COMPUTER GAME REVIEW: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring...

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I've been playing some games recently on the PC, old games I played as a kid or young teen, kind-of a nostalgia thing. Anyway, one of my favourite games as a kid was The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, an RPG adventure game based not on the film but on the wonderful book. And I hugely prefer the book to the film. In fact, now I can't really be bothered with the film. I think it's because the film is so different from my imagination of the book. For the most part anyway. I imagined the book to be gothic and creepy, whereas the film was loud and dramatic. I still did like the film a lot when I was younger though. But now come to think of it, when I re-read the book, I realise that my favourite part of it since a child was the first half of it. Basically, when the hobbits are in the shire, hiding from the black riders, navigating the old forest, and then traversing the wild lands towards Rivendell. Why? I'm not sure. I just love the creepy suspense in some of the shire scenes, as well as the banter of the hobbits and the sense of adventure and youth, and the mystery of my favourite chapter; "The Old Forest," missing from the film but a wonderful chapter. So this game is completely different in tone from the film and is closer to my imagination of the books, so you can see why it would have really appealed to me as a kid. I loved it as a kid, but recently I played it again, and while it brought back memories and was still quite wonderful to play, I realise now that it's flawed, and, well, not that good, but I was suckered in by a cool premise and couldn't wait to explore Middle Earth. Let's delve into it...

Okay, so it begins with an FMV of Galadriel narrating above the Mirror. In the Mirror we see the forging of the ring blah blah blah, and then Gandalf approaching Bag End and the ring in Frodo's hand. The FMV is a little bland and Frodo in it looks nothing like he does in the graphics of the game, but let's move on. It then cuts to a game cut-scene, and right away you notice that it looks wonderful. I mean, the graphics aren't great, but from an artistic point of view it's detailed and beautifully rendered, with rays of light beaming in on Gandalf and Frodo from the window. Gandalf and Frodo on the other hand, move and talk like robots. But that's not a problem. This scene is basically Gandalf telling Frodo about the ring (very suddenly and abruptly I must say). Right away you'll notice that the voices are really lacking in emotion, and that Frodo's voice is kind-of gay, but that doesn't really matter, and you get used to it. It ends up with Samwise being caught eavesdropping and then we cut to narration by Frodo, telling of the months passing with no sign of Gandalf. As in the book, it is many months before he decides to set out. The game begins in Bag End, where there is very little to do but get the deed and key for Bag End to sell to the Sackville Bagginses. The music here is nothing special, sounding like your average adventure game music. When you leave Bag End however, the music changes into this nice little score to fit the nice little setting of the shire. The controls for the game here are fine and easy, and moving is quick and efficient. You can talk to people, like Sam and some of the other hobbits. Sam tells you to meet Merry and Pippin at the Green Dragon in Bywater. Before doing so you can explore Hobbiton a bit and talk to other people, and complete small tasks which give you a feel for some of the other controls of the game, like throwing rocks. There are shiny mushrooms about, which you can collect. You can use them for healing later in the game. One of the things you notice here is that Hobbiton is a tiny little town, and can't be explored much, and this is one of the biggest problems of the whole game. It's too damn linear. In a game like this you should be able to explore Middle Earth at length. So you set out across the bridge to Bywater, and...it crashes. Well, sometimes, which is why if you're playing on the PC you have to save very often. Anyway, if it doesn't crash it fades out then in onto the path to Bywater. You can talk to other Hobbits in Bywater but this is really pointless. There are other tasks to be done, taking you into other environments and even down to Maggot's farm, but these tasks are optional, and if you've played the game before it's best to just skip them. So once you go to the Green Dragon and arrange to meet Merry and Pippin at Maggot's farm (not how it happened in the book) and sell Bag End to Lobelia you go back to Bag End, get the ring, and then suddenly it's night, and the shire looks very different and much more playable. The sounds effects are wonderful and eerie, with wolves howling, crickets and other things. You go down to see the Gaffer and suddenly come upon a black rider. Suddenly, the game gets really cool. Once you give the key to the Gaffer it becomes a stealth mission, and pretty hard until you figure it out. Not only that, but creepy, the dark riders riding here and there, casting shadows over everything. Once the first two are passed, you come across one guarding the bridge, and you have to distract it by climbing up onto a ledge and throwing a rock down the road. This is a great and atmospheric little bit of the game, especially if you're playing for the first time, but like the rest of the game, it is extremely easy once you figure out what to do, which is a bummer for something so fun. That's another thing about the game, they could have made it so much harder, and so much fuller, because as it is, the game is really short once you figure things out. The music on this level is wonderful though, and really adds to the creepy atmosphere. This is one of the best levels of the game, and you'll see why later. In Bywater you find Shirriff Robin being attacked by a wolf and you have to protect him and kill the wolf. Remember that from the book!?! I sure as hell don't, but if it fills the level a little, fine. Once that's done, you go to into the country a bit, and come across three wolves. You can fight them if you want, which is fun and quite difficult, or you can learn of a not-so-hidden tactic in this game: the runner. Yes, this game is so easy you can basically do a runner from one end of often an entire map to another, past dozens of enemies, and what's more, without getting a friggin' scratch. Really it exposes just how easy the game is. Is it deliberate? Did the creators know you could do that? If so, shame on them for making a game so piss-easy. I figured this out when I was younger, and lazily just decided to do a runner later in the game. Once you're away from the wolves, you come into Green Country, and down a hill you see another dark rider. This one's a little harder to figure out, but there's only one so you don't have to worry about timing. Again, this one involves distraction with rocks, only a little more complicated. Then once you're past it you cross a bridge into Maggot's farm. Gee, the Shire sure is small, Frodo traversed it in ten minutes! What's more, this is the only stealth part of the game, unless you include an optional quest earlier involving Maggot's dogs. It was fun. Could have been sooo much harder, but it was kinda neat, I'll give it that. At the end of this level, you meet the other hobbits and enter The Old Forest. Wait, that was quick! What about Buckland!?! Even just a cut-scene would have sufficed. In the narration, Frodo mentions it a little, and then we're straight into The Old Forest. But wait, isn't this supposed to be faithful to the books? It kinda is in atmosphere, but other than that they just change things or skip things that could have been fun and could have made the game a little fuller! And getting through the Shire in ten minutes, gimme a break!! The maps for the most part are tiny! And another thing they missed out, the elves the hobbits meet in the Shire. That would have at least been something more.

