The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

"The ultimate Lord of the Rings experience"

Many hack n' slash games are well known for being repetitive and short. The Dynasty Warrior series offered gamers a large collection of sophisticated characters, as well as wide variety of different game modes and stages, causing gamers to waste hours and hours on the very products. It's hard to see how a movie based game such as The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King surpassing it in quality. Perhaps its because you'll be reliving the movie's most action packed scenes, or it's just that much better. Whatever the reason, you shouldn't miss out on this excellent game.

The game starts where The Two Towers left off at; the tide for the Battle of Helms Deep soon favours Rohan as Gandalf and Eomer arrive with a ridiculously large army of cavalry. In this level, you'll be learning the game's fundamentals, such as going up and down ladders, breaking shields, using your ranged attack, etc. The game is rather simplistic, but it's incredibly addictive. Speed attacks will serve you well when you have multiple enemies surrounding you, but is unable to break through shields. Fierce attacks will be able to break through shields; as well as deliver stronger strikes; though its speed will leave you vulnerable. Physical attacks won't actually cause any damages, but it will stun the enemy for a few moments. Physical attacks will also be able to knock down ladders. Parry will allow you to block blows from your opponent with your own weapon. There are special abilities that varies among every character. Your range weapons will serve you well if you want to take out enemies from a far. You'll also have a couple of combos available to you that you'll need to string together using physical, fierce and speed attacks. You'll earn them by purchasing them at the end of each level.

These upgrades and combos aren't free, however, so you'll have to earn them through the levels. A circular meter in the corner will determine how much points you'll be rewarded. Every time you attack an enemy, your bar will fill up, and when you've killed that enemy, points will be accumulated to you. If the bar is less than a quarter filled, you'll only get a fair amount of points. If the bar was between a quarter and half, then you'll get more points. If the bar is between half and three quarters, then you'll get an excellent rating, giving you much more points than then previous two. If the bar is full, then you'll get max amount of points, which is usually 600 or 300, but better compared to the 75 or 150 the fair ratings give you. It'll also maintain that position for a while, and empty again when time is up. Be cautious, as every second is left to fade, the meter will decrease, so you'll have to stay consistent in your performance to get excellent ratings. You'll have some combos and special abilities that will help you achieve a full meter. There are a couple of combos called banes that will automatically fill up your bar, but a scene will play with you performing a bunch of strikes, which will stall you from cheaply getting too much perfect scores. Some characters have special abilities which will double your meter every time you attack an enemy. Other characters have special abilities where they'll form an orb around them, killing all those that make contact with it. The four hobbit characters have an invisible cloak. They can hide in their cloaks for some time, stealthily stabbing the orc from behind.

The hobbit's special ability sounds pretty pathetic, but their levels are designed differently, because in the movies, they really weren't great fighters. So that cloak ability may serve some purpose for gamers finding themselves in tough situations. There will also be an awful lot of environmental hazards and weapons that you can use to your advantage in the hobbit levels. Some examples are a pot of lava that rests directly above a group of enemies, or a rock on the verge of falling from its place, crushing all those in its path, which is obviously orcs. However, these environments are only placed here because the hobbits are inferior to their Fellowship comrades, and require the assistance of their surroundings. These hazards and weapons are completely optional, so those wanting more of a challenge can ignore them, and kill their enemies by hand. The hobbit path will feature many levels where Sam and Frodo has been, such as the bombarding city of Osgiliath, Shelob's lair, Cirith Ungol, and the peak of mountain Mount Doom. There are two other paths as well, such as the path of the wizard, and the path of the king. The path of the wizard follows Gandalf in his adventures. You'll be participating in various battles, such as the downfall of Isengard, battle for Minas Tirith top wall, and the Minas Tirith courtyard. The path of the king follows Gimli, Legolos and Aragorn in their journey to gaining an alliance with the strongest army the world has ever seen, the oathbreakers. There are also a couple levels where you'll be battling against Mordor's invasion of Minas Tirith in the Pelennor fields. All these paths will eventually lead into one; the black gate, and the destruction of the one ring. All of these levels are structured very well, and none of them follow the same design. In the courtyard of Minas Tirith, you'll be required to fight off incoming Mordor invaders, and as the level progresses in time, stronger and bigger enemies, such as trolls, will appear. The Minas Tirith top wall level will feature a lot of running back and forth, kicking down ladders and destroying siege towers. No level is the same, and while there are only a handful of them, they're all structured well enough to be replayable.

