Lego The Lord of the Rings

'Lego Lord Of The Rings' follows the main trilogy of games, and features dialogue directly from the films, same with the musical score. The cutscenes usually have humorous changes to them such as using fruit for arrows, Sam sleeping with a Teddy Bear, Gandalf's horse collapsing, or orcs ringing the door on the Black Gate for a pizza delivery.

The gameplay is basic. You smash as much as possible, collect studs, build structures, fight enemies and utilise abilities to proceed through the levels. Most of the time, there's no real thought needed for the puzzles.

In terms of combat, you press the attack button until enemies are defeated. There's no block button, and when you lose your hearts, your characters explode and drop some of your collected studs. You are thrown straight back into the action and can recollect your studs if you are quick. These aspects mean there's no real skill or urgency to the combat system.

The game feels quite clunky overall. The character switch button moves between nearest characters rather than cycling through all the ones available. So if you have Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin; you don't cycle through them. If Frodo and Sam are near each other, you seem to just switch between those. Holding the button brings up a radial menu so you can select the character you want.

Some characters have much more to do than others. Legolas can jump higher, shoot arrows to knock down objects, and create handholds. Gimli has loads of objects to smash. Sam can grow plants, and set fires which is used quite a lot. Aragorn is usually a main character in LotR games, but here he is no way as important as Gimli and Legolas.

The building and item usage was also clunky. You hold B to build, but you also hold B to bring up your inventory. Often I brought up my inventory because I wasn't standing pixel perfect with the blocks.

The level design can be a bit different to other Lego games I have played. There is a level where you essentially move left to right, finding a distraction for the Nazgûl before being allowed to move forward. This has a slight stealth aspect when the Nazgûl is patrolling. Small parts to other levels see you running away from something, or automatically charging on a horse, and you just have to move left, right or jump.

You return to a overworld between each level. You can run around finding secrets and completing quests. This aspect does a good job of making you feel you are on an epic journey, travelling across Middle Earth.

There are plenty of levels which will take you 8 or so hours to get through. Once the main story line is over, you are allowed to switch into any of your unlocked characters. Most of the secrets can only be obtained by replaying the levels with different characters.

The graphics are a bit strange in the fact that it seemed quite dark for a Lego game. The other problem is that it makes use of blurring for distance, so it lacks the sharp/bold look. There are a few moments where the frame-rate chugs as well.

I think with most Lego games, your amount of fun probably comes down to how many of these you have played, and how much you like the licence.