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Great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: August 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Educatonal for LOTR fans because it tells you what happens before the hobbit and the movies.

Engaging to the end.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Lord of the Rings: Third Age is the tale of the Third Age of Middle-Earth where the evil forces of Sauron and Saruman seek to plunder and burn Middle-Earth into submission for the taking. There are few that stand in its defence and they must be rallied together. Drawing swords alongside famous Lord of the Rings characters such as Gimli, Aragorn and Gandalf, your party must defend the helpless.

Progressing your party of two (elf and man) from the beginning, you meet up with a ranger, dwarf and Rohirric rider as well as a stout Gondorian woman over the 50-hour game. You will defend all the major battle locations including Osgiliath and the fields of Pelennor on your march into Mordor to vanquish the eye of Sauron. These battles are where characters' magic abilities are pronounced, and cunning is necessary.

Key turn-based fights are the Helms Deep battles and in the Pelennor fields against the elephantine Mumakil, along with a consortium of wargs along the way. Orc, Goblin and Uruk-hai are the main battle groups throughout the entire game, although there is grand variety, from the Orc Shadow Chieftain through to the lowly Orc Archer Rabble. The plot follows the original LOTR, in the footsteps of the fellowship with similar conflicts and love interests along the way, from the Elven beginnings to the Mordor finale battle with Sauron. Interestingly, your party isn't complete until halfway through the game and immediately before Helms Deep. Closely entwined with the movie trilogy and given voice-over from Gandulf's actor, this game spans all three EA LOTR games in a role-playing game that is engaging to the end.

INCREDIBLE

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is such an incredible game. Its so addicting. Its even better when you do Co-Op mode with a friend. BUY THIS IF YOU LIKE FINAL FANTASY OR OTHER TURN BASED RPG GAMES

asom game!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: August 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is so awesome I got it for a graduating 6th grade present and I could not stop playing it. This game can get very difficult so if you don't like challenging games don't buy this game. The storyline was very good but the ending was pretty crummy. Overall this is a awesome game U HAV GOT 2 BUY THIS GAME

Fantastic Adventure!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game holds true to form to the movie, yet you play a parallel characters alongside the main plot. It works very well doing this, and the GIANT selection of cinematics is breathtaking!

The graphics on this are showcase for any system, and are stunning by all accounts. In addition, there are bonus evil campaigns, where you can fight as the mighty watcher or Balrog, and other things.

Fantastic game, and the GameCube version is much better than the other incarnations.

Could be an ambitious success of EA

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 73 / 78
Date: November 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard of EA publishing an RPG based on LOTR, I thought it was just another effort of EA to squeeze every single drop of profit from the multi billion franchise. As many of us know EA is not a giant for RPG but for sports and more action oriented games. Nonetheless, the ambition behind The Third Age was a complete make over of the franchise that provides very interactive and involving experience for people who are fans of the series.

The game set its scene at the time when Sauron is making a come back. The player assumes the role of a guard from Gondor setting out to look for Boromir. Nonetheless, fate brought him into a group of Comrades, each has his / her own agenda that unfolds slowly throughout the journey. The story is a dual line one: it has the story of your party such as what you encountered and the life of your comrades; the other one is the main LOTR story being told through Gandalf directly into your mind through spheres/orbs as you proceed with your quest. This is a very smart move as people would love to have all their favorite movie clips and characters back on their screen again as they play the game.

As your playable party, you have 6 comrades, composed of human, elf and dwarf - yeah no hobbits sorry (oh by the way you can play as the shadow party in the evil mode!). Nonetheless in a battle you can only have 3 active fighters. You can switch your comrades in and out during a battle, which when one of your characters got beaten up, you can switch that character out. Battle is turn based and very Final Fantasy alike. This is probably because EA has invited people making FF VII and FF X to involve in the project that the whole battle system is a near identical with Final Fantasy. Once in a battle, your team line up on one side and your enemies on the other. The flow will then be who has a higher speed act first in turns. This could be seen from the turn queue on the upper right hand side of the screen. As in Final Fantasy, the person with higher speed will have more turns in attack. As such there is nothing new to people who used to play Japanese turn based RPGs like Final Fantasy, Wild Arms or Skies of Arcadia. There is a Perfect Mode attack meter during the battle, when once it is filled you can perform devastating special attacks on your enemies. The guage will fill up only when you performed a successful attack action. So it is a mix of limit break in FF and unison attack in Tales of Symphonia. Once you finished a battle and won it, you will get experience point for levelling up.

Levelling up in The Third Age takes the form of a mix between Final Fantasy, Baulder's Gate, Champions of Norrath and Tales of Symphonia. You get experience point and you level up ur stats. But at the same time you can points that you can assign to different stats for further enhancement. On top of that, if you want to level up your special attacks, you have to use them in the battle. Every successful action with the special attack earns you points that when enough points are earned, the next level of that skill will show up - this is smiliar to the tech systems in Tales of Symphonia. However, if you want to open up a different set of skills you have to develop the "tree" of that skill separately and use it in the battle. This shows a similarity in structure with Champions of Norrath.

