The 300 cards with the 1,800 questions are now divided into the categories of: Good, Evil, Things, Places & History, Warfare, and Making Movies. They are all taken directly from the three films, although you are going to have to wait until the end of the year when "The Return of the King" comes out on DVD and you can listen to the commentary track(s) to have a fighting chance on some of these questions. However, if you are a true Lord of the Rings fan then there are expanded rules to raise your game playing to the next level, and I appreciate the effort to provide some sort of appropriate twist so that there is more to this version than the game board and the box of questions.

Speaking of the game board, it includes a map of Middle-Earth and along with a replica of the One Ring there are pewter pawns of Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and Galadriel, as well as a Ringwraith token that has special powers. The big question is whether you have 2-4 friends who are as devoted to the films as you are so that you can actually play the game on a regular basis and not just sit around memorizing all the questions and answers (which sounds like something Saruman would do).

69 of 74 found the following review helpful:


Great game!  Oct 16, 2003
This game really makes you think back and think hard about what happened in the Lord of the Rings movies. Part three has not come out in theaters yet, so if we came across a question for part three we passed over it and selected a new card. The different question topics were unique(evil characters, good characters, items in the movie, fight scenes, place and history and making movies). The only topic that we had a lot of trouble with was making movies. They would ask totally out there questions, although interesting they were quite difficult. If you watch the documentaries on how the movie was made and who said what when they decided to take their role, then you will do fine!
The player pieces are made out of pewter, which is really neat. The board looks pretty classy, although there are not that many questions(just one small box). Hopefully they will issue additional questions at a later date!!???
You can also play with a couple of play enhancements. There is a ring that you can win possession of when you get a piece of your pie and that ring allows you certain benefits. You can also play with the Ringwraith, which is sent around the board and if it lands on your square, you lose a piece of your pie. It just adds a little uniqueness to the game.
All in all it was a pretty good game. My husband who never forgets lines or scenes from movies absolutely loved this game. I still enjoyed it but I was not able to answer some of the more indepth questions.
We bought his game at the same time as the 20th Anniversary edition, this one blew that game right out of the water. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, this game is definately for you!

45 of 47 found the following review helpful:


Yet Another Way to Immerse Yourself in Middle Earth  Nov 02, 2003
A very nice game, not without its faults (especially if you're a hard-core fan). It only takes a few minutes to learn the categories, obviously, but some of the questions seem to be out of place. There is quite a separation in question difficulty between the "Making Movies" category (which covers the technical aspects of the trilogy) and the other five groups. While this may motivate you to watch the commentaries in FotR and (in a few weeks) TTT more closely, in actual game play this may bias your move decisions somewhat. And as another reviewer remarked, this game really needs a second box of question cards, so hopefully there will be one released soon.

Having said all that, this is really an enjoyable way to revel in the movie trilogy. It's very challenging to the casual fan, while between two fanatics, the one who "runs the table" will win the day. The expert rules regarding The One Ring and the Nazgul add some neat chrome, but I think the best way to challenge real experts here is to add the usual house rules, like having to answer two questions correctly for "a piece of pie" and to win the game.

Overall, this is quite a fun way to pass the time, especially if you're planning to stand/sit in line for seats at Trilogy Tuesday. Enjoy!

72 of 82 found the following review helpful:


Disappointing and Tedious  Dec 08, 2003 By R. A. Levien "Aldaron"
The rich lore of Lord of the Rings trilogy would seem the ideal material for fun and challenging trivia game. Sadly this is not it. Despite the potential of the material, this game ends up being both boring as a game, and empty as a Lord of the Rings experience. Fans of trivia games, even those who settle for the Trivial Pursuit family of games, will feel cheated by the shallowness and unevenness of the questions (despite their narrow focus) while those looking for a good Lord of the Rings game will be left empty handed.

As a trivia game, this edition adds nothing, and players are better off with whichever of the other Trivial Pursuit game suits there interest and the level of challenge they are seeking. The questions in all but one of the categories in this edition are basically impossible go get wrong (unless you slept through the films), so there's little opportunity for the kind of general knowledge play that makes the typical Trivial Pursuit game fun. In only one category (about the making of the film) is there any challenge, and there the questions are often far too difficult (unless you've followed the lore of the making of the films in detail). This unevenness of the categories not only spoils the fun of making smart guesses or connecting arbitrary bits of world knowledge and factoids (the core of a decent trivia game), it exacerbates the well-known "end game" problem with Trivial Pursuit: the (endless) last phase of the game has everyone bouncing back and forth around the center space (in most games everyone will get that far at about the same time because most questions are so easy), fielding movie-making questions (what else would your opponents pick?!) until someone either makes a lucky guess or gets an easy question.

The real disappointment with this game though, is that as a Lord of the Rings game it is a disaster. This is particularly frustrating because Lord of the Rings has, unlike the Harry Potter series, inspired some truly excellent games, most notably the rich and subtle cooperative game by Reiner Knizia (one of the best games available on any topic; ASIN: B00005O0F4) and the much simpler but still quite deep 2-player Stratego-like 'Confrontation' game (also by Reiner Knizia; ASIN: B00006JBPP), both of which, in addition to being excellent games in their own right, are also superbly 'themed': the Lord of the Rings feel and atmosphere comes through during play and one really feels involved in an adventure in Middle Earth. (The 'children's game', again by Knizia, is also worth a look for kids under 8.)

Two other points are worth mentioning: (1) for those who have not yet seen the Return of the King, this game contains spoilers, which you might want to avoid; (2) the Middle Earth lore questions are all about the films, not the books.

Finally, it is important to note that there is another Lord of the Rings trivia game available that not only covers the books rather than the films, but is also much more interesting as a game and does a better (though still limited) job of introducing the feel of a Lord of the Rings adventure. This game (the "Lord of the Rings Trivia Game") is not available from Amazon, but is available online from several sources (try Funagain Games).

13 of 13 found the following review helpful:


Got old quick  Oct 10, 2004 By Doug "dougnlis"
While it's fun to test your knowledge of the movies once, it gets old quick. There's no real Tolkien knowledge required to answer the questions. What is really stupid about the set of questions is that a person who only knows who Gollum is could get an "enemy" question right just about every time. The first time I played this game with 3 other people, "Gollum" must have been the correct answer at least 30-40 times. The only place a person would really get stuck is if they didn't pay close attention while watching all of the special features on the extended DVD set and gets thrown an actor's or design team member's name question.

This game is definitely geared towards the movie and the average watchers who may have not read the books. It is not for the true Tolkien fan. The "correct answers" to questions are derived from changes made to the story by the filmmakers which makes it possible that someone very knowledgeable on the books could get a question wrong if not thinking in terms of the flow of the movie! Obscure and interesting book knowledge that would make this game a keeper is overlooked.

The flow of the gameplay is made interesting by the presence of "the one ring" and the black rider but this does not make up for the lack of real trivia questions.

My recommendation is that you borrow this game from someone who has already stored it somewhere to collect dust and play it before commiting your hard-earned dollars.

See all 47 customer reviews on Amazon.com