LEGO® The Lord of the Rings™ Review
Not Recommended
Simply awful. A big disappointment.
Awful combat (spam X), unskippable awful cutscenes (that are neither good for LOTR fans nor those unfamiliar with it), stupidly linear chores.
Absolutely linear. Characters various abilities are simple chores you do to progress once, and then switch to the next scene and character.
As someone who liked LOTR, not a die-hard fan though, their take on trying to present the story with a lot of reference/copying of the original scenes and audio, but then trying to make it more casual and funny,. adding "funny" slapstip elements is just awful through and through. It does not deliver anything, and leaves me disappointed in every way possible. And then the cutscenes are slow as ♥♥♥♥ and not skippable, making it a straight up awful experience you can't skip through to the actual gameplay.
The gameplay could be interesting, but ends up being lazy optional lego piece collecting, very linear paths, linear progressions, linear simple puzzles. You'll go through having to use characters special abilities, but only ever just as instructed, shortly, and then the story and character ability instruction goes on. You never get freedom to play as you wish, or with the abilities you want to use further.
It's very easy and very forgiving. If you "die" you get put back or switch to a different character, with a few lego pieces lost. Which is fine. Nothing bad there.
I wouldn't even recommend this to novice players, kids, people who like Lego or LOTR. There's better options or all of those. This product does not deliver in any of them. Even if you like Lego and want to get into gaming, I don't think a linear chore will do the gaming medium justice. We could do better.
Awful combat (spam X), unskippable awful cutscenes (that are neither good for LOTR fans nor those unfamiliar with it), stupidly linear chores.
Absolutely linear. Characters various abilities are simple chores you do to progress once, and then switch to the next scene and character.
As someone who liked LOTR, not a die-hard fan though, their take on trying to present the story with a lot of reference/copying of the original scenes and audio, but then trying to make it more casual and funny,. adding "funny" slapstip elements is just awful through and through. It does not deliver anything, and leaves me disappointed in every way possible. And then the cutscenes are slow as ♥♥♥♥ and not skippable, making it a straight up awful experience you can't skip through to the actual gameplay.
The gameplay could be interesting, but ends up being lazy optional lego piece collecting, very linear paths, linear progressions, linear simple puzzles. You'll go through having to use characters special abilities, but only ever just as instructed, shortly, and then the story and character ability instruction goes on. You never get freedom to play as you wish, or with the abilities you want to use further.
It's very easy and very forgiving. If you "die" you get put back or switch to a different character, with a few lego pieces lost. Which is fine. Nothing bad there.
I wouldn't even recommend this to novice players, kids, people who like Lego or LOTR. There's better options or all of those. This product does not deliver in any of them. Even if you like Lego and want to get into gaming, I don't think a linear chore will do the gaming medium justice. We could do better.