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Lord Of The Rings Pinball Machine Announced
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.
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
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.