stern announces new pinball machine!

October 20, 2003 - The greatest adventure ever told is now Stern Pinball's epic pinball machine for the ages. THE LORD OF THE RINGS� Pinball Machine features exciting elements from ...

stern announces new pinball machine!

Written by Fearless_Leader, published October 28th, 2003.
Read 887 times, 2 comment(s).

Stern Pinball / Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) Press Release

October 20, 2003 - The greatest adventure ever told is now Stern Pinball's epic pinball machine for the ages. THE LORD OF THE RINGS� Pinball Machine features exciting elements from New Line Cinema's box office hits, The Fellowship Of The Ring� and The Two Towers, as well as the most anticipated installment yet, The Return of The King�, opening on December 17th.

Players of all levels will love THE LORD OF THE RINGS�. For those truly familiar with the movies and books, the pinball machine follows the story perfectly.

"THE LORD OF THE RINGS� is the perfect title and theme for a pinball," Gary Stern said.

"It lends itself to lots of Mechanical Action Pinball shots and toys for casual players, yet the story cries for deep rules to challenge the best players."

The goal of THE LORD OF THE RINGS� pinball machine is 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.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS� pinball machine offers non-stop action at its best in the form of the following mechanisms:

*A Balrog toy that pivots when hit by the ball, revealing the jump ramp that leads to The One Ring�;

*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;

*Many multi-ball modes, including one for each movie, as well as for Gollum;

*The Orthanc and Barad-dur Towers. Players can knock down Barad-dur, which also features the eye of Sauron;

*A small playfield in the upper left hand corner represents that of The Paths of the Dead;

*Twelve action figures from Play Along toys interspersed throughout the playfield.

"All those involved in the design of the pinball machine are true fans of THE LORD OF THE RINGS�, with intimate knowledge of it," Stern said. "That is why this game is so great - the designers were into this title."

The pinball features original speech from Elijah 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, while 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�.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS� movie trilogy is produced and directed by Peter Jackson.

Gary Stern concluded, "This pinball will have a great response from the public worldwide. With its great playfield, art package and theme, I expect THE LORD OF THE RINGS� will have the greatest resale value for the operator ever."

THE LORD OF THE RINGS� pinball machine will begin shipping in November, 2003.

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There are 2 comments to this story

WoLfZ commented on June 04, 2008 22:17:44

As a young boy our teacher would read from the 'Hobbit' in the afternoon after the class came back from lunch. I think it was her way of calming us down from a rowdy playground war executed ritualy every day. Then in my teens I read the books followed by watching the movies. I never knew the Machine was that in debth to the trilogy. I'll have to add this to my wishlist now.
robin commented on June 05, 2008 09:44:52

It's a great game in every way, but personally (and that's really just how I feel) I don't appreciate the gameplay that much. But again, the machine looks beautiful and is indeed very much like the movies which is a good thing. But I could never get my head around the fact that, in the pin, you destroy the ring midway in the game. That should have been the final thing, the great ending. Now it's just one of the modes. Seeing how expensive the game still is nowadays not everyone agrees :-) I'd give it a play before buying, if you can.