The Lord of the Rings: Tactics

"The fate of the ringbearer is in your hands..."

Electronic Arts seem to be exploiting the 'Lord of the Rings' franchise to it's full. However, you may be surprised to hear that the first Lord of the Rings game released for the Playstation Portable is not an action adventure, but a turn based strategy one. You'll be directing your forces throughout many levels to victory and you'll be responsible for the future of Middle Earth.

Lord of the Rings: Tactics lets you pick between two campaigns, the Free Peoples. and the Forces of Mordor. Each campaign plays through the same levels but you'll have different objectives and different characters. You get to command all your favourite characters and each one has their own set of skills and stats that you must learn and upgrade.

While this game may not appeal to people who don't particularly enjoy the genre, this game is quite simple and anyone could pick up and play through the first couple of levels without much thought. Although the game lacks in the difficulty department, it makes up for it in the visual presentation. The visuals are crisp and each character has their own set of animations for when they pull off an attack. The terrain is also very clean and it all looks very realistic. There are one or two glitches in the visuals although they're nothing major and shouldn't distract from the overall experience.

As a whole the game feels complete but die-hard strategy fans may feel the game lacks some more advanced features. Even though it's not overly packed with items and things to do, there are still many things that should keep you playing. The game features edited clips from the films themselves, and in widescreen too. It also features a bright soundtrack with all the themes taken directly from the films. Something I find annoying about the sound is that every time you press a button, some sort of sound effect plays, and when you are navigating menus, this can be distracting.

Overall, 'Lord of the Rings: Tactics' is a fun, playable adventure that anyone can come up and play and it serves as a great introduction into the strategy genre. As I mentioned before, the game lacks many things that would make it appeal to experienced gamers, but as it's quite easy, I recommend this to anyone who's a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings or someone who's looking for a new type of game and one that's enjoyable and rewarding to play.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/07