The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

""Breached the castle is breached""

Intro: This is my first review every so if you think it is bad, oh well. Any way Lord of the rings was first a book written in the 1900s. Then Peter Jackson took the books and made it in to movies. The first movie was a hit, and the second movie was too. Any way this game is about both movies, mainly the second though.

Story: 6/10 If you have read the books or watched the movies then you will know it has a great story and you will understand everything that is happening. If you're just picking up this game because it looks cool, you will be disappointed by the lack of story telling. They try to tell it by clips from the movie but they are so short you get hardly any info out of them. Any way the story is about a ring which is trying to kill everybody so the hobbit Frodo goes off to destroy it with some companions. Then the companions become weakened by the ring so Frodo continues on his own. Then his companions go to protect Rohan, a place that is being attacked by evil creatures. I know the story sounds very cheesy but is actually quite good if you read the book (or watch the movie). What I said though is basically all they say about the story, plus more, which is why I gave it that rating.

Game play: 8/10 the game play is very straight forward, use sword attacks, combos, and arrows to clear out tons of enemies. There are three characters you can choose from; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. Gimli is a power tank, when Legolas is amazingly fast but not that strong. Aragorn is a mix of the two. Along with that there is a secret character and level to unlock. The game is has very easy to controls to learn. A is speed attack, Y is Fierce attack, B is Parry, R kills enemies when they are on the ground, X knocks enemies back, and hold down L and press A button uses your ranged attack (eiter bows or axes). You can also by combos and upgrades for your attacks. Although this game may be kind of simple, it is very fun to play. You will have no trouble playing the game with any difficulty until either the 2 last levels or the three last levels. And if the game is to hard for you, you can always use cheats.

Graphics: 7/10 for the most part the Graphics is very good. They are very nice and Aragorn actually looks like himself. The Nazgul look like themselves too. The battels at Helms Deep (there are three) look espisously amazing. Speaking about Helms Deep, the first battle, when it starts out with a movie, it takes a while to figure out that it just changed in to game graphics. The only downside is Gimli and Legolas, they look absolutely terrible. Other than that good job.

Sound and Music: 9/10 The Sound and Music are mostly taken directly from the films. I just love going to Amon Hen and hearing that great bum bum bubbbum. They also have all of the original actors from the movie saying there lines. As Orlando Bloom says in his inteview though, some of them are slightly strange. If they had a sound room where you could listen to all the music, I would defiantly make it a ten.

Playtime/Replay ability: 7/10 this game is actually pretty short, it should only take you a couple hours to beat. Is I'm not mistaken, I think there 13 levels including the secret one. But with 3 difficulty settings (Easy, Medium, and Hard), 4 different playable characters (one secret), and tons of interviews, movie art, and some other stuff, this game should keep you satisfied for a while.

Final: 8/10 (not average) this game is very good and fun. I would suggest to buy it, but if you are worried of the shortness or bad story telling rent first. As of 2006 (the year I wrote this) copies of it are very hard to find. Any way have fun defending Middle Earth!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/06