Here is a game that I never actually got the chance to play until becoming a member here on vizzed, it is a game that has both a lot of selling factors but also a lot of bad things. I don't think you need look further than my username to know that I am a Lord of the Rings fan, although I actually was a fan before the movies were even around and did read all of the books before the movies. This is another game that is more based off of the movies.

   By the title of the game I was actually expecting the games setting to be more directed at events before the main Lord of the Rings story, being as the 3rd age began much before that story, but I was somewhat disappointed when you only visit that time frame at the beginning tutorials and after that the game takes place in the usual Lord of the Rings time frame. For anyone who hasn't already read the books or seen the movies to understand this story then I strongly recommend you go out and do so. For video game players it should nearly be a must because JRR Tolkiens writings played a huge impact on what we now know as the 'fantasy' genre which is hugely popular among video games. Our perception today of what an Elf or Dwarf or Orc or even Troll might be a little different if not for JRR Tolkien.

   The game offers a fresh look on the Lord of the Rings gaming scene from the popular RPG to being a turn based strategy game. The game play is reminiscent of Final Fantasy tactics but also does differ from that formula. Unlike most games of that genre, your units are not all allowed to move once per turn but instead your Hero or Commanding units have a certain amount of Leadership which controls how many times you may move your units in that Commanders zone. Each level has different objectives you must complete for victory, varying from defeating a certain foe or a certain number of foes to capturing and controlling certain key points on the map.

GRAPHICS: 6
   Upon first play of this game, the graphics were the first thing that glaringly stood out. They are really quite poor and leave alot to be expected. If not for the in-game portraits of the characters I think it would be difficult to even decipher the character sprites from their Lord of the Rings persona's. The game was made for the GBA so I feel like their is a certain level of poor graphics to be had for an older hand held game but I feel some other games on the GBA prove that better graphics could be had and that this game is just a very poor representation of the GBA's graphics capabilities.

SOUND: 5
   Yet again this game leaves much to be desired. My first few sittings of the game had me realizing quickly that this was a game you would want to turn the volume down while playing. For people who have seen the movies, you will recognize all of the music because it is the same music from the movies, the problem is, the transfer to the GBAs sound made the music sound loud and annoying.  Normally I love the Lord of the Rings movies soundtracks , but this games music is a butchery of those great compositions. The sound effects are also fairly bland and limited.

ADDICTIVENESS: 9 
   For how many harsh words and critiques I have for this game, I found myself surprised at how quickly I was coming back to it. Being a fan of both strategy games and The Lord of the Rings, this game is just an obvious choice for me.

STORY: 10
   What can I say, from my opinion, The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest book series ever written. I think anyone who enjoys to read alot should have already read these books and same goes for fans of fantasy. I don't want to spoil anything or ramble on forever so I will just leave this category with it's perfect score.

DEPTH: 8
   The game offers many different choices throughout which I think is huge in adding depth to a video game. Once you have beaten the game you can always go back and play again making different choices in which heroes to use etc so that follow up play throughs are fresh and fun. The game covers the events of all 3 Lord of the Rings books unlike many other games which only cover the events of 1 book. You are also given the choice to play on the side of evil or good, effectively creating that much more replayability.

DIFFICULTY: 7
   The game is not extremely hard if you are good at strategy games or have some experience with games like Final Fantasy Tactics or the like. If you do not have much experience in those areas then the game may offer some challenge and you probably will find yourself having to replay certain levels after losing and sort of seeing what you need to do to win. But usually after playing a level and losing on it you can pretty much see what went wrong and make the proper changes to win. For someone who only recently started playing the game it did not take me long at all to fully complete it.

Nice review! Bravo I say!

My goodness sir. Your review is so professionally written it's awesome. I hate it when I get to the story in my reviews because I never want to spoil the story either.

Hey, thank you for the kind words!

It especially means alot coming from you guys because your reviews are also top notch. In all honesty I always hated writing in school and "english class" but I can have alot more fun with it when it is not for an assignment and I'm allowed to choose my topics

You never cease to amaze me. You have quite the potential my friend. Personally I am a huge Lord Of The Rings fan. Before the movies too! I bought this game when it came out. I found it to be a game that I found myself forcing likability into it. But never succeeded. All the things in this review are absolutely brilliant. Keep 'em coming. Have a nice day.