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Warner Bros. took me on a tour of their E3 offerings this afternoon and I kicked things off by checking out their recently announced Lord of the Rings title. Having recently acquired the license from EA, I was wondering what Warner Bros. was going to do with the franchise. And, of course, the very first thing they do is put it on the Wii in a game subtitled, "Aragorn's Quest."

It's pretty different from what EA had been releasing. Keep in mind that this is not a bad thing. It is just a different thing. I'm not quite sure exactly how I feel about this one and it's probably too early for me to have a hard and fast opinion. Nevertheless, I'll give you some general impressions of the title after the jump along with a trailer and some screenshots.

The very first thing I noticed about Aragorn's Quest is that it does not graphically resemble any of the previous games to bear the Lord of the Rings banner. Where EA's series of games were always clearly based on the Peter Jackson film series and featured a dark and gritty view of Middle Earth, Aragorn's Quest is full of vibrant color. It's clearly a ploy to appeal to a larger, more family-friendly demographic. It is the Wii, after all.

The game is presented in a 3rd-person perspective and features all the waggle controls you would expect. Swinging the Wii remote swings Aragorn's sword while the moving the nunchuk is used for his secondary equipment. He can wield a shield, bow and other items and these are easily switched using the directional pad on the remote.

One cool feature are Aragorn's charged attacks with the sword. By holding down the Wii remote's trigger prior to swinging the remote, he'll perform a powerful flourish attack. A nice touch that demonstrates that the designers aren't bieng lazy with this is that the flourish moves vary depending on the manner in which you waved that wonderous white wand.

It isn't a game that I'm personally all that interested in playing through but they didn't design it for me. It looks like a title that I probably would have wanted to play and quite possibly might have enjoyed if I fell into the target audience of pre-teens. I might keep an eye on it just to see if it winds up being a solidly designed game overall, since there's so often a drought of third-party games for kids that aren't just chewed up and spit out by publishers.


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13 comments | showing # 1 to 13

gamadaya's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 02:03
gamadaya
Looks generic as fuck. It actually looks a lot like the Hobbit game for the Cube (think it was Cube only). And the animations suck. Jesus, even just looking at it I feel like I've played it 1000 times already.
Bodb's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 02:56
Bodb
I'm not sure if this is funny, tragic, or both. So, basically what they did is take the likeness of that dude who played Aragorn, cel-shaded it into that smeary budget look that comes with half of all cel-shaded games, ever, and then made him four feet tall. On the other hand, tiny retarded Aragorn is probably a more compelling character than in the movies.
Gryzor's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 04:11
Gryzor
*sigh*

Why is it every time a game like this gets ..SHOCK.. a dash of color it becomes just some dishonest stab at 'family friendliness'?

Anyways, I like the change... it's very refreshing after so many that looked exactly the same. We don't have to stick with the same dreary, muddy and bloody Sam Jackson LotR forever, yknow... it's hardly the only way to imagine Tolkien.
exodus1925's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 04:47
exodus1925
Looks like Fable.
Wan Sum Dung's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 05:11
Wan Sum Dung
Uhh...
BigPopaGamer's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 08:13
BigPopaGamer
As a life-long LOTR fan I can honestly say that this game insults my entire being as not only a gamer, but a LOTR fan and as a geek in general.
Wintersocks's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 08:50
Wintersocks
I'm rather positive about this.

Gaming could use more colourful cheery games.

It's gonna be shit though.
teach4food's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 08:53
teach4food
Definitely, Lord of the Rings-Cute. Game play was simple but had some complexities, co-op was pretty cool as the 2nd player was Gandalf, and told in chapters so a kid could finish one in 30 minutes. Definitely not for the hardcore gamer. Perfect game for a ten year old with a younger sibling.
Projectexodus's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 09:21
Projectexodus
@Gryzor

I completely agree with you!
megaStryke's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 09:23
megaStryke
I say GOOD.
deiga-the-semivaliant's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 13:22
deiga-the-semivaliant
I actually like this. It's not for me, no, but it's basically doing what good ol' Samwise is doing in the beginning of the trailer. Telling the story of Aragorn to a younger audience. It's something that if I had kids I would buy for them.
Chronic Logic's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/03/2009 15:27
Chronic Logic
Ugh, way to cutesfy everything. And it's also disturbing that everyone are midgets. I'll pass.
theghost1982's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/05/2009 14:03
theghost1982
ohhhhh look..... a new zelda game!!!
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