The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

Most of us have read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and all of us have watched the films, but none of us have lived the experience. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is LOTR manifested into an RPG. Being able to use spells and tactics, equip armor and weapons, roam an open world, and watch amazing visual effects have never been the same; and that’s just what The Third Age will bring to the table.

The Third Age is immersed with vivid sound effects and music, and stunning environments. As you walk through the Mines of Moria, low and ghostly music plays in the background, stimulating a sense of realism in the game. Then as you walk a little farther, you can actually see Gandalf battling the Balrog. While at a distance the sound effects from the battle are dim, but as you walk closer, the battle becomes much more dynamic. These types of details are subtle but drive the overall flow of the game. The cut scene of the Balrog, and even when he is just standing waiting for his next attack, is a jaw dropper. The smooth movement of the fire from the Balrog’s back has been taken into extreme detail. There isn’t going to be a usual wave motion where the animation of the fire repeats itself over and over; instead EA created an effect so that every moment won`t repeat itself. These types of painstaking aspects pioneer any previous gaming visuals.

When dealing with character motion in the game, the producers used actual actors and actresses to create real human motions. They captured the body motion, facial motion, and performance of real live people by strapping on intricate suits and attaching bead-like detectors on their faces. Every lift of an eyebrow or wave of the hand is digitized into the characters in the game. For those of you who giggled as you got to watch deleted scenes from the first two LOTR films and soon to be third, this will be an impressive experience. You’ll be able to set down your controller for a few minutes and watch a pleasant, and sometimes enthralling, cut scene. Some of the voices of the characters in the game are actually the same as those in the movie such as Ian McKellen, who plays the voice of Gandalf. Also, textures of the armor and weaponry were developed through much tedious art designing; details down to the hand tooling of a breastplate were drawn out to perfection. Now you’ll have the chance to tailor your characters with genuine armor and weapons straight from the films.

The level of customizing will appear from the armor and weapons you equip your characters with and how you level them up the skill tree. Names, personalities, and the characters (none of which will be the original characters) are already provided. What skills you put into a character is basically your choice. Having a dwarf lay down his family tradition of mastering the axe, and instead master the art of water magic is feasible, and even amusing.

Although EA Games hasn’t told much about the story line we do know that the story of The Third Age parallels the original films. The main character you’ll control in the game will be a Gondor knight; however I wouldn’t expect this knight to be just any ordinary knight. You will every now and then encounter one of the original characters such as Gandalf and Aragorn (such as when Gandalf is fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria).

There will also be many side quests to wander off into to add many more hours of LOTR fun. For those who get bored being the good guy sometimes, you’ll have an opportunity to control Sauruman’s goons periodically throughout the game. These side quests will mostly serve as a relief from the main story line and also a way to get unique items.

Another innovative quality of this game is its genuine environments engendered straight from the movie designs. For example, you’ll be able to explore the innermost parts of Helms Deep right before the battle. Running around a city in other RPGs usually was never taken into consideration, but when the world is LOTR, running around becomes a whole lot more interesting.