 |
Mommy, I'm Lost.
|  | | | | The Mines of Insipid Puzzles. No wonder Gandalf didn't want to come here. Note stupid red circle in the upper left. It tells me something has seen me and is about to attack. Meanwhile, nothing is attacking. | |
The game world is often confusing to get around in. You can run up some hills but not others, and
there are a lot of little blind-end gullies scattered about for you to
pointlessly run down. There are plenty of "invisible walls" in the outdoor
areas. Moria has a nice sense of scale attached to it, at least. You'll no
doubt get to appreciate it at some point, since some areas are connected only
by a little board or path over a yawning abyss, and you can't always rotate the
annoying camera to see it below you. Or it may not be there at all, and you
have to – ugh – jump. It's like the lead developer looked at his
Action/Adventure Gaming Cliché Checklist, realized there were no jumping bits,
and had them remove a couple of planks. There are a couple of features in the
game that you will only use once or sparingly, so occasionally referencing the
game manual is recommended if/when you get stuck. This is mostly due to the
fact that the game has pitiful few puzzles, so few that that you'll forget
you're supposed to occasionally solve them. I mean, after several screens of
running along some fucking trail killing orcs and shit, doing nothing else of
interest, this game feels more like a fucking coin-op arcade game than a
so-called adventure game. Either way, the few puzzles you do get are abysmally
stupid, unless hitting screamingly obvious switches counts as a
cleverly-crafted brainteaser to you, dumbass. Except one that sort of isn't,
and by that time you're so brain-dead from the rest of the game, it will feel
like you're trying to untie the Gordian Knot and you forgot you could use your
hands.
If You Want To Do Something Gayer At This Point, Join An All-Male Nude Oil Wrestling Circuit.
|  | | | | When you get to this scene, prepare for pain of the gayest kind imaginable. | |
In the novels, everyone ends up singing at some point. Tolkien didn't just write the greatest
fantasy epic of all time, he also wrote the greatest (er, only) fantasy epic musical
of all time. So in FotR the novel, the Hobbits' encounter with Tom Bombadil
doesn't seem much fruitier than the rest of story, relatively speaking. In the
game, however, it's horribly, HORRIBLY queer. Bombadil kills Old Man Willow
by singing to it (after you beat on it for awhile). He then immediately makes
you kill dozens of large spiders to collect lilies for him to give to Goldberry.
Pick 'em yourself, you bearded cunt; helping strangers to get laid goes against
my genetics. Then, if all that wasn't gay enough (and it was), he takes
to you to his house, where he sings again as Goldberry "dances" (if you call a
sad rendered Poser in a green dress turning slowly in circles and flailing its
arms dancing). Has dancing ever looked anything but embarrassingly stupid in
any game ever? My friend and I were both playing it, and we looked at each
other like one of us had just suggested mutual masturbation, without being sure
which one of us had actually said it. He left me to play the game alone at that
point, both of us feeling confused and ashamed.
Could it get any worse? Sure. After you kill the Barrow Wight (which attacks by barfing green
mist on you, then teleporting. Did I read the right book?), Tom shows up again
and he and Frodo sing to each other. I started crying. I've been at less
gay and more entertaining AIDS marches. Thank God soon after this I get be
Aragorn; anything besides having to be a faggot midget warbling in front of
some fruit in a Keebler Elf costume while his spaced-out skank does the
Hokey-Pokey. Jesus.
Boring, Confusing, Gay, and Mostly Pointless. Hey, It Is Based On The Book!
