Believe it; I'm not really a huge "Lord of the Rings" fan. I read "The Hobbit" when I was in high school, I saw the movies when they came out, I even had the requisite geek girl crush on Aragorn and Legolas (mmm…Elfin magic, indeed), but that was about it. When I heard that EA was releasing an RPG based on the Tolkien saga, I was mildly intrigued, but only in a sort of detached, clinical sense. The saga of Middle Earth was a natural backdrop for the RPG genre, with its dragons and sorcerers and warriors aplenty, so I guessed that Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (TTA) would probably be pretty good. Once I started playing it, however, I had a somewhat different experience, one that I begrudgingly interrupted for annoyances like sleeping, eating, and going to work. It's so well-crafted and addictive, that even if you've never heard of hobbits, you'll enjoy it. If you're a fan, you should probably just go right ahead and clear your calendar, because you're going to need some free time.

Editor's Note: We would have disbelieved Maj's denial of being a fan of LOTR, had she not originally misspelled Tolkien's name! Heresy! And an English major at that! 'I' before 'E' except after' C'! Double heresy!


(Sigh…I've lost my geek privileges for the next month. Moving on…)

Unlike EA's previous forays into the most beloved trilogy since Luke learned the ways of the force, TTA does not put players in the role of a member of the Fellowship. Instead, you begin the game as Berethor, soldier of Gondor. His party eventually grows to an even half-dozen, and includes the type of characters you would expect from a Lord of the Rings property, namely an elf, a dwarf, and a handful of humans. The action of TTA follows the events of the three Lord of the Rings movies faithfully, though at a distance. Berethor and his companions end up trailing after the Fellowship most of the time, arriving on the scene mere moments after Gandalf and Frodo have left. Although it turns Berethor's party into a sort of Fellowship B-list, it's an effective way to draw players into the game. By now, the exploits of the Fellowship are so well known that it would be nearly impossible for someone to feel like he was actually a part of that group, but adopting the persona of a random soldier in Boromir's army or an elf maiden from Lothlorien is definitely something most gamers can enjoy.

It only takes a quick glance at the screen to realize that EA got the license to the Lord of the Rings movies, as opposed to the books. The environments, characters, armor, weapons, buildings, and enemies will all be instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen the films. The enemies are perfectly depicted and animated, especially the Balrog. I've never seen more impressive smoke and fire in a video game ever. Ever! The members of Berethor's party aren't quite as impressive as the Balrog, but they show great attention to detail, right down to Hadhod's belt buckle and Elegost's cloak clasp. The in-game models change as different items are equipped, too, with sometimes rather amusing results. Berethor eventually acquires a healthy assortment of shields, one of which looks alarmingly like a pizza, and another that's a dead ringer for a throw pillow. It's kind of hard to get caught up in the heat of battle when your lead soldier looks like he's coming from an episode of Queer Eye.

Although Ian McKellan provided the narration for the game, the other LOTR actors were unavailable to do any additional voice work. Fortunately, EA had plenty of unused recordings from its other Lord of the Rings games, and managed to cobble together fairly intelligible dialogue from the leftovers. Berethor and friends only run into the actual Fellowship a few times, so it's nearly impossible to tell that conversations with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli weren't recorded specifically for TTA. The playable characters are written and acted well enough for their story to mesh seamlessly and convincingly with the action of the films, making TTA feel like sort of a backstage peek at the huge events of the trilogy. Even the hordes of Saruman shriek and bellow convincingly, especially the Uruk-hai shamen, whose spell-casting screams are particularly unsettling. The rest of the soundtrack is equally impressive, with the clash of sword on shield and the twang of bowstrings punctuating the grunts and groans of battle.

The action of TTA is an odd hybrid between classic RPGs and more action-oriented titles. There's little of the traditional exploration or exposition that RPG fans have come to expect from the genre. Although cut scenes do flesh out the plot, Berethor doesn't take time to chat with villagers or do much wandering. His path thorough the different areas of the game is usually quite linear, with some dead end, twists and turns thrown in for good measure. Each geographical region visited in the game (such as the mines of Moria or the plains of Rohan), comprises a new chapter that comes with its own quests. The main quests are events fans of the movies will instantly recognize, such as fighting the Balrog or defending Helm's Deep, but the side quests usually consist of little more than finding or fighting a certain number of somethings along the way to the next checkpoint. Treasure chests litter the landscape, placed along the path to Berethor's next destination. Finding them all takes little effort, just a willingness to explore every last nook and cranny on the map.

If you're going to make a game that's just one long string of fights, the combat system had better be fun, and TTA doesn't disappoint. Fights are turn-based affairs, based on D&D-esque stats for initiative, accuracy, defense, and so forth. Up to three members of Berethor's party can be active at a time, but any member can be swapped in or out at any given moment, without penalty. A row of icons representing the participants in the battle runs down the right side of the screen, making it easy to see just who's turn comes next. As each character or enemy takes its turn, his or her icon moves to the back of the line. Each member of the party has three different kinds of attacks: ordinary, which cost no Action Points, and weapon based and Spirit based, both of which cost points to use. At the beginning of each party member's turn, players use a menu to select the desired defensive or offensive action. After the command is input, a quick and usually quite gorgeous animation shows the character casting the spell or smiting the opponent. Turns progress until one side or the other is finally wiped out. Although turn-based combat has a bad reputation (fairly earned because it often feels like it's taking an eon to complete a turn), the action in TTA is swift and never feels bogged down. As can be expected, each character has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, as do their enemy counterparts. Although they don't affect combat too much in the lower levels of the game, anyone not paying attention to them later on will find themselves on the nasty end of a fight very quickly.

Each member of the party has an individualized skill tree that allows players a certain amount of customization, or at least it's supposed to. The way it works is fairly standard: each time a character uses a particular skill, one Skill Point is added to that bank in the skill tree. Completion of a new skill opens up the skills under it, with each progressive skill down the tree taking more Skill Points to complete. This is a fairly common setup for an RPG, but unfortunately, TTA dumbs it down too much. Players can backtrack up the tree any time they like, so there are no hard choices to be made. Use a character a lot, use the same skill a lot, and suddenly an entire arsenal of decimating spells is at hand. It's a lot of fun, but it's not terribly challenging.

And therein lies the key problem with TTA: it's fun, but not terribly challenging. It's just too easy to make characters into unstoppable juggernauts, and the AI never quite seems to figure out how to gang up on people. Any player paying attention will figure out a winning strategy after just a few encounters, so while the combat is a lot of fun, offering all sorts of different attack options, it's just never all that difficult. The difficulty setting can be increased, but even then, the chances of failure are practically nil. Complicating matters further is TTA's vague status. Staunch RPG fans will be disappointed by the extremely linear game progression and lack of character depth, while action fans will likely be frustrated by the turn-based combat and the leveling up process. Hopefully, fans of both genres will be able to look past their preconceived notions and give TTA the chance it deserves.

Although Lord of the Rings: The Third Age isn't quite what gamers expected, it has enough tricks up its billowing sleeves to make it worthwhile. Despite its repetitive nature, the combat is fun and addictive, and the storyline is a perfect complement to the movie trilogy. A co-operative mode that can be turned on or off at any time during gameplay, and Evil Mode, which lets players take a turn as members of the forces of Sauron, extend playability and spice things up a bit. TTA might not be quite what we asked for, but it's still awfully darn good.