"Lord of the Rings can't get any better than this"

Intro:

It may sound like it doesn't matter anymore now that there will be no more movies about The Lord of the Rings, but we can still have fun with the games. This time, it's all about strategy. The major thing in this game is that you can be evil or good. It's really cool and it never gets too old.

Story: 8/10

If you have not read the book or seen the movie, you won't know what this is. The story is just like the movie/book, but since that you can be evil, it starts to change. Even if you are the good guys, some weird stuff may happen that was either not in the movies/books at all or some stuff don't even happen and it really changes the way you compare it with the movie/books. Well, I'm not saying it's bad, but a bit shocked about some stuff.

Game-play: 10/10

It truly shines. This is an RTS game that rules them all. It starts off to be a little hard, but there is a tutorial that explains what you want, when you want. I did say that you can be good or evil. You can be the Riders of Rohan, the soldiers of Gondor, the hordes of Isengard, or the armies of Mordor. You can even use the fellowship to deal some carnage and you can also use special characters like Theoden, the king of Rohan and Saruman, the White Wizard of Isengard. Each army has different units, advantages, and just about everything else. You need to know this, but it already seems obvious, but Rohan and Gondor are teamed up and Isengard and Mordor are teamed up. Even though that they are teamed up, you gotta choose one.

There is a fun campaign mode, both evil and good. Depending on which one you pick determines what events happen. Then you move on to this really cool looking map, which you will use to select your mission. Once you have selected your mission, it's time to wage war.

Like most RTS games, your individual units can be used to attack, defend, charge, and do many other actions. The thing here is that most units come in groups, so if you select one, you select that whole group. It may get confusing trying to know which group is which. I said that only some units to this. Big units and trolls and a ballitsa just run about as one.

It's not all about war, but there is some building too. You need to get units, so buildings are needed. You might find yourself wondering around with no idea on how to build something, but if you find a camp site, you can turn in into your base. It comes with a citadel and a couple places to build things. You can only build stuff on the icons on the ground, meaning that you can build wherever you want. Not everything is free and you don't have any money in this game. There is something that acts like money, which they call "resources". When you think of resources, you think of using then to your advantage and stuff. Resources are used to buy units, build new buildings, and many other things. I always run low on them, which can get rather frustrating at times.

You have a limit to units. Your command points tell you how much units you can have. You get more by beating levels. This makes you pretty mad since that you start out with a little and most units costs at least 10 command points and can get up to 30. Well, the action is still at a high level, but this really makes you frustrated. The battle for Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith aren't what you expect.

So that's pretty much it for game-play, but it is really fun. If I were you, take the tutorial first. It gets pretty confusing and hard and the different armies to choose from is really good.

Graphics: 6/10

They look sweet from far away. You can zoom in on the action, but it makes everything look very bad. I'd keep all the action from the high camera angle. Although, some little pictures appear once in a while, the rest of the game needs some improvement. Also, whenever I play my games online, the chat text appears at the top-right corner, which is really frustrating.

Sound: 10/10

Dialogue is very good. I like listening to units talking and stuff, but I especially like it when heroes (special characters like Pippin and Aragorn) talk. Sometimes when Pippin is selected, he says some funny stuff. “Can I have some bacon?”. If you have a good sub-woofer, you might get an extra sound edge to listening to some of the power ups and effects.

Music: 10/10 (I wish I could give this a higher score)

ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING! For those who have seen the movie, you will expect all of the music that was in there and they are obviously great. There are some new music in the game as well. The music is so good, you'll go to war to check it out. You have to play the game if you want to really feel it.

Control: 9/10

Using the mouse will be the only thing your hand will do. Left clicking just selects stuff while right clicking moves units and do stuff with them. Yeah, they let you use shortcut keys, but I find it a lot easier using the mouse. The only time you will use the keyboard is when you need to type something or open up the chat bar.

Multi-player: 10/10

Luckily, this game has it's own server so you don't have to type the IP address of the person hosting the game (like some other games I've tried). Online mode also has it's own ladder, so you can battle your way higher. You can use any army of course. You can gain points that gives you ranks. For example: Earning a level 2 rank for the use of your Rohan army gives you the rank of “Soldier” or something. You can only gain points by playing a “quick match”. It searches for a player in your area and somewhere around your rank. You can't when someone hosts their own game. The disappointing things is that you can't get any points for games that require 5-8 players. And I keep getting firewall problems when we get lots of players in a game. Oh well. Online mode is still fun.

Worth getting?

Yes. Definitely. Make sure your hard drive has lots of free room. It takes up so much. A fast computer also makes it worth it. Online players who are lagging makes your day worse and being one of them is bad.

Overall: 10/10

It's a wonderful RTS game. Seriously. With the choices of good or bad, the online mode, the music, and just everything else, it's a computer game worth your time and money. There is no more to say because this is simply too good.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/05