Lord of the Ring: The Third Age
With my long-awaited television and internet hookup still several days away, my wife and I made yet another excursion to the video store, this time renting Lord of the Ring: The Third Age for the GameCube. As with most other Lord of the Rings games, I was optimistic that this one might turn out to be enjoyable. I had played most of the others, which themselves followed the movies and character directly, and thought I might like this one more since it was merely based upon the original story. With different characters and related plots, perhaps this game would be geared more toward play than cinematics, as the others had been.
To say I was sorely disappointed would be an understatement. A primary game feature is an archive of video clips from the movie that are strung together in a collage-like fashion to make them seem new. The characters are very nearly carbon-copies of those in the movie, with very little of the advertised customizable features of traditional RPGs. In fact, you can’t even name the characters yourself.
On top of that, the graphics of this game are lousy. The characters appear to run the same whether they’re going uphill or downhill in adventure mode. Combat mode is another story, with a turn-based system that echoes Final Fantasy; this feature was obviously the primary focus of game development, and didn’t turn out too horrible. The characters level much too quickly, however, and the skill system leaves a lot to be desired.
As with its predecessors, this game was a resounding disappointment. Had more thought and work been put into it, it could have been so much more. As usual, however, strict adherence to the movie and overuse of cinematic clips has turned a would-be RPG into a “choose your own adventure” version of the movies. That being said, I don’t recommend this game for any reason. In my opinion, the folks up at EA should be ashamed to put their name on it.