The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (Game Boy Advance) Review

By Nick Cheesman 31.12.2004

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Right, now that is out of the way, it is time to address EA's obvious copying of other games and slapping their franchises over the top of them. The console version of Third Age copied Final Fantasy X and the GBA version used the strategy format of Fire Emblem. Now if EA had stolen ideas and then made a bad game (See GoldenEye: Rogue Agent) the complaints thrown at EA would have some decent ground. But the fact EA have taken a winning formula and then placed it in Middle Earth to make a decent game, the complaints end now.

At first look at the Third Age's box art, you notice one difference between the GBA and GC version. Accompanying Gandalf on the bridge of Khazadum are the original members of the Fellowship; Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli. None of EA's Middle Earth heroes are anyway near the GBA version, and that is definitely a good start, as EA's tale to leech off Tolkien's masterpiece focused more on taking players to areas the past two games did not go to but the films did. However the GBA version focuses solely on the events you saw in the film; every small battle is playable from the Battle of Helms Deep, to the final battle at that Black Gate of Mordor. Along with some levels EA made up for good measure.

Unlike all the other Lord of the Rings games, Third Age is now set up in a strategy like way in a similar vein to Advance Wars or Fire Emblem. Each level is a battle field, with units on either side and taking turns between moving and making units attack. To have so many units on screen at once, you would have thought the backdrops would have been cut down, but instead you will be surprised to see great detail in the majority of missions. Contoured and textured grounds, littered with arrows, the ruins of old buildings and structures and even the odd dead Mumakil or Wytherwin are the detail that puts you right on Middle Earth. Although some levels are not as impressive with only dull colours and speckled grounds as a background, the rain effects and character models themselves draw away from this.

Aiming to give a 3D feel, soldiers and troops sway to and fro, with banners flailing in the wind and shadows reflecting on the ground. While the models look slightly blurred and lacking detail from battlefield view, start a fight with someone and the models impress once more, with the various members of the Fellowship actually resembling the actors. The animations too are very effective with fluid sword swipes and painful body reactions. (Watch one orc general do a flip midair.) The only flaws with the graphics are that when a new turn begins you might notice it takes a few seconds to return to the standard game and various structures can also cause problems. Some are so large that you can loose units behind them, and with no way of cycling through troops, you have to physically find them by highlighting blocked from view squares. At other times units disappear from view when next to structures, which is something that should have been addressed before release.

Something that is particularly impressive is how the whole Lord of the Rings soundtrack composed by Howard Shore has made it into the game, admittedly in a toned down form, but the blare of war trumpets and drums do complete the whole authenticity of the experience. Even the grunts and sword strikes sound as if they have been lifted from the movie. Sadly some sound very strange; highlight some units and they will yelp in pain, as if actually fighting something brings immense torment to them. Also, while the most of the members of the Fellowship have sound bites from the actual actors, some are lacking this luxury. Plus Legolas gives an odd babble when you select him, and although probably some form of Elvish, it does sound a bit stupid.

Based around the usual strategy gameplay, each level is split into flanks, shown by an obvious orange line, right, left and centre. The aim of the game is to move your troops in each flank close enough to the enemy and when a sword icon appears on an orc that said soldier can give him a good slap with a sword. However, the amount of soldiers you can move varies on the amount of command points you are given at the beginning of each turn, and this command points vary on a number of things. Firstly is the hero you have in that flank, anyone from Gimli to Faramir can be chosen, but really you will probably only alternate between a few, as some of the heroes, namely Eowyn and Theoden, seem to be useless in every aspect. (Bravery, which determines how strong your troops fight in that flank and Leadership, how many command points you can possibly get.) If your hero dies the maximum command points you can get will be 1, but if your enemy has a turn where he kills a large selection of your men, there will be less command points to obtain, and it works both ways. However at other times the distribution of points seems to never be in your favour, while the enemy always seems to be lucky. Free moves are also given at completely random moments, usually every turn, and other events take place during battles, if you are on the edge of defeat but hang on despite being overpowered, your troops will rally together, and you will be gifted with more command points.

Killing orcs and other less savory creatures can be done through melee attacks by being next to an orc, or long ranged attacks, which can be done over a relatively large distance, though arrow shots from a long distance usually miss. When you attack, the game reverts to a platform with the attacker and victim, giving an animation of the attack and HP taken. Though there is a little more to it than this; as you level up heroes by getting experience from killing orcs and buy upgrades of weapons, items and skills, you can use said skills and items in battle to do various things from increase attack, replenish HP or reduce enemy defense. The terrain can also be used to your advantage, stick archers on a ridge and they will be able to easily pick people off, but attack orcs in trees and the foliage will make them difficult to attack. But most of the time, you will barely notice the terrain advantages.

But not every mission is simply kill all your opponents units, to win a mission you have to get the necessary amount of points, which you only win by completing objects. These include killing enemy units, heroes, getting units on flags or simply holding a position for a set amount of turns. In fact, the only missions that grow tiresome are the ones where you have to kill every unit due to how much they drag on, but free from those objectives you can do anything you want, send in your horseman to take out the Mouth of Sauron first and then pick off his goblins with your archers or kill the Witch King with your undead army and cover them with your rangers. The freedom to take on levels which ever way you choose means that although you will loose a lot to begin with, the game never ceases to be fun. The only problem is that you only play half the time, and the other half is spent watching the computer move. This is alright at first when the computer has only two or three units to move, but when it gets 6 points each turn, it is easy to put the GBA down and do something else while the computer gets on with its go. A skip option would have been good, especially in the larger battles (Most of them), as it is not necessary to actually watch the computer attack at all.

The game is actually quite tough, especially in Sauron mode where if one of your heroes dies, they do not resurrect after the next the mission, they stay dead. And although there are a large amount of levels on offer, the later levels become more of a chore due to kill everyone objectives. However with a great two player hot seat mode, taking turns with the GBA, a link up and a wireless mode, the Third Age can last a fair while, though the extras of a new mode and two new levels are not very impressive.

Cubed3 Rating

8/10
Rated 8 out of 10

Great - Silver Award

Rated 8 out of 10

Some may argue that this is simply Fire Emblem set in Middle Earth, but that does not make it any less enjoyable and any less fun. I personally never would have played a strategy game before, but the Lord of the Rings franchises eased me into the genre, and then the brilliant gameplay kept me there. At last, a decent Lord of the Rings game. Cheers EA.

Developer

Griptonite

Publisher

EA

Genre

Turn Based RPG

Players

2

C3 Score

Rated $score out of 10  8/10

Reader Score

Rated $score out of 10  10/10 (1 Votes)

European release date Out now   North America release date Out now   Japan release date Out now   Australian release date Out now   

Comments

Comments are currently disabled

Subscribe to this topic Subscribe to this topic

If you are a registered member and logged in, you can also subscribe to topics by email.
Sign up today for blogs, games collections, reader reviews and much more
Site Feed
Who's Online?
Azuardo, Dragon0085, mikem52

There are 3 members online at the moment.