Pros:

Cons:

It's been almost ten years since console gamers have had a chance to whack away at a title based on a Tolkien classic, but the author's impact on the world of gaming cannot be understated. Every time you've assembled a ragtag crew of elves, halflings, dwarves, and mages to take on some unspeakable force that threatens the world, you should be tipping your cap to the man. Universal Interactive brings Xboxers back to Middle-earth with The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring and lets them play along as old friends Frodo Baggins, Aragorn, and Gandalf.

Fellowship, the game, is truer to the book than Fellowship, the movie, was. The movie had to cram eight-million pages into a three-hour flick. The game doesn't have such time constraints, so things unfold at a slower pace -- a much slower pace. I wasn't expecting to be blazing through hordes of orcs from the get-go, but I spent the first hour of gameplay fetching baking supplies, fixing a bell, helping an old man make herbal tea, and offing the occasional bee. Talk about mundane. This is the first game I've ever played that made my own life seem like a really exciting, thrill-a-minute, seat-of-the-pants rollercoaster ride by comparison. I could understand this if the controller scheme was overly complex or cryptic, but it isn't. A few simple tasks to let me learn how the buttons worked would have made a lot more sense, and a few added cutscenes could have pushed the story along, but there's none of that here.

Once you're done playing out the menial life of a Middle-earthling, things ramp up quickly. After you -- as Frodo -- leave Bag End, the game kicks it up a notch. Having to stealthily make your way out of town -- avoiding the evil ringwraiths on their horses -- is genuinely cool. But it shouldn't have taken me so long to get to that point.

Fellowship becomes very action-heavy from this point on. Unfortunately, a lot of the early action takes place while you're still playing as Frodo. Not only is the hobbit pretty lame at cracking skulls, but despite being with his buddies Sam, Pippen, and Merry, he's forced to slug it out alone. Gee, thanks for all the help, guys! Fellowship is a book about just that -- fellowship. The game, though, is almost completely devoid of any sense of camaraderie or teamwork. I realize that the movie took some liberties with the story, but the thing plays like porno for gamers. There's no way you could sit through that flick and not be juiced to tackle a Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale-style title based on the members of the fellowship.

Instead, we get an action / adventure game that places far too much importance on the actions of one as opposed to the actions of a team. Your traveling companions become more of a hindrance than a help, as it seems that one of their main objectives in the game is to get lost and force you to rescue them.

To its credit, the game does a good job of mixing things up. This isn't a straight beat-the-daylights-out-of-everything affair. There's a decent amount of puzzle solving that has to be done. Frodo will even be required to do his best Solid Snake impression and sneak past his enemies. And there are definitely times that you're going to want to sneak past enemies rather than fight them.

Combat, while more fun as ranger Aragorn or spell-casting Gandalf than as Frodo, suffers from a clunky controller scheme. The left trigger serves two functions in the game. Most of the time, it's used to scroll through your weapons. In combat, though, it's used to lock onto a target. Unfortunately, the game can be very temperamental about when it considers you to actually be "in combat." More than once I went to lock onto an enemy only to have my weapon change. I don't know about you, but if I'm a three-and-a-half-foot tall hobbit being approached by a spider my own size, I consider that to be in combat. I should be able to lock onto the sucker.

Gaming Law #1: Always push large boxes.

Maybe the biggest problem with Fellowship, though, is that it follows the book too closely. Yes, there are some scenes that were invented for the game, but for the most part, anyone who knows the story knows what's coming up next. It would be like basing a game on The Bible. You know, Moses is going to come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It's in the book! He's not going to be coming down sporting the "Amulet of Invincibility" or brandishing a plasma rifle. So, while the gameplay itself isn't overly linear, the fact that the story is so well known makes it seem so.