- Finally get an interactive
Middle-earth world to explore
- Graphics, especially the Middle-earth landscape and
environments, are very good
- Musical score adds touch of suspense to gameplay
- Horrible collision detection
control
- For an adventure game is extremely short
- Who beta tested this game? Can walk through rocks and can get
inexplicably stuck in place in areas where you didn’t before
- Long load times
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Lord of
the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Score: 5.1 / 10
There’s a little bit of confusion
surrounding the licensing of the J.R.R. Tolkien Middle-earth world in
videogames. Both Vivendi Universal Games and Electronic Arts acquired
the rights to publish games following the Lord of the Rings storyline.
But while EA’s games are based on the trilogy of the Peter Jackson
movies, Vivendi’s titles are pulled right from the pages of the Tolkien
books themselves. If you are still puzzled over which game is which, my
suggestion to end the confusion in the videogame sect is to change the
name of Vivendi’s Xbox game from Lord of the Rings (LotR) to Lord of the
Flies. This game is so bug-filled, I can’t believe they had the audacity
to retail this game in its present state of disarray.
Vivendi’s title follows the action of the first book in the Lord of the
Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring. You start out as the hobbit
Frodo, who is given the task of destroying the One Ring that the evil
Sauron is intent on possessing in his ruthless attempt to control the
whole land. Throughout the third-person game, you will shift
from Frodo to the wizened wizard Gandalf to
the human warrior Aragorn. Each character has different attributes.
Frodo is the smallest and weakest, but is the only one that can use the
ring to find hidden areas in the game. But beware, because too much
usage of the ring will "kill" him or just as bad will draw the attention
of Sauron’s Black Riders, who Frodo has no chance against. Get these
guys on your tail and expect to have your game end fairly
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quickly.
Gandalf has powerful magic attacks in addition to his swordwork, and
Aragorn gets by on his strong skills with the long sword and bow. In
your travels, there are various items that can help you in your many
battles. Different weapons and their respective replenishing supply of
ammunition, mushrooms that restock your health meter and potion bottles
that fill up Gandalf’s magic attack lie all around.
Along the way, you will run into many NPCs that aid you and also join
the Fellowship. Interaction is done through text and voice communication
that is the norm for adventure games. There are some puzzles and tasks
that you must also do, especially as Frodo, that while they add some
longevity to the game, are usually boring and needless. (One task has
you gathering a Hobbiton neighbor’s pigs into the pigpen before
continuing on your journey to Mount Doom.)
The sensory features of LotR are very well done. Visually, this is the
way you would imagine a videogame of Middle-earth to look like. The
cut-scenes and FMVs are richly rendered too. The main character models
are relatively good but not great. Orcs and overgrown spiders that you
encounter in the woods are particularly impressive in their detail and
overall scary appearance. Animation of the characters is smooth. Pay
attention to the little animation touches that make the visuals such a
treat. When Frodo, for instance, is running or sneaking around, he will
nervously adjust his grip on his sword. It's a minute detail that's a
pleasant surprise (considering the many problems that plague LotR). The
musical score that flows airily through your escapades is also of a high
quality. Reminiscent of the stupendous score of Halo, it adds the right
mood particularly in suspenseful situations to the gameplay.
But there are a lot of bad things going on in Vivendi’s Middle-earth
title. The game faithfully follows the sequence of the book’s action,
but that’s one of the problems. (Middle-earth seems big and expansive
due to the excellent environmental graphics, but there are invisible
walls that impede adventuring the Tolkien world and keep you on the
linear storyline.) If you read the book or even just saw the movie, you
know how things are going to wind up. This is never more evident in
Gandalf’s battle against the Balrog in the deep mines of Moria. All you
need to do is force the Balrog to the edge of the bridge and force him
over with your magic attacks, which you would have known if you read the
book. But once that’s done, there’s little room for surprise, for you
know the seemingly victorious Gandalf is going to be pulled down the
deep cavernous drop right behind the Balrog. Knowing the LotR story is
both a blessing and a curse.
