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Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring review

There is some confusing in the gaming world about which Lord of the Rings games are which; some are published by Vivendi, others by EA. Well, they are indeed very different games. The reason for two sets of games is down to licensing; EA picked their rights of film producers New Line Cinema/Warner Brothers (although strangely missed out on the first book and film), hence why their game uses the likeness of the actors from the films, and features the familiar logo. Vivendi, on the other hand, have licensed the brand from Tolkien Enterprises, owners of the book rights, and thus their game has a style based on book characters, and is not trying to present itself as an interactive movie. That said, the game has a few movie stylings not seen in the books, such as the greater presence of combat and a film-style soundtrack.

In case you haven't read the books or seen the films, the story involves the unlikely hero of Frodo, a Hobbit (a short human-like creature with big feet) from the village of The Shire. He gets caught up in a quest involving himself, other hobbits, the wizard Gandalf, some humans, an elf, and a dwarf to return a powerful ring ("The Ring to Rule Them All") to the place of its creation; Mount Doom. In the game you begin as Frodo, carrying a few meagre rocks to protect yourself. These form the basis of combat for the beginning of the game, but thankfully later on you are met by the only other weapon Frodo carries; a sword. Before the main action begins you have to carry out some typical adventure game-based tasks in The Shire, and this gives you the impression that this is what the game is like - the game you would have expected since it is classed in the adventure genre, but once you leave the Shire, there is little adventuring to be seen; it all becomes action, and not all terribly exciting for that matter.

You may be wondering why I'm turning down heavy doses of action, but although the combat itself is not flawed (but not excellent either), the biggest issue is the sheer quantity of hacking and slashing involved; it becomes boring, and is often unavoidable (despite Frodo's acclaimed stealth features). As stated the action is not flawed but is a bit limited in moves, and the special move is often pointless as you are unable to move the character while powering it up. Further into the game you get to take control of one of the humans, Strider (also known as Aragorn), who's melee combat moves are better than those of Frodo. The last character you take control of is the great Gandalf the Grey, the wizard who sets you on the quest to destroy the ring. Playing as him you are able to cast spells, which are restricted by a meter, although this is topped up too often (making the spells almost limitless).

As I said, most of the game involves combat, but when the adventure-style seeking comes in to play, things can get a bit confusing. On many occasions, especially at the beginning, you are asked to go to certain places to obtain or present particular itmes, etc., but the biggest problem is knowing where to go. Being told to go to some Hobbit's house is pretty useless if I don't know the area, know what his/her house looks like, or even what village they are in. The lack of a map or radar makes finding you way around a matter of guesswork. I noticed this a lot when starting the game, and was something which immediately put me off the title.

Much was made by Vivendi and Black Label of the game's graphics engine; indeed, many of Vivendi's press releases of the game featured a large amount of bullet points detailing its features. However, when it comes down to it, its not nearly as impressive as you could have hoped for. Although initially pleasing, after a short while of play begin to notice that there seems to be a slight blur in the graphics, that the background that appears to go on forever it just a static image, and that the characters are very generic, with people from the same species looking remarkably similar. The animations are also short of impressive, but could have been a lot worse. The cut-scenes use the main graphical engine to present the narrative, but are a long way from the impressive real film FMV as seen in EA's LotF: The Two Towers.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is not a particularly long game, and does not help its longetivity by providing no other modes, no unlockables, and no reason to replay the game. Once you have completed the quest, you will probably not find a reason to play it again, making the game one with a relatively short shelf life, and certainly not the epic that was the original Tolkein trilogy.

Ratings

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