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Disappointing

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 23, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was very disappointed in this game. The only thing to do is constantly beat up on bad guys... there's no plot, other than being locked into the movie plot, and the gameplay is monotonous and extremely unoriginal. You can't even make use of the environment around you. You're locked into moving through the game in exactly one way, with no interaction with other characters.

Further, the camera angles are extremely frustrating and make gameplay difficult in many instances, especially if you're using a bow. There is virtually no aiming with the bow... either you're pointed roughly in the right direction and you hit things or you're not and your arrows fly off to nowhere.

The Lord of the Rings setting doesn't redeem this at all. I loved the movies and I love the books, but this game is missing everything that makes them great.

Now to figure out how/where to sell my copy...

A groundhog day game of the worst kind.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: January 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game really blows. It has great graphics, it is a chore, it's on rails, and it's short. The game designers made it harder not longer. This is the number one blunder of developers under a time crunch and it's evident that this game is a nice graphics engine slapped on top of a movie plot. WEAK. This game could have been SO much more. Take a look at the TEXT only moria style game TOME (Troubles of Middle Earth.) Now there is a game engine with ample plot.

Number one game design rule: Longer not harder.
Number two game design rule: Creating a twitch fest limits your audience. (Long combos with different button presses.)
Number three game design rule: Freedoms increase your game appeal.

This game is weak and it is totally disappointing. Don't buy it, don't rent it.

-Ira

*sigh* Was expecting more

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: December 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, I had beaten LOTR: The Return of the King which was incredibly fun and had a great set-up. So I decided to work my way backward through the games, starting with LOTR: The Two Towers. Wow! It was horrible, the graphics were much worse the LOTR: The Return of the King, I started and the intro where you learn how to fight was just sad. It was the same buttons as before but it took forever for it to explain them all, and it was dull, nowhere to go, so you had to just sit there waiting for Orcs. After what seemed like forever I moved onto the next scene. The fighting was horrible, I could have taken "The Nine" in LOTR: The Return of the King but the combat in this game wasnt any good so the moves that happened so quickly before were slowed down to an agonizing rate! I finnaly decided that if its going to be that bad now why sit here and deal with the whole game. I thought it would be much better than it was and I advise you to exclude this from your shopping list.

Ah Lord of the Rings......you just didn't have it this time.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 44
Date: December 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

how could u? i had high aspects of this game. you disappointed me like u disappointed the fans everywhere. chad, do not buy this game. oh i'm so angry i could eat dirt. the graphics were as bad as sega genesis. please take this advice. the levels in the game are so easy to beat. i just got gamecube 3 days ago. i feel so ashamed. please forgive me gary.

decent for a beat 'em up, unplayable if you like lord of the rings

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: September 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought these for my son, who likes them, but hasn't seen the films. Being a modest Lord of the Rings fan, who's seen the extended versions and the regular versions of the films many times apiece, who's read the Lord of the Rings, and read some essays and books about Tolkien; I was gravely disappointed.

I'll put up their flimsy defense first: EA had the license only from material from the films, not the books. Therefore all material used in the game could only be culled from the films or completely fabricated.

What they did do was take the material of the films, already edited and manipulated from the book and reduced and recyled even more, then added stunningly made up scenes that actually contradict what happens in its parent work. It's unbearable.

Examples:
* Many levels are complete fabrications that have no relevance to it's source material. The Rohan attack and the camp of Orcs in Fangorn come to mind.

* Dialog was created by the actors that simplifies the story. The Merry, Pippin, and Sam are seen in the video clips but not mentioned in the storyline. The remaining fellowship actively helps Frodo escape the attack of the Uruk-hai that killed that poor guy with the horn (Boromir, if you like the source material).

The game itself is similar to "Bad Dudes" or "Double Dragon." Graphically it's much better, but the premise, to kill everything, is the same. I can see it being a quick and easy way into the LOTR universe, for 10-13 year olds, but avoid it if you're a LOTR fan.

The most slapdash half done game I've ever seen

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: February 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Pfft, is my summary. They made this game in less than a month, and the rush job shows. The graphics are horrible, the gameplay was boring, the fighting was unrealistic, and as you battle through the stages you get to fight the grand toatle of FOUR DIFFERENT ENEMIES!!! ORCS, GOBLINS, TROLLS, AND URUK HAI!!!
Never mind that orcs, goblins and uruk hai all fight the same way. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you might fight TWO TROLLS AT ONCE!!! WOW!!! THAT MAKES THE GAME WORTHWILE, EH?
Now that we are past the unpleasant subject of the (Cough) enemy design, let me comment on the other "Features" of this game. The music for most of the game was just stolen soundtracks from LOTR, with the exeption of the water watcher music that was a single drum going boom-boom quietly in the distaince.
The game has around 3 battles that corraspond with the movie (Vaugely). The rest are fabricated crap that makes no sence. Gandalf went from edoras to find Eomer didnt he? Well now hes in some unnamed rohan village fighting orcs, and at the end of that he walks off alone (The makers were too cheap to afford horse animations.)

