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Lord of the Rings Plug & Play TV Game (Tiger 2004)


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There's a play-through that someone put on YouTube of the first ~5 stages of this game (there are 8 in total), starting from this video. Unfortunately, the uploader never put up the rest of his play-through, so I never found out what the ending looks like. If you have the inclination to publish your playing of the last few stages on YouTube, I'd be among the first in line to see it. :)

 

In 2005, Tiger released a Star Wars title with similar gameplay, Star Wars: Lightsaber Battle Game. The SW game has more depth to it, in the form of a magic system (in addition to, and independent of, the combo-move system that was in LotR: Warrior of Middle-Earth), and based on the (full) YouTube play-through I found of it, it's also a somewhat harder game.

 

However, both Tiger sword games pale in comparison to a 2003 Japanese release which used the same ShinSeDai XaviX sensor/processor technology, Square Enix's Kenshin Dragon Quest. That game has the same gameplay, BUT it also has a magic system, an inventory, a shop, stat tracking, end-of-level performance ranks and experience points derived from those stats, a leveling system based on the experience points, and the ability to save your character status/story progress on a proprietary memory card (I should note that the MSRP for this was 6980 yen, compared to the $40-50 original cost of Tiger's pair). It also had a 2-player versus mode (bring your memory card over to your friend's house!) and side quest challenge battles, of which some of the post-game ones were REALLY hard. I beat the story but never beat all the challenges . . . and I never will, because both of my KDQ units are now dead (I have two because the first one was DOA). T_T Something seems to be wrong with the IR photosensors; they can't read sword inputs anymore.

 

I wish this style of game had been revived with MotionPlus/Move/Kinect, but unfortunately, the closest we got was the non-MotionPlus Wii game Dragon Quest Swords. The gameplay in that one isn't as fun, due to the need to lock onto your target first (or else all your strikes are through the center of the screen, presumably a pre-MotionPlus limitation.).

 

Anyway, have fun with Warrior of Middle-Earth, and again, if you put up video of the final stages of the game, let me know!

 

onmode-ky

 

P.S. This topic really ought to be in the Dedicated Systems section. I'm honestly kind of curious how you came to decide to put it in the Modern Gaming section--I mean, you even have "2004" in the topic title, hardly modern, yet here we are. ;)

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the closest we got was the non-MotionPlus Wii game Dragon Quest Swords. The gameplay in that one isn't as fun, due to the need to lock onto your target first (or else all your strikes are through the center of the screen, presumably a pre-MotionPlus limitation.).
I rather enjoyed Dragon Quest Swords. Not the best game ever, but it was pretty fun imho. Worth a play through.
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P.S. This topic really ought to be in the Dedicated Systems section. I'm honestly kind of curious how you came to decide to put it in the Modern Gaming section--I mean, you even have "2004" in the topic title, hardly modern, yet here we are. ;)

 

This here is "AtariAge" and 2004 is pretty modern then I guess, at least for my taste. ;-)

I found the idea of the dragon quest game funny that you have a memory card in form of a tiny book.

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  • 2 months later...

In the months since the last activity in this thread, I got myself a used copy of The Lord of the Rings: Warrior of Middle-Earth and, over the course of a few tiring sessions, succeeded in beating it. I didn't record any video, but I thought I'd post a description of the flow of the game, namely the points when you learn your special moves and what bosses (i.e., enemies with on-screen life bars) there are. If you don't want to be "spoiled" and would rather play the game for yourself, I invite you to skip to the last paragraph.

 

Stage 1: The Ringwraiths - [Fire of Arnor learned right before boss] Ringwraiths

Stage 2: The Ring Goes South - [Axe of Durin learned right after Crebain score attack*] Watcher in the Water

Stage 3: The Mines of Moria - 1. Cave Troll; 2. Bridge (under balrog) [sword of Gondor learned right after second boss]

Stage 4: Amon Hen - 1. Troll; 2. Lurtz

Stage 5: The Road to Helm's Deep - 1. Saruman (playing as Gandalf) [Arrow of Valar learned right after first boss]; 2. Balrog of Morgoth (playing as Frodo, in a dream)

Stage 6: The Paths of the Dead - 1. Clever Dead; 2. Swift Dead; 3. King of the Dead [Command of the Dead learned right after third boss]

Stage 7: The Battle of Pelennor Fields - 1. Fell Beast; 2. Witch King of Angmar (directly after first boss; playing as Eowyn)

Stage 8: Mordor - 1. Gollum (partial, playing as Frodo); 2. Shelob (playing as Sam); 3. Gollum (playing as Frodo)

 

*The Crebain score attack is a mini-game (the only one in the game) that opens Stage 2. You have 60 seconds to cut down as many Crebain as you can, as they fly across the screen in various patterns. They're not even attacking you, so maybe you're the bad guy here. :) If you score 60+ (i.e., an average of at least 1/sec), Gimli says, "Impressive!"; for a score of 0-59, the response is "Not bad...but you need more practice!"--I honestly don't understand how a score of 0 could deserve "not bad," but perhaps it's heavily veiled sarcasm. At any rate, the game doesn't track your high score in this, so it's somewhat pointless. My personal best, though, was 153. Up until I got that score, I'd thought the setup were a fixed set of 150 Crebain, but it seems that if you're fast, the final patterns repeat until time runs out. That 153 run still included a fair few misses.

 

I played the first 5 stages in my first session. In that session, I died once or twice because the game kept reading my blocks as attacks--I basically had only a part-time defense. After that session, I changed the positioning of the game's base unit, and maybe my furniture, too (the game was probably seeing stray IR reflections from something), and was finally able to reliably attack and defend as intended. However, it turned out that Stages 6 through 8 get quite a bit harder than their predecessors (so I may have been wrong in my post above about the Star Wars game being harder, and maybe this is also why the YouTube play-through stops at Stage 5). Despite fixing my defense, it took something like 4-5 tries before I could clear Stage 6, and then somewhere between 4-7 attempts for Stage 7. Stage 8 took me 6 tries. All the exertion meant I had to take breaks of at least a day between each session! :P

 

In my opinion, Stage 7 is the single hardest one. Not only does it include a boss fight immediately following a boss fight, but that second one is a protracted affair against an enemy with some severe attacks. It's the only boss battle where you actually get health recovery opportunities during the fight--because you're going to need them! With Stage 8, in contrast, after finally figuring it out and beating it (the hard part there is mainly reacting quickly), I was able to replay it and survive with ~75% health intact, but Stage 7 is still a beast of a challenge.

 

Now that I've beaten the game and taken some souvenir photos, I'm ready to let it tire someone else out. :) If anyone here is interested in a fun, sword-combat motion game, my LotR:WoME can become yours for US$12 + shipping. Includes base unit and its decorative One Ring (which I never attached), sword prop (some flecks of discoloration on one side that definitely have no effect on gameplay), and composite AV cable; no box or manual, but I can give expert advice. :) The base unit takes 4 AA batteries but also has an EIAJ-02 port for a 6V, center-positive AC adapter. I mainly used my PlayStation TV's 5V AC adapter in that (the PSP's AC adapter is the same but with a right-angle head, which still fits the WoME base unit's port). Please PM me if interested. Feel free to offer a higher price, since I'm taking quite a loss at $12!

 

onmode-ky

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