Lord of the Rings: The Third Age Reviews
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Three films to rule them all, several places to buy them. One developer to make the games, and one holiday to find them (under the tree!). The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is a great ending to a great run of games. The length would almost be intimidating if this wasn't an RPG. I beat The Two Towers in less than two days. The Return of the King didn't take me much longer. I didn't keep track of the time I spent with The Third Age, but one thing's for certain you can't beat this game in a few nights. You could play it continuously, use a strategy guide and rush through every level and still have a hard time finishing it that quickly. This is an RPG, and a Final Fantasy-sized one at that. Take your time and enjoy it.
The second is at RPGFan with an overall score of 76%:
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is by no means a first-rate game. It is a good RPG for the casual gamer and maybe for the Lord of the Rings modern-media fan, but anyone who seriously enjoyed, say, Xenogears will have an incredibly difficult time enjoying this little scrap of meat. It's pretty, it sounds nice, and it has all the trappings of a Lord of the Rings product, but it ultimately lacks substance. Again, recognizing that EA isn't entirely too experienced in the world of RPG creation, this isn't too bad of a first attempt. However, I must say that paying retail price for a game like this is simply a disastrous move. There is minimal replay value, and it is already a fairly short game. There are better games with which to spend your time. It's worth a rental or two, or purchased for a discount or used price at best. Again, this is just my opinion, but I do think I know what I'm talking about when I say this isn't one of the world's finest RPGs.
The third is at GameCube Europe with an overall score of 8.2/10:
The '˜why fix it if it ain't broke'-method works to some agree in Third Age, the gameplay is solid with very few flaws. Redwood created a magnificent detailed Middle Earth, and fans of LOTR will be pleased because of that. Yet for those who regularly play RPG's the game offers nothing you have seen before, it suffers from repetitiveness and a more than mild difficulty level.
The fourth is at Digital Entertainment News with an overall score of 7.9/10:
So as a total package, who is going to enjoy this more? Those that are in love with the films? Sure, of course. The people who've never seen the films but are a big fan of the genre should get a kick out of this as well. All in all it's a very solid RPG with a heavy emphasis on combat, with some fixable elements. Like I said though, for a first outing into the wide world of turn-based RPGs, Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is a big success.
And the fifth is at PSX Nation with an overall score of 7/10:
All the elements are in place for The Third Age to deliver a knock-out LOTR RPG experience. Yet the sum of its well-constructed parts isn't half as exciting or fun as advertised. The cakewalk difficulty, absence of key characters from the book/movie and uneven control schemes (turn-based battles geared toward melee combat) overwhelm one's gaming senses more than the detailed visuals (character animations are off though) and stellar audio. Rent this one to be safe, or buy it blindly if you love anything and/or everything Tolkien.
