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It's a B Rate Movie NOT a Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 11
Date: November 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In reading the other reviews I realized the people that rated this game high were people obsessed with Lord of the Rings, not gamers. I know it says Lord of the Rings but who are the characters based on? These are not people from the movie. I guess even the actors didn't want to have their faces associated with this flop.
If you liked the PS2 "Return of the King" then don't buy this game. If you like playing games, then don't buy this game. If you like excitement and competition, then don't buy this game. If you have a fear of boredom,... This "game" is obviously designed for people with no hand eye cordination or people who found the last game to be too challenging. I originally thought it was written for a four or five year old except it has a Teen rating, So they must be going after the nursing home market. Which makes sense because the game can played equally as well without a game controller and you can just sit back and watch the B Rate acting.
It's not a game and if you want to watch a computer animated movie go see the "North Pole Express" and if you still want to see what everyone is complaining about wait a month and you should be able to buy this game for under 20 bucks in the bargain basket. Someone needs to get fired at EA Games, How could Return of the King been so good and the Third Age been so pathetic?
It'll be awhile before I trust EA Games again, [...]

What a joke

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I mean, c'mon! Did these guys ever play EA's LOTR: Return of the King? I guess the RPG aspect was lost on me, but I've played boardgames that were more intense than this tedious, repitative snore. I really missed the cooperative, actually collaborative, play of Return of the King. That two-player spirit is completely lost here as you await your turn to select an attack from a menu (exciting!) and sit helplessly as enemies attack you.

Ultimately, this just a game designer's wet dream: you watch as they [...]graphically. Sure it looks great, but don't expect to be able to do anything: after each stage of endless lame battles, you unlock a "scene," so you may admire the designers' prowess some more, as if the pointless cut scenes you endured during the "battles" weren't enough.
Bah--thank God we rented.

How can you pass this game up?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: January 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is great and even though some people in the reviews say huge LOTR fans won't like this I disagree. I am a die hard fan(owning the return of the king video game, risk board game, all 3 movies which have seen 4 times each, monopoly board game and trivial pursuit game) and this is the first game that let's you leave from the trio of invincible characters that can take on thousands of orcs and live.

Right when you start a new game you get into a fight and from then on it's action time-there's no very long cut scenes, no long tutorials, you just get right into the game.

Co-op on this game is cool but my only probably is only 3 characters can be managed in a battle(so 1 player will always be short a character than the other such as 2:1).

The graphics are great and sound is awesome. I don't know what you would like to call a long or short game but to me any game that puts out 40 hours+ of gameplay is a long game. That's just what this game does. I've played it for 6 hours already and have only finished 15% of the game. This game will be around roughly 40 hours which can supply you for 40 days of play if you play 1 hour a day.

No matter if you are a die hard fan of LOTR or not this is a must have. I HIGHLY recommend this game for anyone.

Don't waste your money...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: June 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I started off LOVING this game but after spending hours and hours wandering around Moria fighting the same things over and over and over and..(you get the point)..What could have been a great game was spoiled by one simple ommision..Maps..Never have I played a game with such a BAD map system..(I got SO frustrated the game came close to being snapped in half a few times)..I never did bother finishing it..waste of time..

Cool Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: October 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty good compared to the other lord of the rings games. The graphics are REALLY good, and the kick but action is fun. Over all this is a great game. GET THIS GAME (or the two towers)

The BOMB!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 13
Date: November 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

this game is so much fun it is like one of the most addicting games ever anyone who buys or rents this will get so into it they will not leave the house for days i erge people to play this game...

NOT the best LOTR game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: January 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I bought this game, this was supposed to be the best RPG game since Final Fantasy. Wrong. This is a hard game to beat, and usually when your fourteen things in video games come easy. and will most likely frustrate kids who are big Lord of the Rings fans.

Here are some bad things about it:

-Hard.
It's hard to navigate around, even with the map. There's just so many roads, and some go above one.

