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Frustratingly Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 29 / 30
Date: August 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I remember when the Two Towers came out for almost every platform EXCEPT for the Mac, needless to say I was a little miffed. But although you still can't get the Two Towers, you can, as you'll obviously have figured out by now, get the Return of the King thanks to EA and Aspyr.
Probably the first thing you'll notice about the game once you begin to play is the very high production quality, footage from the actual films was lifted and grafted perfectly into the game allowing the same footage to blend seemlessly with the action you're thrown into, its a beautifly exicuted idea that words perfectly. With one exception, you can't skip these cimematics the first time through (for each character you play as, even if you've already seen that cinematic switch your character watch it over). But thats not that bad because why wouldn't you watch it the first time anyway? On the other hand there are many cut scenes (the ones using the game's engine) that can NEVER be skipped, this can work to pushing you off the deep end after you fail and restart an exceptionally difficult mission for the eight time, but just the same its no huge deal.
As for the look and feel of the game you should be very empressed. The graphics are top notch, and I wouldn't doubt you if you told me the same team that created the special effects for the movies worked on the game as well. The game is simply brimming with eye candy, the enviroments look a great deal like the movies location thus adding to the great feel of the game. The character detail is excellent, especially with Gandalf, Sam, and those big, black, cleaver wielding orcs. Not to mention the hundreds of animations that you'll see are extreamly smooth and polished, and since each of the playable characters have a wide variety of moves this becomes even more empressive.

But what would great visuals be with no sound to complement them, don't worry this games audio matches the movie itself, you almost wonder if they pulled the sound right out of the films it's that good. Everything is executed flawlessly, the clink of steel on steel (or mithril), the crash of a firey boulder exploding inches before your feet, and don't forget that juicy noise you hear as you plunge a blade into some poor orcs stomach cavity, its all top notch.

Now for the games most prominent flaws: You've all heard that you can only save between levels so I'll only give a nod at those that have said the same because it truely is frustrating when your almost through what you hope is the hardest level when you kick the bucket and have to start over from some inconveniently placed checkpoint. On the flip side though sometimes the save-whenever system can mess things up alot, for instance you save at what you think is a good spot only to find out your chances of completing a mission a extreamly slim, say two champions just entered and one of your allies is dying, worst case senerio, you just overwrited a previous saved game, see what I mean? Another, and in my opinion the largest flaw, thing is the difficultly of the game, some levels can be done on the first one or two attemps, while others can take a dozen or more until you know exactly how to approach every confrontation, depending on your skill level of course. The first few levels shouldn't give you too much trouble, but once you start to move up in the ranks things get dramatically more difficult, especially if you don't know what to do (fortunently due to the games linear structure this isn't too often). For example my hardest level Pellenore Fields (with all the Mumakil and that darn Ring Wraith) caused me so much grief (which had built up from prior levels) that I set the game down for about a week to nurse my emotional wounds, and only completed it because I had a good friend do it for me. Mind you alot of this is player specific stuff, some people approach a games in very different and effictive styles and/or are just really good gamers, and then there's the other, larger faction that find some games to be a snap but can't understand why this one is so hard, I probably fit in the latter of the two. Next is the unstability issue, don't be surprised if your game crashes twice or more times a week, which can be the most annoying thing of all when your seconds away from the mother of all levels and you get kicked out loosing all you checkpoints and sanity. Last and probably least is the fact that enemies can be very moody, they never hesitate to mess of your string of awesome combos you slaved over, clobbering you to pieces, yet when you want to perform a special move which requires an ememy to attack you and you to parry their attack they just hop around in circles adding too the frustration. But this is very minor most of the time as it just makes for a deeper gaming expirence, sort of.

