Gameplay
 The gameplay in The Lord of the Rings (LOTR for short) is about as basic as it gets. You stroll around Middle Earth trying to accomplish various tasks while solving puzzles and fighting monsters.  You begin the game as Frodo, a hobbit who is looking to solve the mystery of the Ring of Power and find later that he needs to destroy the Ring.  As you wander around the landscape, you'll meet up with other characters that join you to form the Fellowship of the Ring. Many of the characters from the book, such as Gandalf and Strider, become playable as you advance through LOTR.

Combat in LOTR is so simplistic it's almost insulting. Through a combination of face buttons and the left trigger, you can attack, block, and jump. The left trigger switches between your weapons allowing you to use either your melee weapon or projectile weapon. You only have one of each type of weapon, though you can hold down the A button (attack) to charge up a super attack. This super attack is a complete waste of time since the enemies are so easy to beat that you won't need it.

As I've said, the enemies are incredibly easy to defeat. The AI is almost non-existent in LOTR as your attackers will never appear in groups larger than two, and will only attack you one-at-a-time. So you simple beat the first attacker senseless, then wait for the next to walk into fighting range.  The AI routines are so bad, that sometimes you can come up behind an orc, goblin, or whatever, start attacking it from behind and kill it without it ever turning around to face you. There's no challenge in the combat whatsoever.

The AI for your teammates is equally poor, as most of the time they will never assist you in combat. Not only that, your enemies will completely ignore them, so it's like your teammates simply serve as graphical reminders of enjoyment you'll never get from this game.

The levels themselves appear at first to allow for plenty of exploration, but after a few minutes you realize that this is a very linear adventure. Any time you go off the predetermined paths through the levels, you will be met with locked doors, impassable streams, or rocky hills that force you back on the "main road". There's no sense of adventure to this game because of its linear nature. You just follow the path, beat the bad guys senseless, and wait for the next level to load. Which brings me to another topic….

Load times. Wow, these are some seriously long load times coupled with the dullest load screens to date. It gets annoying after awhile to wait 2-3 minutes for a screen to load while being forced to stare at the same background you've seen a dozen times already.

Graphics
The graphics start off well enough, with some decent textures and good lighting. As you spend some time with LOTR however, you'll find that the graphics are repetitive, for example, you'll swear you saw the same rock and tree a dozen times in different levels. Character models are pretty good and while not exactly lifelike, they aren't overly cartoony either. The terrain itself is not heavily textured, and frequently you'll feel like your character is floating over the ground rather than running across it since you leave no footprints nor disturb the surfaces in any way as your cross them.

While the graphics overall are quite good, there is far too much clipping in LOTR. Several times I was able to partially disappear into trees, rocks, walls and doors. When you swing a weapon, it will pass cleanly through most solid objects, unless they are scripted to be a breakable item.

Lastly, there's the camera, which is a complete nightmare. It swings about far too freely; shifting angles so rapidly you'd swear your Xbox was over-caffeinated. Indoor levels are particularly troubling as the camera frequently has problems deciding what angle to use and how close/far from your character it should be. While you can adjust the camera with the right thumbstick, it will quickly move to a new position, causing complete frustration.

Sound
If there was any high point in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, this is it. The sound is very good throughout the entire game as everything from breaking glass to falling leaves sounds very realistic. The soundtrack deftly switches between foreboding and dark to happy and silly. Mind you, I could deal without the Hobbit singing sequences, but that might just be me.

Replayability
To be completely honest, there is no replay value to LOTR. Once you are done, you're never going to pick this title up again. There are simply no options available to make you want to play it again. It's an uninspired single-player mis-adventure that will probably send you running to the store to get your money back.

Overall
As you can tell, I just did not enjoy Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring at all. While I loved the books and movies, so far the attempts at converting the license to a solid game on any platform has failed, though this one has got to be the worst of them all. Bland gameplay, lifeless graphics, and a childish AI make this a game everyone should avoid.