The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first DOS instalment following the J.R.R. Tolkein trilogy that was published by Black Label Games in 2002. The game was released shortly after the first movie of the wildly popular trilogy and remains faithful to the plot of the original story.
Gandalf, Frodo and Aragorn are among the adventurers who must leave the peace and safety of the Hobbitt home, the Shire, through the ravaged lands of Moria to the River Anduin. The heroes must protect the One Ring from an evil presence, Suaron.
His ever-watchful eye follows the heroes’ on their quest, and many obstacles find the paths of these adventurers. True more to the book than the film, orcs, the Black Riders and an impressive Balrog all attempt to keep the fellowship from attaining their goal and destroying the ring. If anything, LOTR’s attempt to follow the book more closely creates a more complete adventure and shows the player many interesting non-playing characters that were never seen in the films. There are some variances, but only real LOTR buffs will notice them, and they do not detract from the value of the game.
LOTR is a third person adventure and plays from the perspective of one of three characters: Frodo, the little Hobbitt with the heart of a warrior;
Gandalf, the graying wizard of great magical ability; or the one king, Aragorn, masquerading as a talented but commons ranger. The user does not actually choose a character to use throughout the course of the game. Rather, he or she takes control over one of those three characters at predefined points in the plot line. Some portions of the puzzle are combat based, whereas others are puzzle and logic oriented, making a nice blend for the gamer and utilizing a nice blend of the talents possessed by the heroes.
The maps of Middle Earth are fairly large and some are done better than others. The lighting and effects are done very well and add to the dark theme of the game. The characters look like one would expect a wizard, warrior and Hobbitt to look. The backgrounds are very well done and show a great amount of detail. The sound for the game should probably have won awards. It features a unique musical score composed just for this release and many impressive sound effects during combat sequences. The controls tend to be a little clunky, and it takes some practice to get used to three different heroes with different abilities interchanging throughout the game, but overall, it is a good action adventure/role playing game. Any fan of the trilogy will love it.
