The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring is so Endearing | MandaloreGaming Reaction

Ah yes, the good old times where RTS games stopped trying to be Age of Empires killers and started to be Warcraft 3 killers. Like the Halo killers, none of them succeeded aside from the originals themselves (AoE II is getting some pushback for some of its decisions lately, and Warcraft 3 Reforged was... itself). I played the Hobbit game back in the day and it was something alright, bordering more on a collectathon platformer than an action-adventure game. You'll experience Return of the King soon enough (Two Towers is basically the same game but set in the prior movie/book). And then there's The Third Age. I have that on PS2 and hoo boy. You play as man of Gondor, sent by Denethor to keep an eye on Boromir as he joins and travels the Fellowship. Along the road you meet an elf warrior lady, a dwarf who is a dwarf, a ranger and a pair of Rohirrim, but since your party is limited to three characters most of them will just sit around and do nothing. The big moments come from when you actually catch up to the Fellowship and other heroes now and then, like how on the Bridge of Khazad-dum you can see Gandalf do his speech, only for a bunch of shmucks to drop in from nowhere and help Gandalf beat the Balrog up for a bit until he does the YOU SHALL NOT PASS thing. And of course the Fellowship escapes until you make it to Helm's Deep, where you join Legolas in beating some Uruk-hai, only for the Fellowship to once again escape you. This keeps escalating until you fight a Mumakil or two, beat the Witch King and take the fight to Mordor... as in, you make it to Mordor, go past the Black Gate, somehow get six people to the top of the tower so you can have a final battle with THE EYE OF SAURON ITSELF. Oh, and did I mention that this is a turn-based RPG, a genre sometimes joked that it is about a bunch of people using the power of friendship to kill gods? Well, that's kinda what happened, even though as a Maia Sauron is more like a high tier angel. The Third Age is also ridiculously broken and easy once you discover its gimmicks. The elf lady can obtain a spell that lets her cast a buff on her party members where if they die they are immediately revived for a large chunk of their health. And while this takes a bit of mana/whatever they called it, the buff lasts quite long and I'm not even sure if enemies could strip this off of you. Then there's the dwarf who can learn a spell that prevents all damage dealt to one of your party members up to a certain point, and when he levels up this can cover your entire party. Again this spell lasts so long that not only can he keep this up without you ever being seriously injured he can also keep attacking at the same time. And when you combine both of these with your party leader's ability to cast a party-wide mana regeneration buff... well, this ain't exactly a Persona game. There are a few fun unlockable fights where you control some enemy units to fight the party, and if you win you unlock some extra gear for that playthrough. And they somehow managed to pay Ian McKellen to do the narration for the game. Probably through fat EA stacks of cash. Too bad the game is no longer available for purchase anywhere. Such is the fate of all licenced games (RIP the Cybertron duology). Oh, and don't go onto a reputable Lord of the Rings wiki to look up withat Celeborn (Galadriel's husband) is called in his native Teleri.

Beriorn