If you thought you've seen good graphics in games up to now, you ain't seen nothing yet. Once you step into this game you'll notice the amazing look of everything, from the backgrounds to the characters to the enemies to the weapons and items. Just to give you an idea on how detailed things are, just one enemy in this game is made up of 30,000 pixels, a whopping 3 times that of many other games. Usually games slow down when they hit 10,000 pixels, but this game has surpassed the level.
Performance Capture
Just to give you the most realistic experience you can get in this game, EA Games brought in professional actors to take motion capture for the characters in the game. These actors' faces, motion and sound were used in the final product, in order to make the characters as human-like (or elf-like, or dwarf-like...) as possible. The actors played out "scenes" of sorts, where they interacted with other actors such that it looked like the characters in your game actually interacted with others.
In-Game Cinematics (IGC)
Berethor meets Idrial. |
In-Game Cinematics (IGC's) are much like Full-Motion Videos (FMV's) found in other games. The main difference, however, is that there is no loading time between adventuring and IGC's. IGC's happen in real time. In addition, IGC's have no extremely-enhanced graphical engine, because the graphics of the game are good enough as they are. All you'll see is a crisp change from adventuring to the computer taking over.
IGC's usually take place before, during, or after a specific event in the game. For example, if you're about to fight the Watcher in the Water just outside of Moria, you'll see an IGC of some orcs that are about to attack you, but instead get attacked by the Watcher. Immediately afterwards, the boss battle begins.
What you're wearing
Nine out of ten games in the RPG market have main characters that wear nothing but what they originate with. No matter how many times you play around with your inventory, the most that'll ever change visually will be their weapon. However, The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age is an exception to this rule. In this game, everything that you change in the UI screen appears on your character at any given time: either adventuring, in IGC's, or any other time that your character appears.
Special Effects
Elegost uses one of his bow effects. |
Most of The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age's attacks have at least some form of special effect. Every one of them are fantastic in their own respect, sporting some amazing visuals that challenge many other RPG's. Many special abilities have their own color to their attack, while others show different colors at the same time. Some of the best special effects, however, are with items.
Depending on the special ability in question, the special effects will show the specific element. For example, if you use one of Idrial's water abilities, a huge gush of water will appear out of her sword and hit the enemy. If you use Hadhod's "Stone Shield" ability, an actual wall of rock will appear (then disappear) in front of the character that the spell was cast upon.
Regular Ol' Graphics
If you thought you've seen good graphics in a game before, you haven't seen anything yet. When you start playing this game, you will be immediately blown away by all of the graphical power. It is worth noting that usually character models take up roughly 10,000 pixels or triangles before they slow down, but the guys at EA managed to make each of the characters and enemies three times that, at 30,000 pixels.
Your party is equipped with well over 100,000 unique visual representations per character, summing up to roughly 600,000 completely unique visual representations for everyone. This means that they made unique visuals for attacks, movement, skills, spells, summons, items, equipment and everything else!
