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Major Disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 92 / 96
Date: December 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I'll try to be nice and start with the good:

There are parts of this game, visually, that are beautiful. I played it to the end just for that aspect alone. The graphics in all modes, whether you're playing as FP, 3rdP or watching a cut scene, are very nice...really beautiful. Moria was my favorite; the Balrog and Gandalf's fall into Shadow was cool.

In many ways, it's true to LOTR books and a nice way to learn the basic story if you can't/won't read the books. Also, there are parts of the books that you don't get in the movies. Tom Bombadil (as annoying as he may be) and Narzil reforged being the biggest points. One quirky thing...in the cut scenes, the characters look much different than the characters when you're playing them...which is odd. I found it funny that in the cutscenes, the Hobbits have curly hair (as Hobbits do), but in the game, they all have staight hair...in fact, everyone who has hair has straight hair.

Here are the major downfalls...some of which are maddening:

The gameplay is shamefully bad! Did no one test this game? Shame on them! First, you can't fight in FP mode, other than to use your alternative weapon (rock, bow, magick). So, you're forced to fight in 3rdP mode and suddenly the 'camera' angle goes haywire! You can't see who or what you're fighting or suddenly there's a tree or a wall in your way. This is inexcusable IMHO.

Also, you can't choose which character you can play and there's no changing the difficulty. You can't venture very far and just look around either = no replay value!

Add on that the characters all move like they're Cave Trolls on smack, and you've got a recipe for disaster. No skill really required...you keep pounding away at your mouse. Not so much fun or good for the hardware.

If that's not enough, I found the game to be rather buggy. Once in Moria Gandalf was stuck in a wall...I couldn't move and had to start over. It crashed my system many times and I have a 'stout-hearted' system that even Samwise the Brave would admire.

Also, there are times when you really don't have to fight anyone at all to pass the level. This is especially 'helpful' when you're Frodo since he can't do much of anything. If you just run to the end, picking up Mushrooms, Cram and Lembas as you go, you can pass to the next phase. I did this several times with Frodo with the ghosts (Paths of the Dead?), the Orcs in Moria and the Urku-Hai just before the end. Why bother playing at all? And what about the Ring, which I think I used once just to put the darn thing on a see what happens! Who cares about gaining purity when you don't have to use the Ring??

The 'puzzles' were laughably easy and the game was so short, I was angry that I'd actually paid for this bundle of [junk]. It's a total ripoff that completely takes advantage of the new generation of Tolkien fans that the movies have created. Obviously, Peter Jackson had nothing to do with the game.

I've played more engaging games on a Commodore 64!

Bottom line: Save your money...Tolkien Enterprises doesn't need it.

Poorly Designed and Too Short

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 80 / 84
Date: November 11, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The good parts of the game:

The graphics in this game aren't bad, the equal of other games of this type. They're nothing special, though, considering the system requirements on the game.

The best part, however, is that you get to "step into middle earth", and that's wonderful for a die-hard LOTR fan like myself. You get to walk about the Shire, Barrow Downs, Bree, and Moria.

You get the chance to play parts of the game as Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf.

The bad parts:

The game is very short. It took me about 4 hours to complete the whole thing, and much of that was re-playing the hard parts until I could get past them.

The areas, aside from the Shire and Moria are not very extensive. There are, for example, only two rooms in all of Lothlorien. Only one in Rivendell. This is sad because exploring the world of middle earth was the most compelling part of the game.

This game is a strange cross between the movie, the book, and a script written specifically for the game. For example, do you remember the four hobbits beating up spiders with sticks? Me either, but it's in the game. How about when Sam was snatched by a flying Nazgul? Frodo never has a conflict with Boromir, and Boromir never dies. Galadriel, acting as the narrator, simply says that "The fellowship was successful, it brought the ring bearer to the edge of Mordor."

The dialog between the characters, especially in the cut scenes, is not very well written. I got the impression that it was written for children.

Of course, all of the plot points of the story are done in cut scenes. After all, you couldn't allow Frodo to escape getting hit by the morgul-blade, or allow Gandalf to continue past Moria, that would change the story completely. This unfortunately, will leave you playing parts of the story that aren't that interesting.

The game engine has some serious problems. The angle of the "virtual camera" frequently leaves you in positions where you can't see what's going on. In combat, that can be a real problem. You can switch to "First Person Perspective" but that only allows you to shoot missile weapons and move, nothing else is allowed in that mode.

When trying to escape the Shire, you have to sneak past all of the Nazgul. The problem is, if they see you, a cut-scene plays, then you get a screen saying you've lost. Then you go back to the main menu, where you have to choose "Load Game" to start again. Since it's so easy to be spotted, you end up going through that whole sequence over and over and over again until you get things exactly right. I found this to be frustrating.