The characters are also unique to each other. Aragorn specializes in speed attacks, so you'll be mainly using combos that suit speed attacks. Legolos, while portrayed as the character who uses nothing else but his bow, is pretty much all around, and is excellent with his swords, but still specializes mainly in his bow techniques. Gimli uses his enormous axe to take down even the biggest of enemies using his extreme fierce attacks. Gandalf is also another all around character. He's a great physical attacker, great at range attacks, and has a special ability that can instantly kill anyone within his radius by slamming his staff at the ground. The hobbits are really the weakest of all the characters, especially Frodo. However, their style in combat is much better than their Fellowship friends. You see, every character wields his weapon a different way, causing them to attack in unique ways. While every character has the exact same combos, they're all different because of how they perform their combos. The hobbits are inferior statistically, but are superior in certain combos because their style is much better. Gandalf seems overpowered, but his style is rather sluggish, which balances everything out. While the Dynasty Warrior games have up to 100 characters compared to simply 9 in Return of the King (where four of those characters are carbon copies of each other), the texture of it all is much better in Return of the King.

That still doesn't excuse The Return of the King lacking many characters and levels. The game can be completed within one day, which is why many people see it better as a rental. Though the levels are fun to replay for many times, but you still wish the developers included more stages. While there are 9 characters, there are really only five distinguishable ones; Gimli, Aragorn, Sam, Gandalf, and Legolos. The rest, Pippin, Merry, Frodo, Faramir, are carbon copies of the other characters. These issues aren't really that big, and if the developers included more content, then this game would be a must have, despite your tastes towards Lord of the Rings. Though the biggest issue here is camera angles, and some minor distractions that start to build up and annoy you. Sometimes things will randomly appear on the screen, such as a catapult launching into the city of Minas Tirith. It would be alright if it only occurred once, but it happens almost every ten seconds, and you might die because you didn't notice the orc directly in front of you. You also can't switch which angle you want to view the battle in, which can sometimes makes things frustrating. The camera can also be aggravating during co-op mode; you and your partner have to be in a close distance in order to advance. Sometimes your partner will drag you by going into the wrong direction, or getting himself killed, which will automatically end the game.

However, while you can't switch the camera angle, it's almost perfect the way it is. You can perfectly view your stance in the field, as well as everything else surrounding. You have a great sense of feeling every time you fight, because you feel like you're in the movies. You just wish you knew what was in front of you sometimes, though moments like these are quite rare, and isn't enough to bring this game down. This feeling alone is a leading factor to why Return of the King is so satisfying. Not to mention how well the game handles when a whole army of orcs are running around mindlessly. The graphics are average, but seeing the game rarely slow down with so much going on is simply impressive. The music and sounds are also really great. In the raid of Cirith Ungol, you'll hear various orc cries as they battle against each other for possession of the mithril vest Frodo once owned. The musical scores do a great job of handling every minor and major situation that occurs; if a boss battle is being fought on, and something big happens, such as the boss summoning his soldiers, desperate music will play on. These things are barely noticed when you're playing, but they add so much to the game without you even knowing.

While Return of the King doesn't have the capacity that the Dynasty Warrior has, it has much more depth and quality. The new edition of the co-op mode is also a nice treat, and may also remind gamers of the competition that goes on between Legolos and Gimli during the movies. Things can get really competitive between you and your partner, which makes it more fun. The game is already fun; short, but fun. Unfortunately, if the game weren't so short, Return of the King would of been a must have title. Though replaying it wouldn't be such a bad idea; it just would of been better if there were more than 3 hours of gameplay. I personally purchased this game at full price, and I've never regretted it, despite being so short. The game would be too perfect if there were more characters and levels, but Return of the King is still an excellent game that shouldn't be missed, especially if you're a fan of the movie.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/04, Updated 04/04/05