If you've ever played a LEGO game before then you already know exactly what to expect from LEGO The Lord of the Rings. There are no surprises here. Having said that, this is a fun and well-made game that fans of "The Lord of Rings" films will enjoy. Of particular interest is the overworld which allows you to walk from one end of Tolkien's Middle Earth to the other with no loading screens. Not at first, of course, since certain parts of the map will be locked off until you've completed the requisite story level, but once you've finished the story mode, you can walk from Hobbiton straight through to Mount Doom without stopping. It's not to scale, so the trip will only take you a few minutes, but it's still very cool, and the sights along the way will be familiar to fans of both the books and the movies.
The individual levels are very enjoyable and contain lots of puzzles and secrets, most of which can't be accessed your first time through since they require the right character, so you'll want to go back and play them again in Free Play mode which gives you access to every character on your roster; however, you may want to wait until you've beaten the game because then you'll have every character you need to tackle every challenge, and finishing the game isn't hard since it's virtually impossible to fail. If your character dies, you lose some studs (LEGO currency that you use to buy special unlockables) and your character is immediately resurrected on the spot, so even the most ham-handed gamer should have no trouble being able to make it to the final cutscene.
LEGO games are known for their humor, but I was somewhat surprised at just how funny these cutscenes are. Since they use dialog from the movies themselves, the animators had to be creative, and there are endless visual gags like the possessed King Theoden briefly nodding off while talking and Grimma Wormtongue elbowing him in the ribs to get him talking again, or Lurtz taking down Boromir with bananas and chickens fired from his bow (trust me, you'll never look at Borormir's climatic scene the same way again). Who knew that the films' relentless severity lent themselves to so much humor?
The game looks good with its colorful, high resolution textures and lighting effects. We're not talking Arkham City quality, of course, but it does the job, and the music is great because it's taken straight from the Howard Shore soundtrack, so no complaints there. I did run into several minor glitches throughout the game, such as characters getting stuck in the level geometry or suddenly freezing in place while the game carried on around them forcing me to restart from a checkpoint, but this was relatively rare. Finally, multiplayer works great with the innovative dynamic splitscreen, and my boys had fun playing through the game with me. I might even go so far as to say that this is the recommended way to play.
Buy this game if you're a fan of LEGO games and "The Lord of the Rings", but if you've had your fill of LEGO games then move along because there's nothing to see here.