When you are travelling with the Fellowship, certain members will only be there for the cut-scenes. For example, in Moria, only Gandalf and Gimli are there for most of the game play. But, when the cut-scenes play the entire fellowship is there. Or, when fighting the Nazgul at the end (a game-only thing) you play the part of Aragorn, and when you hit it with the last arrow, suddenly the cut-scene begins and Legolas brings it down. You do all the work, and Legolas (who wasn't even there to help you) gets the credit.

I'd only recommend this game to die-hard Tolkien fans. It's not very well designed, and it's very short. It's only worth paying for if you REALLY like the story.

Interesting puzzles and good graphics, too short!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 40 / 41
Date: October 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

A new Lord of the Rings RPG is out for the PS2, XBox and other platforms. How well does the first book in the trilogy translate to a role playing game?

To start with, you're doing a role-playing game and start out as Frodo. There's no fighting, just wandering around in a very nicely rendered Morrowind-style graphic house and town. You have a purity meter, so don't go stealing things from others' houses!

You have simple quests to achieve - get a mill working, find the pigs. You gather up some firecrackers and mushrooms (yum!) and deal with your annoying relatives. In hardly any time at all you've met up with Sam, Merry and Pippin and have left the Shire.

The game progresses like that - Frodo just creeps along, solves random quests and tries to stay pure. You can use the ring to find secret areas, but using the ring makes you more corrupt. You have to do good deeds (i.e. these little quests) to keep yourself balanced. Eventually you can also play Aragorn and Gandalf, and stop into other locations such as Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, and up through the end of the book at the river's edge.

I was disappointed because the back of the game made it sound as if you could *be* any of the three characters (Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf). Instead you're stuck as Frodo in the beginning, trudging around from house to house. Most houses don't even have anyone in them and the few that do are often empty. The puzzles are solved in about 2 minutes each with little thought.

I do enjoy the graphics, and the way each character is a 'type' is fun. Frodo's purity and thieving skills, Aragorn's fighting, Gandalf's magic. The cut scenes are good and help to move the story along, and flow in with what you are doing.

Still, I really would have enjoyed something a bit more involved, with quests that involved more actual thought, with real thieving being necessary instead of just 'pick lock - ok got deed' and 'sneak along road -ok got past riders'. The quests are very obvious - you get 2 or 3 explicit clues for each one that push you into the right direction. The voice actors sometimes seem bored with what is a world-rescuing epic. Gandalf's recitation of the 'one ring to rule them all' at the beginning sounds like he's reading through a shopping list!

In any case, it's fun to wander around the various locations and interact with the characters from the book. The graphics are nice, and they include many characters that the movie didn't have time to include. A must have for Lord of the Rings fans, if only to participate in sort of a 'moving story book' that lets them, for a time, return to that fantastically detailed world created by J.R.R. Tolkein. As a HUGE fan of the series, that includes me!

True to story, but weak game play

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 31 / 33
Date: December 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you are looking for a game that is true to the story (minus certain points that are also absent from the movie), you will find this game to be a true adaptation. If you are looking for a game that is smooth to play and extremely enjoyable, regardless of your love of Tolkein, or lack there of, look elsewhere.
Overall, there's the rub. This game is primarily aimed for an audience who loves the Lord of the Rings and is looking to play it out on his PC.
The game is cinematic, which distinguishes it from most adventure games on the market, which are aimed at hack and slash. You have a series of quests to complete, and they are played out, primarily, through the interaction with NPCs in the game.
One of my biggest beefs, as a PC game, is you have to work with a variety of key strokes to get anywhere. Hooking the game up to the strategic commander made things easier, but there are far too many different elements to program to make this an easy bout. I can see where this game plays out much better on different types of consoles (Playstation, XBox, et al).
The graphics are fairly standard for games these days, but standard falls far short of games like Dungeon Siege, which makes this game a hard sell for non-Tolkien lovers.
I am an avid fan of Tolkein, and I really enjoyed playing out his world on my computer. But, I cannot give this game a great rating and hold onto my conscience.

Rating:
Graphics: 6
Story: 8
Playability: 5
Controls: 2

--------------
Overall: 4

Summary:
If you are a real Tolkien fan, this game may well warrant the price. If not, there is much better fare on the market.

