Build, play, destroy. This is the LEGO philosophy. A cycle of infinite creation that continues to entertain
different ages all over the world. Since 2005’s LEGO Star Wars,
Travellers Tales have been applying the same old formula onto
Hollywood’s blockbusters, creating different games that play
exactly the same way. Now they give the Lego treatment to Tolkien’s
fantasy epic: The Lord of the Rings and at long last, they have cracked it.
If you've been living in a hobbit
hole for the past 12 years here is a super quick summary of the
trilogy. The Halfling Frodo must unite the races of Middle Earth
embarking on a dangerous adventure to destroy the one ring, ending
the threat of the evil Lord Sauron’s world dominance. LTLOTR takes
11 hours and 23 minutes of film and condenses that into a neat
package of 18 levels, six for each movie. As sparse as this seems the
story never looses momentum, due to engaging cut scenes and a great
new overworld.
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| Explore Hobbition at your leisure. |
LTLOTR has a huge free to roam
overworld, that keeps the story flowing by allowing players to travel
to the next chapter. This welcome addition eradicates the need for a
LEGO Star wars style central hub that abruptly interrupts the
narrative. For example this time around after finishing the prologue
level the player is dropped into Bag end, from there the whole of
Hobbiton is up for exploration. Ride sheep, visit the fairground, and
creep through Farmer Maggots field, all at your own pace. It is in
these moments that the game excels. Yes the linear levels are still
in there but now the overall experience feels like you are really
living out the story not just joining it at important moments.
Fanboys of the trilogy will be in their element canoeing down the
river Anduin or taking a rest in The Prancing Pony. However the thing
that keeps gamers coming back to these games isn't the movies
license, in fact the LEGO games fundamental strength is in the third
word of this review.
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| "Let's hunt some Orc" |
There is something peculiarly
satisfying about destroying every object in sight. The B button gets
a good workout at every opportune moment, be it a colourful patch of
flowers, a stray boulder, or even a lonely elf taking a moonlit
stroll around Rivendell. LTLOTR actually rewards player’s sadistic
side in the form of LEGO stud pieces exploding out of every object
you vandalize. Collecting studs allows players to purchase new
characters to use when replaying the game in free play mode. As with
previous iterations there will parts of levels during the story that
characters cannot interact with. Targets can only be shot by bow
users and certain blocks can only be built with a wizard’s magic.
This is where free play mode comes in, allowing any character to play
through any level, finally letting you claim that out of reach purple
stud piece.
They say there is no “I” in team,
and there certainly isn't one in LEGO. LTLOTR is built for
cooperative play. It features local co-op through an easy one button
drop in/ drop out experience. Players seamlessly switch between
shared screen and split-screen action through an innovative
animation, giving the freedom of single player but always keeping the
connectivity of multiplayer. Co-op play lets players experience the
story as they unfold in real time. Same time events such as the
hobbits running from the Ringwraiths whilst Gandalf duels with
Saruman can now be enjoyed simultaneously via use of the split-screen, giving players a much more exciting and involved experience.
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| The lighting effects look fantastic. |
LEGO games aren’t renowned for their
blistering graphics, or sweeping landscapes, however this excursion
into Middle Earth is a surprisingly pretty adventure. The art style
reflects LEGO’s playful nature with colourfully bright LEGO pieces
set against more natural environments. The landscapes are vast and
quite spectacular views can be seen from one of the games many peaks.
(Caradhras being a personal favourite) When rotating the camera these
heights really highlight the scale that the overworld map
encompasses. Many toy based games try their utmost to hide the fact
that they are just that, toys. However the Lego games have always
used this as their strength and exploited it for a finely balanced
comedic value. Frodo’s LEGO hand being bitten off by Gollum
actually adds to the charm of the game rather than hurting the
integrity of the film. Characters look as “Legofied” as they
would in real life and have been given a really nice polished
rendering, which makes them more living plastic than digitized toy.
The original film score was used in the
game, and to be quite blunt, it’s as glorious as it was first time
around. Watching the trilogy is an enchanting experience that largely
is due to composer Howard Shore’s masterful soundtrack. The
original voice acting brings an air of authenticity to the overall
package that is especially noticeable during cut scenes. Hearing the
likes of Boromir’s second most popular saying “They have a cave
troll” (runner-up only to the meme friendly “one does not simply
walk into Mordor”) envelops you deeper into Tolkien’s adventure,
making it easy to forget you are playing a LEGO game.
The longevity of LTLOTR depends on what
type of player you are. For the casual player the story will give you
about eight hours of play time. But for the 100% completionists there
is 40 hours+ that can easily be squeezed out due to the abundance of
collectables. Not only studs are up for grabs, there are also three
wearable items, ten minikit pieces and one Mithril blueprint on every
level. Then in the overworld there are the aforementioned characters
available for purchase, (a whole 84!) Mithril blocks to discover and
countless NPC’s in desperate need of help. Mithril is used
alongside a blueprint to create an item for one of these people in
need, prolonging the games life even further. For a LEGO Game there
really has a huge amount of content to enjoy.
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| A world of collecting stud pieces awaits. |
-Image credits
www.mattbrett.com
www.impulsedriven.com
www.feralinteractive.com
www.videogames.lego.com
www.videogames.lego.com
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