-Enemies
The enemies start out easy. You can kill them with a stroke of a sword easily in Eregion, but as soon as you hit level two (Western Moria) it's just too hard.

-Enemies "spells"
That waste time. When you fight the Goblins, they have a spell that lasts at least 6 seconds. That just frusrates me, because When you just want to play for a quick ten minutes, you end up play half an hour

-Levels
They last too long. Way too long. Eregion took me an hour to beat (Eregion is level 1), where was Western Moria (level two) took me an hour and a half.

However, there a good things they didn't screw up:

+Characters
These are made up characters. They are

-Berethor (probably as Aragon)
-Idrial (probably as Arwen)
-Elegost (probably a cross between Aragon and Legolas
-Hadhod (definetly as Gimli)
-Morwen (as Eowyn, probably)
-Eoden (probably as Eomer)

And if you didn't know, two of them are girls. Thinking that we do live in a sexist world, this is a good thing.

+Graphics
Everything looks real! EVERYTHING! Even the things that don't even exist, like the Balrog, orcs, uruk-hai, goblins, warg, etc. And it's beautiful in some regions.

+Sound
This is probably one of the best video games that has sound in it. You can hear perfectly, and the voices fit the characters.

+Music
The music from this game is from the three movies. If you ask me, the soundtracks are the best movie soundtracks I have heard in a long time.

+Combinations
Two people have axes, two people have swords, one person a bow and one person a spear. That is a great combination of people. And three of them have "spirit powers".

+"Spirit Powers"
In the battle, you can call spirits and have them attack your enemy, or bring someone back to health, steal health or action points, etc.

Overall, this would be a great game to rent, just make sure you have 30 hours to spare before you play this.

incredible!!, but frustrating.....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

some of the levels u need certian powers... kind of a pain the fanny to keep going bk and forth. ive played all of the games ( the ones for ps2 anyway) and i say this one should get a damn sequel!! ( for ps2) the graphics are incredible!!

Enter the Matrix meets Metal gear solid 2 in Final Fantasy

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

You have to give EA credit. They took a big risk in creating the first Lord of the rings RPG and making the playable charachters be people who are not in the movie. A really big risk, but in my opinion, it did pay off.

The Third Age is an Role Playing Game, where you micro-manage your charachters and strategize battles (hance Final Fantasy). It takes place in the same universe of the Lord of the rings game, but instead casts you as some "other" characther(s) (Hence "Metal Gear solid 2", where you played as Raiden instead of snake). A Gondor soldier, an elf, a dwarf, a Rohan maiden, and a Rohan spearman. The games story takes place parrallel to that of the movies (hence, "Enter the Matrix"). You begin as Gondor soldier Berethor, who has been sent by Denethor to find Boromir and discover what happened to him. While a lot of people are understandably angry about not being able to play as the fellowhip, I was fascinated by the games story. It's a lot deeper then you might think. Berethor for example, starts out as a loyal Gondor soldier, but like Raiden from Metal Gear solid 2 he has a troubled past that genuinely suprised me when I learned more about it.

Unlike the previous two games from EA, battles in the Third Age are turn based, meaning that you plan out your strategies before attacking. You can cast spells, attack your foes or use items to help you in battle. The battles go fairly quickly and are easy to figure out. When fighting, you get to use some pretty attacks, ranging from strikes that lower a foes armor, to awesome five hit attacks that can kill a troll in one hit. You have to be careful when fighting enemies, as they can really kick your butt if you are not carefull. I cannot begin to count the number of times all my party members were stunned and my foes took thier leasurely time beating the crud out of me (much to my fury of course).

Along the course of your journey, you'll run across famous heroes and villians from the trilogy. You'll join forces with Gimli, Aragorn (who can kill a troll in one move), Gandalf (Grey and white), Eowyn, and a few others. And you'll fight villians such as the awesomly powerful Witch King, the sniveling Grima Wormtounge, and the coolest fight in the game, taking on the Balrog with Gandalf (I actually squealed with joy the first time I played it).

