The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"I got this game based on other people's opinions. After playing it for about 2 hours I was not impressed."

I loved the movie and I was quite excited about the game. I wanted to get it but I just couldn't find the time. I played it at my cousin's house and I rented it once and I have to say that the gameplay got very boring quite quickly. Don't get me wrong but the game is brilliant but it just isn't what I expected. So I gave this game a pass and waited for the Return of the King to come out. I have to say that that game was 10 times better than this one. The gameplay, graphics and replay value just over-lapped this game.

EA made a good effort making this game, but it has its flaws. The graphics are really quite poor. They are just a bit less than average for a PS2 game. The characters don't look how you would imagine them to look like; their faces are really pointy and don't have much detail, the weapons look too ordinary and other things such as the caves and rocks just look really plain with not much effort.

Don't get me started with the gameplay. Even worse than I could imagine, especially after playing the Return of the King. Let me just say that it is really slow. Say you press X to swing your sword, it takes quite a long while for your character to swing. Also, the animations aren't that great either. The way Legolas fires his bows in the film and book is completely different to how he shoots in the game. Some might say that the graphics and animations affect the gameplay, but I would say that this fault is just a basic lack of effort from EA.

Probably the best part of the game, the story. Although the story is taken straight from the film, you can't diss a storyline like this, it's just magnificent. You can play as three characters: Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli. Don't get too excited, though, you can't play the story from three different points of view, you can just play as three different characters through the same story and same point of view. And one more thing, the story doesn't just run through the Two Towers, it quickly starts at the end of the first film. Some of the Fellowship of the Ring is in the game because the first game was even worse and it fitted in with the game.

Probably not as important as other aspects of the game but it has to be done if you're writing a review. The sound is not that bad actually. Some of it is excellent like the music. The music is taken from the film and as you could imagine it is beautiful. Also, the sound effects are quite decent. When you slash an orc with your sword or axe, they make these stupid noises but that's alright because sometimes it is actually quite funny. Now, the voice overs arn't very good. They say that the actors do the voices for the characters in the game but only some of them really do. So most of them are fake actors.

Should I buy it, or should I just rent it? Well, I recommend keeping away from it if you already have the final part of the series (Return of the King). The gameplay is so much better in the most recent games and so is everything else so you'll just be really disappointed. Maybe you might like it if you've never played Return of the King, even then it might be best to rent it. You can make your own decision when you play it for a bit, but I seriously doubt that you would like it.

Now, probably the most important part of any game is the replay value. This game doesn't have excellent replay value but it isn't that bad. I don't play it that much anymore because I don't like it. If you liked the gameplay and the graphics you would probably play it more than me.

I hope that is enough to convince you about the game. In my opinion, there isn't much point of buying this game. Thank you for reading this review.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/04