"Hack, slash, hack, slash, hack, slash…"

There really isn’t much I can say behind the history of this game in my eyes. It’s by no means a classic, but it is a pretty good game if you’re really into the genre. It’s a basic hack and slash adventure (yeah, you probably knew that by now) that is really only fun in co-op mode. I’m not a really big fan of the genre, but my friend told me that this game kicked (why I listen to him I don’t know—he is one of those gamers who only likes games if they are violent or sexy or have good graphics or whatever), so I rented it. I actually was going to buy it used, but it was too new for me to find a copy, so I just rented it. And let me tell you, I’m glad I didn’t buy it. Don’t get me wrong, this game is pretty darn good, and by far one of the best hack and slash games I’ve ever played, but it just doesn’t captivate me long enough to constitute a purchase.

Graphics: 7/10
The graphics are absolutely stunning. The power of the console is demonstrated perfectly by the superb detail. The game puts an entire orc army on the screen at once and there is no slowdown. The backgrounds are also very detailed and even have some animation to them. The flickering glow of torches light up the environments perfectly. However, despite all this, there are a lot of flaws.
For one, your characters look a whole lot like the orcs, which is a huge problem late in the game when the entire screen is engulfed in troops. You do have little cursors above your characters to show who you are, but you usually are just so busy looking around and slamming on buttons to pay attention. Another huge problem is your allies. They also look a lot like the orcs, so I’ve found myself activating the “quick perfect mode move” to get to perfect mode quickly, thinking I’ve got tons of orcs to attack, but in fact I’ve wasted it because my targets are actually my allies. Trust me, this gets annoying.
There is a lot of detail, but it just looks like the graphic artist ran out of every color but brown and gray.

Story: 6/10
If you’ve never played this game, you could argue that the story behind Lord of the Rings: Return of the King the movie is good. However, even though this may be the case (I’ve never seen the movie), you’ll never know in the game. There is supposedly a story played through FMVs composed of clips from the movie, but unless you’ve actually seen the movie, you’ll be lost, because the FMVs are very uninformative.

Sound/Music: 8/10
For the music, there isn’t much I can say. I actually can’t remember the music, and I really wouldn’t know if there was any. The menu music is pretty good, but that’s all I remember. You probably won’t even hear the level music, mostly because you’ll be so enchanted with the awesome sound effects.
The sound effects, as I said before, are awesome. The sounds of clanging swords are spot-on, as are the cries of the humans and orcs in battle. The orcs groan as they fall, and your character will let out a cry of rage when he attacks. The voice acting is pretty good as well. Most voice acting occurs in cut scenes, and that is pretty good acting, but you will also hear your characters shout orders during battle.
Forgettable music, great sound effects.

Gameplay: 7/10
The basic premise of the game is to progress through the 15 or so levels by hacking and slashing your way through enemy forces. This is an action RPG in which your characters level up by getting points by killing enemies. Your character has three bars at the bottom of the screen: the health bar (if this runs out you die), the level-up bar (which I will get to later) and the points bar. The points bar is the most interesting. It is a little bar that fills up as you kill enemies, and by doing certain moves it grows faster. However, it shrinks while you are not killing enemies, so keeping it up is quite a task. This bar pertains to your mode. There are four modes: fair, good, excellent, and perfect. The higher your mode, the more points you get for kills. If you actually fill the bar up all the way (which is extremely difficult unless you use the “quick perfect mode move”), you enter perfect mode, which lasts about 8 seconds or so. This is when the points really rack up.
These points all add to your level-up bar, which shows how close you are to your next level. If you get a certain amount of points (the requirement increases with each level you grow), you will grow a level, which opens up new moves for you to learn. This is where the most fun comes in. At the end of the level, your points are added up and you gain experience, which can be spent like money to buy moves. Using and learning these moves is the most fun part of the game.
You start out being able to pick between three characters: Arragorn, Legolace, and Gimli. Each has certain strengths and weaknesses. Legolace is fast and good with arrows, but very weak. Gimli is very strong but slow. However, what I didn’t like was how unbalanced Arragorn was. Arragorn seems to have no weaknesses, which leaves you little incentive to pick anyone else. You can unlock many other characters, but you probably will eventually get too bored to unlock them all.
Now for the bad parts.
The biggest problem with hack and slash adventures is the same with racing games: repetition. Everything will get repetitive, and if it doesn’t, then you are too easily amused. I didn’t even have enough incentive to go past level 7 or so because it was getting so old and tedious. There is little storyline that makes you want to go on, unlike games like Final Fantasy, which may get boring and tedious but the story keeps you going.
Another problem is the camera. Oh, I had so many problems with this dreadful camera. At times, the camera is in all the wrong positions. In level 2, for example, there is this extremely powerful boss, and the camera seemed always to be so zoomed in on us that we couldn’t even see the boss, so he’d sneak up on us. At other times, it would be so far zoomed out that you can’t even tell where you are. The biggest problem with the camera comes from lack of flexibility of it in co-op mode. In co-op mode, one player cannot go outside the view of the camera set without the other player coming as well. This is a huge problem in especially one level where you must protect both Gandalf and another ally, and both these people are on opposite sides of the arena. If you leave one of them alone to go protect the other, the other person will probably die. God, why couldn’t they just allow for the camera to be zoomed out?
The control scheme can also be a problem at times, especially when trying to execute special moves. Executing special moves usually requires you to press 2 or 3 buttons in a row, but sometimes it won’t register a button, and you must press them at a certain rate, not too fast and not too slow. This isn’t that much of a problem, but it can get annoying later in the game.
The AI in the game is also not very good. The game relies on strength in numbers rather than AI. You will find problems winning mostly because you’re always surrounded by a ton of puny, dumb orcs. There are not many different types of enemies, and almost all of them are pretty easy to face one-on-one. It isn’t that bad, but it would’ve been nice to have a few challenging bosses more than just three times a game or so.
Overall, good for the first couple of days, but it gets real old real fast.

Lasting Appeal: 6/10
If you really get a kick out of endless tapping of buttons to kill an entire army of mindless orc drones, then this game will certainly keep your attention for a while. Otherwise, leveling up your characters to learn the cool moves is fun for a couple days, but after that the hacking and slashing gets old. There are some secret characters, but basically all the characters have the same moves with a few exclusive moves, making the secret characters not seem all that special.

Challenge: Above Average
I played it on normal mode, and I found it to be pretty difficult, mostly at certain levels where you must face a boss or complete a certain objective other than “kill everything.” There are some levels, however, where there are just a ton of puny enemies but this offers little to no difficulty. Unfortunately, though, the tough missions just aren’t that fun to play, while the easy ones offer up the most fun.

Good Points:
-Good graphics
-Great sound effects
-Decent challenge
-Nice level-up system
-About 25-30 different moves per character
-Secret characters
-A 15 or so level adventure
-Co-op mode is the only fun way to play

Bad points:
-All units look too similar
-Forgettable music
-Too repetitive
-Characters are kind of unbalanced and don’t feature enough exclusive moves
-Bad camera that can’t be adjusted
-Fairly unresponsive controls
-Too much on the screen at once makes the game nothing more than a confusing button-masher
-Levels are too similar
-Confusing storyline
-Not enough bosses

The Bottom Line:
I suggest a rental unless you really, really like hack and slash games and action RPGs. It just gets a little old after you get bored with single-handedly destroying your 7th orc army. However, as far as hack and slash games go, this one is very good. You will probably enjoy it, but not for very long.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/05/04