Written by: Ian

 

 

 

So, the LOTR license has been passed on from EA to Warner. EA never made much of it, with only one title on next-generation consoles so far. Will Warner be able to salvage the series and finally make some above average games out of it? They’ve enlisted developer TT Fusion to save the day, so let’s see what they’ve come up with!

 

 

Aragorn’s Quest is actually set 15 years after the three books; but this is no re-imagining or new sub-plot. Instead, the story plays out whilst Sam recounts tales from the books at a party in honour of Aragorn, who is coming over to the Shire for a party in his honour.

 

It’s a decent way of telling things, because it allows only the highlights from the books to end up in the game. Sam also narrates all the cut-scenes as a result, which is another nice touch, especially as the developer have got Sean Astin on board for the game.

 

 

In terms of gameplay, Aragorn’s Quest is best described as being quite similar to classic Zelda games. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course (Ocarina of Time is probably my favourite game of all time), but there are some specific gameplay issues.

 

 

It’s a nice length, with plenty of quests and high points from the series of books and films, and also quite a few side quests. The game perhaps takes too long to get going, with quite a few tutorials and fetch quests to begin with, but the game is in a way, like Fable, a more relaxed sword-and-sorcery game, with an pretty easy difficulty level, some likeable characters, and plenty of action.

 

I found there to be quite a few problems, however. Some enemies would spawn out of nothing, right in front of me- which is obviously pretty annoying. There are also quite a few control issues. If you use the dual shock controller rather than Move, you are forced to select options and move the map by using the right stick like a mouse, which is totally retarded. Playing this way also makes you realise how basic the gameplay is, apart from when you need to swipe your sword in a particular direction, which is pretty useless with a joypad.

 

 

If you actually use Move, then the controls just don’t feel as responsive with this control style. You’ll also need the navigation controller to make full use of this style.