Minor gripes dont ruin an otherwise strong and unique title in "Lord of the Rings: Tactics".
User Rating: 8.2 | The Lord of the Rings: Tactics PSP
This game is well above average but, only a few little annoyances keep it from being great. It is slow but, most tactics games are, right?! It has an odd way of taking turns that didnt set well with me either. You first have a movement turn(where you move each character to a desired spot) and then next, you have an attack turn. This bugs me because im a fan of the traditional tactics formula of having a certain amount of points to use running away, attacking w/ melee or magic, etc. This isnt a deal breaker though so until you play 4 or 5 matches(at least play up to the level w/ Boromir), try not to make your mind up. At first, the scenes from the movies just got in the way and seemed like another reason the game was playing so slow but, after you watch a couple clips and let them serve their purpose of setting up each new level, you start to appreciate them and even somewhat look forward to them before each battle. I havent played much of the "Evil" campaigns but, I assume they are as great as they were in the "LotR: 3rd Age" console game. Which leads me to my last comparison, if you enjoyed "3rd age" but though it to be a bit too shallow, this game gives you just a bit more and it keeps the Rings games alive just a bit longer as we watch them fall from the publics attention like every other great fad. If you've been flirting with the idea of picking this up then, I beg you too for 2 reasons: to keep the Lord of the Rings series going and to show that tactics games are still popular and can make money if done (for the most part) properly. Unfortunately, its great ideas like this that always seem vanish for another sequel to "187:ride or die", "Ty the Tazmanian Tiger", or another NBA street ball game! Keep that in mind when your voting with your dollar!
