LEGO Lord of the Rings – One does not simply block into Mordor

Actually, LEGO seems to be able to do whatever they want with a popular franchise and make it magical and entertaining. I can’t find many reasons to be cynical about this at all even though I was really planning on doing a somewhat snarky kind of review. What they’ve done is delivered another solid platformer with a familiar and beloved skin. The same quirky humor and comedic block exploding violence in place of graphic gore that has been present in previous LEGO titles is always a refreshing change of pace in the modern game market. LEGO Lord of the Rings is magical and captivating.

 Get some popcorn

This is a game aimed at lovers of the movie trilogy. The story presented follows the events of the movies, not the novels. However, there is an option to unlock Tom Bombadil as a playable figure in free play mode. Story mode will take roughly as long to play through as it would take to watch the films. This lends itself to a sort of pacing and flow that would be expected and can definitely allow the player to complete each part of the trilogy in one sitting. The only real gripe I have about that is the decision to run a set of credits at the parts in the story that coincide with the end of each movie. I don’t really think that was at all necessary. If they really needed to show us that they were paying attention to the films, they could have simply put up a splash screen or something. However, these credits can at least be skipped through a couple button presses, so it’s not a deal breaker. As long as you’re not a compulsive completionist, it should be possible to turn the game into a few rewarding evenings.

 They can talk?

Unlike previous LEGO titles that I have played (sorry, never got around to the Harry Potter games) this one uses voice-overs in cutscenes. The voices are all lifted directly from the movies, but they blend in quite well during game play. Most are exactly as you would expect them, though there are several clever and humorous cuts into redesigned scenes. The internet meme loving part of me was a little sad that they didn’t include the line “They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard.” Even so, familiar scenes are regularly present and many of them have comical twists like one of the 9 human lords accidentally dropping his ring of power in the opening sequence. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil any of them, but I will say that I got a good chuckle at the end of Fellowship.

 Platforming goodness

Delving too deeply.

The game itself is a great 3D platformer.  The control is rather straightforward with the bulk of your actions being running, jumping, and attacking. Each of the characters has a special ability of some sort that is used to solve specific puzzles and overcome obstacles in the various levels. Many areas will be inaccessible in story mode and will require bringing a different set of characters in free play mode to collect everything. The puzzles aren’t particularly demanding, so they shouldn’t prove too frustrating for younger children (who I’m sure are the secondary demographic for these things) who may be playing. However, this is where completionists are going to go insane. Each of the 18 levels has 10 minikit pieces to find, 3 pieces of treasure, and 1 blacksmith plan. You cannot acquire all of these during your first (story) playing of a level.

Some tips and recommendations

I recommend going through the entire story mode first before worrying much about doing any open world exploration. You’re going to want to have access to all of the characters both in free play of the levels and while hunting mithril bricks in the open world areas. I would highly recommend getting the berserker that appears after the battle of Helm’s Deep. He throws bombs that will blow up the shiny objects as well as being a strong character that can pull those glowing orange handles. Since I’m not going to offer a level by level strategy guide here, I’ll just say that you need to keep your eyes open and walk into unlikely areas to find all of the secrets.

Worth picking up

This game is absolutely charming and should be played by anyone that enjoyed the Lord of the Rings movies. The replay ability added with free play mode significantly increases fun and longevity of this title. One word of advice though; if you’re like me and playing on a PC, get a controller. The keyboard controls can be seriously cumbersome at times and feel as if they were added as an afterthought. This game is clearly meant to be played with a dual analog stick controller. That issue aside, this game is entirely worth picking up and will provide hours of platforming fun for gamers of all ages.