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I Love This Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am not a fan of turn-based video games, but this game is very enjoyable! The graphics and sounds, character personalities, etc., all make for really enjoyable game playing.

Orc Crushing, Ent Summoning Romp

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: January 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The several criticisms of this game- that it is always "five minutes behind" the movie in terms of story and that there is no in-game economy- are just, but should be tempered by the fact that the game's creators took such remarkable care in creating a world that was true to both the LOTR books and films. As evidence, look at the list of items your characters acquire. All of them bear some link to Tolkien's lore. Many are even categorized by age- First Age, Second Age, etc. This game, besides being a TON of fun to play, really does it's best to be true to the spirit of Lord of the Rings.

On the gameplay: the graphics are gorgeous, and while the world-wandering is rather linear, there are interesting side paths and extra quests to complete for bonus experience. Despite an enemies list that's shorter than FF fans might be used to, the combat is nothing less than addictive. The game gives you six characters (eventually) and the ability to switch them in and out during a fight, giving the combat an exciting "tag team" feel. Characters grow and learn during the game, and you be impressed just how much damage they can deal out by the end (and by how good it looks- rarely have polygon-driven figures looked this good.)

I enjoyed, too, the ability to travel back to previously explored lands, "Evil Mode" in which you can fight as the Balrog, a Nazgul, or other bad guys, and the fact that you can modify the difficulty of the game at any time besides combat. Thus, when I was pushing enemies around easily and piling up a bunch of items, I dialed it up, and when Uruks with jagged swords were ripping my face off, I dialed it down.

As if all this weren't enough, as far as I can tell, the real voice of Ian McKellen does Gandalf's lines. These are extensive cutscenes with film from the movie but original narration that can be accessed at given points, and any movie fan will appreciate hearing more from Gandalf.

Sure, sure, the story could've been stronger and that's my criticism. I felt as though the game designers had been a bit rushed at the end, and could've put more interaction between the characters in. I think this game shows that future games of the same type- call the "simple RPGs" if you will- have a lot of potential.

This game was one of my best Christmas presents and something all but the fussiest of LOTR RPG fans should appreciate.

A very good game, but it could have been better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: July 06, 2006
Author: Amazon User

*Spoilers*
I thought this game was a lot of fun, but in some places the storyline was very very messed up. You are playing these people who are like the fellowship of the ring five minutes later. Basically, without your characters, Gandalf would never have beat the Balrog, and basically nothing for the fellowship would have worked out. WHAT THE CRAP!!! That was the really stupid part for me. And the last boss you fight is such a stupid end to the story. The game has a love triangle in it that does not end the way it should!! Also, the game is pretty easy, so I started out playing it in the hard mode. I did really like the Evil Mode part of the game which let you play the bad guys for a few battles in each chapter of the game. If you win Evil Mode you will get valuable items for your party.
I thought the battle mode in this game was very fun, and the graphics were beautiful. The landscapes were pretty detailed and the people weren't too bad either.
Overall, this game is pretty good, I would recommend giving it a try. I am a hardcore LOTR fan who will buy anything with that name on it, but I was sorely disappointed by some of the things in the story.

The Poor Man's Fellowship

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 18
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

*Snore* Admittedly I'm an LOTR fan and not a hard-core gamer, but I have both previous LOTR games and used to be an avid Tomb Raider-aholic. From an LOTR perspective the biggest problem I have with this game is that you don't get to be the actual LOTR characters (except once or twice) through the entire thing; instead you're a bunch of wanna-be "fellowship" members who really don't seem to have a point other than following around the real Fellowship and bumping into orcs *literally* every two steps. And on that note, the game gets very monotonous. It's the same thing over and over again and its only saving grace are the graphics themselves (not so much the character graphics) but the settings are very true to the movie. In both previous LOTR games I was hoping for them to be longer and a bit more interactive, this game almost tried to do that, except someone fell asleep on the job and just made it tedious--the same battles over and over again with characters I really could care less about. Perhaps gamers can enjoy it on a different level, but it just wasn't my thing from a fan's perspective. If you want to play LOTR, get one of the other two games--at least they feature the real characters.

Ugggh

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 9
Date: April 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Uggh. Where do I start with this? Well, maybe I should start by criticizing myself. I am a silly, silly person for ever believing that a monopolizing, greedy company that cares about nothing but exclusive licenses could know the first thing about RPGs. Now that I've given myself a firm lecture, I'll start in on this game.

I'll begin at the beginning. You are placed in the shoes of an unattractive, personality-less "ranger" who you know and care nothing about. A few minutes into the game, he meets a female elf who, far from being awe-inspring and regal, as elves are meant to be, is about as exciting as a limp carrot. They find some sort of flimsy excuse to travel together, and off you go, finding more lifeless tag-along party members along the way. There is absoloutely no pretense of story. And seeing as it doesn't even follow the traditional Lord of the Rings storyline, the feeling that you are in the world of LOTR is just not there.

