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Tough, but loads of fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 32 / 33
Date: August 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is absolutely THE best game I've ever played. I'm not huge into games, but I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings, and received a demo disk of the game from a friend. Our behemoth of a computer couldn't handle it, so I was ecstatic when I received a laptop as a big gift one year, and gleefully discovered the demo worked. This is proof positive that marketing gimmicks like demo disks work, because the thing prompted me to shell out $20 for this big guy...and I don't regret a penny of it.

On the Two Towers "wimpy" DVD, there was a preview for this, and one of the game developers said "You won't play this game and know everything that went on in [previously unreleased] Return of the King, but you might play this game and FEEL everything that went on." He's absolutely right.

As you already know, you start with three paths. You can play any path from the beginning, and/or if you get tired of playing Sam, you can go and take the Path of the Wizard, or King. You have no option about who to play on the Wizard and Ringbearer paths, but let me give you some advise: when starting on the Path of the King use Legolas. I know, it doesn't fit for the Elf to be leading the trio through PotD, but he's the best fighter to start out with. From there, you go on to fight the King of the Dead (tough), with escape from the Paths as a second part of the level. Both are arguably the hardest levels in the game. Then you journey to Gondor, fighting hundreds of orcs and uruks (if you stick around) at the Southern Gate, then encountering more hoards of uruks and Haradrim on the Pelennor. Then you must do battle at the Black Gate, which shouldn't be TOO hard if you have saved and earned combos wisely.

Gandalf must first assist the Ents in destroying the last elements of Saruman's rule, then he goes to Gondor, where he fights on the Top of the Wall to keep the forces of Mordor at bay. When that ultimately fails, he runs below and fights uruks and huge trolls in The Courtyard.

Sam must Escape Osgiliath with Mr. Frodo, then rescue him from the throes of Shelob's Lair, then follow him to the tower of Cirith Ungol, and rescue him from the orcs that captured him. Finally, he must assist Frodo in defeating Gollum in The Crack of Doom.

You absolutely must begin on easy, or beginner level; you will find that hard and challenging enough! Even so, there will be times when you'll want to perform the killing move "Computer bane" on your computer while playing this. It's insane how tough it is to beat sometimes. But if a rank amateur like me can complete it, you can! Also, unless you have a super-computer you'll want to lower the graphics settings so that you can have smooth game play. It won't make a huge difference in the appearance. It helps, because I didn't figure this out until I was trying to escape the PotD after beating the King of the Dead. Running through the mists make you go slower on high graphics, but the surroundings collapse on a time basis, because you go slow, you'll die.

It's true, you can't do a lot of exploring, and there's not a whole lot of secrets you can go back through and discover. The cheats only work after you complete the game (cle-ver!), but they give them to you. (So why do the cheat sites list them, I wonder?)

Also, if violence is of concern to you, you can bet there's a lot here. Nothing worse than you find in the trilogy ... sometimes less. I do not like the gory, bloody, violent video games, but I do enjoy this one. Blood is nonexistent, except for the occasional dark stuff that might fly out of an orc when you smack him with your sword. There's no beheadings, and most of the enemies you fight are very non-human, either spiders or orcs. Towards the end, you do fight heavily-armored Haradrim, which are human. In one of the killing moves, Aragorn kicks the human to the ground and then knifes him in the head. It's a war game, so it's to be expected. But it's about the good guys kicking the bad guys' butt, and after a hard day's work, sometimes it's a little stress-relieving.

Bonus features include interviews with the cast, stills from the movie, stills from video game production, two bonus levels (Palantir of Saruman, and Palantir of Sauron...you'll probably want to use cheat codes for them) and bonus characters Faramir, Pippin, and Merry. You could say Frodo is an extra character, because you can't play him until you've defeated the game. Why the geniuses at EA Games didn't put a playable Eowyn/Dernhelm is BEYOND ME.

You can also use (or in my case, purchase) a game pad, and plug it in to your computer, and play with two. It's often frustrating to play with two, when one is low on health and the person who is high on health accidentally picks up the health. ("YOU TOOK THAT ON PURPOSE! THAT WAS MINE!") But it's also fun. Once you defeat combo (you have to go through the entire game again on combo -- single play defeat doesn't count for combo play) game play, you can play the Palantir levels, or play Gandalf and Pippin on the Top of the Wall, recreating the movie scene.

