We're all familiar with The Lord of the Rings, whether it be in a book or film form. J.R.R Tolkien was the man who started it all, writing the original books in the fifties, and before there was even a whiff of a𝓀 live-action film in the works, folks had already tried to𝔍 make a buck by turning his series into a game. Many have tried in the subsequent years, some have succeeded.
And then there came 🧔Peteꦚr Jackson. His vision for a trilogy for The Lord of the Rings was loved worldwide, and the Return of the King even went on to win a jaw-dropping eleven Oscars at the 2004 Academy Awards - including Best Picture. If making Lord of the Rings games was popular before, things went into overdrive afterward.
As with most video games series or franchises, there are winners and losers - some great titles, and some that you ought to avoid at all costs (or risk your own sanity). I'm here to help you break them down — so you never make the wrong choice again. So let's don our Gondorian goose-fletched arrow quiver and our Lothlorien cloak of semi-invisibility and get into it - here are the 8 Best and the 7 Worst The Lord of the Rings games on the market. Anduril for the West! Guthwine for the Mark!
15 ಞ Best: Middle-Earth: ✨Shadow of Mordor
Monolith Studio's Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor is the first on our list and arguably one of the best things to ever come from the LOTR mythos. In the game you play a Gondorian ranger named Talion in the years leading up to the War of the Ring (shorthand or the events of the books in The Lord of the Rings). As a ranger, you are assigned to the Black Gate with your family, to keep an eye on those pesky orcs in Mordor. At the beginning of the game, (spoiler alert) your entire family kicks the bucket, including y🦂ou. Thanks to a vengeful wraith, you♚ are spared from death and given a change to take revenge yourself on the Dark Lord's lieutenants - the Hammer, the Tower, and the Black Hand.
Enter the Nemesis system - developed by Monolitᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚh specifically for the game, where yo⛄u go around Mordor causing havoc and creating individual stories as you encounter Orc captains - creating nemeses on the way. The gameplay is straightforward ass-kickery - kind of like if Assassin's Creed took place in Middle-Earth. You weave between packs of orcs, taking them apart with a bow, sword, and oversized knife. You can also switch between ranger and wraith form as you like. Cheque, please.
14 🎐 Worst:ꦛ The Hobbit
Dear Lord, what evil stanky thing gave birth to this toothless entry into our list? The horribly misguided The Hobbit, by Inevitable Entertainment, came out before most of the other games on this list (trying to get ahead of t🐎he curve but failing miserably). I'm desperately trying to not create some horrid joke using the developer's title, but...come on, could we all not see this coming? Rushed games usually never end up as intended. It's almost like its failure was inevitable - doomed to fail you might say. There I said it, now we can move on.
This cartoonish adaptation of the adventures to the LOTR's prequel, The Hobbit, plays like a game designed for three-year-olds and feels like it's written by a drunken gaffer with sweaty hobbit-feet. It's far too easy, and far too basic. Yes, it's tirelessly faithful to its namesake, but if you just wanted to recreate the story exactly ဣas wri꧋tten..why not just read it?
13 Best: Lord Of The Rings: Thꦐeꦅ Third Age
And now we come to one of the most original titles in the list: the much loved Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. This particular entry is noted for being one of the few LoTR games to be a turn-based RPG - think Final Fantasy meets LOTR. And it works surprisingly well. While it opens up the story and the mythos behind Middle-Earth, the gameplay is fun and compelling, delivering an overall enꦿjoyable experience. Is it the best LoTR game out there? Certainly not. But is it up there? You bet your case of Sylvan wine it is.
The game allows you to build a team made of different races and take them to battle - there is an Elf, Dwarf, Man, and of course, Wizard. Is the gameplay derivative and reminiscent of Final Fantasy X - okay, sure? But the graphics and story are both quite good, and as backstory to the One Ring, it's🍎 captivating.
12 📖 Worst: Lor🌠d Of The Rings: Conquest
Where did this game go wrong? At first glance, it's all over the place. One of the later adaptations in the spectrum of LOTR video games, it follows much the same formula as Star Wars: Battlefront, and for good reason - it's made by the same people. You can play as Good or Evil —beginning as a gruntꦆ at both ends— hacking and slashing your way across Peter Jackson's interpretation of Middle-Earth during the War of the Ring. The game play is formulaic and boring, forcing you to use the same combos again and again until you can't decipher friend from foe. Sure, you can ride mounts, and occasionally you get to play as a hero - like Gandalf the White, but those are fꦯew and far between.
The graphics are nothing to shout abou🤡t either -they look tired and texture-less- especi💯ally the heroes. Better steer clear of this one, folks.
