Well this game has been out for few weeks and I'm figuring anyone who's happened to purchase it has already logged more than a few hours into it and thus have some input on it. I've already heard the two big gripes from the Quicklook were the split-screen and possibly the inventory being a bit to slow but other than those what are some general feelings on the overall gameplay? I'm chomping at the bit to go grab this but it probably won't be snagging a copy until after Christmas so I'm just wondering about players' general impression of the game. From what I've seen the graphics and gameplay are fairly solid and looks pretty damn stunning. I've played the LEGO Star Wars titles, Indiana Jones 1 & 2 and Batman and have been fairly pleased with most of what those had to offer. I was just super stoked to see this getting launched and wanting a little general feedback. Pro's, con's, whatever you have to say about the game in general.

Cheers.

I bought it but haven't played it yet. I'm a sucker for TT's Lego games though. Started playing them on PS2, then Wii, now PS3. I've 100%ed every one short of the new Star Wars trilogy because screw them and the Jar-Jar they rode in on, and not Batman 2 and this one because I haven't gotten around to them yet. Sad, yes, I know.

@Sinusoidal said:

I bought it but haven't played it yet. I'm a sucker for TT's Lego games though. Started playing them on PS2, then Wii, now PS3. I've 100%ed every one short of the new Star Wars trilogy because screw them and the Jar-Jar they rode in on, and not Batman 2 and this one because I haven't gotten around to them yet. Sad, yes, I know.

Eh, it's okay. As long as you get around to playing it :-P I haven't played LEGO BATMAN 2 yet either but I'm hoping to very soon. A lot of people blast the games for their repetitive, almost childish gameplay but c'mon... it's Lego! It's not some serious, world-ending franchise. It's a game to pop in, turn your brain off, do some some simple puzzles and just enjoy your time. I beat the new Star Wars Trilogy but I -HAVE NOT- beat Lego Star Wars III mainly because I never watched The Clone Wars series and despite liking some of the characters it's just kind of like, "eh...".

It is more of the same, but that is not necessarily a bad thing! It's your classic play through the levels in free play and get all of the collectibles formula that is present in most of TT's Lego games. The one thing that I really like about the game is the massive amount of side quests and their big open world. Batman 2 experimented with an open world in the form of Gotham City but in this game, Middle-Earth seems to be far bigger than Gotham. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of stuff to do! Like the guys said in the Quick Look, it seems that TT has put their A-team on this project!

@steelerzfan101 said:

It is more of the same, but that is not necessarily a bad thing! It's your classic play through the levels in free play and get all of the collectibles formula that is present in most of TT's Lego games. The one thing that I really like about the game is the massive amount of side quests and their big open world. Batman 2 experimented with an open world in the form of Gotham City but in this game, Middle-Earth seems to be far bigger than Gotham. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of stuff to do! Like the guys said in the Quick Look, it seems that TT has put their A-team on this project!

VERY awesome. Can't wait for the Christmas shopping season to be over and done with. I'm freak'n dying get this game.

The Quick Look got me even more stoked for this game.

Granted I had seen very little of it before that, so maybe that's why. Game looks great.

I think I liked Batman 2 better, but I enjoyed playing this one. It does have some glitches that can screw you out of getting 100%, if you care about that kind of thing. They have said they are working on a patch, but no real information on when it will be out.

@MetalBaofu said:

I think I liked Batman 2 better, but I enjoyed playing this one. It does have some glitches that can screw you out of getting 100%, if you care about that kind of thing. They have said they are working on a patch, but no real information on when it will be out.

Still want to try LEGO Batman 2. What's that game's best quality as far as being a LEGO game?

@Slither_Maggot: It's pretty standard Lego stuff as far as game play goes. I thought the various suits for Batman/Robin were interesting, and I liked the fact that they had voice in it. Lord of the Rings has voice too, but it's original voice work in Batman. LotR is just basically lines from the movies. The open world in Batman 2 is basically a big place to get all the collectibles, but I found it fun to fly around as Superman collecting stuff. That part makes for good game playing while listening to the Bombcast.

I haven't played a LEGO game since Star Wars, I may jump into this one next year some time.

