Rating: 
Summary: We hatess it, Precioussss, but we lovesssssss it!
Review: Much like Gollum hates and loves himself, I do not know if I despise this game, or absolutely love it. The things it does right it REALLLY does right, but whether from time constraints or sloth, there are some fairly bad flaws as well. I would probably recommend this more for people who are at least somewhat familiar with the book, since people who have only seen the movie will be lost and scratching their heads. (Bombadil and Goldberry, for instance.)The Pros: -Graphics and design are TOP NOTCH
-Walking through Bag End and the Prancing Pony is a dream come true
-Music and sound are immersive
-The character animations are great
-The levels feel very "natural," and are a joy to look at and walk through
-Frodo is kept every bit as weak as he should be The Cons: -Fairly short
-Invisible walls (grrrrrr)
-Camera control is fair at best, and horrid in Moria
-Can't pick which character to use at each level
-Can only use Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo The graphic DESIGN of this game is amazing. I'm not just talking about the resolution. The tables are not simply brown squares with legs. Kegs, beds, trees, and houses, and outfits are all designed exceptionally well. It does not just copy the look of the movie - it creates its own world. Hobbiton was EXCEPTIONAL. I literally spent an hour just walking around Bag End and the Shire. Which is where problem 1 sets in. I want to explore this world- walk through rivers, run through pastures. But no. The frikkin frakkin 'invisible wall' mystically prevents you from exploring, which is a shame. I don't know how loudly gamers will have to shout before designers stop using the invisible wall. It's a pathetic way out of closing off a level. At least have the decency to put a mountain in the way if you don't want us walking across a field. More of the Ringwraiths would have been nice. There are only two places where they can catch you, if memory serves. Once you find Aragorn you get to fight them with a torch (which I loved!), but the "chase" doesn't really translate. It's more like they just pop in now and again for cameos. It also would have been nice to actually control Frodo during the flight to the Ford. Another shame is that certain things of importance are skimmed over or left out. I want to see Rivendell, Caradhras, and Lothlorien in the same level of detail that the Shire is presented to me, but alas, for these areas are "hinted at", and exploration is not an option. You see one room in Rivendell, and one room in Lothlorien. You don't even see Caradhras - Gandalf just says "We tried, and we failed, so we're moving right along! lalalala!" Disappointing does not even begin to cover the feeling. I was looking forward to those areas. Moria, despite the ATROCIOUS camera angles, is the most amazing level I've ever seen in a game. I'm running a GeForce 2 Ultra card, which isn't quite cutting edge, and while I couldn't crank everything full detail, I had it running fairly high and experienced little to no slowdown. The mine shafts look and feel amazing. The way the light from Gandalf's staff splays on the walls... you really feel like you're in the book. Except for the fact that only Gimli is with you for most of it. The cave troll fight where all the members jump into the fray was awesome, and I spent quite some time just watching the two sides slug it out. Other weird complaints - why give Aragorn unlimited arrows? Seems silly. Also silly is that your party members are invincible. Granted- I hate games where you have to "protect" stupid people who jump into a fray and keep dying. But the AI on these guys is decent, and it took away any concern you might have for watching them. I didn't have to fight half, and I didn't have to protect. "Oh, look, Frodo is being devoured by two wolves. Well, I'll just slip away. He'll kill them eventually." Some attempt should have been made to ensure the gamer protects his underlings. In all, this is a game I will definitely play again, mostly because it is phenomenal eye candy. I like to call it "Virtual Middle Earth." As a game, it is lacking in quite a few areas. But as an immersive "Let's walk the paths the Fellowship took," it excels. Maybe the next installment will succeed as both a walking tour AND a game.
Rating: 
Summary: OH God....
Review: This game is.... Aweful. It's like Tomb Raider mixed with Pong. It's buggy. The game itself is terrible. Don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: different angle
Review: Just to let users know. I have the XBoX version of this game. It's pretty challenging and fun. It's a shame many PC users are having problems running it. A colleague of mine has the PC version and is not experiencing any problems running the game. Escaping the Nazgul in the Shire is another matter entirely. The game is more based on the Peter Jackson film with adjustments, storywise. If you love LOTR load up and enjoy. Takes a while though to finish. Whew.
