The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
December 27, 2002

     The Ring of Power has now been found.  It is now being sought after by the Dark Lord Sauron.  And it now lies in the hands of an innocent hobbit, Frodo Baggins.  Play as Frodo, Gandalf, and Aragorn as you overcome dangerous obstacles and battle against the forces of evil.

     First off, I’d like to say that this game is developed by Surreal Software, and not EA.  So don’t get these two mixed up.  This version is based on the books; while Electronic Art’s version is based on the movie.  Therefore, we see such characters as Tom Bombadil, and places, such as the Old Forest.

     Well, I guess I’ll start off with those peevish things, such as that stinkin’ camera.  Yes, I am hyper-sensitive to bad cameras and Surreal’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings takes the cake for being a lousy one.  The camera moves much too quickly, and also, the controls ad to this lousy effect.  You can either use the controls on your keyboard up/down/left/right or w/s/a/d and the mouse acts as your camera.  With this setup, you’re almost guaranteed to come out with a headache!  Lovely!  And also, the way it is set up on the PC, is quite uncomfortable, in my honest opinion.

     The in-game graphics aren’t exactly bad, nor are they good; they are a little below the line of being average.  Though, the cinematic cutscenes are not bad all!  They’re quite good actually.  Yeah, then you put in the lousy voice-acting.  :S…  very terrible.  I believe it seems that all of Tolkien’s characters have perfectly mastered the arts of ventriloquism!  Now, all they need is a dummy to put on their laps… or maybe a hobbit will do…

     Ok, well, I guess The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring as stayed fairly close to the books.  I’d advise only buying this game for that reason only, because otherwise, it is definitely not worth your dough.  But, I’ve only played this game on PC, it may, note may, play better on the Xbox, or Playstation 2 and soon to be Gamecube, where it is also available.  Also, it has come to my understanding that the Xbox and PS2 versions are differentiating by a slight degree, due to the different developers.  Anyways, I’m just waiting for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by EA Games to come out, since this one was quite a disappointment.  So, your choice!

- Bobo

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