As people get older, their motivation for playing video games tends to ebb and flow. As someone who has played video games ever since they were able to make memories, however, this obstructing feeling hits different, as the kids say. Having that drive suddenly evaporate like water in the desert sun has been challenging, these last few months. Life post-2020 has become exponentially harder each day, so fitting in button presses and mechanisms got difficult. The less we talk about that, the better.

Prior to this mental sinkhole, I had managed to get a fairly nice structure going for my gaming time. I was establishing one project at a time, through a poll on Twitter, then tried to stick with it until I felt that I completed my journey. My last venture was a little ambitious, sure, but I was steadily hitting progress goals. I just so happen to own both the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and the Gameboy Advance (GBA) version of The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age; both fully realized, but completely different games. I thought it would be interesting to play these in tandem, to see how two development teams would take on a licensed property, respectively. Luck would have it that both these games are also jam-packed with content, going through the entire Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy. So, this project would take me around 30 or more hours, for each version.

About halfway through, around April, my routine to play an hour or two of one version at a time started to feel like climbing a mountain, while doing a handstand. More often than not, I would dread picking up a game and would look for the fastest way to save my progress and put it back down. Then the process hit that known anxiety barrier where you know you have to do something, but just can't do it. And so I didn't.

Now, I didn't stop playing video games altogether. I don't have any other interests, so it's not like I'm going to take up crocheting. Instead, I fell back into my bad habits of playing games as a service (GaaS). It turns out that live service games are actually a terrible, destructive way to engage with the medium, but that's a whole different blog. My poison of choice is League of Legends: Wild Rift, since the phone adaptation is essentially the same as the base game. You know how to press buttons on cooldown and how the structure of the match goes, so thinking isn't really required. Pushing the buttons ad infinitum goes the same way every time and that melts as many hours away as needed or, in this case, months. Meanwhile, the PlayStation 2 on my TV stand kept staring me in the face, literally gathering dust.

With life unfolding like one of those domino effect memes, it's exactly that dust that eventually wedged the pebble out of my brain. After having to clean my apartment, to contact my landlord about my flooded home, I had become personally reacquainted with all of my consoles. I dusted my entire game shelf, which somehow turned the lights in my head back on. Just having those objects in my hands reminded me: "Oh right, these things exist!" A few days later, I grabbed my Nintendo DS and launched the GBA version. For context, I used my DS, because this LOTR game was so dark that even my GBA SP had trouble depicting the fine detail within.

Suddenly, clearing missions was nothing more than a simple time investment. I pulled an all-nighter and finished the last GBA mission, to see credits. Two or three all-nighters later, I did the same for the PS2 version. Four months of procrastinating and it took me less than a week to do the whole damn project. To be fair, both games also have an "Evil" version, where you play the other side, but I wasn't going to play the same game twice in different fonts. I dabbled with the alternate modes long enough to see that they did not offer much difference and then cleared the bonus content on the GBA, for good measure. As silly as it sounds, I'm still proud of myself for pulling myself out of this GaaS funk and just putting in the work.

Now the only question that remains is: Are these games actually any good or are they, you know, licensed properties? It may surprise you, but the answer is that these games are absolutely a good time; both of them! In fact, I would categorize these as a prime example of the often ridiculed "overlooked gem" category.

The GBA version of The Third Age is a full-fledged tactics game, complete with Fire Emblem-like perma-death. They call it Sauron mode, which they make optional, but now-absorbed studio Griptonite Games knew exactly what they were doing by adding this feature. The campaign has three acts and it's possible to pick different franchise characters for each battle. Dispatching enemies then levels up the heroes' abilities. Moreover, the mission variety is so versatile that it will rarely feel like a repetition. Combat difficulty is perfectly matched to the story pace. Truly, this game mimicks the excellence of the GBA's best tactics roster, which is no easy feat. It might not generate a lot of story by following the trilogy, but it is damn near an impeccable execution of turn-based strategy classics. In Giant Bomb's own rating system, I would have no problems with awarding this version the full five. In short terms: it's a must-play. Retroactively put that quote on the box!

Is the PS2 version similar? No, it is not; not even a little! EA Redwood Shores, also known as Visceral Games, decided to make a linear role-playing game (RPG) with side characters. Loot, ability progression, stat point allocation, dozens of expendable items; this version goes the full monty on this type of fantasy game. The turn-based battles might even bite off a little too much depth, as it has several ways to approach strengths and weaknesses, on top of optimizing party lineups. Each hero specializes in different abilities. Some characters target orcs or creatures for huge damage output. Some abilities weaken or stun enemies, so that they can't affect the party. Once again, the gameplay systems and pace are an absolute joy to go through, keeping levels, new equipment and abilities rolling at a constant pace.

Except, this game has a slight catch. The backend of the game, the Return of the King content, is a crystal clear projection of a license game rush job. This is one of the most blatant examples of a game being shoved out the door, to a degree where it becomes enjoyable because it's so laughable. All that good pacing and careful building from the first two acts goes out the door, as the game devolves into sheer chaos. Chaos! Screens are suddenly filled with back-to-back-to-back encounters. Some fights take as much as half an hour to complete, with no save points in-between. Mobs can start the fight by wiping the whole party in one shot. Boss fights get tossed in at random, yielding a fraction of the experience from normal enemies. Cutscenes show the end of the trilogy, while there's still a bunch of game to go through. There are no more rules here and it's honestly hilarious.

It is very apparent that the developers trusted that most people wouldn't finish the game and just did the best they could to meet a deadline. Despite that finish line fumble, this RPG is also an unnoticed game that anyone should add to their backlog. This PS2 version is a thoroughly well-made adaptation, right up to the point where it faceplants and becomes schadenfreude. If I were to rate it, I'd say that EA Redwood Shores would still get four stars from me. They understood the assignment perfectly, even if their managers didn't.

Why would anyone ever have thought to compare these two games in the first place? I'm afraid that the simple answer to that is: Because I could. I even have more games I could do that with, if I would be so inclined to repeat this madness. Now that I've finally been able to put this silly project to bed, I might just do such a comparison in the near future. For now, the Twitter poll has decided on a palette cleanser. I think I like that dynamic the best. You do one big game project, then you wash it down with junk food. You don't want to know my next move. My moves are either bad or worse. The only thing that's important to take away from this is that I'm moving again, finally. I hope I'll see you on the next journey.