pop bumpers/thumper bumpers/flippers just 'snapped in'. Those things all create a lot of vibration and have the be securely bolted down. About the only thing pinball2000's had over normal pinballs was the diagnostic routines on the monitors. They could show you which fuse was blown with pretty pictures. Sometimes, it was even right.


      Anonymous Pinball Bastard

    2. Re:Pinball2000 by Look+Sir,+Droids! · · Score: 1

      That is very unfortunate because, IIRC, they made a Star Wars pinball-2000 machine, right at the end, that I played like twice.

      ...Years later, I still dream of this machine, with its holograms, lightsabers, and plastic Jar Jar.

    3. Re:Pinball2000 by emptybody · · Score: 1

      I can still here JarJar...
      "Player Two... You Su Uck!"

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    4. Re:Pinball2000 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how the hell do you come to the conclusion that a post is overrated when it has not been moded by anyone?

      -what a bastard!!

  12. Stern should buy Williams tech by Sodade · · Score: 1

    Williams/Bally are the ONLY good pins ever made. Stern pins suck hard - they are just crappy Sega tech all over again. Why doesn't someone buy Williams stuff - you could probably make a mint on Medeval Madness alone...