LEGO The Lord of the Rings Review – My precious!

Our rating:

By: Warner Bros.

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2013-11-07

Developer: LEGO® The Lord of the Rings™ Support

Price: $4.99

User Rating:

Loading...

Download App

It is beyond one’s imagination how a toy company like LEGO has grown into an iconic art form with their own electronics, sculptures, movies and even iOS apps. Though LEGO Group have released a few titles of their own, the Warner Bros unit are the ones busy converting their classic movies into this bricked animation games. After the popular LEGO Batman and LEGO Harry Potter titles, we now have LEGO The Lord of the Rings.

THEME

If you’ve played any previous LEGO movie games before, you’ll be familiar with the setup. These are more of an entertainment app rather than games, especially when compared to their console counterparts. Of course, there are subtle puzzles, some fighting and alot of adventuring to do, but these aren’t as challenging or difficult as one would expect from a hardcore game. LEGO The Lord of the Rings tells the story of the epic trilogy and the gaming element is just to keep you immersed in it.

We follow Frodo and Sam in their journey to Mordor to destroy the Ring. The story follows the same order as in the movies from the battle of Sauron to Shire, Bree, woods, Elves and so on, till the victory in the final battle of Middle Earth. Each of these regions forms the new levels and we take up roles of other major characters like Pippin and Merry, Aragorn, Gandalf etc.

GAMEPLAY

Though they sound scary, the way you do all these is simple or rather cute. Most of the missions are like in Point and click games, where you collect some items and interact with the surroundings to get things done. Each character has their own special powers like burning stuff is for Sam, Fishing is for Merry and Double jumping for Elves. They use their abilities to find hidden items or overcome obstacles and open alternate routes for the other fellow. That sort of reminds me of The Cave game. In addition, certain mini games like puzzles, endless runners and battles are also integrated into LEGO The Lord of the Rings.

THE GOOD

I’ve seen the trilogy a hundred times and I knew how LEGO The Lord of the Rings game will be just a retelling too. But what made me jump at the game anyway, is the reputation of gorgeous execution by Warner Bros. At any point of the game, you can feel the effort taken by the developers into each aspect of the game.

First things first, the sound effects are mind-blowing. Each level or area has its own nostalgic and unique track, similar to that in the movie. All cut-scenes and conversations have really tempting voice-overs and occasionally, the original movie track of certain catchy quotes are clipped in too.

The graphics as you know is LEGO-like and has its own charm. For instance, the faces of all characters are made using the LEGO head and yet we can recognize the LotR characters in them, thanks to apt costumes, expressions and hair styles. The inclusion of humor into conversations and cut-scenes is another highlight of LEGO games and finds its place in Lord of the Rings too.

Also, the developers have addressed the replayability issue of the game in a very elegant manner. Thanks to the unique free play and characterizations, once you’re done with all levels, this game will not be just an one gigabyte junk in your device. For example, you see a silver lock in Shire and only Aragorn can break it. But Aragorn will be unlocked only later in Bree and hence the hidden areas remain unexplored in each level. Once all characters are unlocked, you can go back to the free play mode and replay the game to enjoy new areas.

THE BAD

But LEGO The Lord of the Rings is not all goodies. It has some flaws too, which surprisingly are the same as in the previous LEGO-Warner Brother games. It is disappointing that they haven’t learned even after such user demands.

First one is the poor control system. The default controls are so pathetic that you would die once in every 10 seconds. The alternate stick controls are somewhat better but a versatile camera shift control on the right thumb is still missing.
Also, the game doesn’t support saving in between levels. This is annoying especially when the levels are long and you can’t play it to pass some short time or when your battery is about to die.

VEDRDICT

First of all, I would like to make it clear that LEGO The Lord of the Rings for iPhone and iPad is not a port of the same game for consoles. In fact, they have nothing in common. If you’re expecting to see the action and puzzling of the full PC game on an iPad at a lower tag, you’ll be disappointed.

This game is something entirely different, made particularly to take you through the epic story of the trilogy, in a funny and light-gamed manner. If that sounds something you care about, for 5 bucks this game is a steal. But if you haven’t seen the movies or donot like it, first shame on you and second donot waste your money.

TIPS

• As with the previous games, the alternate stick control is better than the default one.
• Tap & hold on centre to aim and release to throw objects
• Donot skip the cutscenes, they are the essence of the game.
• Tap on the iScroll pop-up on the right to get relevant informations