Genre: RPG
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: EA Games
Expect to pay: £5 - £10
Release dates: 05/11/04 (EU), 02/11/04 (US), 22/12/04 (JP)
Graphics: 7 ouf of 10
The Third Age features decent graphics that do a pretty good job of representing the various races as they were portrayed in Peter Jackson's movie trilogy, but they're not quite up there with the best that the Gamecube has to offer. Everything is just a little grainy and textures can look a little low res and bland at times. The different races such as the goblins, dwarfs, elves and urukhai do feel authentic however, as do the various bits of armour and weapons that you can equip.
Some of the bosses are impressively large, such as the Watcher in the Water, the Cave Troll and the dreaded Balrog. Separate from the in game graphics are well over 100 clips taken from the films, and while this is all recycled material it does help to immerse you into the world, especially combined with the sound and music...
Sound and Music: 9 out of 10
The Third Age is absolutely crammed full of music taken straight from the fantastic movie soundtracks composed by Howard Shore. In addition, the aforementioned snippets taken from the films feature newly recorded voice overs from Sir Ian McKellan, and go a long way indeed to creating the atmosphere in the game. The rest of the voice cast is decent enough, but not in the same league as Gandalf himself. Sound effects are also straight samples from the movie trilogy, by and large, so also sound exactly as you would expect. Overall the sound and music contributed in a major way to my enjoyment of the game as a whole.
Game Mechanics: 6 out of 10
For the most part The Third Age plays just like any other bog standard turn based Japanese RPG, and doesn't deviate too far from that template. There are a few minor touches here and there that are quite neat, such as a variety of different special powers that can be earned in an order of your choosing. You earn points towards these abilities by using weaker abilities in the same class. For example your ranger character has a whole set of archery related abilities that he can learn. Some of them dish out damage to single or multiple opponents, some are strong against a particular type of enemy such as orcs, and others buff your party of debuff you enemies.
One thing that did get quite irritating for me is the sheer frequency of things that take you out of the game and into the menus, like levelling up, equipping new armour or viewing the many video clips. These did get less frequent as the game went on, but in the early going it seemed like I was pressing start and distributing stat points after every battle. If the Lord of the Rings licence hadn't been present I probably wouldn't have persevered very far with this game, but I'm a sucker for wizards and magical doodads, so I was hooked.
Innovation and Cleverness: 4 out 10
The Third Age really brings very little to the genre, but I'll give it a few points for giving many Lord of the Rings what they want - namely a Final Fantasy style RPG wearing the skin of their favourite film trilogy. This in itself was enough to keep my attention.
Value and Replayability: 5 out of 10
The game itself is nice and cheap these days, but it's debatable whether you would ever want to play it again once you've completed it. It's more a game you'd pick up on the cheap, play once and then forget about.
Overall: 7 out of 10 - Recommended
As I've said several times already, the only reason this game is really worth a second glance is because of the Lord of the Rings licence. So if you're not a fan of LOTR, then you will most likely be bored to tears. Those who are should grab a copy, play it through, and then resell it on eBay.
