The Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age review

Licensed games often get the same kind of scorn we reserve for licensed, coffee mugs, posters and duvet covers. Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age, is a like a Lord Of The Rings coffee mug, but with a picture of some bloke called Berethor on it instead of Gandalf.

No one expects licensed games to be original and we barely expect them to be fun. To be sure, Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age is anything but original.

So why am I still playing this game when I have some of the most fresh and exciting titles of recent years around me? The Third Age isn’t ambitious in design, playing similarly to any number of Japanese console role playing games, more like Final Fantasy than anything else. Which on the one hand is a bit of a rip-off, but on the other hand, seems like a match made in heaven. Isn’t Lord Of The Rings crying out for a fantasy role-playing game in its image?

Postcards from Mordor

The game is linear and it’s not going to be much better than Final Fantasy X. But that doesn’t discount all the things that made Final Fantasy X enjoyable for so many people. Walking around a fantasy world and tending to your characters.

And it’s just fun to walk around and feel like you’re in Middle Earth. EA has made the effort to keep in line with the films. Notice I said films and not books, though elements of the books are present. The game follows the events of the movies (all three of them) very closely, but from a strange choice of perspective.

As the paths of the main characters are already set, you can’t control them, so instead you’re given control over a band of adventurers in search of the fellowship, looking out for them, protecting them and travelling through similar locations. In some cases you get to pass through places they may have visited only hours before you.

The Quest for the quest

Though it seems a little absurd at first, you still get completely immersed in the setting. Despite the plain nature of the gameplay, the locations and background story are carefully detailed, with individual pieces of armour and weapons viewable in three dimensions on your character.

These details sometimes seem the point of the game, like having an animated set of action figures, and an excuse to move around through the art direction of Middle-Earth.

Strictly gameplay-wise, it’s a linear trek and almost bland, offering a gradual but steady increase in character level, but for some this type of progression will come so easy as to be meaningless. At least The Third Age is honest enough not to pretend to be anything else but a straightforward experience grind. Though it is a gentle, scenic grind.

The scenic route

The graphics along the way manage to be in keeping with the atmosphere of the films and genuinely impress at times. There are vast ruins and rays of sunlight filtering through the trees, and a Balrog as impressive as any summon you’d find in a Final Fantasy game (there’s that comparison again.)

The characters and their equipment are all lovingly detailed and you might notice some of the finer details in the enemies that you missed in the movies. At times the grandiose nature of the music and animation draws you in through movie nostalgia. At other times it looks like a Calvin Klein commercial.

Having said all that, you had better enjoy the scenery, as you’ll be seeing a lot of it. Each section of landscape does tend to drag on for a bit longer than seems necessary. Though it adds length to the game (making it around a fifty hour trek), it also gives you enough time to grow tired of each set of enemies and locations. In this case, a little judicious editing could have worked wonders.

Additional features are there, but seem unnecessary compared to the amount of time the main quest takes up. There’s Evil Mode, which lets you play through key battles from the opposite side. It’s fun to try out, but with a battle system as straightforward as this, it’s not exactly an eye-opening experience compared to playing the game the regular way. If anything, the enemies usually have fewer options, weapons and items to choose from in combat. Still, if you must have an excuse for looking at the pretty graphics a while longer, it’s there.

Return Of The King

But who are we kidding? Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age, sets out with a straightforward goal and does it with a lot of flash. You’re either tired of this sort of game by now or you’re not.

There is tactical depth, but it’s more busywork than anything else, given that despite your choices, the game is still relatively easy. Thus for some, the linear tasks and repetition will by the definition of boredom.

Despite that, there’s still a chance that even those people will be amused by the novelty for a while. Taken as a game in it’s own right, Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age doesn’t hold up to its competitors. But taken as a colourful ride through Middle Earth, a beefed-up moving pop-up book if you will, it’s fun for a while at least.

Even if that fun does wear off after ten or thirty hours, there’s no denying the amusement factor. If you looked around a bit you’d probably find that it’s been reduced in the sales too, which is perhaps the best news for fans.