The visuals of the Third Age are top notch. The graphics are smooth and detailed, the enviornments are huge and replicate the film well (just wait until you see Gandalf fighting the Balrog). I've heard some reviewers talk about "Unplayable slowdown". I encountered almost no slow down whatsoever in my game, the only time being when I was fighting the Balrog (and even then it created a dramatic "Slo-mo" effect).

The audio is also excellent, using music from all three movies and fine voice acting. Ian McKellen shines as Gandalf and Christopher Lee is excelent as Saruman (I heard that Andy Serkis recorded dialoge for the game, but he's nowhere to be found. A forthcoming sequel perhaps?). The new charachters feature good voice acting, although Berethor sounds younger then he looks.

The neatest feature of the game has got to be Evil mode, where you play as the bad guys in certain battles. You get to control the Witch King, Gothmag, an Oliphaunt, the Nazgul, and yes, the awesome Balrog. It's fun to play as the powerful villians from the trilogy, but sadly you are not allowed to pick from a list of battles that you want to play. You have to play through each chapter, so if you want to play as the Balrog, you have to fight as Goblins and trolls twice before you can play as the Balrog. Its a shame really, as I would love to just select "Balrog battle" instead of slugging through the other charachters. And for some bizzaro reason, the good guys in Evil mode are often equipped with skills and equipment that you didint have when playing as them in the same chapter. That got me ticked off at some moments.

Sadley, EA did falter a bit when creating the game. My biggest complaint is that some normal enemies are just too powerful, such as weak archers that can fire arrows that prevent you from attacking with weapons. And if I ever find the person who came up with the idea of reflective shield (A move where any attack whatsoever does the same damage to you that you deal to a foe), I will throw them to a pack of rabid starving wolves (or wargs), because that attack got me really PO. It gets my blood boiling whenever my charachters are killed by lowly orcs because they are equipped with incredibly cheap and powerful attacks. Very bad idea.

The Difficulty is also wildly inconsistant. I never died in the first part of the game until I left Moria, but when I reached Rohan I was dying practically every three minutes from those damn Uruck-Hai (Who are also wildly overpowered). The later part of Helms Deep was just a huge unbelievebly bad joke, where you're entire group is stunned and eliminated within a few turns. It took me several replays just to get past that part, and I was strongly tempted to smash the disk out of frustration. Not a good sign.

Also, why can only three good guys fight at once (with a few exceptions), when you're always facing up to four bad guys? This causes the other three members of your party to lag so far behind in experience that they become pretty useless.

There is also no completion bonuses for winning the game. You do get the ability to travel and see the areas you've already been to, but you have to save your game to do that, and some areas are never visitable after you go through them (such as Helms Deep before the battle). That may be accurate, but I want to see them again dangit! I severly wish there was an ability to go and fight the previous bosses with your highly powered charachters, but alas, thats not possible. The Battle of the Black gates is also missing from the game (but you do get a unexpected boss fight in exchange). The ending dosent wrap things up. Like the third Matrix movie, it seemingly exists just to hint at an upcoming sequel.

But I dont want to paint a poor picture of this game. When I was having fun and enjoying myself, the game was shinning brilliantly. Being able to go through Middle Earth as never before was a thrill. I'll never forget being able to explore Helms Deep in full, something not possible before. Even though it takes some big liberties with the trilogies story, I enjoyed it greatly (seeing the Balrog for the first time is a true cinematic moment).

In the end, i'd recommend renting the game before you buy. But if you like "what if" tales, the Lord of the Rings story, and good games in general (and you have a high patience level), then you'll probably like this game.

This is the real Lord OF The Rings

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: January 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The new Lord Of The Rings The third age gives you the same pleasures of the movie,It gives you your special characters to help the fellow ship finish their quest to destroy the ring.
Play As good or evil,Ride horses and walk around middle earth to beat the greatest lord of the rings games ever.

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