@Hizang said:

I haven't played a LEGO game since Star Wars, I may jump into this one next year some time.

I highly recommend it! The Lego Indy games are pretty fun and Lego Batman was awesome! I haven't played LEGO Pirates, H.P., or Batman 2 but the STAR WARS and INDY titles are a pretty enjoyable experience. LEGO Indy 2 has a feature where after you beat a level you get to go back through it in free-play, post-completion so the level is like "destroyed" having already beaten it in story mode and you go back through it as a different environment with new stuff to do to get more of the collectibles and stuff which is pretty cool.

@MetalBaofu: Yeah I checked some of the basics as far as those go and I a lot of people were making a big stink about the game having voice acting but I thought that gave it another touch of charm that seemed pretty cool. Even though the LOTR title has cropped in audio from the films I figured it would still be pretty neat just to have it in the game. Some people said LEGO Batman 2 wasn't necessarily "open world" but I figured it had to be more "open" than the previous titles so I was pretty stoked about that too. Anything new T.T. adds to the LEGO titles to change things up a bit tend to make their LEGO titles all around better games so I figured any addition would be something to make the games a little better. Thanks for the info. :-)

@Slither_Maggot: I can assure you that voice acting is not the problem. I only played two LEGO games, Clone Wars and this. I loved Clone Wars, collected everything in it. I don't know if you're a Tolkein fan or a LEGO game fan, but no matter what I'd say this is NOT the open-world middle-earth game you are looking for, and not a good game by any stretch. I was one of the few who was more hyped for this than Black Ops 2 and spent my savings on the PC version of this instead of Blop2, and I regret it a lot.

I finished the main story and quite a lot of the side quests, replayed half a dozen of the missions (as are all LEGO games, you can't access all the spots in the first playthrough), playing till I got enough studs to get all the multiplier red bricks. I think the quick look showcased the best parts of the game.

First, the world. It's small and scaled down much, not that I expect it to be 1:1, but being able to see Minas Tirith from Edoras is ridiculous. The starting areas Hobbiton, Bree, and Rivendell seem big enough and you'd expect all the major vistas are as large in the open world, but no. Minas Tirith you can only access the top most level; Edoras has only three houses. The missions are triggered in the smaller open-world and is scaled more appropriately, but...

The mission design is boring and I hardly went through all the levels again, just replayed enough to get the items to craft and finish quests for getting red bricks. They were bad even first time through. You can say it's standard LEGO gameplay with a lot of repeating the same puzzle three/four times with slight variations, yet it felt like it dragged on and on without any truly spectacular moment. Clone Wars had shit blowing up all the time, and with the source material, LEGO Lotr's battles aren't even that epic. The Helms Deep level, which was often demoed, was the only one that seemed like there are thousands of orcs storming Hornburg. Not only is the Seige of Minas Tirith cut, the Pelannor Fields battle was not even close to the scale of the Helms Deep level. So yes, the game gets more disappointing as you progress, everything seemed rushing to an end.

But my MAJOR MAJOR gripe is with the platforming, specifically in the open world. It's a terrible platformer. I don't recall ever getting this frustrated trying to jump up things in Clone Wars. Each major landmark in the open world has a tall structure to climb, and only viable if you have the right equipment crafted or that specific character role. The platforming is floaty like all LEGO games but this game demands so much more. It's also insanely inconsistent with the snapping to ledges and small platforms. Did I mention the game is buggy? There are walls only climbable with Smeagol or craftable mithril climbing shoes, and sometimes your character jumps off if you are too close to the edges of the walls. Yet sometimes you can be dead centre of the climbable portions and STILL be propelled away. If you fell off, you're gonna have to go step by step back up again. Adding to the frustration is that sometimes you don't have the right equipment (yet) and you'd need a specific character to continue jumping up, and you'd have to hold the change character button to bring up the wheel for you to swap in the one you need (you can only bring two characters in the open world, the others can be swapped in and out any time). But it's extremely finnicky about how long you hold it; sometimes the game reads it as a press and immediately gives you control of the one at the bottom of the tower, and the one who you were scaling it with would jump down to follow you.