Even with these flaws this is still an excellent game to play and can be insanely fun at times to make you want to keep playing. Plus the extras you can unlock as you complete missions and the game itself make it a very good value, once you complete the game you can use cheats and all the characters on any level adding to the replayability and fun factor so stick through it to the end you'll thank your self.
One last note: I definently DON'T recomend purchasing this game if you only meet the system requirements and still want great sound and visuals. I have a dual 1 GHz G4 tower, 1 gigibyte of ram, a GeForce 4 MX video card, and OS 10.3.2, and the game still skips a beat now and then. in the worst conditions, the frame rate takes a nosedive down to about 5 fps, but that only in the most complex enviroments and when there are a ton of baddies around (I play the game at 800 by 600 resolution, the character detail on high, and the shadows on low). Just the same if you really want the game still go for it, I'm glad I did. *Sorry about the LONG review*.

Take you back to the middle earth!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: July 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Frankly I never play any other LOTR video games before, and this one really take me back to the middle earth! Footage from the movie perfectly combine with the games. (In one shot you are still enjoying the footage from the movie, the other shot game is start!) Great character detail, great atmosphere - sometimes you are in a situation that you wanna say "OH my god, how can I get through this?!" (I especially like the path of ARgole finding the dead king...) But when I said that I didn't mean to be a tough game, but just VERY exiciting and get you high... often it is so high that after the section is finish, i feel really satisfy and really wanna play again!

Bad side. Checkpoint are far far away and you can't really stop in the middle and play it next time... You had better change the keyboard control and like me, get a mouse more than one button... And I hate the way the camera working in this game... it doeen't like other FPS that the view point is control by the mouse, the game decide, so often when you walk around, the view point constantly change and your hand have to adopt it quick... and too bad it ask for 2.2GB for installation. I think the movie can be load from DVD?

And so sorry for anyone who find it constatly crash... I never crash.

I am running it on a Powebook 15" 867Mhz 1GB ram... It's okay to be run in 1024x768 but i am afarid it will slow to death during scene that contain a lot people... so I run it in 800x600; but still it look nice and I beleive it should run excellent on modern macintosh :)

At last, if you love LOTR you got to buy this game!

Rockin' Awesome Fun Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Amazing Game. This review is short and sweet because there's so few problems with this game. It simply has easy-to-learn controls that open up a massive amount of combinations and relatively complex gameplay. "Buying" combos such as "Final Judgment", "Orc Hewer", or "Dark Deliverence" was similar to the Diablo-style gameplay of purchasing upgrades, but much more realistic because the upgrades became part of your repertoire, even though took awhile to get the knack of.

It's incredibly addictive, fun, true to the the movie (with nearly identical plot sequences and battle-scene details like Eowyn facing the Nazgul, Gandalf covering the Minas Tirith towers, beheading the Lieutenant of Sauran, and more), has amazing graphics, and operates extremely quickly. Most games have surplus of annoying keyboard commands, but Return of the King has relatively few, with stunning control and command over the variety of realistic-looking characters throughout the game. The three different paths you can choose from -- The Wizard path, the King's Path, or the Hobbit Path -- gives the game a mult-dimensional feel as well. The attack on Minas Tirith had incredible graphics and was quite challenging covering each flank of the fortress against scaling ladders, orcs, and attack towers. Except for the Palantir "bonus" levels at the end of the game which are practically impossible without cheaps and the epitome of monotonous with a constant onslought of enemies, and no stage changes, most of the levels had depth and development This is one of my all-time favorite Mac games. I am a huge Tolkien fan, so that emphasized my appreciation, too, but, in general, it's still a fantastic game!

Great game -- big problems

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is great, but it continually crashes on my system, rendering it unplayable. I'm using a Powerbook G4, 1 gig processor, and it easily fits within the range of compatible systems. But at certain points the graphics disintegrate into a huge mess.

So I'm forced to return a game I was very much looking forward to playing.

Beware: GamePad "not supported." Aspyr support disappoints

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have really enjoyed this game on my brother's X-box. The Aspyr version promised similar game play but with improved graphics (the graphics are great)--and I didn't need to buy an X-box to enjoy it. I bought the iShockII GamePads to facilitate cooperative (2-person) play. The program automatically identifies the controllers and the manual tells you how to set them up. However they don't work. The characters always walk and never run when the controllers do not emulate the keyboard. This makes it impossible to sucessfully complete many levels.

