Played a LOTR and a Shrek in the wild today...

ARCredux

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and LOTR kicked my butt! I don't think I've ever lost at pinball so quickly. Anyone else think LOTR is hard and Drain happy?

Shrek on the other hand wasn't too bad. I know it's a family friendly theme, but I think I could stand owning one for awhile. How many of you own a shrek machine? Pros vs Cons? Did you get it mostly for your family/friends?

Discuss.
 
LOTR kicks much ass. I'd love to own one.

Haven't played Shrek, but I've played Family Guy.....fun pin (a little less family friendly though ;) )
 
LOTR has quickly become one of my all-time favorites. It's really hard to get tired of a table that has a ruleset that deep. Lots of modes, multiballs, and I just can't reliably get Destroy The Ring knocked out leads to a massive obsession.

I have really REALLY long ball times on it right now. I've been shooting the sword ramp with the right flipper, works great. :|
 
Not to discredit your ability, but LOTR is well known as a long ball time pin.
I'll have days where I play mine for 45 minutes a game. Skill might have something to do with it, but learning ball travel helps a lot. I speak generally, but for instance if you have a clean shot around the orbit you simply hold up the adjacent flipper. A clean shot from right to left: hold up left flipper and the ball will either bounce into the Shire, or hit right above the Shire come down hitting top of sling and then down to flipper. If you reverse this scenario, (MAJORALLY depends on if the ball hugs the orbit rail or strays a bit from it) the ball will hit the right flipper and end up going in the direction of palantir, the Gimli VUK or hit the posts to the Aragorn ramp.

Learn to cradle/stall the balls when in multi ball. Also, a good strategy to use is always start a ring mode BEFORE you start a movie multi ball.

Nudging is MANDATORY! Don;t let the ball volly between the slings because you're asking for a drain. I've noticed if the ball hits the guide rail right above the shire (Next to the Arwen plastic area) your chances of a SDTM drain is almost a certainty. Also getting a ball stuck behind Balrog, when he closes nudge the hell out of that machine as the ball has a tendency to hit the left sling and shoot to the opposite drain.

LOTR is by far one of the best pins ever made IMHO.
 
I will admit the restaurant had the LOTR in a bad area right next to a booth where a family was eating lunch. I wasn't giving it my all as I didn't want to disturb them too much. It is akward to play a game with sets of strangers eyes on you, and you could tell they were thinking "why did we sit here?".

I hope to try it again. This was another title I couldn't even get near at the MI Pin Expo a few months back.
 
that's impossible......it's a stern.

The Simpsons Pinball Party and Spider-Man are all-time greats too. Both top games in my book.

Lord of the Rings is truly something special. It was at a time when they weren't afraid of putting deep rule sets in games and they still had the budgets to put neat tricks onto the machine. The game is a perfect blend of neat toys (Balrog, the Ring, the Towers, etc.) and some fantastic rules. The games has some nice shots and it's easily the best game George Gomez ever designed.
 
and LOTR kicked my butt! I don't think I've ever lost at pinball so quickly. Anyone else think LOTR is hard and Drain happy?

Shrek on the other hand wasn't too bad. I know it's a family friendly theme, but I think I could stand owning one for awhile. How many of you own a shrek machine? Pros vs Cons? Did you get it mostly for your family/friends?

Discuss.

LOTR is the kind of game that can really punish bad shots, however, once you develop a trick or three to getting some multiballs going, the game time increases dramatically. If the game will let me, I backhand the sword ramp and then do a lane stop, backhand sword, etc. until I have that multi going. Then I work on other stuff. It's a very grindy strategy but almost guarantees I won't get housed early on.
 
I will admit the restaurant had the LOTR in a bad area right next to a booth where a family was eating lunch. I wasn't giving it my all as I didn't want to disturb them too much. It is akward to play a game with sets of strangers eyes on you, and you could tell they were thinking "why did we sit here?".

I hope to try it again. This was another title I couldn't even get near at the MI Pin Expo a few months back.

That's funny, I have that exact same reaction when I sit next to a family at a restaurant..."why did I sit here?" I ask to be re-seated a lot. :)

I have only played LOTR once, and it was pretty fun. No idea what the ruleset is though. One of these days, I am going to have to find one and play for a while. I keep hearing terms like Wizard Mode when I hear people talking about pins, and I have no idea what that is.
 
What a coincidence I played a LOTR in the wild last weekend. I can see why so many people like this pin so much. The place also had Tron Legacy (want one badly), Indy (Stern), Batman, Spiderman, & POTC. Not a bad collection… if you don't mind Stern.
 
What a coincidence I played a LOTR in the wild last weekend. I can see why so many people like this pin so much. The place also had Tron Legacy (want one badly), Indy (Stern), Batman, Spiderman, & POTC. Not a bad collection… if you don't mind Stern.

You have been to nickelrama. I'm on the way there now lol. If you see FRX on the scoreboards, that's me! :)
 
LOL! Yup that's the place. Maybe I'll bump into you one day. Do you find that Tron Legacy is too quiet at that location?

Yes. And frequently it's way off kilter too. They finally fixed the batmobile ramp for Batman. IJ was missing balls the other day and non-functional. LOTR frequently gets balls stuck in odd places (Under the ramp beside Path of the Dead? How the f?). NBA has a rubber that's BEHIND the kicker arm on the jet bumper...

List goes on and on. They don't take care of their machines, IMO, but it's the only place I know of where you can play a good amount of pinball for a reasonable price, and have a variety doing it. They're having a tournament on Labor Day weekend, I think. I'll send you details if you're interested.
 
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