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What a Mess

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: November 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game SUCKS. The first four stages involve fighting the armies of the dead (e.g. ghosts) from a severely distant camera angle, and the lighting is so subtle and arbitrary that you cannot tell when the ghosts are invincible and when you can hit them. You also can barely tell who is who during co-op mode because the camera is so far away. I loved the Two Towers game and beat it using all 3 characters, and I am unable to progress at all in this one, even in easy mode. I do not understand why the developers took such a dramatic turn in the gameplay here. It's an incredible disappointment. If I wanted this kind of nonsense I could have just gone to Lucas(f)Arts.

It's All Been Done Before

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: June 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I will admit, I am slightly biased, because nothing about The Lord of the Rings appeals to me. However, I played through the first two games, and found them ejoyable and stunningly rendered.

Yet this third installment offers absolutely nothing new. If you have played "Fellowship" and "Towers," you will know what this game is, what it will look like, and how it will play. Nothing has changed. The graphics are beautiful, but we have seen that in the last two. If something happens twice, it ceases to be amazing.

I tried not to let my bias affect my view. I could not, however, enjoy playing the same game for the third time.

Overrated

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: July 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Grapics: 10/10, very good

Plot: 8/10 Directly from the movie; cheap, but what the hey

Difficulty: 2/10 Okay, here is where I start to differ with other people. I am huge gamer, and I pride myself on the large variety of video games I have played. But this game's difficulty is just ridiculus for (what the manufacturers call) 'easy'. I played the section on Minas Tirith appx. 45 times, and MADE ABSOLUTELY NO HEADWAY. Perhaps I'm simply bad at this game, but I think some other fans will agree with me that this was not nearly difficult as Fellowship of the Ring or Two Towers.

Overall: 4/10 Sorry, but what good are graphics/plot if you can't go three levels without dying???

Pretty Bad...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: January 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

At first, being able to choose almost the entire Fellowship is pretty cool. The first 3 levels are wut Two Towers mainly was, challenging, but not hard. Once you beat Path to Isengard, Path of the Wizard (Gandalf's levles) are brutal. The main factor to losing is the inability to run straight ahead. I've had to try Top of the Wall over 5 times and still no success b/c You can only run when angled. Another poor factor to the game is u can only replay levels once u beat the last level (Crack of Doom). If you don't mind endless tries on levels and the awful secret characters (Merry in Rohan armor, Pippin in Gondor armor, and Faramir). Note: Unlike the Two Towers game, you have to have beaten the game to use cheats like Restore Helth, Arrows, etc.

Great game, but has next to no replay value...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: January 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the games out there that looks better than it is. Before you jump on me, let me say that I am a great Lord of the Rings fan! I read all 3 books, the Hobbit, and the other books that add detail to Middle-earth by Christopher Tolkien. And I own all the extended edition DVDs so far. However, this game disapoints me. I admit I really wanted to buy it before, but after playing it with a friend from start to finish, I decided it wasn't worth the $50. After you do the last mission (Black Gate) there isn't much else to do. There is no real multiplayer, only co-op on missions. And the secret characters you've used before you got them--they only have different names. I have to say, EA has disappointed me with this game. The least they could do was add some kind of dueling multiplayer mode, like NightFire.

Hack and Slash

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: November 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game is enjoyable enough, and certainly is an improvement on the Two Towers game. However, like the earlier game, it is very short (less than 10 hours) and ultimately repetitive. Hack and slash--that's really about all you do here. I suppose it has replay value in that you can unlock special characters, but really, what's the point when all the characters basically do the same thing (hack and slash). To say that the game is a horrid distortion of the actual story goes without saying, but that's just the nature of this kind of game. As for the little video clips and such that you can unlock, well, they are basically pointless. If you've seen the Two Towers film, the Return of the King Trailer, and the extended Return of the King preview on the theatrical Two Towers DVD you've seen all of the movie clips before. The interviews are very short and almost entirely pointless. This game is kind of fun though, so its not totally without merit. I'd say rent it somewhere rather than spending fifty dollars on something you'll play for a week. You likely finish the game before it must be returned anyway.

Strategic Hack-and-Slash

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The third, but presumably not final Lord of the Rings game by EA (they have a "trilogy" version planned) leads from the end of the Two Towers, through the Return of the King, and into the end of the story. Taking control of a character (up to 2 players), you can traverse through various chapters to reach the end, with clips from the movies explaining as it goes along (although you probably shouldn't be playing if you haven't seen the movies.)

In essence, the Return of the King is a fun, stimulating game. While you traverse through the levels, slicing enemies apart, you have other objectives, from avoiding Nazgul scouts to using giant crossbows to kill Easterlings to knocking down enemy ladders and keeping orcs from overflowing the area. It keeps the gameplay slightly varied as you continue.

The graphics and processing speed are great. While the graphics don't have to work too hard to be more than simple (as far as Gamecube standards go), the processor can maintain many enemies and actions at once without any slowdown. Considering the amount of activity, this is impressive even for the new-gen powerful game consoles.

