Lord of the Rings: Third Age

[Celisasu]

Waste not your money on this vile travesty of a game.  There are so many ways in which it sucks that I could rant forever.  I'll start with the good(what little there is) and then go onto an abbreviated discussion of the bad.  


The Good:

The in game graphics are rather nice.  They're not the best you've seen but they get the job done.  And when you change equipment you can see it on your character.


Okay.  That's it.  You've seen all the good.  Time to discuss the rest.


Let us begin with the story.  Oh wait, I can't begin with the story because THERE IS NO STORY!  That's right.  You wander around, following Gandalf and company, and kill stuff.  There's your story.  

How about the battle system?  Since there's no story perhaps the battle system is where the game is at.  Oh wait, the battle system is like a poor rip off of Final Fantasy X.  Heck, it's exactly like Final Fantasy X.  Except that unlike FFX leveling up is a chore with characters who aren't nearly as customizable other than a couple of points per level that you can dump into one of their stats.  And get used to fighting the same five or six monsters over and over and over again with slightly different clothing.  Evidently because it's based on the movie they can only use monsters from the movie.  So you're going to be killing a lot of orcs and goblins.  

Perhaps we have clever puzzles?   Nope.  Basically wander around, collect the item(or character) you need, move to the next area.  

So if you haven't bought this game don't do so.  And on a side note I heard the PS2 version has some nasty lag issues but can't confirm this as I have the X-Box version.