But fuck it, we're in The Old Forest and Sam, Merry and Pippin are lost in amongst the trees. Again, this level is awesome in terms of atmosphere, but little else. You run down the path to find a tree blocking your way. When first playing this I didnt know where the hell to go, but then I figured out you just run back up and then down again and the tree is gone. What, no puzzle? Frodo exlaims - "This forest! It's as if it had a mind of it's own!" Yay, hopefully there will be more trees to block my way, and some puzzles related to them. Oops, my mistake the rest of the level is dedicated to running through a small and easy maze and fighting giant spiders. Wait, what!?! Giant spiders in The Old Forest!?!?! Since when!? Ah screw it, maybe there were and the book just missed them out. Yeah. So instead of getting any puzzles involving the trees, you have to run through a fairly linear maze of a forest fighting annoying spiders. This is where the game starts to get repetitive. Spider after spider after spider. It's as if they focused entirely on creating a wonderful atmosphere but didn't put any effort into the formation of the levels or what's in them. Once you find the other hobbits there's a cut-scene where they set up camp. After this you find yourself in the Withywindle valley where you basically just run for a bit through it, then find yourself at the boss; The Old Willow. Like the rest of the game, once you figure this out, it's laughably easy. And then you come to a cut-scene where...oh hell yeah, it's Tom!! One of my favourite characters! And then he tells you to find Lillies for Goldberry and leaves you. Great. And you come to probably the most infuriatingly repetitive part of the game, so much so that instead of killing the spiders I just take a runner through it and get the lillies, then go back to Tom. You have to talk to him, but this is no small task when he's marching around all the time, and the controls get a bit jarring here. But never mind, you talk to him and find yourself at his house, where he and Goldberry talk for a bit in a cool cut-scene that will please fan-boys. And then some narration where instead of exploring the Bombadil household and having some fun, Frodo basically talks about it, and then we leave after Tom gives us a chant. Great. I mean, it would have been nice to have at least some cut-scenes in the house, you know with some of the key parts of the story so far. But I can't really complain, I mean I wasn't expecting a movie, was I, I was expecting a highly playable, full game. Yeah! So then it's basically running up a hill fighting wolves, until you reach the barrow-downs, and there's another short cut-scene around a campfire. The next level is basically fighting ghosts in the Barrow Downs, repetitive but again fun if only for the atmosphere and hearing the ghosts fart when you hit them. There's a really cool boss at the end of the level, that's actually quite a challenge. Well not really, just more of a challenge than the others. You get another scene with Tom where he chants the Wight away and gives you blades from the Barrow Down before sending you to Bree.

And this is a cool level, where you meet Aragorn and get to play as him for the first time, going out to find a missing Merry. This might be my favourite level if only because there's an actual variety of enemies and they're all funny creeps and fun to fight. The atmosphere is also cool in this level. The first thing you notice about Aragorn is how grim and strange he is. He has a gruff voice and goes around collecting melons and logs to create decoys of the Hobbits, and once he collects each item he makes comments that sound almost sexual - "Aaah, these melons will make fine substitutes for hobbit heads," he says, sounding horny as hell over his new hobbit sex-dolls. Once you finish this level, you go to another cool level, Weathertop.

But here repetition becomes evident too, with Aragorn running around killing Wargs. And the atmosphere is awesome too, with rolling hills that look like they go on for miles. However, they do not, it's a completely linear level that when playing you so often wish you could explore. Once you reach Weathertop, you find for the first time orcs, and they're quite hard, surrounding you and bashing you with clubs. So you climb high up Weathertop and again you can see cool scenery that fucking should be explorable. You get to the top and for the first time fight a troll, which is easy if you use your bow and arrows. But here's the problem that I have with the rest of the game. Fighting hordes. I remember first playing this game, it seemed hard and quite long, but now I think it's only because of the shitty frame rate my computer had back then. And anyway, it shouldn't be about fighting hordes, it should be about exploring Middle Earth and doing all the things that are in the book. And what's more, they take you to Lothlorien, which looks awesome, but give you no room to explore, just three rooms where you can talk to people and a ladder which leads you into a cut-scene. Why not just make the whole thing a cut-scene intead of having us pointlessly walking from A to B!?! What a waste. So the game, once completed, has little replay value, and isn't very fun in the second half. It's a quirky little game that's worth a try for Tolkien fans, even if just for the atmosphere and meeting Tom Bombadil. Moria is pretty cool, with a hard puzzle and a harder boss you have to be careful with, but the last level is just racing through hordes of enemies and fighting a stupid Nazgul, which is easy might I add. The only bonus in the game that might make you wanna replay it is meeting Gollum on the shore of the Anduin, where he gives you a fish to slap orcs with, killing them almost instantly, and making it easier and more pointless. Seriously, that's the only kind of bonus this game gives you. So the game should have been much harder (I completed it in three hours), much longer, and a lot less linear. Oh, and truer to the book. I mean, honestly, in the last level you have to fight a Nazgul on Amon Hen. Remember that from the book?