Rating:
Summary: nice game
Review: Not sure wy other people didn't like it. Graphic's were an B+, gameplay was fine. Followed the story pretty close to the movie & book. I think people get confused as MOVIE to Book story. I received it on Xmas day and beat it 5 hours later after installation. I thought it was a little too easy. My 9 year old played it and beat it in 4 days.
Rating: 
Summary: Middle Earth - What more is there.
Review: I really liked this game. It gave you a chance to play a hobbit, aragorn and gandalf. It was fun to explore. I dont know what peoples problem is with the dark rider section of the game. I finished it the first time. Overall a great game
Rating:
Summary: This is awful...
Review: My husband and I have spent so many hours playing this game it isn't funny. We can not even get past what we are terming the second level. We haven't even made it out of Bag End to go on the Quest! The graphics are nice and after you get use to switching camera angles it is easy to use. But we are also having problems with the system requirements - which we DO have as our computer is only a year old - but when we try to use the Ring it throws us out of the whole game! Stay away buyers!
Rating: 
Summary: Not good, but still wasn't that bad.
Review: First of all, I really did not have any problem installing the game. I'm using XP, already had the required DirectX and have a decent NVIDIA video card. The game is extremely buggy though and I can see why people may have had problems on installation. Before getting the patch, the game would at times simply shut down on me (which wasn't so bad since I was saving every five minutes anyway). The scenery, while being gorgeous, has many bugs so that one minute you are fighting and backing up to a wall and the next you are staring at the ceiling wishing the nice orc would just back off for a second to let you get your bearings. The patch I got (not sure the version now) was huge, but did make the game much much more stable, so if you've already bought the game, I highly recommend getting the latest patch. Game play itself I thought was interesting. I didn't find any of the quests too too easy though some are a bit maddening (Why does Frodo need to find clues to find out where his relatives live right off the bat??). They really should have let each of the characters kick and jump. The keyboard and mouse setup is really no problem if you've played an FP games at all since you basically only have a few actions anyway. The story is very very linear and very short. It took me a couple days. I have to say, though that I was enjoying the change of pace from the frantic pace of things like Warcraft and Age of Empires and was disappointed at what seemed to be a very abrupt ending. ( I replayed from the last save just to make sure that I hadn't missed something before the credits rolled.) I can see spending [money]. I can see too, why Amazon.com is giving the...price break!
Rating: 
Summary: Only runs with newest video cards.
Review: Do not buy this game if you have an older PC. I have 2 PCs and I couldn't get it to run correctly on either. One of the PCs is less than a year old. When I wrote to the support people, they told me that the game does require a video card with at least 32MB of video memory (and other requirements). Mine only has 16MB. To be fair, it does say that on the box (in the small print). They should be required to put that in big letters on the front of the box. Especially since you can't return it once you've opened it. I did go out and buy a new video card (PNY Verto with nVidia GeForce4 MX 420 w/ 64MB of video memory ). Now the game seems to be running OK, but I haven't done much yet. It does look good once you get it running. I don't think it's for the hard-core gamer though.
Rating:
Summary: One more thing...
Review: To those who say it follows the story, when the Hell did Sam get captured by a flying Nazgul? What a joke. They butchered the story as well.
Rating:
Summary: Great game for TRUE Tolkien fans!
Review: I love RPGs and this is a great one! All the people complaining about camera angles have nothing to complain about because the gamer controls the camera angles.In addition, anyone who is mad about the story or the voices not being the same as the movie shouldn't have bought the game thinking it was going to be the same. The package said nothing about being "based on the movie." Overall I was very impressed with the graphics, especially the Shire which was beautiful. I also had no problems installing or playing the game on XP. So, those of us who knew Tolkien before Peter Jackson, buy this game! It lets you walk through the Fellowhship as Tolkien wrote it (WITH Tom Bompadil!). Then for those people who only want blood, gore, and big scary monsters; go rent the DVD.
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