One of the major difference of The Third Age from other standard RPG is there is no monetary system. So you can only get items from chests or by defeating enemies. Luckily the enemies are no miser so if you spend enough time in battles, you could build up a pretty good inventory of items. The field mode is exactly the same as Final Fantasy but in a different graphic style. It is no eye candy cute graphics but it constructs a very good atmospher for the LOTR world. You will come across locations that the main characters in the LOTR trilogy have visted and you would be happy that you get that treat. But on top of that there are really well constructed sceneries that gets yourself involved in the journey. The break into battle animation will also seriously remind you of standard Japanese RPG - the screen breaks apart and you are in the battle. The time saver though is you don't need to look at the whole battle field as most Final Fantasy games did, but you are straight into the battle. Also the posing of characters after they finished the final blow on the enemies are exactly Japanese RPG like.

Lord of the Rigns: The Third Age is a very ambitious project from EA. It can be seen in a way that they tried to merge standard Japanese RPG format together with western RPG formula. The end product is nothing new to most RPG players but the similarities of both RPG in both worlds can get you involved in the game very easily. The easy to pick up approach and style familarity of the game provides a good foundation for the success of this game. It could attract a very wide range of gamers from different areas to pick up and enjoy the game. Looks like EA had found a good formular or way to get into RPG battle arena this time. The only thing they need to do is after they used up the LOTR franchise, would they be able to build an original RPG that have the same appeals? That will be something that other RPG giants like Namco, Square-Enix, Nintendo and Ubisoft will definitely be anxious about. Meanwhile, just enjoy a completely different experience with one of the best franchises in the world.

LOTR Fun for Young and Young at Heart!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 14
Date: November 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

A simply delightful surprise! I've been waiting for some time for this game to come along-- a video game that's worthy of the name "Tolkien". A satisfying mix of FF Graphics and gameplay and RTMN-esque character models make this a must have for LOTR fans of all ages. Kids: don't let dad see you play or you just might lose your turn!

I only have a few complaints about what is truly an otherwise excellent product! I've always wanted an RPG that would give me a chance to fulfill my favorite LOTR fantasy: roaming middle earth as a hobbit! I guess that this is one hobbit-lover who's going to have to wait in his hobbit hole for the sequel! *winking face*

I was also hoping that the game might correct some of the innaccuracies of the Jackson films. The size of the Balrog in the game, for example, is still overly large when compared to the descriptive passage in Tolkein's "Fellowship" ("man-shape" is explicitly stated-- could "man-high" then possibly be implied?), and I was hoping that this game might give Tolkein fans the opportunity to play as the elf-prince Glorfindel, who, with the Noldor, was banished by the Valar from Valinor following the treason of Feanor. Glorfindel has always been something of a "fan favorite", and I am dissapointed to see him left out of yet another LOTR game.

Five stars!

The Third Age

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 27
Date: August 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

*Whistles* Wow! This game is going to be gooooood! This game takes place through the trilogy in which your team of Men, Elves, Dwarves, (and hopefully Hobbits), track the footsteps of the Fellowship. Sometimes in the game, you actually get to fight with the Fellowship! This also isn't what you recognize as the hack-and-slash games from TT and ROTK. This is a Roleplaying game (Like Final Fantasy.). This will be my first RPG but I'm still dying to get it! You get to choose which side you want, the good...or evil. I can't wait for this game! A must-have for Tolkien fans and RPG fans. Once you start, you can't stop!

A great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is awesome. The graphics are incredible, the plot is good, it doesn't have much to do with the movie, but who cares?
It has great character customization. Of the 6 characters you get, each one can get hundreds of different equitment(armor, weapons,...). Each character can learn around 30 skills and can level up 100 times (at least). The characters are all vey different and specialize in different things. As you complete quests and get things you can unlock little clips of film. A lot of times they wern't in the movie and are pretty interesting. I guess the point of them is to tell you what's going on other parts of middle earth at the time.
Another cool part is that when you complete a chapter you can replay certain battles from that level as evil.
The one downside of this game is that it is short. The game is 2 disks, so I thought it would be long, but ther is really only 9 long levels.
This game is very fun, and a must buy.

A far better game than its predecessors.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: November 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Frankly this game is excellent. I enjoyed the previous games in the Lord of the Rings series, but they were far too easy. This game offers an innovative new way to battle, and total departure of game play from its predecessors. What I like best is the new RPG style that has been added. Now, the fun is not getting to the end, but rather how you get there. There are 6 characters: Berethor of Gondor, Idrial of Lothlorien, Hadhod of the Iron Hills, Elegost of the Dunedain, Morwen of Rohan, and Eaoden of Rohan. In battle, you must utilize the strengths of your characters together to win. Likewise, you need to collect items and equipment to further your character. I would definitely recommend this game to any RPG fan or Lord of the Rings fan.

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