11 𝓀 ✃ Best: Lego: The Lord Of The Rings
Ah, Lego adaptations - where would we be without you? The Lego: Lord of the Rings gam♔es are nothing short of whimsical enjoyment. Taking you through Pete Jackson's vision from The Fellowship right ඣthrough to the end. Like many of the other Lego games of similar franchises, you get the quirky cutscenes, the lego piece collecting, and the general silliness that we know and love.
It's run of the mi🥃ll in that sense, but delivers on all the beats of the films - keeping the gameplay fun and fresh. You know where 🥃you're going, and you know where you've been, but it's never boring. Spinning the dark world of LOTR into a Lego funhouse is surprisingly great.
10 Worst: JRR 💛Tolkiens The Lord Of The Rings ♋Vol. 1 (SNES)
Okay, so this one isn't exactly the worst game ever, but it sure as heck isn't great. It was reviewed when it came out in 1994 and given a somewhat disrespectful 6.6 out of 10. Critics called it a series of "long, indistinguishable romps" with poor character support AI and, as is becoming a trend with our "worst" games, a low difficulty. The graphics, given 1994 aren't anything to shout about either, the characters being too small to distinguish. It's a slow paced RPG with very deliberate and plodding playstyle. Jus🍸t plain dull, really.
And then there's the problem of fetch quests, where you just need to go out of ♚your way to gather some special item - if the rest of the g♏ame is dull, then these side quests are a "beat your head into a wall repeatedly" kind of dull.
9 Best: The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers 🐓💯
Ah, we all remember the good old days of PS2/Xbox/GameCube. Hurling endless ranged weapons as either Gimli, Legolas, or Aragorn at our poorly rendered opponents was a delight. This game delivers exactly what all the excited little boys and girls who had seen the movies were looking for - a hack and slash romp, focusing on combos, ability trees, and kicking the stuffing out of mindless orcs. This is, really, along with its sequel, ROTK, the quintessential games in the entire series. They sold very well in the day, and for good reason - they allowed you to traverse Jackson's constructed world. Where Conquest failed, The Two Towers got it right - you play as heroes rather than grunts, and when y𝓀ou cut swathes through the enemy, it feels just so good. You get to live out your fantasy on the small screen.
The graphics were fine, the story was virtually non-existent, the gameplay was fun and fierce - exactly what a Lord of the Rings game should aspire too.
8 Worst: Lord Of The Rings: W𝔍ar In The North
Once again, this game was divisive. There are people out there that will defend it to the death - whether it is the expansive world, the tone, or the fact that it has an intriguing backstory. Still, the fact 𝐆remains: this game is NOT good.
First off, there's the mindless gameplay - everything that was fun about the previous entry is taken away from this title. Made by Snowblind Studios, it was released between Dark Souls, Skyrim, and Uncharted 3, which might excuse its poor sales, but definitely not the game itself. The fighꩵting is repetitive, and takes few risks, forcing you into a third-person box, of light or heavy attack, ducking, rolling and more. The usual suspects.
Beyond that, there are a number of game-destroying bugs found tꦚhroughout, and that is just unacceptable, people.
7 Best: The Lord Of The Rings♍: The Return of the King
And now we're back to the greatest hits. ROTK is an excellent continuation of the success of The Two Towers hack and slasher, expanding on what made the first game a success. Namely, beating up the bad guys in interesting ways, sticking pretty heavily to Peter Jackson's LOTR films, and allowing you to pilot some of the most loved heroes in all of the Fantasy genre. The game has multiple storylines, follo🧜win꧅g most of the cast of characters; players follow three main story threads through the highs and lows of the War of the Ring.
What's wrong with the game? Well, it's a little short, despite the increased story and environment interactivity. The graphics, gameplay, cutscenes, and audio were all critically lauded, which is great, but nothing can truly be perfect. Still, this goes down as one of the all-time best installments iಌn the franchise.
6 Worst: The Lord Of The Rings: Ara🎉gorn's Quest 🌺
Yeesh. When some games aim high, others go low - often to disastrous effect. Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest was aimed at smaller children, a🎃nd took away the teeth that had lent itself so well to other titles. The story is a simplified version of the original trilogy, and is bloodless, and far too straig🍷htforward and simple.
The game is too easy, people. How many times do I have to say it? Challenge is part of the fun of video games -don't spoon feed success to people, es♐pecially younger gamers- you know what happens when you do that? You get millennials. You're welcome.
The game, as it unfolds, is nonsense to those unaware of the complexities of the either the films or the books that the story is predicated upon. While not absolutely horrible, it does no favours to the intricate plot of the series. The fighting is straightforward, the story is truncated and plodding at the same time, giving it a 'cliff notes-y' yet tedious feel, and it doesn't do anything ꧒unique with itself. It's simply a less interesting version of otherꦡ games that already exist.