And what do you get after a frustrating 30 minutes? Usually at the end there's just one more mithril brick which is used for, well, crafting. Sometimes there are characters on top of towers to buy. In my quest to buy every character (oh and I thought Clone Wars had a more diverse roster, I guess it's the source materials fault that everyone in LOTR are sword people), I had to climb the Orthanc and that was the point I stopped. It was so infuriating I gave up on 100%-ing it.

TL;DR: It's not a good LOTR game, nor is it a good LEGO game. Sure, the reimagining of the Peter Jackson films in the light-hearted LEGO style is always great, and I guess it'd be fine for a co-op game, but I still suggest not to put yourself through this bullshit.

Not sorry for typing a huge reply, and honestly hope it helps.

It's cool, no worries. I can see where there would be some "let down" factors in relation to what expectations for a game based on the source material would be. It is fair to say that no LEGO game to-date has been without it's fair chair of glitches or bugs. Personally I found LEGO INDY 2 to be a bit oversensitive in relation to it's platforming from what LEGO titles I've played thus far.

I'm not really a big fan of the TT LEGO games (the only one I've played through was Indiana Jones, quite a while back now), and I picked up LEGO LOTR as more of a fan of LOTR than I am of the lego games. I've only played a little bit so far (at the Pass of Carahadras), but I'm very impressed. I'm playing it on the PC and the game looks great, runs fantastic, and is a whole lot of fun. The open-world is fun to run around and explore in, although I do find it a little frustrating that so much is locked behind obstacles that only characters I don't have can do anything with. I imagine that's normal for these games, though. Considering that there's free play, I might just go straight through the story and then head back for collectables.

The inclusion of Howard Shore's score really adds, although it feels quite obvious that the audio is ripped from the movies. It never seems to quite "fit" with all the other audio. It's very subtle, but enough that I notice it in most cutscenes.

A couple-to-few hours in, I really like the game. Seems like there's tons to do, it's great fun, and has all sorts of stuff to collect. Considering that they're only asking $30 for it on the PC, and seeing how you can often get it for $10-12 on sales over at GamersGate or GMG, it's hard to not recommend it to anyone who enjoys either of the brands it's associated with.

@buffaloseven: LEGO Indy was pretty damn good. Yeah as with most of the other LEGO titles there is a lot of "restriction" until freeplay is unlocked and you can roam around with all the characters to get stuff. I kind of figured the chopped in dialogue would be a bit clunky in spots just considering it's cropped in from the films but I figured I'd be willing to overlook that as long as the graphics and gameplay were pretty solid. From what I've seen so far the game looks pretty sweet. Still wanting to snag a copy as soon as I can, just haven't had a lot of time to game much lately so I still haven't gotten a copy yet. I'm actually pretty stoked to hear (don't know why I didn't think of it before) that Howard Shore's work is included in the game. His scores are pretty impressive so if that really -does- add something to the overall value of the game that's great too! Thanks for the input!

Cheers.

@Slither_Maggot: Graphics are definitely top notch (for a Lego game). I'm running it on the PC and it's running a solid 40+ FPS on my used-to-be-middle-of-the-road-and-is-now-getting-towards-lower-end-ish laptop @ 720p (video-out to my HDTV) and it looks great. The dialogue isn't clunky, per say, it fits quite well. It just sounds...different. That's the best way I can describe it. It's not too distracting, but like I said it is noticeable. I've pushed a bit further into the game and I can definitely say that if you're not running into LEGO fatigue, it's a great game. If you've played every single LEGO game as they've come out...you'll probably want to take a break until you're really craving another LEGO game. If you're a LOTR fan, it's probably the best VG adaptation of the films so far.

I REALLY enjoyed this game. Previously I played Lego Harry Potter and found at to be a lot of fun. To give you context - my last three games were this, dead space 3 and borderlands 2. If you are a fan of Tolkien (and ok with e changes the movies made) I think you will enjoy this game. The voice acting is pulled from the movies and is awesome. I enjoyed all of the side quests even if they were ultimately only fetch quests. I do however agree with the platforming being broken but that's forgiveable since its usually not too integral. Overall, if you like LOTR are ok with some simpler gameplay, I highly recommend.

Hate the books, find the films really boring... fucking loved this game.