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Lord of the Rings hits PSP in this 3D turn-based strategy title. The franchise has been proven to be very successful, not only in theaters but also for publisher Electronic Arts. In the absence of a new film and to satisfy Lord of the Rings loving PSP owners, we have received this first entry in the series for PSP.
The game takes place throughout Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on the original novels. It uses movie clips to tell the story, which is pretty cool though the effect has diminished with successive iterations of Lords of the Rings games. You’ll see most of the characters from the trilogy make an appearance at some point, from the major, pivotal characters to those with smaller roles. The game lets you play as either the good guys or bad guys in the universe with the campaigns and victory conditions changing depending on which side you’re in.
The gameplay is a bit different than your typical strategy RPG. You’ll find a number of modes and maps available which makes things a bit more interesting. The game is divided into a movement and combat phase. During the first phrase, you tell your units where to move and during the second phase, you tell them whom to attack. The game then carries out the commands keeping some statistics in mind while doing so. Some characters in the game have unique skills and items and can attack from different ranges. Some of these special skills are quite damaging and can have effects pass the initial round. The characters also gain experience and gold with battles to get new skills, better statistics and some new items. T
Ultimately, the combat system is satisfying. There’s some guesswork involved but it is possible to, let’s say, surround an opponent and cause damage in this way. The small battles keep things manageable and ultimately work best given the limitations of the hardware. However, there are a odd design choices, including being able to score a critical hit, block a strike or counterattack that are assigned randomly, causing the balance of the gameplay to shift a little. The artificial intelligence of the enemies is up to par, though nothing fancy.
The game includes local multiplayer for up to four players. The gameplay lends itself easily to multiplayer, though it doesn’t really add any more excitement than you would get from facing the computer. If multiplayer isn’t for you, the game includes three difficulty modes for the single-player campaign.
The game’s visuals are decent, though nothing special. The characters are fairly well modeled, with some concessions made due to the PSP’s technical constraints. You’ll definitely be able to recognize all of the characters, and notice that the animation is usually pretty good, particularly the death animations. The different maps aren’t quite as exciting but look pretty good nonetheless. Unfortunately, the framerate isn’t as smooth as it could be.
The audio does better, though. The background music is taken from the films and provides an epic score to dramatize the battles of the game. The sound effects are decent, though nothing special. You’ll hear the enemies attack and grunt and so forth.
Lord of the Rings: Tactics isn’t perfect but the gameplay is pretty enjoyable. It makes liberal use of the license, which definitely makes the game more pleasing. It’s an acquired taste, but if you enjoy strategy RPGs and like the Lord of the Rings franchise, you’ll find more to like than not in the game. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Nov 30, 2005
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