One machine to rule them all — Stern’s 2003 Lord of the Rings is a sprawling epic designed by the great George Gomez, packing the entire film trilogy into one of the most ambitious and beloved licensed machines of its era. With a moving Balrog wielding a built-in flashlamp that blocks the center ramp, Jerry Vanderstelt fantasy art, and a Chris Granner score, this approximate run of 5,100 is a deep, rewarding quest that tournament players still cherish.
The strategy is genuinely epic in scope. From a trap, pick your mode by lighting the insert beside the one you want, and you can effectively pick your skill shot by plunging just hard enough that the ball rolls past the first switch and drifts back onto the plunger. Fellowship Multiball asks you to shoot every shot in the game a number of times until all are lit, then shoot the left loop. The Ring multiballs each have their own path — Two Towers via spelling Keep letters and locking up the right ramp, Return of the King via collecting five thousand souls, with War of the Ents the easiest place to gather them. Relight modes by collecting three elf rings, light mystery with seven dwarf rings, and light Gollum multiball with nine rings of men. The jackpot math gets staggering — stacking Gollum with double scoring can theoretically reach an eighty-four-times jackpot.
Lord of the Rings is a towering achievement, a machine whose depth rewards years of study while remaining thrilling for newcomers. Choose your modes, chase the ring multiballs, stack your scoring, and undertake the quest. From the Shire to Mount Doom, it’s one of the most epic journeys in all of pinball. The road goes ever on.