When this game was released in March 2004, it cost only $20.
Yep. Brand new game, only $20. For comparison, Medieval I: Total War, a two year-old game at that point, cost the same amount.
That should say something about this game's quality.
Admittedly, I didn't hear of this game when it came out. The only reason I know it exists is because I saw a YouTube video of its predecessor, LotR 2, that made me want to play that game. I got it in the LotR series pack during the 2018 Steam Summer Sale. I saw the bad reviews, but it was super cheap, it came with a game I wanted, and I have a bit of a bile fascination, so I wanted to give it a go.
This game is essentially a very poor man's Medieval Total War with some asinine design decisions. Unlike previous LotR games, which were turn-based and RTS hybrids (again, like Total War, but LotR did it years earlier), LotR 3 is completely RTS: No matter what you do, time is always passing on the campaign map. This includes battles, so take care when you decide to control a battle manually because you can easily miss things happening on the campaign map. While this system works fine for games like Europa Universalis, here it's mostly aggravating since the campaign map is very shallow mechanically and the only real fun in the game is the battles, but you're dis-incentivized from controlling the battles because you need to watch the campaign map so your enemies don't raze your lands while you're leading your troops.
Admittedly, you can switch back and forth between the campaign map and an ongoing battle with just a button click, but it's still annoying because you can never fully immerse yourself in either aspect of the game like you can a Total War game. Want to kick back and have fun watching the battle play out like you do in Total War? You can, but the game might punish you for it, and it's hard to enjoy it when you're constantly under pressure to check on the campaign map and the other battles that are going on simultaneously.
Not only is this system a serious flaw that can't be avoided, but it also doesn't make any sense: How can a medieval army march halfway across England in the time it takes to fight a single battle (AKA a few hours tops)?
This might not be so bad if the campaign map and battles were better implemented, but they aren't. The campaign map is boring. Gone is the economic management of LotR 2: In LotR 3, all you do is assign your lands to vassals, wait for them to raise troops, consolidate them into armies, and order them to slowly move towards your target. There's no speed control like Europa Universalis has, so time always moves at one speed. Because of this, the campaign map feels either too slow when there's no fighting or too fast when there is.
The battles work better than the campaign map, but they're still not great or even very good. Just "meh". Most field battles devolve into massive melee mosh pits, where units swing at each other until the enemy is dead. Sieges are even worse. Unless you can have your archers set fire to everything, your troops will take forever to clear the walls, and the AI for when they're on the walls is awful. You're better off smashing the walls with siege engines to turn it into an open field battle. Overall, the battles in LotR 3, and you can have some fun with them, but play the battles in any Total War game and you'll see how lackluster the battles in LotR 3 are.
The overall presentation is pretty bland. Besides the opening movie and a few pieces of menu art, nothing really stands out visually. It's not outright bad; it's just not a very interesting game to look at.
LotR 3 also falls flat in terms of game modes. Unlike LotR 2, LotR 3 doesn't have a customizable skirmish mode, so no fighting over a map of the USA against colorful AI personalities. All you get are some campaigns, historical battles where you command a preselected army, and multiplayer. For me, skirmish mode was the best thing about LotR 2, so this is a major disappointment for me.
I know I keep comparing this game to the Total War games, and it might seem unfair to criticize LotR 3 for not being enough of a Total War clone. But when those games do their campaign maps and battles so much better than this game, it's hard not to. And the first two Total War games were already out when LotR 3 hit the scene. In fact, the legendary Rome: Total War released in fall of 2004, mere months after LotR 3 came out, so it's no wonder nobody remembers this game.
If you enjoy multitasking and a more frantic pace to your strategy games, then LotR 3 may be something you'll enjoy. For everyone else, unless you have a bile fascination or you just want to own the entire LotR series, stay away.
(I should also point out that Steam only counts the time you spend in the launcher towards your total play time. I had to leave my computer on with the launcher just to post this review.)
