Lego Lord of the Rings released back on the 30th of October in 2012 and I bought it brand new, I got back home to load it up and the disk tray for my Xbox 360 broke, it used to have an issue not reading discs which could be fixed by ejecting it and putting it back in. But, this time it stopped all together which left me a bit disappointed since now I couldn't play anything and with that the game sat on the shelf gathering dust... Until unbeknownst to me on the 15 of November it was made backwards compatible on the Xbox one.
Over 9 years later and Microsoft finally decided it was time to bring it back. Every so often I would check the list just to see if some of the games I have were added, because that generation of games had some classics that we've just never seen since the Xbox One released. They've done there best in terms of bringing back some of the greats but sadly the Lord of the Rings games were never given a new lease on life. The four games that I always hoped to see come back were Battle For Middle-Earth 2, War in the North, Conquest and the Lego game.
I really enjoyed playing each of them but since the rights passed over from EA to Warner Brothers in 2010 it was supposedly hopeless that we'd ever see them again, once I saw the Lego game come back though that gave me some hope that the others might return too. Until I started to read up on it and realised that no, because the 15th of November saw the final batch of games release for the backwards compatible section of Xbox titles. Still though 1 out of 4 isn't that bad.
I loaded it up today after rooting it out and it is pretty good, I'm about 4 hours into it so far. One thing I notice is how for a Lego game it has kind of a serious tone, in the sense that there aren't as many jokes and gags in the cutscenes, as I would of expected, so far at least. Also it's one of the first ones I've played which has voiced characters, well, movie dialog. It's cool though, I kind of feel like I'm watching the films while playing them and I'm sure by time I finish the game I'll want to sit down and have a marathon of the movies.
I do notice though that the controls are a bit clunky, the camera seems to have a mind of it's own sometimes and I've found it hard getting used to the control scheme. But, I'm sure it will just take some getting used to. Also, you can't buy the game digitally on the Xbox, it's listed on the marketplace as unavailable. So, if you want to give it a go you'll have to pick up a physical copy in one those shops nobody goes into anymore, I'm sure it would only be about 5 or 10 Euro at this stage. Well worth seeking out if you're a Lord of the Rings fan and want something to chill out and play solo or with some good ole couch co-op.
Cheers, for reading and I hope you enjoyed my, story\ first impressions review. I'll be sure to write a full review on it when I've completed it.
