First off I'll go ahead and tell you that I am a die-hard fan of Middle-earth. I own 6 video games based on J.R.R. Tolkien's world for the Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles. 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' is one of my favorite Middle-based games (guilty). I'll start off with the pros. It relates fairly closely to the story because of a great storyline which appears in the cut-scenes. Though the game is far from perfect, I rather enjoy the excellent graphics and sound quality. The environment of Middle-earth is nicely done in this game and the characters look very well detailed in movement and appearance. The sound quality brings excellent sound fx as well as a soothing music-score which isn't annoying and sounds rather good. The gameplay is descent overall. Being an action/adventure game title, the game is pretty strategic when it comes to solving puzzles, the way the game lets you equip and use items works well, and the game is blessed with letting you use a quest log to help you understand what needs to be done and what is optional. You get to play as Frodo, Aragorn (Strider), and Gandalf throughout the game. Frodo is good at sneeking past enemies with stealth and Aragorn is excellent at fighting in combat with his sword and bow. Gandalf is my favorite character to play as do to the fact that he can kill countless enemies using awesome magic spells. The controls are easy to use and the learning-curve is a descent half hour. The game starts out a little slow, but fun. When you get further into 'Fellowship of the Ring' it gets better and more action-packed and addictive because of the hack-n-slash combat system: which, sadly, isn't perfect. Now to explain the cons. There are some glitches in the game that cause surrounding character A.I. to go berserk: you'll notice some enemies constantly running into walls or walking back and forth at a continuous fast rate. Though rare, sometimes you may find yourself falling through the ground or the game may even crash. The combat system can sometimes be quite annoying because when I happened to lock on to an enemy the camera angle would go array. I decided to stop locking on to most enemies when fighting them: it seems to help. To think that if this game was more polished it would have probably been my favorite Middle-earth based game. Oh well! Luckily there are ways to work around most of the glitches. Overall, 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' is a great game for die-hard fans of Middle-earth. If you aren't a true fan of J.R.R. Tolkien I suggest you stay away from this Xbox game title and play some of the other Middle-earth based games in the gaming market.

The following is based on my own opinion:

Graphics: 5.0/5.0
Sound: 5.0/5.0
Story: 4.8/5.0
Gameplay: 4.0/5.0
Value: 4.0/5.0

Overall Score: 4.2/5.0

Gave this as a gift and the kids still play them all the time. Im not a huge console game fan (I'm more of a PC FPS player) but my nephews love these and said to rate them four stars! I gave them the whole LOTR set along with the Hobbit.

i personally liked this game. it is great. the environments are superior and we get to see great places from the story. however this videogame is not based in paeter jacksons film, it is based in the book. my only complaints are that the combat style is sloopy and that the company who developed this videogame dindt do the two towers or the return of the king. however, this is a must have

this is a very short viseo game that goes along,mostly,with the first movie in the lord of the rings trilogy.it has its charms at first but quickly disintegrates into a repetitive mess of overthinking and puzzles.kind of like a turok game only better with the switches and more like hexen with all the puzzles.it does not follow the movie 100% so dont go there looking for answers.theres web sites for all that.my biggest gripe is the entire time youre teensy frodo or the old wizard dude or strider.the dwarf and elf who are really cool too are left up to the computer to control.but you know cpu help.always lacking.youre little halfling companions are of little help being as how they are little and pathetic.that ones utterly uselesss as all he talks about is food.then theres frodo the weak who cant use his ring much at all or he'll die.best just to get the cheat codes.i had a lot of trouble with the frodo missions because hes sich a little wimp.even bees pick on him and spiders.strider the ranger is cool.he can fight well and makes use of arrows well.theres an sniper mode for that thank god!then there is the old wizard dude who can fight suprisingly well with his 2 weopons.he can also employ magic.take my advice cheat on this part.get the code for infinite spirit and just go to town on all evil doers!but no elf with his awesome archery skills or dwarven bezerker,which sucks.however,theyre in the second one.lastly one major pain in the butt is the fact that all the characters walk like theyre on stilts-really really slow and careful.you can get them to speed up but you must wiggle youre stick back and forth and make them zig zag everywhere.whoo!iys really easy but for the puzzles which their are easy to follow explanations for online so i say save youre money and rent it.if youve got a kid who really really wants it i say why the f!@k are you letting your kids watch this for anyway?

This is the biggest waste of time. You'd have to be a HUGE RPG fan to appreciate this game. You traipse around aimlessly with blocky Frodo, looking for mushrooms and a bunch of other crap. The graphics that everyone raves about are not that great. I mean, who cares if a bunch of leaves move when you walk through them? I certainly don't. Maybe I am really missing something but this game is just a disappointment and not even worth the rental fee.