Visine

Watch the DVDs, reread the books, and crank the hobbit-themed Led Zeppelin tunes all you want—none of it makes up for the lack of another Lord of the Rings flick this winter. The king has returned. The ring is scrap. No way is Gollum coming back from that reverse jackknife into molten Mount Doom.

But not so fast. While frumpy kiwi Director Peter Jackson moves on to remake King Kong, EA Games is recalling Rings’ stars—including Ian “Gandalf” McKellen—to Middle-earth to record fresh dialogue for a new game: The Lord of the Rings, The Third Age, which hits all consoles this fall. Formerly teased as The Lord of the Rings Trilogy in the closing credits of last year’s multiplatform Return of the King beat-em-up, Third Age takes EA’s series in a new direction—one that makes more sense than the straight-up action approach of the two prequels. It’s a proper role-playing game.

“This game will definitely appeal to traditional RPG fans as well as to fans of the films,” says Executive Producer Steve Gray. “We will give you a specific set of characters [for] your party, but you will be able to significantly customize them.” These heroes are minor characters from the movies—elf maidens, human rangers, dwarf warriors, and other folks on the fringe of all those wide-angle shots and raging battle scenes. Still, “you will play as Gandalf sometimes,” Gray says, “and he has a lot of really cool magic he can do.” Your gang will roam all of Middle-earth’s principle locations and encounter its forces of evil (or good, if you choose to be bad guys—see sidebar). “You travel on a sort of S curve that weaves in and out of the path of the [movies’] Fellowship through the story of the trilogy,” says Gray. “At times, you’ll be behind or ‘next to’ them; at others, you’ll be in the same time and place as the Fellowship.”

That means you’ll have a showdown with the Balrog flame demon in the dungeons of Moria, charge through the films’ cast-of-thousands battles—on horseback, if you like (see the battle sidebar)—plus explore a few new locations. “Very open environments and optional side quests will give gamers a lot of freedom and prevent any two players’ experiences from being alike,” says Senior Producer Todd Arnold.

The development team—mostly the same crew that crafted the last game—has full access to all of New Line Cinema’s film footage, art assets, and musical score to piece together Middle-earth. Although Peter Jackson didn’t shoot any new scenes just for the game, Third Age will still pack lots of sequences from the movies, plus new computer-generated cinemas filmed using the movies’ stunt guys. We doubt if any Zeppelin will make it into the soundtrack, though.

Men in Back

Just because you control a party of bit-player heroes doesn’t mean Frodo, Aragorn, and the rest of the film’s Fellowship are MIA in Third Age. “In major story points and battles,” says Executive Producer Steve Gray, “the characters from the films will appear in cinematic sequences and will even join your party.”

Beyond Good and Evil

If we learned anything from masterpiece Xbox RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic—which lets players explore their dark sides—it’s that being bad can be awfully good. Third Age will deliver similar evildoing duties. Although you start the game on the side of light and build a party of fine, upstanding Middle-earthlings, you’ll unlock shadow missions—sordid sorties in the name of dastardly Saruman and Visine poster-eye Sauron. You know you’ll play them.

Battlefield Middle-earth

Keeping with the traditional-RPG feel of the game, Third Age’s combat is turn based. “If you play Final Fantasy, it will feel familiar to you,” says EA’s Steve Gray. “Obviously, we have our own game mechanic, but we want fans of the genre to be able to quickly pick up and easily start playing the game.” You do get one nifty twist: Some characters can ride horses or the wolflike warg beasts into battle—a skill that’s especially important when the party reaches the rolling plains of Rohan. EA won’t reveal much about beast wrangling, other than “during combat, you have special play mechanics and skills associated with riding,” says Gray.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Electronic Gaming Monthly.