Reviewed: November 2, 2002
Reviewed by: Scott Shirhall
Publisher
Universal Interactive
Developer
Surreal Software
Released: October 15, 2002
Genre: Action/Adventure
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
5
6
8
5
5.5
Supported Features
In literature, J.R.R. Tolkien has written a masterful story. In software, Black Label Games and Surreal Software have not done this story justice. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is based directly on Tolkien’s book and not the movie of the same name. While I haven’t read the book I have gotten the story from someone who has and the game does a pretty good job of following the book. Of course the designers have taken some liberties in order to fill out the game and they seem to blend well into the original story.
The story of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is focused on the three main characters of Frodo Baggins, Aragorn and Gandalf the Wizard. You will play as each of these three characters as you attempt to destroy the One Ring that was created by the evil Dark Lord Sauron. Sauron created the One Ring to gain control of all of the lands. He lost the ring in a mighty battle and now he wants it back.
As the story begins, Frodo has the One Ring and he begins his journey to destroy it and therefore save everyone from impending evil and destruction. Along the way Frodo meets many characters and enlists the help of the leaders of many lands that will eventually form the Fellowship of the Ring. With the help of this Fellowship, Frodo and his company will travel through many hostile lands on the way to their final goal.
Along the way, you will experience exciting Middle Earth locations such as The Shire, the Old Forest, Barrow Downs, Bree, Rivendall, the mines of Moria, and more. These lands are all distinct and come with their own sets of creatures and enemies to battle with. As you progress through each land and gather members of the Fellowship the enemies will increase in numbers and nastiness.
Each member of the Fellowship has differing skills and abilities that will help Frodo on his quest. Aragorn is a mighty warrior with excellent battle skills and Gandalf is a powerful wizard that can cast spells and use magic to defeat his enemies. The rest of the crew, which you can’t control, features expert warriors, archers and other characters that will support Frodo during his quest.
The gameplay for The Fellowship of the Ring is in need of some work. The basic gameplay is just that, basic. There are no fantastic combat moves or combos that need to be mastered in order to improve your fighting ability. If you can master the knockdown and the finishing move you will have no problems defeating the enemies that are thrown at you.
The finishing move is the most devastating and tricky move to master. To properly execute this move you must first knock your opponent to the ground, either with a kick move from Aragorn or a combination attack from Frodo or Gandalf, then you simply stand over your stunned victim and send an attack straight into their heart. This move is tricky for several reasons. The first is because once you get an opponent down on the ground it is very hard to find the exact spot to stand over the victim in order for the move to be executed and the second is that while you are executing the move you are vulnerable to attack by any other enemies present in the area. All of that said, master this move because it will benefit you greatly.
The enemies in the game are as varied as giant spiders, trolls, ghosts and even a dragon. Each of these creatures is usually defeated rather easily, as most of the game proves to be quite easy. Using the different fighting styles and weapons of Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf you will find it less than a challenge to defeat anything this game has to throw at you. That is not to say that there aren’t some tricks, because there are.
Some of the bosses seem imposing until you figure out the trick to defeating them and then it proves to be much easier than you thought. This ease of completion leads to a game that can be finished in about eight to ten hours. The game is much shorter than it should be for a novel of such magnitude. It seems that a little more creative insertion would have helped lengthen and improve the overall value of the game.
There are also a plethora of items available throughout your journey that will help you in completing your mission. There are several items that will help you in regaining lost health and magic casting abilities. Items like mushrooms, cram (a bread that increase health) and Miruvor (a potion that restores Gandalf’s spell casting ability). All of these items are plentiful and you should have very little problem making it through the game with such a large quantity of health restoring items.
The biggest problem with The Fellowship of the Ring is that the camera angles are awful. The camera seems to have a mind of it’s own sometimes. When fighting an enemy it seems to center on you, which makes it difficult to see who or what is attacking you. You can manually move the camera but who has time when they are defending themselves from multiple attacks. Several times the camera completely obscured the action and I was left madly pressing buttons while trying to look around one of my fellow combatants. While the camera angles are poorly done it unfortunately dose not end there.
