The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age

"To Isengard we go, to Isengard we go..."

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is a very wonderful role playing game within its own right. It is a nice change of pace from the previous Lord of the Rings games in which most of everything that you did revolved around hacking and slashing your way through seas of orcs, and the only thing that you needed to do to finish the game was to choose the correct stats to level. Well now there has been a mix of strategy thrown into this beautiful role playing game.

GRAPHICS---10/10

The various places that you go to in this game are presented in amazing amounts of detail. It is quite satisfying for you to see just how much pain the orcs and uruk-hai are in after you attack them with a particularly devastating attack. There is an enormous amount of detail in most everything that you encounter and you can tell that this game was not put together at the last moment by some bad programmers.

SOUNDS---7/10

There really is no music in this game. You see cut scenes of what is happening and hear the characters talk occasionally but rarely is there a notable amount of music. This game is much more based around the graphical and game play elements that make a great game rather than how you can make the game sound pretty.

GAME PLAY---10/10

The game play is wonderfully addicting. It is your standard turn based role playing game with plenty of other extra goodies thrown into the mix. There are more than enough weapons for you and your party to use and there are more abilities for you to unlock than you could ever find a use for all during one battle. There is also an Evil Mode where you play the main battles of the game from the opposite point of view and unlock other extra items for you to use in the main game. This game has everything that you would expect from your run of the mill turn based role playing game and plenty more.

OVERALL---9/10

This game was created with an enormous amount of attention to detail to make everything work the way that it should. Not only will you be compelled to quickly finish the game because it is so fun and addicting but you will also want to play through it again to make sure that you got everything and to relive the experience.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/28/05