The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

"When I think of how good it could have been..."

There are some things I have no hope of understanding. Why aren't the Allman Brothers more popular than 50 Cent? Why did the Architect care if he killed all the humans when he could just grow more like they showed in Matrix 1? WHY WOULD YOU PUT WORK INTO A GAME ONLY TO RELEASE IT BEFORE IT'S FINISHED?

The first two don't really matter here, but the third one is something I think we should all ask Black Label Games. The PC version of Fellowship was glitchy, but managed to be mildly fun. The GBA could have been just as good, if not 1,000 times better IF THEY WOULD HAVE FINISHED IT. The rush to put this game out caused what could have been a fantastic RPG to become a mess of code that's practically unplayable.

Gameplay: 3/10

Okay, first off, the battle system is GARBAGE. The characters move WAY TOO SLOWLY. They don't run up, attack, and run back, they slowly stroll up to the enemy, hit it, then slowly walk back. It takes about 20 seconds for one guy to attack, then it's the next guy's turn. As if that wasn't bad enough, you don't gain any experience from fights. You level up at certain points no matter how much fighting you did. Basically, battles are pointless.

As for the actual gameplay, you walk around in an isometric RPG-ish world doing an endless amount of fetch-quests that make the main quest seem very small compared to getting pipe-weed for your friends around the shire, (probably the same pipe-weed Black Label Games was using before they decided to release the game as is) playing music on stumps in Tom Bombadil's backyard, and watching the game crash thanks to fantastically crippling glitches.

What would the Lord of the rings be without worrying about being caught by the evil Nazgul? This game, for one thing. The only time you'll see a wraith is when they're standing in the middle of the road blocking your way, and to avoid them you've got to simply take another way. Obviously they don't care about the quest any more than you do.

If you somehow manage to stomach this dull trek through middle earth long enough to reach Moria, you'll be treated to a Cheetahmen ending where the game locks up at a certain point and you're stuck. You can't get through Moria. You can't finish the game.

Control: 2/10

You move way too slowly on land, and the combat system is garbage. Other than that the controls are flawless...

Music: 3/10

The music is great when it decides it wants to play. You'll hardly ever hear anything, and when you do chances are it's going to fade out after about 3 seconds.

Storyline 4/10

No big surprise, Tolkien's universe is butchered by yet another game developer. An obscene number of thoroughly pointless sidequests makes sure you'll completely forget about the main story.

Graphics: 6/10

The graphics are actually pretty good. The animation could be better (How hard would it be to make water that moves?) but the graphics are pleasing enough.

r8ing: Anything redeeming about the game is overshadowed by something really bad.

Don't buy this.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06