"Nothing to scream about, but worth a look"

The Lord of the Rings is probably the most hyped movie/game franchise since the dawn of the Playstation Final Fantasy games. Even though there is a lot of hype and hope for this game, the final game, the game to end all games; there is still much that EA has to learn about transfering movies to games.

Story 5/10

We all know that the story of the Lord of the Rings is well deserving of a 10/10, but the way the story is told in the game is rather shoddy, and doesn't really tell the story at all. Its assumed you know what is happening or you've already seen the movie when you're playing this game. Footage from the three movies is intertwined into the cut-scenes, and meshed into the plot of the game, but the chosen cut-scenes do a very poor job of telling the story. It skips from one scene to another, and jumps back and forth to footage from Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and Return of the King, in the mean time, causing mass confusion for those who have no interest in the movies, or have decided to rent this game to see what its like. A good story, one that I understand because I've read the books, but one that is very poorly conveyed.

Graphics 7/10

The graphics are good. Thats it. The character models are jagged, and are not extremely smooth, but good enough considering all the ambient special effect going on in the backgrounds. Since the character frame models suffer, the textures on the characters more than make up for it. With textures like these, its no wonder everyone can't help but think this game stands on revolutionary grounds, but it doesn't, its deception; good deception, but deception none the less. The explosions and debris look fantastic, I just wish they had learned to make fire graphics. In a world where fire is everything, you'd think the fire would look realistic, but it doesn't. The colours are also a thing a I didn't enjoy. The game is very brown. Brown, brown, brown, nothing but brown, there are the occasional reds, but they are still brownish red than anything else. From a movie where colour is everything, EA's poor attempt at colouring this game doesn't go unnoticed. The last thing I wasn't impressed with was the framerate. Far too often does it slow down, and is unacceptable where 60 fps is the standard minimum for videogames.

Controls 7/10

The controls are solid, the buttons are in intuitive and quite learnable locations, I just wish there was a little more responsiveness in the Killing actions (pressing R) and using sword combos, which require precise timing to pull off, and require you to think more about the timing of the button presses, than the actual effect of the combo. You can go through pretty much the majority of the game using only the A button, with a few times when Y, L and Z are needed, and the Parry action is a good idea, I just wish there were more times it was needed.

Gameplay 6/10

Where gameplay is concerned, this game is purely a button masher, which requires you to perform tasks like setting off catapults and firing arrows, but besides that, its a matter of button mashing, killing as many enemies as possible using a single button, sometimes using the Y button. Killing moves and special abilities come in handy, which do add to the saddening feel of button mashing. If a game uses button mashing, you can tell the game was made in a hurry. Not only does button mashing indicate poor design and production, but it also indicates that the companies who develop these games, do not care about the gameplay experience, but only the money they will make selling the game. Maybe its not true for all producers and designers, but it sure seems that way, and is unacceptable in a gaming generation that demands perfection.

Replay Value 9/10

There are three unlockable characters, and 6 characters to playthrough the regular game with, letting you replay missions with different characters. After completing the game, you can use ANY of these 9 characters for any of the missions/levels in the game, including taking Pippin into the Path of the dead, or taking Gandalf through Osgiliath.
THere are also a multitude of unlockable interviews with the cast and crew of the Lord of the Rings, though small recompense for the shoddy story development and weak gameplay. I wish there had been online connectivity like the PS2 version has, and I had hoped that EA would at least put some more emphasis on Gollum in special missions where you can play him, considering he is one of the more interesting characters in the game.

Final Score 6/10

Even though its an acknowledgable attempt at recreating the story of Lord of the Rings for the consoles, the downfalls and poor design of certain elements of the game do not go unnoticed, and should be looked at accordingly. Average graphics, with Average gameplay, with an average story, and average controls, this game is a whole lot of average. Theres no doubt that LOTR fanboys will make this their all time favourite game, but for those who just like to enjoy the Lord of the Rings in the way it was meant to be, this game won't do it, but by all means pick this game up and at least try it, its worth seeing how they added the events from the book that didn't quite make the cut for the movies.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/03