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Lord of the Rings: Tactics Review
Jon Wilcox
12/12/2005
It's Lord of the Rings RPG round 2 as EA release this PSP title in the land of Mordor...
Having covered Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy in two games during 2002 and 2003, Electronic Arts continued to bring the world of Tolkien (according to Jackson) to consoles in 2004 with the luke-warm RPG, The Third Age. Putting players in control of several EA developed characters (the so-called 'EA Fellowship', or at least that's what I referred to them) as they set out to follow the progress of the real Fellowship, the game was very much riding on the coat tails of the movie trilogy and relied on artistic license - the EA Fellowship battling the Balrog with Gandalf just one such example.
Over a year later, and Electronic Arts are again trying their luck with another Rings based RPG - Lord of the Rings: Tactics. This time the game sees players take control of the Fellowship itself, or the dark minions of Sauron, through the various battles and encounters of the Third Age. Developed once again at EA Redwood Shores, Lord of the Rings: Tactics is a tactical RPG that takes in the key events of each of the movies from the ruins on Weathertop to the Fields of Pelannor, and also offers Wi-Fi multiplayer for up to four players to battle it out in turn-based warfare across Middle-Earth. The game is the first release Lord of the Rings title to benefit from a deal signed between EA and Saul Zaentz earlier in the year to incorporate elements from Tolkien's literary works, the other being Battle for Middle-Earth II, which will be released for PC in 2006.
Though the locations are replicated regardless of whether players fight on the side of the Fellowship or of Morder, the scenarios do vary, subtly at least and therefore increases the longevity of the campaign. Objectives at Amon Hen for the Fellowship for instance include killing the Uruk-Hai leader Lurtz and protecting Frodo, whereas commanding the forces of Mordor will see players attempt to kill the Halfling together with future Gondor king, Aragorn. The change in mission objectives obviously means a change of strategy, which is certainly an aspect that suspends repetition, at least for a time.
Besides moving around the closed locations and battling with foes with special attacks, there is a strong level of strategy involvement especially for what is after all a mainstream title. For instance, Protection bonuses, which greater protect adjacent characters from attack, are on offer to gamers opening them to a wider array of options that are all the more useful to turn the tide of battle. Other rules of engagement such as the 'Zone of Control', (which occurs when two or more opposing characters find themselves on adjacent squares) withdraws the option to attack anyone other than that enemy, and the 'Line of Sight' rules which disables attacks if environmental objects are in the way. Of course certain rules have been seen before in countless other tactical-RPGs, but then there aren't exactly many others (in fact, no other) on the PSP at the moment.
One really annoying aspect of the game occurs when a player stocks up on health replenishments ahead of the next battle, uses them all, and fails the mission. Returning to the 'shop' instead of replaying the level the frustrations of finding the same level of points to spend that they had after buying the last lot of health packs and entering the battlefield begin to build. Not only that, but that fact that the inventories remain empty after the previous failed battle only serves to push those frustrations through the roof. It means that heavy spending players will very quickly find themselves in hot water in a catch-22 situation where they can't buy more health kits without winning a battle but they can't win a battle until they buy more health kits. It's a major flaw in the gameplay of Tactics, and one that really upsets when is a fairly balanced experience.
Linked together through a map of Middle-Earth, the missions in LOTR: Tactics are very separate and standalone, this is a tactical-RPG after all, with missions set across the events of the three films and books. As well as incorporating a structured narrative however, the team at Redwood has also added a few optional missions to fight through, including an encounter with Moria Goblins at Darrodelf. Following the movement/combat structure of other tactical-RPGs, Tactics is a very conventional title that players buying the game just for the brand may be a little disappointed by its plodding pace. Having said that it does feature all the sort of things that you'd expect from such a title including character attributes, experience points, inventories, and purchasable skills. The game features a functional and solid camera system, which comes in handy when players look to survey the battlefield, although it can be a bit questionable at times when the game plays out the combat orders, and the odd wall blocks the players view.
Besides the campaign, EA have also thrown in a multiplayer modes, which takes advantage of the Ad Hoc Wi-Fi functionality. Besides spending points on upgrading characters, players can also import the hero characters from their save game though this only extends to their attributes and skills, not the inventories. There's no game sharing option however, and it's difficult to imagine an opportunity to play the multiplayer game if a friend doesn't have it for their PSP - after all the chances of randomly meeting somebody on the train with a copy of it is probably slimmer than if this was Lumines or Ridge Racer.
Looking much like the other Lord of the Rings titles from Electronic Arts, Tactics features clips from the movies, and Howard Shores score, so the production values are what you'd expect from EA, which is to say, quite high. If anything the visuals are a tad lazy with EA for the most part seemingly re-using character models from their previous LOTR titles - though we could hardly expect them to sit down and remodel...