The music really livens up the experience. Rather than going the generic route a la Spider-man 2's game, EA decided to work with the movie-makers, not only for video and the occasional voicework (most of the lines not from the movie are ridiculous in their cornyness though), but also for Howard Shore's excellent score. Not only does it keep things in tone with the films much more than the video clips, but it also gives the game tension, even if you're just watching someone else play.

Which leads to my first gripe: This game should have been 3-player, if not 4-player. There's no reason it couldn't have been, considering the combinations of characters and difficulty variances in it. It's almost as bad as the 2-player Ninja Turtle game, because not only is it senseless to limit it to 2 players, but it somewhat strikes at the heart of the game.

The second gripe is that this game simply isn't worth buying. The strategies necessary for many chapters keep it interesting, but it's still just a hack-and-slash at heart. Once beaten (which doesn't take long at all), there really isn't any reason to continue. The game gets boring pretty fast after that. You can find the interviews on your Lord of the Rings DVDs if you want them. The fun doesn't last beyond the end of the game.

It's just a rental, plain and simple.

Poor direction plagues great potential

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: February 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I want to love this game. I love the Lord of the Rings film series. I loved most of the Two Towers game for the GameCube. I cannot love this game, as much as I really want to.

Everything I hated about TT, and there wasn't much (some bad camera angles, a vague level or two, some annoying enemies), returns in ROTK with a vengance. False sense of 'difficulty' created by constant bad camera angles, shoddy controls, button-mash inspired 'special' moves (that don't work even when you try to do them right), and poor direction. Sometimes they guide you through ("hit Z to use" or "use ranged to stun them, then strike"); Other times you are left to wonder just what it is you're supposed to be doing (hit X to kick down ladders? Why didn't they tell me? Was I supposed to remember from the last game?).

The levels are so vague sometimes you can get SERIOUSLY lost. In this game the path is NEVER clear. Numerous times my enjoyment was marred by the inability to SEE where I was going. My view was hindered by dark levels, environmental effects, and the aforementioned bad camera. Some levels just have SO MUCH going on that you can't even concentrate on the task at hand. The screen shakes, things are exploding all around you, smoke and fire obstruct your view, and enemies swarm around you like bees... and the one thing I really hate in a game is the 'push along' factor. Persistent conditions forcing you to move along at their pace. In old side-scrolling platform games it would be something (wall of spikes, giant boulder) moving just behind your character, forcing you to move quickly through the level. If you stopped, even for a second, the object would catch up to you and it was GAME OVER. Though not designed exactly the same way, ROTK is full of 'push along' levels, and I can't stand it.

Another issue I have with the game is the inability to SKIP cutscenes, especially after you already seen it. When you die mid-level and have to restart, you are forced to watch the same intro cutscene for that level. Sure, the cutscene is cool the first time through. The second or third it's still neat but now it's slowing you down. Die several times and it just gets downright annoying.

I feel the potential of this game was compromised in favor of the holiday rush. They should have spent a little more time on the new original level creation aspect instead of rehashing old TT levels. One such level is nearly identical except for the horrid camera angles, vague direction and inept controls. The TT version was much more straight forward.

On the plus side, the visuals and sound are wonderful. The animation is great and the levels look exactly like their on-screen counterparts. The cutscenes are very well made and integrate the story quite well. I do like the three 'paths' you can take, and I hear the co-op mode is pretty good. It also seems this game is quite a bit longer than the (very short) Two Towers.

Almost no replay value

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: May 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First off when I got my gamecube for Christmas this was the first game I played, and I liked it right away but I beat it in two days. When I replayed it it was the same thing all over again. If it had more replay value and it was longer I would have given it five stars

Surprisingly Good

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: May 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Whatever else one might say about EA these days, at least they put high production values into their licensed properties. LotR: Return of the King features the entire cast from the movies, music from the movies, clips from the movies, and levels based on concept art and designs from the movie. It's this lavish treatment that really makes the game worth a cash investment for fans.

Not to say that the actual gameplay is bad, only that its pretty standard. This is a beat-em-up/hack-and-slash affair, and you basically plow through the levels killing everything in your path, then trade in those points for upgrades so you can kill a little easier. However, the controls are solid, and the graphics engine is amazing. The main characters are kinda average, but the detail in the backgrounds, as well as the hoardes of enemies and real-time chaos really make the experience. The game perfectly recaptures the epic size of Peter Jackson's trilogy.

And then some. This is a faithful translation of the movie, but its a stretch to think Tolkien intended for Gandalf to chain combos and crack wise. Still, one has to smile when Ian McKellen twists lines from the original story, including my favourite: "Oh Saurman....Gandalf the White comes to Isengard...no longer seeking your council!"

It's a short game, but its a fun game, a good two-player game, a very polished game, and now also a reasonably cheap game. Try it.

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