I am in Gainesville, FL for work and Saturday we went out for dinner. After dinner we stopped by a bar that appeared to have an arcade in it. Turns out it was a smokey old pool hall with about 15 arcade machine. Low and behold I look around and see two guys playing pins. They had a Sopranos and a LOTR. I was pretty happy as the only newer Stern I have been able to play was Monopoly.
The Sopranos was pretty fun. It was in good shape, everything seemed to work. The playfield really needed to be cleaned, but it did not effect game play. I had no idea the ruleset for the game, but it was pretty easy to pick up which shots were remaining by the lights pointing to each shot. I would definitely play it again.
LOTR is a pin I have really been wanting to play and had high expectations for. The machine was very dirty, dark upper playfield which made it hard to see everything, and the balrog was stuck open. The shots were a bit tougher to make than the Sopranos (not that that is an all bad thing). All in all the LOTR was a little bit of a let down, but it was probably a combination of high expectations and the condition of the machine.
I have heard that another pool hall here in town might have a Funhouse and one or two other pins, so I am going to check them out.