Again, the game is tough, and you'll get discouraged. But don't worry, you'll get through it and have fun in the process.

I love this game, just like I love Lord of the Rings, and I think if you like one, you'll like the other. You'll love it. Buy it. (Now can we PLEASE get the Two Towers game put out on PC?!)

Tips and Hints

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: February 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm more a turn-based strategy and city-building simulation gamer, but this game is incredibly captivating and fun. Some people say it's difficult, but I finished it in a day and I'm not used to fighting/combat games, so it really isn't that hard. I think some people try to hack-and-slash their way through it when there are clever and safe ways to accomplish many goals. Here are some gotcha's that I found along the way:

- Legolas is much faster than Aragorn or Gimli, and it's much easier getting combos off because there's less chance of being interrupted. Legolas defeats the Witch King with ease because he can get combos off on him, and can use arrows on him between his Wind of the Mountain attacks.

- Legolas has the most useful Level 10 skill. He shoots 2 arrows per ranged attack.

- Sam's special ability is invisibility. He's meant to use that ability against bosses that don't seem beatable, especially in Cirith Ungol. Also in that level, you can lure bosses under the falling ramp, go invis, and then pull the ramp level and kill them with one hit.

- In Sam's Osgiliath level, you don't need to kill many orcs cause they don't follow you. Just keep running. Just because the orcs are there doesn't mean you have to kill them.

- Using parry-killing move combos gets you to perfect mode immediately. And you are invulnerable while doing the killing move.

- If you run to the opposite edge of the cliff when the Witch King summons his minions, they won't attack you, and you can pick them off with ranged attacks.

BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: December 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a thirteen year old girl, and this is my favorite game of all time. I love The Lord of the Rings, and I have been waiting for this kind of game for a long time. You are actually fighting the orcs, trolls, and mumakil-not just sending people to fight them like you would in a stragety game. Here are some things I particularly like about it:

First of all, the levels you go through are in order of the events that happened. There is the path of the wizard where you get to be Gandalf, the path of the king where you can choose between Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli, and the path of the hobbits, where you can be Frodo or Sam. There are 12 normal levels, and two bonus levels at the top called palantirs (whoever has read the books/seen the movies knows what a palantir is).

One of my favorite things is that after you finish all the levels, you get to go back and do them again and you get to be WHOEVER YOU WANT. There are also three secret characters who get unlocked if you beat the game and you can be them, too. There are 3 settings-easy, medium, and hard. The first level gives you instructions as you go, and the easier levels are near the bottom and the harder ones are near the top.

As for the fighting-it's relatively simple. The left mouse button is speed attack (used for unshielded enemies), right mouse button is heavy attack (used against shielded enemies-don't use this too much or you will be vulnerable), you use the a,s,d, and w keys to control where you go, parrying (blocking other attacks) is q, holding down shift and pressing the left mouse button is ranged attack (arrows, throwing knives etc.) and there are also some keys that you only use occasionally, like tab is jump back, Ctrl is physical attack (punch, kick, push etc.) and F5 is the special ability-with each character it's different. But this is only half of the fighting.

The other half is combos. You can buy upgrades and combos with experience points you earn in the game by killing enemies. Combos are when you press the keys in a certain order and something completely different happens that is very useful against enemies at certain times. One that is particularly useful is Orc Hewer-it is left mouse button, left mouse button, right mouse button. It is a powerful attack. There are different levels your characters can upgrade to and buy more upgrades. The upgrade-buying stops at ten, but the character can go up to level twenty (but it takes some time!).

This may all seem confusing at first, but when you play it for a while you get it all figured out and then you will appreciate how wonderful this game is. I know I have. If this game seems violent to you by the reviews, don't worry-it's not as violent as it sounds. If you love The Lord of the Rings and computer games and have a little patience and an open mind to this game, you will LOVE it. I guarantee that.

Happy Playing!

