In a previous post I mentioned that I was going to purchase a Lord of the Rings pinball machine. I found a nice one from Ivan Lysykanycz at Pintastic Pinball, the same person I bought my Spiderman from. I drove all the way to Allentown, PA, about 5.5 hours from my house to get it. I got it home and my initial reaction to the game was very positive, but unfortunately that didn’t last for long. Less than a month later and $100 worth of upgrades I found myself wanting to sell the game. Why?
Lord of the Rings is one of Stern’s “Masterpieces” in terms of software. It is what some call a deep game, or a game that has a lot of objectives and nuances to the gameplay that other pinball machines don’t have. It has three multiballs named after the three movies/books. It has a lot of other objectives like getting the gifts from the elves and bashing the balrog to name a few. As deep as the software appears to be its a very cumbersome game which requires constant attention to achieve any of the goals. This type of gameplay punishes you for a missed shots as modes will time out not giving you a chance to complete it successfully.
I found that this game was just not fun in a home environment. About a month into owning it I had decided that it was not the game for me as my motivation to play the game was pretty much non-existent. I ended up selling it to a guy in Canada who paid North American Van Lines to come and pick it up at my house. It arrived safely in Canada and is very happy in its new home. Now the search continues for the next game!