All in all, I rue the day I assumed anything with a popular name tacked on it would be good. (The Wind walker, for example). This game was heniously unrealistic, patheticly contrived and unspeakably poor, plodding on in it's leinar fasion.
The producers should hang their heads in shame.

With a little more work perhaps...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: March 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The main problem with the Two Towers game is that it really feels incomplete and that it could have been SO much better...

Okay...The first time you play it can be fun, the strange camera modes are original and the graphics are pretty good...But the whole point of this game can be summed up in three words:

"Hack-and-Slash"

Much like the Gameboy version, (which is slightly better than the game console version) your quest is to kill as many orcs as you possibly can and collect as much points from those killings as possible so as to gain more stylish killing moves.
The game is also dismally short...There are only ten levels or something!!! And as soon as you finish the game and start again from the beginning, you are totally bored.

I've heard some people say that "Oh! This game is awesome! It has music from the movie!" Big deal...You know, people...Some games actually have music composed FOR THE GAME ITSELF!

Unfortunately, this attempt to bring as much of the Lord of The Rings movie into the game as possible is --to be blunt-- a big failure.

If you're looking for a way to immerse yourself into a movie universe, there are games like Enter The Matrix that succeed...The Two Towers game really doesn't.

Two Lame Towers

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: March 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game starts off well, however takes a frustrating turn quickly. First, it's only a one player game. What's the point of having a hack and slash game, if you can't have multiplayer action with your friends? Second, the game incorporates the upgrade system found in role playing games. You have to purchase special attacks or techniques, this [bad]. I became entirely frustrated with the continuous hordes of enemies always attacking you...some of the levels are extremely difficult! Also, even when there are many other good guys on your side fighting the battle, it seems that you're the only one capable of killing anything. Your computer partners have the intelligence of a ball of lint. Lastly the play control is frustrating. EA games should've adopted the lock on system that all new adventure fighting games have. A 3-d environment needs good play control and camera angles to make the game enjoyable...this game doesn't have those helpful features. This may be a decent rental nothing more. For those lord of the rings fans, this game is incomplete, because you can't play gandolf. I should've rented mario party 4 instead of this junk.

Not as good as expected

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: October 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I played and successfully beat the PC version of The Fellowship and I was excited when I had the chance to play the Two Towers on GameCube. However, the game was worse than I expected. From the first 10 minutes of playing, I was confused and bored. It is hard to tell which character you are controlling especially in the opening sequences because there are so many NPCs floating around. The graphics are pretty bad for a Gamecube game and there is no strategy at all; simply fight and fight and chop. Do not buy this game; you will be sadly disappointed.

Is this all you can conjure Saruman?

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 18 / 26
Date: January 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

One can already tell that I've become somewhat obsessed with the Two Towers. I assumed that since the movie was great, and the book was great, and the soundtrack was great that the game would be as well... The good news is that the game is very fun, the bad news is that its very short, and a mockery of great graphics. Anyone boasting about how good this game looks, I'm sorry, must be blind. Although there are many digitized scenes from the movie included in this game there are some pretty terrible CGI FMV sequences that wouldn't have even looked good on the original Playstation, maybe for the Sega CD... The in game graphics are low polygon, and poorly textured... darn Resident Evil, you raised the bar so high!
Playstation fans have been boasting for months about how great this game is. Now I'm reminded why I don't use my PS2 very often.
The GameCube version supposedly features a hidden level and character not found in the XBox and PS2 versions. Please note that I do not know if this is true or not, but the back of the GCN version does state "Exclusive hidden level and character to unlock." I can confirm that it has the fastest load times of the three, but if its graphics you want don't worry, all three versions look pretty bad.
The thing is that Lord of the Rings could make an excellent video game or series. The problem is that nobody has done it right. The game should be an RPG, either turn based, or action based. The game should include every intricate detail from the books and the movies, and should go where no game has dared to go.
I think the problem is that EA was afraid of surpassing the movie in the presentation front, something they should not have been afraid to do. EA usually does a great job with their movie licenses, but unfortunately, this time the game comes out as average. Unlike the books and the movie this game has little to no artistic value, and presents itself as an attempt to cash in on what has sadly become a huge cash cow. The game is fun, but not what it should have been, so I give it three stars... and I will continue to dream of a day when I can play Lord of the Rings developed by Squaresoft, for either XBox or GameCube because no matter how many people deny it, PS 2 is just technically inferior to both by a long shot.

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