I'll be straightforward with you, and tell you that I am a Tolkien purist. That said, this game is a purist's nightmare. As I progressed through the game, I found myself shuddering at events and cringing at the names of the items I was receiving. Now, I know this is an attempt to combine all the adventure of the three films while placing the player in a completely new adventure. The trouble is, the events of the game are directly parallel to the game. You start off near Rivendell, travel through Moria, over Rohan and eventually come to Minas Tirith. I know this is EA's first attempt at an RPG, and I applaud their effort. The finished product, however, could have been quite a bit more. As a result, I can only recommend this game to casual LotR fans and gamers who are trying to get into RPG's.
Critical to both LotR and a good RPG, the story is strangely absent from this game. you essentially run around Middle-earth with a second-rate fellowship of Men, Elves and Dwarves fighting the same monsters over and over again. The characters are literally devoid of actual character, in fact, I found myself calling the Dwarf Gimli instead of his real name, Hadhod. The big scenes are taken from the movie, which allows the game no true creativity. A separate adventure should not consist of the same scenes we've been watching for two games and three movies. You begin the game as Berethor, a Gondorian soldier looking for Boromir. You then begin your 'quest', which is a few vague objectives that keep you moving towards the next big scene. Ugh, and what a chore that big scene can become.
Have you ever played Final Fantasy X? Or any Final Fantasy game for that matter? No? Damn, I'll have to explain it then. Your party consists of three characters, while they can all be rotated with the other three not fighting. fighting takes place through random battles, is menu-based, and turn-based, exactly like Final Fantasy X. You push up your down to select a command, and then push X to execute it. As I stated, the battles are turn-based, so you won't have to worry about enemies attacking you while you're trying to figure out what to do. Thank god for this. You see, Final Fantasy X had a turn-based system in order to create a strategic style of play using all the different skills of it's diverse characters. EA must not have realized this, since all your characters, with the exception of one, end up becoming attackers. This creates a very dull experience, since you hack the same enemies over and over again, and then call in the dumb Elf to heal. Sure, you hacked through the same enemies over and over again in any RPG. No... no, no, no. In any given area, there are Orcs, Uruk-hai, trolls and wargs, and several variations of them. You fight them all game long. Granted, this is the nature of LotR, but EA could've had a quicker battle system by not allowing the enemies to be so fast.
In many battles, the enemy party will attack you 5-6 times before only one of your characters gets a chance. You can't be strategic if you only get one move out five. I assume this was done to hide the fabulously easy difficulty of this game. If you can get through the devastation of the opening of a fight (the enemy nearly always attacks first), and throw a few spells down, you have no chance of dying. None whatsoever. In the later stages of the game, there are endurance type battles where you have to fight a series of them without saving or having access to a menu. This would be a good idea, since it works great with most RPG's, but it fails miserably in this game. The first time I encountered this was at Helm's Deep. After I realized how to take out the enemies, it was just a matter of waiting for a move. They had no chance of killing me, and I had no chance of killing them quickly. I became very bored... the first time I have ever been bored when doing something involving Helm's Deep. They try to spice it up a bit by throwing in some characters in the movie into your party for a limited time, like Legolas, Faramir and Gandalf.
One of the few things I enjoyed about the game was a warning when a random battle is about to occur. Rather than flashing directly to a battle, the corner of the screen starts to glow with Sauron's eye, and as you get closer, it gets bigger. There's no good way to avoid battles like this, but it does make sure you're prepared. If you die in a battle, it's your own fault. I also enjoyed the fact that armor and weapons actually changed the appearance of your character. It was really cool to see all the characters keep getting upgraded, and some of the armor is very cool, especially Hadhod's dragon mask. These little tidbits aside, this game just isn't a good RPG. If you're just a newcomer to the genre, it may not seem that bad, and in fact, it isn't. But once you move onto Final Fantasy and Suikoden and such, you'll see just how much this game is lacking.
The graphics are cool, for the most part. I don't think they're as good as the one found in EA's Return of the King, since most of the areas in The Third Age are wide open, thus less detailed. The characters are quite pleasant to look at, the creatures especially. The Balrog is easily the best, as it spawns this blackness about it that looks totally believable. But it has wings. This is blasphemy. The graphics obviously don't begin to come close to Final Fantasy, especially since most of the story is told through clips from the movies. Granted, this is a movie tie-in, but what kind of RPG doesn't have some kind of flashy CG or anime cutscenes sprinkled throughout the game? The sound is great, just as it was with Return of the King. The voices of the main characters are acceptable, and the musical score is brilliant. My only problem is that the game takes lines from the movie and puts them in a different situation. Bad, bad move EA.
There's a few difficulty options, and an Evil Mode, but there's nothing about this game that makes you want to play it more than once. The world is extremely limited, which negates any exploration and sidequests of any length. After EA created the brilliant Return of the King, I would have preferred that they stay the course, rather than change the formula. If they had wanted to expand, they could have done a hack-n-slash in the vein of Dynasty Warriors. Instead, we get a feeble attempt at an RPG, attempting to cash in on the LotR franchise and the fact that it's and RPG. For shame, EA. If you are a LotR fan, and especially if you're a Tolkien fan, do NOT get this game. You'll be pointing out the inaccuracies for months on end. If you're just getting into RPG's, this really isn't all that bad of a place to start. It's as simple as an RPG can possibly get without being a slasher. Anyone else, just get Return of the King, or Final Fantasy X or X-2 if you need an RPG fix.