One Frustrating Roadblock After Another...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 46 / 60
Date: November 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game was the most frustratingly annoying purchase I have ever made. After carefully confirming that my computer met or exceeded all of the listed requirements, I happily trundled home from the store with my new game, ready to install and play. But NOOOOO. First, I learn that the README files require XP users to install SP1 for DirectX 8.1b. That took me 144 minutes to download. Then I had to download the patch from the technical support web site. Another 33 minutes. BUT IT STILL WON'T RUN! So I email tech support and they tell me that LOTR runs heavy on Hardware T&L technology, and my video card doesn't support this. What garbage! My computer is less than a year old and I have to buy a whole new card to run a game? Come on, Black Label Games, please make products that work for the general public and their average computers, not just for geeks. The upshot for my sad story is that I will be returning this game and getting my money back, asap. Unless you have a video card that loves Hardware T&L, I suggest that you don't buy this product, it will only lead to frustration and wasted time online. Too bad, too. I really looked forward to playing this game.

Only runs with newest video cards.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 20 / 21
Date: January 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Do not buy this game if you have an older PC. I have 2 PCs and I couldn't get it to run correctly on either. One of the PCs is less than a year old. When I wrote to the support people, they told me that the game does require a video card with at least 32MB of video memory (and other requirements). Mine only has 16MB. To be fair, it does say that on the box (in the small print). They should be required to put that in big letters on the front of the box. Especially since you can't return it once you've opened it. I did go out and buy a new video card (PNY Verto with nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 w/ 64MB of video memory ). Now the game seems to be running OK, but I haven't done much yet. It does look good once you get it running. I don't think it's for the hard-core gamer though.

The same game??

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 33 / 45
Date: December 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have to wonder if I am playing the same game as the people who are tearing it apart on here. I have had no trouble whatsoever running it on my HP Pavillion 1 gig processor w/256 megs of RAM and Nvidia Tnt 2 pro card.. I guess you people who are complaining about problems running it must not have a quality computer in the first place. But anyway, I am trying to make sense of the harsh reviews on here. I have only played the demo so far, but hope to get the actual game soon. But contrary to the bad reviews on here, so far it's a truly incredible game. The voices are the actual cast members from the movie I believe so they are done very well. The graphics are cutting edge in this game cutscenes and otherwise. As far as movement, it's a new engine and takes getting used to but in first person mode, the movement is fine. But Middle Earth Comes to life in this game and it's a must have for TRUE FPS fans and especially LOTR fans. As for people saying they finished it in 4 hours, they had to be cheating their butts off to do so. You people need to think before you write such bad reviews for games, because apparently none of the people who rated this game badly have an inkling of what a truly good game is. One last thing, I read a review where someone actually said the movie was bad? NOT!! The movie was phenominal and was robbed of the best picture oscar it truly deserved by the bias of the academy of films against Sci-fi genre movies, the same reason StarWars didn't win the year it came out. Enjoy the game folks, it''s well worth the money so far. Don't take these harsh reviews to heart before actually trying the game itself. You'll find the harsh reviews don't hold water in the end.

Simply Awful

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 21
Date: November 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The best thing I can say about this game is that it is mercifully short (believe it when you read reviews that say 4-6 hours of gameplay max). The user interface is terrible, the quests require no real strategy or gameplay skill, and the story was pointlessly altered. Even the cut scenes were bad. Half the scenes are animated, and half look like they were taken from that wierd 70's LOTR movie/cartoon. This is a cash-in on the LOTR franchise. Avoid like the plague.

Sending it back

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 26 / 33
Date: December 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I installed the game. When I double-clicked to run it, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. No error messages. Nothing. Their "24/7" technical support said to download a 26 Megabyte patch!! I have downloaded it four times (2.5 hours each time), and the patch executable won't even run. I told them about this problem, and they have yet to even acknowledge that they received my email. I recommend you avoid this one.

WOW

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: December 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

When I bought this game, I expected it to be a cheap imitation of a book series (a la Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone). Quite on the contrary I was suprised.

This game is extremely impressive. I presumed that it would primarily follow the plot of the movie. However, this game is extremely true to the book. Unlike the movie, it contains characters like the Sackville Bagginses and Tom Bombadil. The story line is very good; as Frodo, Aragorn or Gandalf you must complete various tasks, each task taking you closer to Mount Doom.

The graphics are also very impressive. I'm running this game on a Dell 2ghz Celeron with 256 mb ram and 3D acceleration and it runs quite smoothly and hasn't yet caused a problem.

The only thing that bothered me about this game is the movement, which is the reason I gave it four stars. You are required to go along certain paths, so the game is quite linear. If only the designers could have taken a card out of Nintendo's hat and designed it in a Legend of Zelda style. Also, the controls are HORRIBLE you are required to push many different buttons as well as integrate the mouse into your game. Unless you have a strategy-type programmable keyboard, you are in for a run until you learn the controls.

However, if you are a devote Lord of the Rings fan, this game is a MUST have. You will love how close to the book it is!

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