"The king would not be pleased"

The graphics, movies and music are all great thanks to this game taking media from the movie but the game play was beyond disappointing and tedious at best. I made the mistake of purchasing this game and a few of the levels were fun to play through but I had to cheat to get through others parts of the game that were difficult even on the Easy setting.

The extra character's AI are worthless and they usually just stand around as you get surrounded by enemies. And the combat is simply button smashing, there are combos but they are almost pointless. The only fun part is the ability to fire magic with Gandalf or arrows or knives with other characters all of which can be upgraded but you gain level so slowly that the game is over before you can level up and unlock the full power of your skills. Which is another problem, the game is really SHORT! I played through the game in an afternoon.

The first half of the game's levels were entertaining but simple and very scripted not allowing you any freedom to explore although there are no goodies to find even if you did explore.

One annoyance is some of the levels are basically timed or require you to perform a mission objective but they NEVER tell you what you are supposed to do and a few levels are so poorly designed you sometimes can not easily find where you are supposed to go. One level you have to walk by two guards down a hill but since the camera is set it shows the two guards standing there at what looks like the edge of a wall, you have to just walk off the wall to discover it's a ramp. Another area you come to a dead end and you must walk on an angle to move onto the next area, I just don't get it, did they play test this game at all?

Another annoying aspect of the game is the FMV sequences. They are great the first time you see them but if you load your game you are forced to watch the same clip you saw before which is extra annoying. There is also a logo movie when you first load the game which you can not skip, not a huge deal but if you pay good money for a game you do not want to be forced to always watch someone's logo because the developer has a huge ego.

Rent this game or buy it cheap if you like LOTR as I do but beware, you will probably need to cheat to finish it with all your hair intact. It just seems like they could have done so much more with this game but just did not bother. And if you are looking for a fun co-op game this is not it. You have to play a level single-player only first then you can only play one-third of the levels co-op. I do not understand the point in this type of design, if you developers want to make a co-op make the ENTIRE game co-op not just a few parts otherwise spend more time making the game better for single player.

Graphics 8/10
Sound/Music 9/10
Game play system 1/10
Level design 2/10
Length/depth of game 2/10
Fun 2/10

Frustration level 10/10
Annoyance level 6/10

Overall 2/10 (not based on above, just what I think overall)

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/05/06