The Lord of the Rings Pinball Machine is a 2003 game designed by George Gomez and distributed by Stern Pinball. It is based on the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which was first released in 2001.
Lord of the Rings Pinball Machine features the highest possible score multiplier in pinball to date: During a combined “Two Towers” and “Gollum” Multiball it is possible to achieve a 84x Jackpot (when scoring seven subsequent combo Jackpot shots, having the 2x scoring Elf gift and the Smeagol phase of Gollum Multiball running at once)!
Objective:
- To collect the Elf Rings, the Dwarf Rings, and the mortal men rings, thereby forming The One Ring.
- Then destroy The One Ring through collecting all three movies.
Game Play:
- Players can collect Souls on The Paths of the Dead…an upper playfield
- The Balrog guards the jump ramp that leads to The One Ring
- Players bash on the angry Balrog
- The Two Towers: Orthanc and Barad-Dur. Players can knock down Barad-Dur to face the eye of Sauron
- The jump ramp launches the ball into The One Ring and the magnet pulls it through
Specific Movie Game Play:
To light and start three multiballs, each of them coupled to one of the movies of the trilogy, and to finally “Destroy the Ring”
- Fellowship of the Ring:
- Collect all members of the fellowship (white inserts), then shoot Barad-Dur, Gollum Cave, or The Shire to start the multiball.
- If enabled by the operator, the mode starts with a Cave Troll that must be defeated, otherwise the player directly starts with the second part: The Balrog.
- One must alternate between hitting the Balrog and shooting a ramp to make the members of the fellowship escape across the bridge (the last member Gandalf will not pass but rather end the second part and enable victory lap mode).
2. The Two Towers:
- Spell “K-E-E-P” to enable the ball lock on the right ramp.
- Lock three balls to start multiball.
- Shoot all lit shots for Jackpots (depending on the number of balls, these can be 1x, 2x or 3x (when stacked with Gollum Multiball)).
- Combo Shots (subsequent Jackpot shots) increase the second Jackpot multiplier (up to 7x).
- The Two Towers is considered “complete” after the first scored Super Jackpot, after which a limited amount of additional Super Jackpots may be collected.
- Once the all Super Jackpots have been collected or time expires, victory lap mode is enabled.
3. The Return of the King:
- Collect 5000 souls on the “Path of the Dead” and shoot Orthanc, Barad-Dur or Gollum Cave to start.
- Jackpots are scored by the four lit shots, scoring all relights the Jackpots and advances the player to the next level.
- On the Seventh level, Super Jackpots are awarded instead of the standard jackpots, leading into victory lap mode afterwards.
Features:
- A magnet in the center of The One Ring which pulls the ball in and then feeds another ramp shaped in the form of Aragorn’s legendary Narsil sword
- A small playfield in the upper left hand corner represents that of The Paths of the Dead
- Original speech from Elija Wood (Frodo), as well as John Rhys-Davies (Gimli the Dwarf).
- Backglass and cabinet artwork for The Lord of the Rings was created by artist Jerry Vanderstelt
- Playfield art was designed by Kevin O’Connor
- Sounds and special effects were produced by Chris Granner
- Rules are by Keith Johnson on his first outing since The Simpsons/Pinball Party.
- 4 Multiball modes, including one for each movie, as well as for Gollum
- Ramp(s)
- Spinner(s)
- Voice
- Drop Targets
- More Than 2 Flippers
Toys:
- Balrog toy – pivots when hit by the ball, revealing the jump ramp that leads to The One Ring
- 12 action figures from Play Along toys interspersed throughout the playfield