The other maddening aspect of this game is the constant skips and slowdowns. The game generally runs smoothly but there are many times when there is a lot of action going on where the game pauses. This usually throws off your rhythm and gets you into trouble. I even had several occasions where the game completely froze causing me to have to reset my system. There is nothing that annoys me more than glitches in a game. I don’t think that it is too much to ask that a final version of a game run smoothly. What are the game testers getting paid for?
Along with the skipping and freezing goes the unbearably long load times. Most quests are short and the cut scenes are long and this causes you to have to wait every time there is new information to load. I don’t mind waiting for loading to occur as long as it isn’t frequent.
While we are stil discussing gameplay I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the weapons available for your use during your journey. While playing with Frodo you are given a wooden walking stick and an unlimited supply of rocks to start with and along the way you can acquire such weapons like a Westernesse Dagger and a sword called Sting. As Aragorn you begin with a bow with unlimited arrows and the Long Sword. Along the way Aragaon can also acquire the powerful Anduril sword. Gandalf comes equipped with everything he needs for battle including a glowing staff and the Glamdring sword. Gandalf also has a bounty of magical spells that he can cast including Fiery Blast, Chain Lightning, Staff Strike, Heal and Attract. With his magical powers, Gandalf proves to be a vastly advantageous ally in your mission to destroy the One Ring.
The graphics in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring are slightly above the average of what we have come to expect from the next generation consoles. There are a lot of lands to render and there are numerous characters to draw. Everything looks pretty good except the overall picture. Everything in this game seems washed out. There is a definite lack of vibrant colors that would greatly add to this fantasy adventure setting. Everything has a brownish or grayish haze to it. I didn’t think The Shire was near Los Angeles but apparently I was wrong. The game should be alive with color and brighter in some areas. A fantasy world should be vivid and rich in detail. What we got was haze and dullness.
The good part of the graphics are the cut scenes. Some of these were beautifully done and capture the moment exceptionally. Unfortunately the cut scenes can’t be played outside the confines of the storyline. It would have been nice if the attention to detail shown in the cut scenes were carried on to the rest of the game.
Some of the best effects in the game come from the lighting. The shadows and light are combined wonderfully to give a bit of realism to the game. Especially nice is the glowing staff which Gandalf carries. It’s eerie glow and the shadows that it produces are really effective. The best graphics in this game come from the ingenious use of real-time lighting effects.
The sound in The Fellowship of the Ring is not outstanding in any way except one. There are some fairly good mood music and battle sounds but they are hampered a little by the glitches that I mentioned in the gameplay section. Some of the glitches here involve battle sounds playing after the battle is over and brief pauses in the soundtrack when a glitch occurs. The background music is average and adds very little to the overall quality of the game.
The absolute gem in this game is the voice acting. Every character or extra that you meet in the game has a voice. The voices are a superbly read and there is a massive amount of content throughout the game. During the playing of the game you begin to recognize the distinct voices of the characters and can feel their personalities reflected in these voices.
Unfortunately, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has very little replay value. The game is incredibly short and very linear. There is not enough reason for you to want to play this game over and over. If there were a multitude of hidden quests or objects then I could see a long-term value to this game. Like I said before, I finished the game in about eight hours. To me I just can’t justify paying full price for a game that is this short on gameplay.
Another thing that hurts the overall value of this game is it’s lackluster graphics. If the game was a stunner then you could probably justify doling out your hard-earned cash for a copy of this title. As the game stands it isn’t worth the price. There are just too many other titles that blow this one away for you to purchase this game.
Diehard Lord of the Rings fans would probably enjoy being able to act out their favorite book. The rest of the gaming community would be very disappointed by the lack of a good fighting engine and so-so graphics. I would definitely recommend renting this title as opposed to buying it because you should be able to easily conquer the game within your rental period and after that there is no sense in replaying it.
If the fighting and graphics were improved and the story itself afforded more opportunity for action then this would be a passable game. If the developers took a little more liberties with the game and only used the story as a basis for creating a game, it could be better. As it is, this game is nothing but a brief distraction you can allow yourself while taking a break from some other good game. Bottom line; if you like Lord of the Rings, rent this game, and if you could care less about Lord of the Rings then skip it entirely.