The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.7 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Andrew Park
• Reviewed on: 10/24/2002
• Released on: 10/22/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (PC) Review

Thanks to last year's blockbuster motion-picture adaptation, author J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels are an extremely hot property--the kind that people put on T-shirts, on collectible cups at fast-food restaurants, and even in computer games. But Black Label Games' The Fellowship of the Ring is officially based on the fantasy novel rather than the movie and carries the approval of Tolkien Enterprises, so you'd think that the computer game would be more than a cheap rush job to earn some quick cash. You'd be right. You might also expect it to be an even more faithful adaptation of the novels than the film--one that even the stuffiest Tolkien enthusiasts will enjoy. Unfortunately, thanks to Fellowship of the Ring's limited gameplay, only true Tolkien enthusiasts will enjoy the game for very long.

The Fellowship of the Ring, which is a third-person action adventure game, gets off to a good start. The PC version has a simple control scheme that's reminiscent of a first-person shooter and has a true first-person mode that can be used to aim at enemies from a distance. Over the course of the game, you can play as one of three characters, the kindly hobbit Frodo Baggins, the elderly wizard Gandalf, and the tall, solemn ranger Aragorn, though you'll also eventually travel with the dwarf Gimli, the elf Legolas, the human Boromir, and the hobbits Sam Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck, and Pippin Took in your quest to bring the evil One Ring to Mordor and destroy it. The game also has a simple inventory system that automatically pauses the game when accessed and lets you cycle through your active character's inventory to find an item you may need to solve a puzzle or use a healing item or magic spell.

Fellowship of the Ring is also a good-looking game. Many of the game's environments are huge: The outdoor areas are composed of grassy, rolling hills, and the subterranean mines of Moria, which your party will eventually explore, feature impressive architecture that suggests the huge underground hallways from both the books and the film. The game also does a decent job with its character models, each of which bears a considerable resemblance to the characters in the movie. Though they're animated expressively in the game's in-engine cinematics, their movement tends to be a bit stiff in the actual game, and their textures tend to be simplistic, making them look rather ugly up close in the cutscenes. In addition, the game's character models suffer from some rather embarrassing graphical glitches, including problems with polygon clipping (the elf-queen Galadriel's hair clips into her shoulders and out through her chest, for instance), and from the game's third-person camera perspective. Fellowship of the Ring's camera has a tendency to get stuck on walls, which isn't much of a problem in the outdoor areas but is very problematic once your party reaches (and spends a considerable part of the game in) the mines of Moria--the camera tends to get stuck on walls and often completely obscures you, leaving you at the mercy of angry orcs that you can't fight properly because you can't see anything other than the nearest wall looming in front of you.

At least the game sounds fairly good. The game's voice acting is generally decent, though if you've seen the movie, you might expect the game to have more fake British accents than you can shake a stick at, and you'd be right. Some characters, like Frodo, sound decent enough, while others, like the overly grim, overly melodramatic Aragorn, are a bit overdone. The game's sound effects are adequate, but not especially memorable, and unfortunately, the developer didn't capitalize on the opportunity to make good use of 3D sound in the cavernous mines of Moria--echoing footsteps and orc battle cries might have sounded that much more menacing and exciting. Fortunately, the game has a great symphonic soundtrack that changes on the fly when you're exploring peacefully or are under attack. The music is generally quite good and appropriate to the game, and though it might not be memorable, it's certainly not annoying either.

Continue reading

Compare prices for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

This product is currently not in stock at any of our online merchants.

Email me when this product is available