LORD OF THE RINGS, VOLUME ONE

 LORD OF THE RINGS took J.R.R. Tolkien 13 years to write. Tolkien needed that
much time to carefully work out the geography, history, and languages of Middle
Earth, the imaginary world where the novel is set. The rich background detail of
the books is one of the main reasons they have become classics, but it's
difficult to make such background detail "gameable." Despite several past
attempts, no one had succeeded in translating Tolkien from prose to computer
game -- no one, that is, until Interplay released its computer role-playing
game, LORD OF THE RINGS, VOLUME ONE (LOTR). This review is based on the IBM-PC
version.

 Interplay's program is faithful enough to the book to please Tolkien fanatics.
It's also a fine CRPG, with the features that have made hits of Interplay games
like WASTELAND and DRAGON WARS -- namely, a highly non-linear storyline, a
skills system, and multiple solutions for puzzles. Although a good Tolkien
computer game has been a long time coming, the problem with LOTR is that it was
released too soon. There are several bugs in the current release that mar an
otherwise excellent game.

 LOTR covers the material in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, the first volume of
Tolkien's trilogy. The story concerns Frodo Baggins, a member of the gnome-like
race of hobbits. Frodo had led a peaceful and contented life, until one day the
wizard Gandalf tells him that the magic ring he had inherited from his uncle is
in fact the One Ring created by Sauron, an evil power who is determined to
conquer all of Middle Earth. Frodo is assigned the job of taking the powerful
Ring to Sauron's realm of Mordor and destroying it. The events in LOTR take
Frodo from his peaceful home in the Shire, through strange forests, haunted
ruins, and the monster-infested mines of Moria, and finally to the elf city of
Lorien. At this point, the game designers introduce a major subplot not found in
the book, so as to give the game a more definite conclusion. (The book ended
with a "to be continued..." message.)

 There are dozens of other such original subplots integrated into the game. With
the exception of the endgame, you need not complete any of these subplots to
win. However, most of the subplots yield experience points, helpful information,
more powerful weapons, or useful items. For example, near Frodo's home in the
Shire is a small cave where you are introduced to combat, and where some items
that are useful later in the game can be found. There are so many of these small
subplots that you're very unlikely to find all of them in one pass. This makes
LOTR a highly replayable game.

 The abundance of subplots also means you can specify how long and complex you
want the game to be. For example, you can hurry through the mines of Moria by
mapping only the first level, if you choose; or you can explore all of Moria's
13 levels if you want to do more extensive dungeon-crawling. If you rush through
the game, you'll finish in 20-30 hours; if you take your time and explore all of
the gameworld, you'll find this game as long and complex as any in the ULTIMA or
WIZARDRY series. LOTR is true to the book, challenging enough for Tolkien fans,
_and_ interesting enough for a non-fan who doesn't know a Nazgul from a
Numenorean.

 The focus of the game changes depending on the circumstances. In the peaceful
Shire, you spend most of your time interviewing the population and solving local
problems. By contrast, in the mines of Moria, you're engaged in mapping the
passageways, finding treasures, disarming traps, and fighting off the hostile
inhabitants. The size of the gameworld is vast, accurately reflecting the
geography of the books. This does mean you'll spend a certain amount of time
trudging around in the wilderness, since there are no transportation shortcuts
(like the teleportation portals in ULTIMA VI). The smart traveler will learn to
do plenty of exploring, though, as many of the most interesting places are off
the beaten track.

 Interplay clearly put a great deal of research into this product. All of the
major characters and locations from the book are in LOTR, and there are many
locations in the game that are mentioned only briefly in the book, such as the
home of Radagast the wizard, and the tower of Dol Guldur. The new characters and
locations that Interplay has created blend seamlessly into the original story.
Much of the text in LOTR is taken directly from the book. The game manual
contains much useful background information (including a glossary) that the
uninitiated will find helpful in decoding the tangle of strange names in
Tolkien's mythology.

 As a CRPG, LOTR resembles a cross between Origin's ULTIMA VI and Interplay's
WASTELAND. Like ULTIMA VI, it uses 256-color VGA graphics and an icon interface;
like WASTELAND, it uses a skills system and references to story paragraphs in
the manual; like both, it relies on an overhead perspective.

 LOTR works best with a mouse. Clicking the right mouse button brings up a menu
of icons; clicking on the various icons allows you to talk to characters, attack
monsters, use skills, and so on. Keyboard commands can also be entered; however,
movement via keyboard is hampered by sluggish response. For example, if you hit
the up arrow key three times, and the right arrow key once, chances are that
instead of going north three times and east once, your character will simply go
north four times. In addition, the keyboard buffer occasionally overflows,
resulting in an obnoxious beep from the computer. The mouse is therefore
preferred, although every so often, the mouse pointer on the screen goes amok.
When this happens, rolling the mouse back and forth vigorously usually solves
the problem.

