Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Waste of time"

Maybe I misunderstood what kind of game this was, but the turn-like way the game play is presented I found both boring and uninteresting. As a fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I felt like this was the perfect game to pick up. Once again, I forced myself to complete it, but found this more cursory than anything.

The game follows non-existent characters from the Lord of the Rings mythology who appears indiscriminately through-out the Lord of the Rings adventure. The story puts a few random characters together who travel through Middle Earth, happening upon fights with Nazgul as well as incidents that occurred within the actual story. Some of the scenes are utterly breath-taking, the visuals completely stunning, but at the same time, the game play made this feel tired and boring quickly.

As a Lord of the Rings fan, it's hard not to pick this game up, and while the critics give it positive reviews, I had to force myself to trudge through this game in hopes of finding something truly enjoyable. On the surface, it's a decent game, but getting through it had a price to it as well.

The character actors and story were true to the Tolkien experience, but that made things seem less authentic in some ways, as the authenticity, for me, was with what truly happened, and not something that had been concocted to sell more products for an already wealthy franchise. In some ways, I felt like this game cheapened the Lord of the Rings product, though it opened the door for a view that fans wouldn't normally get. I realise I'm being very hard on this game, but I think my expectations were far too high for this game and I was, of course, complete let down by it.