Now that I've gotten past the atrocious characters and story, I'll move on to gameplay. The combat system works, I'll give it that, but seeing as it also worked in the 500 other RPGs it has been used in, this isn't much of an accomplishment. You select attacks from a menu, you watch everyone attack, and then the enemy takes their turn. I now firmly believe that someone must have snuck into the EA offices, taken out their trusty white-out, and wiped the word "innovation" from every single dictionary. It's the only possible excuse for such a bland experience.

And here we are at yet another failure: The menu system. Seeing as you have to bring up the menu every five seconds to level up, allocate experience points, equip items, watch over-used movie clips, check to see if you have any sidequests (they just show up on the menu, there's no sort of "you have a new sidequest" alert) fix the skill tree, and listen to Ian McKellan talk, you'd think that it would at least be fun to navigate. Oh, no. The menu is plain black, with the tiniest, most hard-to-read text ever, and almost no pictures. After awhile, I developed such a severe case of menu-aversion syndrome that I didn't even care about trying on new equipment or leveling up anymore. Seeing as getting loot and upgrading yourself is the heart and soul of an RPG, this is a very, very bad thing.

Overall, this game just annoyed me to no end. I sold it two days later, at a loss of $5. And let me tell you, it was the biggest waste of $5 ever in my life.

A pleasent change to EA's LOTR gaming franchise

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Most people have been complaining about the once-current LOTR video Game "The third age" by EA Games, stating that they couldn't care less about the original characters, they're background stories, plots or even their development character-wise. Just because you could not play the usual Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf and the hobbits (and maybe Faramir) Characters.

While I will agree that my curiosity makes me wonder what the Game itself would've been like had these characters been in the drivers seat, but the truth of the matter is: I was right and tired of playing with the Fellowship Hero's after the release of EA's "Return of the King," a much needed improvement over their "Two Towers," video game and "Battle for middle earth." So with that said, I have to disagree with everybody else when they say this game is bad (yes, its a marketing scheme in which to find out who would buy it, but what game or anything else for that matter isn't?). The third age is an excellent RPG Game for first timers, with a much better storyline than Final Fantasy could even conjure (suck it fanboys/girls, I shall not back down).

There are over several levels divided into several storylines in the Game: A forest type landscape (I forget the name), The mines of Moria, Rohan / Edoras, Helm's Deep, and lastly Minas Tirith / Pelennor Fields. All of witch are beautifully designed and true to the movie locals in ever detail you can imagine. You can practically roam anywhere in theses levels, I know, because I tend to get lost (that map was much help until my brother helped me out with it) and enemies pop out of nowhere giving you a right good scare most of the time, but around next several hundred jumps and surprises it gets old and isn't impressive any longer. Small Note: Helm's Deep is still the hardest level since "The Two Towers."

The basic Plot is this: You start off with a narrative voiced by Ian McKellen(?) - Gandalf the Grey/White explaining the third age before being introduced to Berethor; a soldier of Gondor in search for Boromir and the Fellowship supposedly having come from Rivendell on his way to Moria. He is attacked by several Ring Wraiths [Nazgul] and is defeated & about to meet his doom before the second character, Idiral appears and saves his life (and ultimately forcing the Nazgul away) with her Elven magic. From there your two characters journey across the forest landscape until you reach a snowy mountainous area where you then are introduced to Elegost, a Ranger hunting a pack of Wargs and searching for his Dwarven partner, Hadhod, a grouching Gimli-type character. These four characters travel through Moria and meet up with the guest character Gandalf who battle against the Barlog of Morgor. The last two characters you'll meet on the plains of Rohan; the shield maiden Morwen & Eaoden a rider of Rohan, being a part of the Rohirrim. These character's ultimate goal is to aid Middle Earth and the fellowship in its time of need (the background story for Berethor is especially interesting).

The RPG elements of the game are fast pace and easy to understand and vary from Taunt, Special Abilities, Summons, Items, and Perfect Mode (Which has to be the coolest thing in the game aside from CO-OP mode). You can Level up your characters given the strength or number of times you've used them. They are equipped with different clothing, armor, swords, helmets, shields that really don't protect them if not beef up their armor value as the game progresses, and my all time favorite: New abilities and special items to use against your enemies.

The boss battles (set on any difficulty) are tough and aren't as easy to overcome as everyone's has been stating. It takes some actual patience, time, and careful strategy to defeat these (The Balrog, Grimma Wormtongue, The Witch King, The Orc Captain in RTOK, and Suaron himself) bosses and its good payoff at the end. The enemies (Goblins, Orcs, Wargs, Uruk-Hai, Trolls, Ring Wraiths, among other things) are as equally tough in challenge, however, their easy to overcome despite the fact that they're abilities range from, Swordfighting, magic spells, spear attacks, etc.. Sometimes it'll usually take more than one hit to kill most of the enemies (mainly Wargs, Trolls, Nazgul, and Uruk-Hai. Goblins and Orcs are easy pickings).