 Characters in the game have two types of attributes: One is the usual sort of
CRPG statistic: life points, strength, dexterity, etc. The game even includes a
willpower statistic, important here because the Ring eats away at the willpower
of the person who uses it. These statistics change during the game, as the
character accumulates experience. The other type of character attribute is
skill, of which there are three: Lores allow a character to give information on
a particular subject. (A character with dwarf lore, for example, may give useful
hints while exploring dwarven ruins.) Combat skills (such as swords, or dodge)
give you advantages in battle. Lastly, active skills (like Picklock or Jump)
help in solving puzzles or performing actions. For example, to open a locked
chest, a character with the picklock skill stands near the chest and uses the
skill. Skills do not improve with experience, but a character may acquire new
skills by being trained in them.

 There are two types of magic in LOTR. All types of characters may acquire words
of power. Words of power are essentially one-shot magic spells that only work in
certain circumstances. There are also spells, which can be cast only by wizards
and sorcerers. Spells in LOTR are weak compared to those in other CRPGs.
Gandalf, one of the most powerful magic users in all of Middle Earth, only has
spells approximately as powerful as a first-level magic user in an AD&D game.
Spells also directly drain life points, so that a wizard who casts spells
constantly can be dangerously weakened. (Fortunately, the wizards of Middle
Earth also wield a pretty mean sword.) This weak magic system is consistent with
the books, where magic is mysterious and uncommon.

 Combat is the weakest component of the LOTR game system. It is essentially a
simplified version of ULTIMA combat. Every combat round, each character gets a
chance to move and attack. Characters can only attack if they are close enough
to the enemy. The combat system in LOTR is simple and straightforward -- perhaps
too much so: It's sometimes unrealistic (archers can shoot through walls, for
example), and combat soon ceases to be a challenge. Since combat plays a
relatively small role, this is a minor criticism. LOTR is mainly a game of
exploration and puzzle solving, not combat.

 Like most recent programs, LOTR is a memory hog. It requires 512K of RAM in
EGA, CGA, and Tandy mode, and 640K in VGA mode. All versions of DOS are
supported. There's a nice save/restore game option, but you can only save two
games at a time. The only form of copy protection is the story contained in the
manual (and referred to throughout the game). LOTR comes on five 5-1/4"
diskettes; 3-1/2" diskettes are sold separately. The game supports all the major
sound cards (Roland, AdLib, and Sound Blaster). The music is nice, but sparse.
Digitized sound effects, such as the howl of wolves, are also heard from time to
time. These effects come through the PC speaker and do not require a sound card.

 The VGA graphics are very good, although graphically, the game is not quite as
rich as ULTIMA VI. A 10MHz system or faster is recommended. Note that because of
the way the game handles graphics, both EGA mode and CGA mode are slower than
VGA mode. If you have a slower machine and EGA, the game may be unacceptably
slow. The EGA graphics are nice, but they have one major flaw: an annoying
screen flicker when characters move. The CGA four-color graphics are nearly
illegible. (The software also supports Tandy graphics.)

 These graphics problems, as well as the keyboard and mouse difficulties
mentioned earlier, are results of LOTR's major flaw: It was released before it
was ready. The game came out in mid-December, often a bad sign. Software
companies naturally try to publish their major products before Christmas;
unfortunately, that means some games released in December don't get the
beta-testing they require. LOTR, a large and complex program, evidently needed
further testing: There are many bugs in the game. Most are minor, such as
characters making speeches not intended for them, or computer lockups during
combat. Others are more serious, such as party members who just disappear (when
they're not supposed to) and subplots that cannot be finished. None of these
bugs ruins the game, since LOTR is so non-linear that a missing party member or
an unfinished subplot won't prevent you from winning.

 One bug, however, is so serious that it stops you dead in your tracks. If you
move back and forth too often between the major areas in the game, you may
become trapped. Any attempt to move out of the area leads to the death of your
characters. This most commonly happens after you visit Rivendell and return to
the Barrow Downs. If you've encountered this problem, Interplay can tell you a
cheat to get past it: Contact them in their section of the Game Publishers Forum
(GO GAMPUB). Also available is an upgrade that corrects many (but not all) of
the bugs. The upgrade is version 1.1; to find out if you have version 1.1, check
whether it says "Version 1.1" at the beginning of the README.DOC file that comes
with the game.

 Anyone who enjoys Tolkien's books, or games like ULTIMA VI, should enjoy LORD
OF THE RINGS, VOLUME ONE. In fact, I think LORD OF THE RINGS is one of the best
CRPGs ever created, which makes it all the more painful to see the bugs in it.
It's still a perfectly playable game, but always having to be on the alert for
bugs takes some of the pleasure out of exploring the vast and complex world of
Middle Earth. I eagerly look forward to the forthcoming sequel, THE TWO TOWERS.
I just hope Interplay doesn't plan to release it at Christmas time!

 LORD OF THE RINGS, VOLUME ONE is published and distributed by Interplay
Productions.

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