Good Graphics Good combat system but lacks key rpg elements. Overall though a worthy buy.
User Rating: 8.4 | The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age PS2
Perhaps I am abit behind the curve on rpgs but i have had problems finding many great titles that peek my intrest, LOTR the third age did because i loved the movies and it was designed as an RPG. Let's start with the good, I like the way the combat system works in the way that the more you men use a certian skill tree the more things they learn and thus become stronger in it. The graphics are well done as well. The most ejoyable thing about it is that every peice of equipment you put on changes the apearence of your character to match the item put on. Something i have always wanted in a non MMORPG. Hopefully this game sets the bar in that matter, for other games to come. Voice acting was good aswell dispite the lack of some orginal voice acting for fellowship and other actors like Eomer and Theoden, which ended up in some cheesy inserts of dialog taken from the movie that didn't fit to well in the coversation. But for the most part it was well done dialog and orginal. The Evil mode was also a very nice treat. Now the cons, what most of all killed my modivation was the ablity to have more freeroming and being able to have a will of your own, go where you want when you want kinda thing. I guess I get that from being an old FF fan. I also found the story of our main character alittle weak, not some much the content but more of a lack of and the manner in which it was presented. The cutscenes that display the key events going on with movie clips was a decent idea of was abit flakey in keeping the events in order, or so it seemed to me. To me this game really came off more like previous titles released the hack and slash version where you go about and mash buttons to do combos, only this time with RPG style combat. The game is hard though if played on hard, later in the game, but is quick to learn and get into. I also had a run in with a bug on the level before the plains of rohan, but reseting it solved the problem.