I Can't Stop Playing This Game!!!!!!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: December 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was so looking forward to a fun game to play this winter and here it is!! This game is extremely difficult at first until you get used to all the functions on the keyboard and mouse. I'm sure this game is much easier to play on a console. But, regardless, I can't stop playing this game!! Even though I finished it, I keep coming back to replay all the levels because they are so fun!! I'm normally not a 'hack and slash' kind of gamer, but I'm having a blast! Some of the higher levels have taken me some time to realize what exactly I'm supposed to do. There is a strategy guide available by Prima if you get stuck. Most of the time you can hit the ESC button once or twice to pass on the movie cuts if you don't want to watch them. What else can I say, it's just so fun!! I've enjoyed every level so far (my favorites being Shelob's Lair, Cirith Ungol, Top of the Wall, The Courtyard, Pelennor Fields, and the Black Gate). I can play the Pelennor Fields, Courtyard, and Black Gate over and over and it's still so much fun!! I have spent hours on this game and didn't even know that much time has passed. I did discover one helpful hint on "Road to Isengard". When you get to the part with the Ents, stand off to the side and let the Ents destroy all the orcs for you; that way you don't have to lose any of your strength. If you want to gain the most points and experience, you need to learn to use your 'killing move' or 'finishing move' to gain valuable points.

Great graphics, Not too hard to control

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: January 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

It is interesting to hear that some people find this game extremely easy while some think it is extremely hard. I found the game become much easier once I upgrade my weapons and I learn how to parry enemy's attack.

Gameplay (8/10): It is fun to finish the missions in this game. You do not just kill enemy in this game. Instead, you have to accomplish certain missions. You have to block enemy's invasion, save civilians, etc. Even better, the game allows two players. However, the game has two slight flaws. First, the missions are sometimes confusing, and I had to play several times before I understood what I should do in a level. Second, similar to the plot of the movie itself, massive explosion zillions of the enmeies appears at the same time. Therefore, the graphics looks awesome, but it is confusing to play.

Graphics (10/10): The best graphics I have ever played. They include cutscenes from the movie. However, as I have mentioned the graphics can hinder the visibility of the battlefields, and it sometimes causes confusions.

Control (8/10): Easy to control if you have a gamepad. However, playing it with keyboard can be very hectic.

Difficulty (7/10): I think that the game is slightly difficult. Most of the time I have to use all eight buttons in my gamepad. Remember, mastering how to parry is extremely important in the game.

Storyline (9/10): I heard that the game follows the plot of the book better than the movie.

Overall, it is a great game. Compared to other 3D action games in PS2, I think it is a much better game.

WhoaaaaH!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: March 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

OK, I lose interest in pretty much every game in about 2 -5 days. But ROTK - well, I keep inviting my friend on weekend nights to come over so that we can kill Orcses and such together, and be aragorn and legolas for a couple of hours. If I was to buy but one game, it would be this one. So - go, buy, enjoy, and get obsessed by it! It is SO worth it (excuse my Americanisms!)!

Best PC Game I've Ever Played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 18
Date: April 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the greates game ever.

Great game hard to control on pc

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

We have the pc version and the PS2 version. Graphics on the pc are flawless but character is so much harder to control using default mouse and keyboard setup. I also tried using my Microsoft steering wheel and my joystick and its still hard to control.

On the PS2 the graphics are less but the console game controller is so much eaier to to work with.

Other then that the game is great, if you liked the Two Towers, you wont be disappointed.

best game ever played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 06, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This pc game is the best. The action is the best, the graphics are the best, EVERY THING IS THE BEST!!!!!. Now people say it is too hard to control on keyborad, it is true somewhat, but you can get a gamepad. I got mine for 10 bucks in bestbuy( it is the ps2 controller except it is on a pc controller format.) The view is good, because you can see every thing around you. It is like a 360 view. Also you can play two player which is cool. You can get points by killing orcs, and later buy cool moves or wepones. Overall the game is a really good PC game.
Note: THE GRAPHICS WILL ONLY BE GOOD IF YOU HAVE A GOOD GRAPHIC CARD.

Definitely Worth the Money!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is worth the $9.99 you can get it for!!!! We have this game and I have finished it, and the end is cool, there are secret codes like Infinite Missiles, Perfect Mode, Unvulnerable and more. (You have to finish the game to get them!!!!!)
This is the best PC game I have ever come across, plus the most fun. Also, there are 5 or 6 other secrets at the end of the game, and an extra level.
Plus, quick movie clips from the movie and the charaters actually look like the actors!!
Get this game! It is DEFINITELY WORTH IT!!!

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