I'm tempted to give this game a 100% rating, but since this is only my second review with scoring, I'll give it a 90% Reiner Knizia is perhaps the best board game designer anywhere. It takes a special talent to design board games, especially family games. You want something that's fun for the entire family, keeps everyone entertained and participating, and is a balanced game and Knizia time and time again delivers.

Lord of the Rings is a beautiful game, based on the movie trilogy more than the books. There are three cardboard boards, two of them double sided. Five plastic hobbit miniatures and one Dark Lord monolith miniature. Heavy glossy cards, five white plastic markers, and heavy marker pieces complete the game. There is a one page rules summary and a full-color rulebook that steps you through the game.

Being a family board game, the gameplay is relatively uncomplicated. A little more than say Monopoly but certainly less than Risk 2210. You play one of five hobbits as they travel along to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom. Each hobbit has a set of cards used for movement and special actions, plus each hobbit has an individual ability. You start out in the Shire and set up, then quickly go to Rivendell to pick up the Fellowship and quickly get to Moria, the first dungeon board.

There are four dungeon boards, one each for Moria, Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair and Mordor. On each board there are three movement tracks, one main track and two side tracks, with a marker to keep track of the progress in each track. There is also an event track with six events. Most of the events are bad news for the hobbits, though you do get a chance to avoid the bad things by paying in cards and other things.

Once you're on the board, each player takes a turn starting with the ring bearer. First flip a tile, which is either a movement on one of the tracks or something bad. Then the player can either rest to get a life or draw two cards, or he can play one or two cards. So you play a foot card to move one on the foot track and a double sword card to move two along the sword track, or whatever. Each space in each track has somthing to pick up or do. There are shields, hearts, suns, rings, and special cards to pick up. There are also black squares that make you roll on the dreaded die. You need to pick up items and get through the board quickly, it's a fine balance since it's hard to do both, especially if the tiles are top-heavy with events.

Lots of times you have to roll the die, which usually is bad. It's either blank (nothing happens) or you lose two cards, or you lose one to three lives, or Sauron moves closer. The big thing here is the Life Track. Each hobbit starts at 0 and Sauron starts at 15 (or 12 or 10 depending on the game level). Lots of places to roll the die or lose life, which moves your hobbit up the track. Also some places where the Dark Lord gets to move down the track. If a hobbit meets Sauron, he's out of the game. If the Ring Bearer meets Sauron, the game is over. So it's a fine balance to get to the end without meeting Sauron.

This game is totally cooperative. You either all win or all lose, dying doesn't affect that. At the end of the game you have a final group score (one of the features I really like), which is 60 (for the total number of spaces on the main track of each board) plus the number of shields collected by the hobbits. There is even a high score page so you can write down your scores, a nice touch.

You can't trade cards or show your cards. But you can play special cards on other people and you have to talk out your strategy, so it's a very social game. Lots of sacrificing your hobbit to further the cause. Actually, the only thing I didn't like about the game is the total cooperative aspect of it. I like to have one winner, which this game doesn't really have. There is an option where the hobbits score individually based on the number of shields you get. But the game is so well balanced that you're much less likely to win if you don't spend your shields on various goodies.

All in all, this is an excellent family game. You can play from 1 to 5 players, though the game seems to be designed for 3 or 4. Non violent, cooperative, faithful to the movie trilogy (which in turn is mostly faithful to the books). It has an original gameplay and has great looking components. This game is well worth the $45 price.