|  | | | | Speak with Galadriel, so that you can go speak to Galadriel. Again. Frodo just can’t get enough of this bug-eyed bitch. | |
Part of the "fun" in playing this game is figuring out what the fuck you're supposed to do at
certain points of the game. Some parts have you fight a boss (Old Man Willow,
the Swamp Beast or whatever it is, the Balrog) in a confined space, and you
have to do a certain thing or combination of things to beat it. Have fun
guessing what those things are, I sure did. God forbid a game that gives you
insipid text tutorials at the beginning of the game provides you the slightest
fucking clue how to beat a giant beast that immediately begins pounding on your
ass. I died a lot, what else is new. The best bit was during the fight with the
Balrog. Naturally, your character at that point is Gandalf and during the
fight, Aragorn shouts "Gandalf, take this!" and hands you nothing. It actually
serves as a distraction so the Balrog can nail you; who does that fucker
Aragorn really work for? Actually, you can't even reach Aragorn; he's standing
with the rest of the fellowship on a rock, directly in the line of the Balrog's
fireballs. Don't worry, he won't die; none of the characters can die when
you're not playing them (except for an eyeball-bulgingly frustrating "Defend
Frodo" bit at Weathertop). They actually help out in combat during certain
points of the game. I usually just ran ahead until I came across an enemy, then
retreated behind my comrades and let them soften it up. Stupid. After the
battle with the Balrog (which has its own edgy charm to it, since you know that
even if you win, you lose), you get to relax for a bit as you are treated to
four cut scenes in a row, unless you count an unbelievably pointless
in-game bit literally consisting of walking away from Galadriel to go down a
ladder to speak to…um, Galadriel again.
Wait a Minute, No It Isn't.
|  | | | | I said this game was based on the book! I never saw the film, honest! | |
So this game is based on the book, which explains why the Balrog looks exactly
like the one in the film. Yeah, yeah, the cave trolls are different, big deal.
But then so do the Mines of Moria, even down to the columns of the
albeit-reduced-in-size Great Hall or whatever they call it. Also, the Ringwraiths
look exactly as in to-the-letter as they did in the film when Frodo sees
them with the Ring on at Weathertop. Tom Bombadil's insufferably gay presence
doesn't alter those facts, just like Aragorn looking different doesn't alter
the fact that the in-game Legolas looks like Orlando Bloom and Gimli looks like
John Rhys-Davies. Or that they never even made this stupid game until the film
came out. Wasn't the book written like a hundred fucking years ago?
|  | | | | This shot has nothing to do with the ending of the game. But then, the ending of the game has nothing to do with the book. Or the film. This shot is actually a death screen, and you may as well get used to it now. | |
Uh, Maybe It Isn't Based On Either Of Them.
I may have been partially braced for the fruitiness of Bombadil, the martial
ineptitude of Frodo, and the crash-course plot distillation, but one thing I
wasn't expecting from this game was this: it has a surprise ending. I
won't give it away beyond saying that the last part of the game apparently
takes place in Pern, and I'd rather read all of McCaffrey's shitty novels than
have to replay that stupid fucking part. And right before that bit, you have to
do the second-to-last bit twice, for the fucking flimsiest of reasons
I've ever seen. It's quite a feat to make a game that you can finish in an
afternoon and it still makes you wonder aloud When is this piece of shit over
already? by the end.
Anything Else You'd Care To Hate About This Game?
Why, yes, thanks for asking. Included with the game is a CD of the game's music. It
blows. The president of Enya's fan club would call it too faggy and pointless.
Get the film's soundtrack if you must, it's better (and it does have Enya
on it, for better or worse). The game manual has a few pages in the back for
notes (what sort of notes you'd be prompted to make are beyond me), but they're
on a near-black background picture of the Shire or some fucking thing, which
makes writing on them impossible unless you borrow your little sister's Krazy Colorz
pen set. Thanks, faggots. Many parts of the game take forever to load, and if
you accidentally leave an area too soon (exits frequently look like random
hallways), you often can't go back without reloading. Many of the cut scenes stutter,
and the developers are way too fond of the sound of chirping crickets. Nothing
builds suspense like a cacophony of bad music and a constant buzz of
CRICKEECRICKEEECRICKEE until your ears want to hemorrhage out of spite.
Lighting is often horrible too; moonlight will strobe from fairly bright to
next to nothing if you move behind a tree. Running in a forested area at night
is like being in a nightclub, OOUH OOUH!
What's The Verdict?
This game sucks. Don't get it for the PC. If you get it for PS2, rent it or borrow
it off your smelly LotR fan buddy. Do not buy it. If you already bought it, at
least it won't put you out for too long to play it. Now, there's the dilemma:
is it more of a waste to own it and not play it, or suffer through it if only
for a day or two? Beats me.
 Bill Dungsroman
|
|
