List Price: $9.99
Sale Price: $7.32
Today's Bonus: 27% Off
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.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
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!
Best Deals for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - PC
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.
Honest reviews on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - PC
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.Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - PC
Hey guys,I know a lot of you are complaining that "this game is too short" but think about it: The Lord of the Rings is about being on a journey with some dangers along the way, but mosty it's about traveling. It really isn't such a small game in terms of map size. The problem is you run through it because there aren't as many monsters to fight as in other games.
Look at Dungeon Siege. You can't walk five spaces without having another band of monsters to fight. Every bit of space in Dungeon Siege is filled with monsters. Same with most other battle games. The Fellowship of the Ring is different. There are large open spaces and places to travel without montsters.
I don't think of this as a disadvantage. Sure the game is only 5 or 6 hours long in terms of gameplay but at least I immerse myself in middle earth during that time! I think there is replay value in this game especially if you love the stories and you want to revisit middle earth. However if you're looking only for fighting in every inch of the map there are tons of other games that offer that.
Few games give you middle earth! This game delivers on that! Give it some credit!
No comments:
Post a Comment