A blessing because your familiarity with what’s happening can get you
through areas of the game, but a curse because of the above-mentioned
problem of knowing what’s in store for you around the next bend. And
unfortunately your game in this particular title will end long before
you ever reach Mount Doom. Speaking of ending way too soon, this is an
incredibly short game, an unforgivable sin for an adventure title. You
won’t have to play more than nine hours to complete the entire game.
That’s no more than two days of playing time (it took me three) for most
gamers. For $50 dollars, you should be getting much more out of a game
than this.
Game control and the collision physics are totally awful and
unacceptable for an adventure title. The developers couldn’t make up
their mind as to how the characters interact within the game
environment. When climbing on high ledges, some areas of LotR have
invisible barriers that will not under any circumstances allow your
character to fall off. But in other areas of the game, your character
will go plummeting into the depths of Tolkien’s world. You never know
how safe or unsafe you may be in your high-climbing adventuring.
Fighting against the many enemies you will encounter has its problems
too. When you press the attack button on the controller, there seems to
be a delay in the character actually performing the attack, and the
enemy has no difficulty taking advantage of that, getting in a few hits
you wouldn’t think should be available if the controls were more
responsive.
I would LOVE to know who beta-tested this game, because I haven’t seen
such bad gameplay elements in one title in a while. The worst atrocity
is graphical breakup that allows you to walk right through environmental
features that aren’t supposed to be walked through. There was one area
of the game in the woods that allowed me to walk through a big boulder
to the other side, which was the invisible barrier of the level. I know
the developers didn’t want me to be roaming back there, but because
someone missed it on the beta testing, it found its way into the final
product. There are other areas of the game that you can half-walk
through static features of the environment, which makes it really hard
to enjoy your visit to Middle-earth.
Another bad mistake that finds its way into the gameplay is items that
don’t always do what they are supposed to the first time or disappear
and reappear at malevolently-orchestrated will. Here’s a classic
example: I found a key that was meant to open a door nearby. Logically I
went to the nearest door that I thought the key would fit. It wouldn’t
open. So I went back out into the underground recesses of Moria to find
the door it belonged to. 45 frustrating minutes later, I still couldn’t
find the door, so I saved then quit the game in disgust. Later, I went
about my travels in the same area, thinking maybe that I missed
something. An hour later, I frustratingly saved and quit again. After
starting my saved game yet again, I decided what the heck, I would give
that very door that wouldn’t open before another try. It opened.
Needless to say, I was upset that I wasted nearly two hours searching
for the door that I had already found but the game decided it didn’t
want to open.
Camera and load-time issues also bring down the LotR game experience.
The camera doesn’t always allow you to see who or what is attacking you.
And the load times on LotR's many levels are inexcusably bad. In Halo,
when you are moving from one area to the next, there is almost seamless
load-times that are barely noticeable as the next area of the game comes
into focus and allows you to venture forward. In LotR, however, what
appears is a solid black wall that can take up to a minute before
suddenly becoming a visual interpretation of the travelable path that it
is meant to be. It is clearly evident that this is the classic example
of a videogame rushed to market without being properly beta tested and
corrected.
Lord of the Rings unfortunately has fallen under the licensing hex that
has been placed on many a videogaming title before it, doing a terrible
injustice to one of the greatest fantasy literary works ever scribed.
While the sensory facets of LotR are pleasantly done and finally being
able to explore the Tolkien world of Middle-earth will be enjoyable for
hobbit fans everywhere, the god-awful controls, horrible collision
detection, needless puzzles and tasks, and incredibly short game length
make this a game to stay away from, at least where your hard-earned
money is concerned.
Big-time Tolkien fans that can tolerate the generally poor gameplay
features in order to get a interactive romp through Middle-earth may
want to give LotR a rental, but absolutely don’t consider this for a
gaming buy unless it can be had around the holidays for under $20 bucks.
And that’s ONLY if you are a HUGE Tolkien universe fan that wants this
strictly for its value as Tolkien memorabilia.
