The story will make Tolkien fans want to snap the disc in two but the gameplay makes it a good introduction to RPGs.
+ Most areas capture the scale and beauty of Middle Earth nicely.
+ Attack animations are well done.
- The game will seem shallow to most RPG veterans.
- The game suffers from very noticeable slow down.
- Multiplayer and evil mode feel taped on.
- Storyline feels like a piece of sloppy fan fiction.
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is based upon the amazingly successful Lord of the Rings movies which in turn were based on the books of the same name. Unlike the books and the movies the game follows the story of Berethor, a Gondorian captain who is in search of the fellowship of the ring. Throughout his quest he ends up among all the major moments of the trilogy and to manage this, inevitably, it causes its first downfall. The storyline in The Third Age is sloppy and creates plot holes in the original storyline itself, leading you to doubt whether the writer of the script had ever heard of the phrase 'if it isn't broke then don't fix it.' This will most likely lead to a storm of J.R.R Tolkien fans to switch the game off immediately after realising this fact. The script itself is also equally lazy with quotes snatched directly from the movies for the new characters. Also throughout the game when you talk to hero characters you notice that only characters from the movies with original speech are Gimli, Gandalf and Saruman. The rest of the voices are ripped directly from the movies. That means certain tones in the voices stick out in the wrong places like aggressive voices in a peaceful moment of the game.
The gameplay is standard turn based role playing with there being exploration broken up with combat. It's the same with the characters, certain ones stronger in magic and certain characters stronger in melee attacks. By about half way through the game you should have six characters to battle with; Berethor the swordsman, Idrial the magician, Elegost the bowman, Hadhod the axe and war hammer wielder, Morwen the twin axe wielder and Eoden the spearman. Only three of the six can fight at a time adding a certain element of strategy to the game as you want to make all of your characters level up for later on in the game when they all will occasionally be forced to play. Levelling up involves three processes; scrounging for stronger equipment, developing stronger attacks through the skill tree and applying experience points to certain attributes. The first process is self explanatory you just search the maps for better equipment or earn them through evil mode. (Which I will talk about later) The skill tree levels up attacks under a certain tree name. So if you attack with Berethor's citadel rage which comes under swords craft, you are one step closer to earning a brand new skill under sword craft. Last of all you earn experience points by defeating enemies. Once your character earns enough of these points it levels up. You can then apply these points to attributes that will increase the characters attack and defence or to increase its health and action points. Combining these three elements you can actually feel your character getting stronger throughout the game. The combat is also a sturdy element to the game. The enemies AI is smart enough to keep you on your toes at times but not enough to make you curse and shake your fists at the game in anger. The range of Attacks are good later on in the game with the only problem with these are that you will only use one or two at a time for each character. Another problem is that during adventuring you will pick up a number of items that would seem handy in battle. These, however, go to waste and get forgotten so much so that when you could use them you forget about them until you look through in desperation when fighting the Witch King of Angmar to find, to your relief, an item that will remove all his armour points. This culmination of forgotten items can make certain areas of the game too easy. Adventuring is the weaker of the two segments with middle earth being turned from wild and interesting to linear and predictable, no hidden treasure chests and no hidden routes. There is no shopping like most other RPGs either so there is no managing money and what's in your inventory. This creates a hollow feeling for the adventure segments of the game. Also you can play the game through multiplayer. All this amounts to though is playing Final Fantasy X with each player calling dibs on half the characters. All this amounts to is arguments and a head ache with no actual improvement but a decrease in the enjoyment of the game. Also there is an evil mode, not the campaign through the eyes of an orc like the trailers seem to promise but a chain of battles where you beat the hero party again and again until you win items for the main quest. This actually feels more of a chore than an addition and you will quickly find yourself avoiding every single one of the evil battles and sticking with the main campaign.
What makes up for the lack of true gameplay during adventuring and Evil Mode though is the jaw achingly gorgeous landscapes and graphics. Be it the open fields of Pelennor with Minas Tirith burning brightly on one side and Mount doom spurting lava on the other or be it the forest you first find yourself in. The characters are also well done with the only problem I see being their four fingers are actually glued together. Keen eyed LOTR gamers though will notice recycled maps and character skins from previous games in the series like the Minas Tirith courtyard and the Aragorn skin. Battles look nice too with animations being glittery and sparkly every time you choose a move but these do become repetitive quickly. Also taking points away from the immersion is the horrendous amount of slowdown in the game, especially during some of the bigger attacks in battle mode.
Sound wise the game is truly amazing with a good cast of voice actors, decent sound effects and the inspiring, epic score by Howard Shore in the background. The sound is definitely an achievement that other RPGs should strive to reach as it makes a change from over acted voices and sickly sweet, repetitive music.
While the game is a competent RPG and a great introduction to the genre with amazing sound and nice graphics, the shallow story will pretty much insult most Tolkien fans and the easy, repetitive gameplay will put experienced Role Players off for good.
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 9/10
Gameplay - 6/10
Value – 5/10
Overall score - 6.5