I wrote tech support and got this completely apathetic and misleading answer "I can tell you that The Lord of the Rings™; The Return of the King™ doesn't support gamepad or joystick play." I think Ratburt is the tech support manager there.

This Game is great!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 9
Date: May 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I only got this game last sunday but it rocks! The Helm's deep level is cool at the end and so is the road to isengard. I won't spoil it. The ups of this game:
The controls are easy to remember if you change them a bit

This game has cool scenes from all three movies

All the levels I've played are fun (exept pellenore feilds)

The Downs:
The path of the hobbit is really hard

Pellinore fields is hard once the mumakil start coming

Minas tirith:the top of the wall is very confusing

You still can't replay levels with as character who beat the level until you beat the game

Apart from that, this game is very good. I was on for 2 hours straight one day. I would reccomend this game to anyone who likes lord of the rings and who can stand being frustrated a bit.in The king of the dead level, the king is the easy part. after you beat him, thye paths of the dead cave in on you! in the last part of this level, you have to fight three dead champions (the guys wits the healt bars over their head) at the same time! In helm's deep, first you have to fight off a few orcs, which isn't to hard with gimli's help, then go through a gap in the rocks created by a firey boulder to help legolas fight off a few archers. After that aragorn needs your help clearing the path to the inside of helm's deep. just fight off a few orcs and fire three ballistas. one of them hits a bucket of explosivs. once this happens, you win the level.

Anonymus, out

You feel like you're watching the movie, when Legolas pulls you behind the screen

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: June 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pros:

This game is awesome! (1) The game has spectacular graphics, you sometimes forget that they are graphics, and think they are the real thing, like in the movie. (2) You get to watch clips from the movies to figure out what is going on. (3) There is music playing the whole time through the game. I haven't quite figured out yet if the music came from the movie or not. (4) It is just plain fun, it's like living the movie. You get to play your favorite characters. (5) The detail is spectacular. (6) The voices from the characters are awesome. (7) It is a complicated game, but that just makes it all the more fun. (8) It is completely strategy, which doesn't make it a game that wastes your time. Your actually learn stuff from it , For example: the game manual always say to not get overconfident, stay with your friends, don't jump into trouble, and move slow. (9) You can change the actions to what ever button you want (except ranged attack (attack with bow and arrow) you get to choose one button that press down first, then you have to press the speed attack button (another attack))

Con's:

There are none. Except one: when ever you save the game and you're are on (for example: two) and you are at one of the checkpoints, when you go back , you will have to start the level all over (but that should be easy, right, since you got past this part). It did not annoy me at all. The only other thing is that when you are playing the game and you die, you have start the level again or start back at checkpoint, no matter what. My suggestion is that if it starts to annoy, end the game and start again later. Then you don't get angry. You get used to all this after a while.

This game is not a game that you solve in a week (unless you are a professional). for this game, you will need the manual for sure, and you better read every bit of it over and over again, in plant it in your brain, and listen to it. It really helps. If you have a Mac, you better get this one. I bought the PC and it wouldn't install, so I bought another one and it still wouldn't install, so my mom bought me a Mac and it worked perfectly, never had a problem. I am not a gamer, I have never touched a playstation, xbox, etc., I just rarely ever play my gameboy, and I have never done serious gaming, and I love this game. I am edicted to it, I play it every night for an hour or two before I go to bed. I never can wait to play it.

GAMEPAD WORKS !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: July 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Great game for Mac. It DOES work with gamepad.I had a similar problem using Microsoft's Sidewinder.I just relaunched the game to change the buttons keys.First press the A button(sidewinder) to choose the button keys associated.It seems you HAVE to associate all the buttons to make the directional pad work properly.Don't forget:Monitor resolution:1024X768 if you have an iMac.

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