The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"Nothing short of excellent."

This is definitely one of the best games currently out there. It's extremely fun and has very few flaws. This is one of the best movie-to-game adaptations ever made.

Story: 10/10
If you've seen the LOTR movies or read the books, it's the same story, starting at the battle on Mount Doom, through some major battles of Fellowship of the Ring, and it ends with major parts of The Two Towers. The bulk of the story focuses on Aragorn, a human, Legolas, an elf, or Gimli, a dwarf, as they try to aid Frodo, a hobbit, in the destruction of the ''One ring to rule them all''. Frodo seperates from them, and the three main playable characters' real journey begins. This story is very engrossing; it leaves you on the edge of your seat in the movie and it makes you want to keep playing in the video game, even though this one emphasises killing as many orcs as possible more than the movies did.

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics in this game are incredible. The characters are all very specifically detsailed in their face, body, and movements as they battle the countless number of orcs. The enemies also look very nice. The environments look quite realistic and consistent with the movie, which, as they said in one of the unlockable interviews, was one of the advantages of being able to work really closely to the filmmakers.
The in-game graphics deserve a lot of praise. There can be about 100 enemies on the screen and there is rarely a slow-down, although when there is it has a way of not ruining the overall enjoyment of the game. Also, the character's weapon flashing when they execute a special is very cool.
Now the cutscenes. There is a cutscene at the beginning and end of every level. Some of them include scenes from Fellowship of the Ring or Two Towers, and the transfer from movie to in-game graphics is seamless, but 4 out of 5 times it's pretty noticeable (which is okay, again, because of how seamless it is). A lot of the other scenes just include scenes that are not in the movie so they are just improved graphics, and they look NICE!!!!!!!!

Gameplay: 10/10
Here's how most of the levels work. Half of them keep you contained in a fairly small area as more and more enemies pour in. Most of these types of levels make you protect some area, usually a door. If the door breaks down, you lose. These are the more challenging levels. The other type of level includes longer levels where you try to get from Point A to Point B while killing Orcs, Goblins, Uruk-hai, and sometimes trolls using either arrows/handaxes or a melee weapon (Aragorn gets a sword, Legolas gets duel knives, and Gimli gets an ax). The levels do a good job of getting more challenging as you go along.
Along the way in any level, you can execute easy-to-use specials that are earned by paying experience points (more onthat later). There is also a killihg move, easily used by pressing the R button, in case your opponent is not dead after he's been knocked down. There's just something so satisfying to impaling the orcs you knock down . . .
When you kill an enemy, you get a kill rating (Fair, Good, Excellent, and Perfect) and you get exp. points for each kill. The better the kill rating and the tougher the enemy, the more exp. points you get. These points can be used to be permanent health and weapon upgrades, as well as specials.
You can play any level (except the first one) as any character. Gimli is strong, slow, and has weak ranged attacks (handaxes). Legolas is weak, fast, and has the highest quantity and quality of ranged weapons. Aragorn is like a mix of the two. It's fun to play as each character in each level to see how the challenge and dialogue change with each character.

Music/ Sound: 10/10
Most of the music is straight out of the movie and it sounds great. It's very clear and creepy.
The voice acting is superb, thanks to the fact that they got the actors who played the characters in the movies to play the characters in the game (Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian McKellan as Gandalf, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Orlando Bloom as Legolas, and John-Rhys Davies as Gimli. Sorry if I misspelled anything.).
The sound effects are superb. You can hear the weapons ''whoosh'' as they are swung or the ''clang'' as they collide with another weapon. The orcs sound just like they do in the movie, and the ''squish'' that you get when you impale them sounds really good.

Replay Value: 9/10
This game is short, but it's just one of those games where you want to play again just for the heck of it. Plus, there are interviews, photographs, and art that can be unlocked by beating a certain stage and getting to a certain level with a character. These interviews are very fun to watch. There's also a secret character and a secret level, the last of which has to be unlocked with each specific character in order for that character to be able to play on that level. Once you beat the secret level, you get codes that I'm pretty sure won't work until you unlock them (in other words, they won't work if you know them but haven't beaten the hidden levels yet; again I'm not sure of this). It's also fun to play again on the different difficulty levels (hard mode is extremely difficult towards the end.).

Overall: 10/10
This is definitely one of the best game adaptations of any kind ever made. It's very addicting and easy to learn, and if you're a LOTR fan, you'll enjoy this game for a long time. I highly recommend buying this game.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 06/03/03, Updated 06/03/03