The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Fellowship of the Ring
 Keith Nallawalla


This is a game adaptation of the first book by J.R.R Tolkien, Lord of the Rings (LOTR), which has been long awaited by fans. You get to do things and meet characters who were not in the movie but who are in the book.

Description

The game enables you to play as three of the most important members of the Fellowship:
  • Frodo the Hobbit who uses stealth over strength for his parts

  • Aragorn the Ranger who uses his sword and bow to kill those stupid Orcs

  • Gandalf the Wizard who uses his magic and sword



Figure1. Box shot.
There are eight main playing areas to explore and lots of side quests and sublevels in each with more than 28 types of enemy to get in your way.

You get to go to places that were cut from the movie and you meet characters like Tom Bombadil and Old Man Willow and go to places like The Old Forest and The Barrow Downs. You get to do little things like sell your home and deliver the deed to the Sackville-Baggins as Frodo. You find materials to make dummies of the sleeping hobbits; to trick the Ring Wraiths with Aragorn; and with Gandalf you get to solve some other puzzles that weren't exactly in the book but are there to keep the game going.

Frodo and Aragorn

You can sneak around with Frodo and throw rocks to distract and get past Ring Wraiths (Figure 2).

With Aragorn (Figure 3), you can use your sword and bow to fight with as well as kick enemies to stun them. It is more fun to assume Aragorn's character, compared to Frodo because you get to fight many enemies such as Orcs, Ring Wraiths and Trolls as well as killing pretty much everything you encounter in Bree. You can also collect several different materials to make decoy hobbits to distract the Wraiths. At Weather Top you get to use a torch to fight off the Ring Wraiths, who are after Frodo.
 



Figure 2. Frodo.



Figure 3. Aragorn.

Gandalf

Gandalf fights with his sword Glamdring and his staff. He has five spells that he can use either to defend or to attack. Gandalf also gets to fight Orcs and wolves as he makes his way to the entrance to Moria.

In this section you play out parts of the book that were completely skipped from the movie, which makes the game about twice as long as it would have been if it was just based on the movie. The game also has parts that were not in the book but without them the game would be pretty boring.

Another interesting feature of this game is that the other characters are usually invincible and will fight for you if you don't want to waste your health. This is good because at times you may find yourself low on items that heal you such as mushrooms and lembas.

This game is quite good but doesn't have too much replay value (unless you play again to pass all the side quests). Its price varies between $50 and $70.

Reprinted from the June 2003 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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