This weekend I started to play the Lego game, Lord of the Rings for the Xbox 360. Since I have not done a blog for a couple of weeks, I thought I would change it up and give something resembling a review (of sorts) of this game. True, it is six months old, but its finally reached budget status which I know is important to a lot of gamers on limited funds. So let’s take a look, shall we?
A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Lego:LORD was down to twenty bucks on Amazon with the usual shipping perks because I have a Prime membership which is a wonderful thing (and also terrible to my wallet). At that time, I also noticed a third party fulfillment that was $17.99. However, it was snatched up before I could hit refresh, so I decided to wait. This was not because I was not willing to pay $20 but more like I was not ready to play the game yet.
Anyway, procrastination does have its perks sometimes. Last Thursday, my wife had just left for Ohio and I had just gotten home from taking her to the airport (I had taken off the day from work as well since I needed some rest). I logon to my computer as I generally do and check my Amazon Wish List (which also is a wonderful and terrible thing). Lego: LORD has a third party listing at $14.82. I think it’s probably GoHastings which I now avoid on purpose unless I go to the store or I need calendars. As it turns out, its Amazon Warehouse Deals. $14.82 in Like New Condition and eligible for Prime. Insta-buy and doing my own math, I should have it by Saturday.
However, when I add it to the cart, it says will not ship until July 12th which would be this Wednesday. Kinda a let-down but I go through with it anyway (I waited for the game for six months for pete’s sake, I can wait a few days). Anyway, later that day, I check some of my other orders and I notice that Lego:Lord is shipping now. Woohoo, set to arrive on Saturday as I was hoping for.
Fed Ex dropped off the game Saturday around noon and I immediately open it. This thing was barely touched. If it had an Xbox sticker on the part where you open it, it would have been brand new. Anyway, for one of those rare times, I actually play it on the first day I get it. Pop it in and away we go.
The first thing I notice (besides the Lord of the Rings impending song of doom, you know which one I’m talking about) was how pretty this game really is. Basically you go from the Shire to Mordor in eighteen levels(all inspired by the films/books) with a ton of free roam space which will suck you in but thankfully the map is awesome and won’t really allow you to get lost too much.
The very first level starts you off as Isildur cutting off the ring finger of Sauron which was kinda nice since that sometimes felt a bit glossed over in the actual film. You play as Isildur and Elrond and go through a fairly short level (short when compared to such monstrosities as Mines of Moria) which is a great introduction to the proceedings. It’s classic Lego gameplay which means lots of building things, block destroying, collecting studs and figuring out simple to moderate puzzles.
But what I did not expect was the game after the first level. It throws you into the Shire and while it has similarities to the later Lego games like the Harry Potters or Lego Batman 2, this game world is really quite huge. In past games, you would have expected to explore a world the size of Shire, but so far you can explore in freely explore in Bree, Rivendell, and other places in-between.
In those places, you always have mini-kits to find (which of course require you to have certain characters), designs to discover (which you then blacksmith to add to your ever increasing inventory), and fetch quests (which will take you all over the gaming world, thankfully you do have fast travel). Yes, I said fetch quests where they require you to find certain items that others have lost along the way. I think this certainly falls into the category of RPG-Lite. All the while, you have a million things that you can destroy for studs a plenty (which you will need to buy characters and such).
Heck, the levels are really just there to give the game a story. I think you could honestly finish the levels (if you really tried) in about 8 to 10 hours. What will pass for the other roughly 30 hours is finding every last nook and cranny to get that ill fated 100%. Not to mention in past Lego games, a lot of that 100% was a chore. That is not really the case with Lego: LORD. Now truth be told, I am giving you the half a dozen hour feel and maybe in thirty I will change my tune. But right now, it is a ton of fun.
So far (now mind you I am about 1/3rd through it), my favorite level is probably the Mines of Moria which despite its 1st time difficulty has some really inspired moments from fighting a cave troll to diving through caverns as Gandalf to land on top of the mighty Balrog. Quite exciting and I really like the idea that for some of these scenes you have a wide range of characters to play with (and then can play with even more through Free Play). Sure it can be confusing when you have nine to account for (aka the Fellowship) but finding out strategy who to use for what situation is half the fun. Also, thank you to whoever decided on giving Sam so much to do. He builds fire, he digs, he cooks, and he can even create small plants. Oh, he is a hobbit too so he can go through small passages as well.
Frodo really does not do that much in earlier stages but thankfully is given a few tasks to do later on. The rest of the cast such as Gandalf, Gimli (a dwarf that despite the films does actually want to be tossed), Legolas and others all have their part to play based on their characters. Gandalf uses magic, Gimli has fun with an axe and Legolas shoots arrows to provide a few examples.
There are DLC packs but from my research they simply provide additional characters and the achievement points still add up to a thousand points either way(48 achievements in all). The achievements are your typical Lego achievements, eighteen of them are for beating the individual levels, there are also the ones associated with doing everything from 100% to finishing all of the fetch quests and blacksmithing plans. Then to top it off, there are the cute ones which you get from forming the Fellowship to simply walking into Mordor.
I am glad I picked up this game at the $15 mark which was precisely neither expensive nor cheap and was the price it was exactly meant to be. Bad quotes aside, it is a lot of fun and if nothing else it got me to push aside Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (I’ll finish it but later, the amount of hackgates you have to do is ridiculous) as well as Skyrim (I was in a big time rut there but I have full intention to go back yet again). This is the first Lego game I’ve really played all alone (my wife has no interest in the movies, so I don’t even bother to ask though I would certainly play it with her), and it might actually be better than the Potter two-fer which have been my favorite Lego games to date.
At the end of the day, I give this a solid 8.5/10. The only negatives is that this might be a little too deep for a Lego game. And I wanted a little more humor. For a Lego game, this does not have much humor but its still pretty funny at certain points.