Lastly The Graphics for the Cut Scenes in the game are simply beautiful, especially in the Elven forests and Gondor, the character models are nicely done, and the voice acting is the best I've heard since Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia. I'll admit this game has it lagging points and hiccups but this does nothing to put a damper in my enjoyment of this game. [a 5 out of 5]

Numerous Issues

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 16, 2008
Author: Amazon User

An attempt to cross the Lord of the Rings with a Final Fantasy-style RPG, the Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is in most ways stuck in the shadow of many other greater things.

The main characters are not the main characters of the Lord of the Rings, but rather similar characters that share many connections with them. Berethor is the captain of the Gondor Citadel Guard, and is looking for Boromir. Idrial is an elf woman serving Galadriel. Elegost is one of Aragorn's fellow rangers. And so on for the other three characters; all are made in the shape of other, similar characters. Their activities and encounters all follow the Fellowship, even at one point finding the campsite used by them when in the mountains (in the first film). The objectives are usually tantalizingly close to the fellowship - "Oh, that's our campsite, yeah, so come find us in the Mines of Moria! Oh, wait, we moved on." Gandalf narrates the scenes "speaking" to Berethor, usually encouraging him to try and catch up with the group. Many of the game's boss fights are against non-canon enemies, enemies the Fellowship dealt with (supposedly), or enemies that it wouldn't make sense to have killed. As a whole, the story appears more like a fanfiction than a professional work.

The gameplay is reminiscent of most RPGs. Characters have HP and MP (or, rather, AP), and various class-specific skills. They can fight, use skills, use magic, or use items. Items tend to be LOTR-specific things like Lembas bread or Kingsfoil. Most of the attacks in the beginning are simply "hit harder" or "hit harder against certain things", but this later evolves into magical abilities as well. For the most part, the system is uninspired and not particularly exciting. The characters run around on the world map and have old-style random encounters that pop out of nowhere. The majority of the battles are fairly boring and have nothing to set them apart.

The graphics are fairly terrible. The textures are blocky, the characters seem mis-proportioned, the animations are odd and unnatural, and everything seems to be blurry for some reason. The voice acting is decent, but not spectacular; the characters seem chosen, again, for their resemblance to established characters.

As a whole, this game has nothing going for it. It seems amateur in many ways, and isn't particularly fun, either. Even for fans of LOTR, this isn't that rewarding because of the many inaccuracies and oddities present.

4/10.

Very Dissapointed about this game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 18
Date: November 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I scurried to the store as soon as I had the money to purchase this game. I absolutely adored The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. I am also a huge EA game fan.

However, once I put the game in my Playstation 2, I immediately realized that this game had nothing to do with individual combat.

Each fight is set up for you, per say. You are not the one actually making the moves on the opponent. You are telling the game which moves to make.

While roleplaying is a nice thing--I was severely upset at the layout of this game. Had I known that I would be unable to play individual characters--who were doing more than running down a path, waiting for a fight, and then clicking on a series of icons to *tell* the computer what move to make (rather than actually doing the fighting yourself), I would have waited until the game was available for pre-owned purchase at about ten bucks.

Fifty-Two dollars that I will never see again--and a severe dissapointment on this end.

One of the BEST!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

LOTR Third Age is one of the best games i have ever played. The graphics are some of the best that i have ever seen, the characters are developed wonderfully, and the fighting and travel systems are awsome. This game is almost exactly like final fantasy X except for different music and characters. I am hooked on this game and have a hard time putting the controler down once i pick it up. This is one of my favorite games ever and it is a must buy for any gamer!!!

Great for the Intermediate Fan

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

There are three levels of LOTR fans: (1) casual fans who have only seen the movies, (2) intermediate fans who read the books and saw the movies and (3) fanatics. I think this game works well for the intermediate fan who has a good working knowledge of Middle Earth and can appreciate a lot of the references without going berserker over some of the revisionist history the game offers. Yeah, apparently Gandalf had some help on the bridge at Khazad-Dun.

Gameplay is fairly easy to learn, although the learning curve will be much shorter if you have played Final Fantasy X or a similar RPG. There is a pretty logical flow, and my advice is to skip over the 109 or so movie clips that you begin to accumulate. They ruin the pace.

I found the game challenging but not impossible to conquer without a little strategy. Skills you learn over time will help out in later battles (I found Stone Mountain, a dwarf skill, to be especially helpful). A reviewer complained that you can only have three characters in play, but that's not entirely true. A quick tap of the L1 button and you can switch out characters. Not having stores was sort of annoying, but a small oversight when saving the game at numerous save points restores full health to your entire party. You also collect a bounty of items over time that assist in your health and well-being.

Another positive I wanted to mention was the "Wow!" factor is fairly high. Fighting the Balrog? Pretty darn cool. Bumping into Aragorn at Rohan? Ditto. All in all, a worthy pick-up. If you still have your doubts, rent it first.

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