The Lord of the Rings: The Third age is spectacular but lacks depth and proper ending.

User Rating: 7.3 | The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age PS2
Lord of the Rings the third age certainly outdoes itself on clips and voices from the three Lord of the Rings films though. Despite all this bang it is not worthy bearing the title, The Lord of the Rings. This game is an interesting take on the war of the ring as you play as six different characters none of which are in the movies or books. The main character in which this RPG's action revolves around is Berethor, a good, strong man, once from the Kingdom of Gondor. Throughout the story you slowly learn more of his past. The player also gets to fight all the major battles in the movies.

This game had all the potential of being great, even with its surprisingly Final Fantasy X like combat system. The game however leaves no explanation of its obsered ending which transports your characters instantly and without explanation from outside a major city of Gondor, Minas Tirith, suddenly to the top of a giant tower where Sauron (the enemy) dwells. The ending makes no attempt to wrap us stories with your character’s and simply ends with a narration from one of the movies actors and a movie clip.

Aside from the sucky ending the game plays fairly well. The combat system isn't the most original it's by no means not fun to play. Your characters level up, collect new items ect as in any other RPG. The frame-rate is not so great but it’s always at a playable level and there are few spots where one would notice it decline. The voice acting from the movies is very good although a lot of the lines are rather corney and stupid, had this game had a better script the sound would have been fantastic.

All in all LOTR: The Third Age is not worth the original fifty dollar price tag but if one finds it on sale for twenty or thirty dollars it is a fun experience to keep one occupied for several weeks.