Weasel
Member
Opinions on which one is better !!! Looking for a new pinball and not sure what to look for. Has to be family friendly
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Opinions on which one is better !!! Looking for a new pinball and not sure what to look for. Has to be family friendly
LOTR feels clunky by comparison and the playfield is not nearly as refined. The game makes up for a lot with the wonderful software rules and great artwork. Even still, I just can't stand of the Path of the Dead. I'm not sure what it was originally planned to be, but it is the most useless upper playfield ever in any pinball machine. Every time the ball goes up there I give a little sigh and wonder if it was originally supposed to tilt interactively like Path of Adventure? Gomez surely had to have had something else in mind originally!
Why is it I see a lot of people complain about Path of the Dead, but not really about the gadget board on the right side of Batman? It's the same damn thing, only the Batman one can dump into the left side ramp as well. Path of the Dead would've been cool if there had been a drop hole right in the middle that would let the ball go into an under-table path and then come back up somewhere cool, like in the middle of the thumpers.
Get the option of using a bit of nudge skill to get extra ghosts and the free lane light from the VUK, or get the ball into those annoying thumpers to get Boromir, who is just going to take an arrow in the face anyways.
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One thing about the gadget board on batman is that it's a lot faster item, that's really the issue with the LOTR one...it slows the game down way too much. The BDK one goes up the ramp and down the gadget grid with a lot of momentum.
I have both side by side in my living room. Spiderman has been here for a couple of years and LOTR for only a couple of months. At this point I'd say Spiderman is head and shoulders above LOTR. Not that LOTR is bad, SM is just that good. Every little thing about the playfield flows great and has been tweaked to the max. It feels solid and plays great. The software is great too.
LOTR feels clunky by comparison and the playfield is not nearly as refined. The game makes up for a lot with the wonderful software rules and great artwork. Even still, I just can't stand of the Path of the Dead. I'm not sure what it was originally planned to be, but it is the most useless upper playfield ever in any pinball machine. Every time the ball goes up there I give a little sigh and wonder if it was originally supposed to tilt interactively like Path of Adventure? Gomez surely had to have had something else in mind originally!
I also much prefer the SAM board set to the Whitestar.
John
Sounds like your LotR needs some tweaking. Mine is set up so all the orbit/lane shots flow clean and fast, no sdtm or slingshot bumps form clean shots. Granted SM is fast and shots have good flow, LotR (when set up properly) really moves the ball around smoothly, with the exception of the slight VUK delay onto the PotD. And I put an Army of the Dead figure on the lower part of the PotD, to deflect the ball smoothly onto the left wire ramp, which also smooths and speeds things up. That random clunky drop of the PotD is bad/unfinished design imo, and the deflector is a real improvement.
I also tweaked the PotD so the ball is pretty random L/R on both upper and lower switches. So it is a mini-nudging game that can make a difference for collecting souls.