The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

"When good games go bad"

Introduction
"Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" is the follow-up of "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and for anybody that hasn't played "The Two Towers"---"Return of the King" will be your first encounter with these awesomely produced but ultimately baby-short games. If you are, however, familiar with the latter, then "Return of the King" will hopefully patch up whatever qualms you had about it or just reinstate everything you loved. Onto the review:

Gameplay
You will love the gameplay for it is the revised "Two Towers." I mean, the button-configuration is simplistic enough to learn quick but if you're shooting for all of those fancy combos, you'll find that this hack-n-slash adventure can get challenging when the going gets tough and it all boils down to time.

Whether or not this game has any strategy is another story altogether. You can go through the game only getting used to two or three of the buttons but for the gamer that wants to get at the punchline, he'll develop a kind-of-strategy as to when to mash those buttons or when it's better to parry your opponents attacks.

Enemies can, at times, seem countless! And you'll find yourself excelling quickly in one of the big flaws found in this game and that is upgrading. If you stay and fight, you'll have upgraded as quick as you can remember all of those button combos (which isn't long.) And every character has the same upgrades, so you're limited there also. To make matters even worse, the upgrades don't soak up much of your experience points at a time so it's likely you'll have a left over sum.

But the game goes smooth enough and I don't think the upgrade system is going to cause any big to-do. You can't get over how crisp and approachable the whole of the game's gameplay actually is. Even after the upgrades, you'll be more than happy to keep mashing "X." Many of the characters have their own attributes and their own feel to them, so you have that sort of customized atmosphere while you're fighting your way through waves of ugly "orcs."

Also, think about mentioning for gameplay value those other figures that stand around you aimlessly. Don't let the clanging swords fool you, you seldom actually watch them kill anything and it's only in a few places where the total really shows. However, they're good keeping around and even if it doesn't seem like they're doing much, they're adding to the gameplay value. It makes your character feel even that more especial and really adds the element of a "team effort" into the playability.

And speaking of "team effort"--if you'd really like a team effort, you'll bask in the new cooperative and online journeys that make the playability of this game even more appealing. Try plugging in another controller and fighting side by side your friend of choice to get the most out of this game for it adds something hack-n-slash epics are renown for: contest. With the tallying of your enemies perished, the two of you can turn this game into a battle between each other. Even for the less competitive, co-op mode could become a favorite for you and your friends and if no one's handy, there's a promising online feature.

7/10

Story
Of course, the story is ole Tolkien and you just can't say anything bad about it. It follows close with the movies and the movies follow close with the books and the chain goes on, keeping the story as endearing as it ought to be.

If you have seen the movie or read the book, the game will have you right where you want to be in the battle for middle earth (fighting!)

If you haven't, however, you'll gain enough information to want to keep going through the levels. You'll want to see what happens, ultimately and that keeps the game going.

10/10

Graphics/Sound
Because video games have come such a long, long way -- you won't be surprised to find "the Return of the King" up to par but you may be surprised to see how up to par it really is. For the graphics, alone, share apart of the awesome experience you'll have playing through this the first time. Even if you play simply to kill a bunch of "orcs"--you're going to appreciate the fine tuning that went into making this game feel as real as it does. The movie-into-game sequences are done as well as you can expect and you can't help notice the swords crashing together, the pieces of rubble, backgrounds, enemies, characters--everything! It's visual masterpiece as far as games go and, up to my knowledge, it's one of the best looking film-based games out there.

On one other happy note, somehow this game has been able to make your enemies appear at least a little different everytime (even though they're not--they mix it up well) and the only bad possible word I can put in for the graphics lie in the sometimes weird camera angles and dark walkways.

8/10

The sound, disturbingly, is just as fine. You'll hear your actors voice randomly through the levels (some word of motivation or, maybe, just some word of release), followed by the "ching-ching" of a sword fight and the weird grunts until "Argh" your enemy dies with a despairing sound of defeat! It's genious. The commentary is done well and the music that appears comes directly from the film; it's promising and it's (more-importantly) one step back from making this another monotonous hack-n-slash-er.

9/10

Play Time/Replayability
Some say that "the Two Towers" could've been innovative and with the release of "the Return of the King," those people may have found themselves rephrasing that for it's now well known that these "Lord of the Ring" games are lacking in levels and their play time is seriously limited.

Expect to find yourself victorious three-to-five days down the row! Even if you distribute your hours, you're looking at a week to a week in a half, max for a 100% completion. Say you add another week to that for co-op, and you're still wondering why a three hour movie was cut so thin. It is the game's own demise, ultimately. The lack of levels cannot be made up for in solid graphics alone and, while it is an improvement from "the Two Towers," it still has fans wanting more.

The extra features may turn you off but they're interesting all the same. The interviews seem relevant and the two bonus levels give you some extra gametime but not nearly enough. Perhaps you'll find yourself wanting to play the game over with your new characters or going back through, trying to achieve better ends but I've got a good feeling you'll soon want more, stop playing, and move onto something else.

There is a factor of replayability in this game but it isn't until after you've completed the game the first time that you first begin to ponder: why would they go so far and stop so abruptly?

3/10

Final Recommendation
This game is a solid rental but an altogether great one. Buy it cheap if you buy it at all and that's the irony of it. Its grand opening and ceaseless potential makes me want to recommend it to any "Lord of the Rings" fan and while its graphics and gameplay should appeal to any gamer, its short length will make jelly of them.

A must rent with a final score of: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/05