The Lords of the Rings. Rubbish to some, cult to most. Who hasn´t heard of the book or the movies? Since the story´s quite welknown, I won´t talk much about it.
Almost a year after the release of the first movie (Fellowship of the Ring), Universal released it´s interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien´s heritage in a GBA game. Note: only the first two books (out of six) are included in this cartridge.

For those who expect to play an interactive book, the game will be a disappointment: the game follows the book in great lines, but there are some (minor) differences. For example, Merry and Pippin join Frodo and Sam (the main figures) when they cross the field of some farmer. In the game however, Pippin joins in Bags End, and Merry joins the club in some small village (not described in the book, and even before the farmer´s introduced). Other differences like having to search for certain people, instead of just meeting them (like Tom Bombadil), were to be expected. Even the appearance of sub-quests were unavoidable I guess.

Nevertheless, Universal intended to create a miraculous world as described by Tolkien and they have succeeded. A beautifully detailed environments. Towns, forests, fog, bogs, farms... All of them are made almost realistic.

Quite often, nice graphics are followed by bad gameplay and even worse sound. This game must then be an exception. The music is GREAT! Happy music is played in Bag´s End (and in the rest of the Shire), calm sounds in the forest and spooky tunes when you reach the gravehills.

The gameplay is a different story. It´s easy to manouver. Talking with people is done by standing near them and pressing the proper button, same goes for picking up stuff. The real problems start with the limited carrying capacity. Each member of the crew can hold only 6 items (plus 2 weapons and armor). This means you´ll have to switch a lot between the members of the party (9 of them in total) when you want to pick something up (since all members will be filled after 10 minutes of play).
Another problem is the battle-system. An isometric view of both the enemie(s) and your party was implemented quite nice. Turn-based attacks, no problemo. But the really slow movement of the people/enemies when attacking... It really cracks you up!

Okay, enough complaining. Let´s talk about the game itself. On your quest, you´ll have to do stuff besides walking and fighting (of course). You´ll have to solve some puzzles, like playing the right tunes on some tree-trunks(?) , placing heavy objects on switches and bringing certain items to certain people to gain other items. The puzzles are often not to hard to figure out, but if you´re not a puzzle-fanatic, the answer is often near (ie the tunes to be played can be heard somewhere).
Searching for different people will also be part of your travels through Middle Earth. Tom Bombadil for example must be found in the forest (instead of him searching you).
And finally, the sub-quests. ´Bring this letter to X´, ´I like pipeweed from brand X´. And so on... You can comply with these requests, but it´s not necessary to do so (however, it could gain you those wanted weapons).

Taking everything together, I think this game is quite amusable, but only if you don´t tend to curse the game for not following the story exactly.



Reviewed by: Dennis