After two successful action games sporting
The Lord of the Rings license, EA brings the Peter Jackson
version of Middle-earth to an RPG setting. On paper it's a
perfect fit; you have a genre that's perfect for fantasy
settings coupled with one of the most popular fantasy
settings of all time. Unfortunately, the melding wasn't as
successful as the mystical pairing of chocolate and peanut
butter. That isn't to say that The Third Age is bad, which
certainly isn't the case. The game is a very solid RPG that
dazzles in some places and disappoints in others. It's
hampered and helped by the enormous license it carries.
Sadly, the burden of the license really impacts two aspects
essential to any good RPG: story and character.
It plays very much like a traditional
Japanese RPG. The combat is turn-based, almost all of the
game is linear, and character progression is intricate. It
doesn't try to do anything flashy or new, but rather delivers
tried-and-true game mechanics in a solid way. The game can
take up to 40 hours to complete and there are additional
modes that encourage replay. Unfortunately, I never felt
compelled to give the game another go around because the
characters and story are so banal that I was totally over the
game once I beat it.
See, my biggest issue with The Third Age is
that I don't care about the characters. I never really gave a
damn if they lived or died as I was playing the game. I felt
like I was given the minor league version of The Fellowship,
with archetypes of characters I knew and was interested in
forced into a game. Their names and stories seemed so
irrelevant and uninteresting compared to the real thing. I
might as well have been adventuring with not-Aragorn,
not-Legolas, and not-Gimli. The Third Age is a treat for the
eyes and ears. The visuals are fantastic, much like the other
The Lord of the Rings games. It's a phenomenal re-creation of
Middle-earth that fans will totally drool over. There are
occasional hiccups in animations and an odd texture here and
there, but most people won't notice or care. The soundtrack
is straight from the movie, which is just awesome. The voice
acting is good and the sound effects are tight. Overall, the
production values of this game are exemplary.
There are better RPGs on the market. There are better TLotR
games on the market too. If you've exhausted all those
possibilities, then give The Third Age a shot. At this time,
with so many fabulous games available, only the most hardcore
TLotR fans should buy this game immediately. It's worth
experiencing, but I'd wait for the post-holiday price cut.
