The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"A game that would please the residents of middle earth."

With all of the genres out there that come a dime a dozen, I wish that one of those genres could be the licensed-movie-TV-book-whatever the hell else franchise you can use-game. Not just cookie cutter, brainless action games where all you do is hack and hack some more, but games with some real style and substance to them. Every day, that reality gets bleaker and bleaker, with games based on old movies like The Terminator, and new, dumb movies like Treasure Planet, being released to no fanfare whatsoever. But, fear not! With the release of one of my now all time favorite movies, The Two Towers, we get a game that breaks the mold. Well, the movie-game mold, anyway. While it doesn’t add anything new to the genre, The Two Towers is a surprisingly good game, and that’s basically all I was looking for in it.

As pretty much everyone and anyone knows (Unless you’re like Harry Potter and have been kept up in a cupboard for years), you know that back in the early 1950’s, a middle aged British author named J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a book called The Hobbit, which was originally meant to be a children’s story. Unfortunately, unless your child would be graduating from Oxford at the age of ten, he or she would probably never be able to make it through. Due to its success among older folk, Tolkien wrote a trilogy of books based around the events of The Hobbit, which became known as The Lord Of The Rings. Little did Tolkien know the phenomenon he had created when he first wrote the books.

After years of being read by millions of readers in many languages all around the world, his novels were translated into film form. The Fellowship Of The Ring grossed a tidy sum of 800 million dollars worldwide, and so did its sequel, The Two Towers. These are the two films that the game is based around; its title really is misleading. The game version of The Two Towers actually starts off with you playing as Isildor, the soldier who would eventually kill Sauron and have the chance to destroy the ring, but didn’t take it. After one level of playing as him, the true game starts off around two-thirds through the first movie, when the Fellowship is trapped in the mountains and decides to go back to Moria.

Throughout the game, you will be able to play as the films’ non-halfing heroes, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf, and Aragorn the ranger. You can go through each level with them once, and gain experience points by killing hordes of monsters, and I mean hordes. It is very easy to see that the developers of the game liked Gauntlet Legends, because the game plays a lot like it. Each level has you killing around a hundred bad guys, which can range from Orcs, Goblins, and even those pesky Trolls. Each time you kill an enemy, you will get a rating on how good your kill was. These ratings range from Fair to perfect, Fair meaning that your kill really wasn’t all that stylish, Good meaning that you did use some tricks to pull off your kill, Excellent being a very stylish kill, and Perfect meaning you kicked his ass! Your rating depends on how far along your experience meter is. Basically, the more kills you make, the more you add on to your meter, and the quicker you do them, the better. If you can execute a number of kills and combos on enemies, you will go into a sort of trance which makes you literally invincible, and able to kill enemies with one shot; a perfect kill. This is the only way to get a perfect rating. After levels, you can see how much experience you have gained, and buy new combos to perform on enemies. This where a few problems will arise.

While each character can buy a great assortment of combos, all of them are basically the same. The combos will have different names, but that is basically it; they will be the same button presses, and look exactly the same on each character, no matter who performs them. Also, instead of making each character play different areas, you basically play the same area with each character. This starts to get a bit boring after awhile, since basically all you’re doing is playing the same game, except with a different character each time. However, there is some incentive to play with each character, giving you some reason to complete the game with each character. Once your character progresses to a certain level, he can open up cinemas, interviews with the cast of the movies, and artwork used in the making of the film and the games. For instance, if you get to level five with Aragorn, you can unlock an interview with Viggo Mortenson about his role as Aragorn in the game. Get to level ten with Aragorn, and you can open up his secret level. Although, this is the same for all the characters as well. Seeing all of the unlockable interviews almost makes this seem like a fifth DVD from the limited edition version of the film, which is both a good and a bad thing.

Since each level has so many foes in it to kill, you may not notice how the game looks throughout your journey through middle earth. The game graphically is a surprise as well; many of the levels look almost exactly like their film counterparts, whether it is the dark, rocky inclines of Moria, or the rustic brown buildings in Rohan. This helps to give the game a very authentic feel. Each of the characters also looks very much like their real life counterparts, so a lot of time was taken in making good character models. The only problem is that a lot of the materials are very dark and drab, and after awhile the scenery around you gets to be very boring looking. But, for the most part, the game is very nice looking, and a joy to play through.

Now, it should be noted that The Two Towers is a rather difficult game. While killing the enemies is rather easy once you have the right amount of combos, the Bosses at the end of each level are what will keep you swearing. Loudly. You see, these bosses aren’t pushovers like most action games, where it’s just “kill them before they kill you.” These bosses are hard, and you will die if you don’t know how to defend yourself. For example, you get to fight that dreaded Cave Troll that almost killed Frodo in Balin’s Tomb. But, when you get onto the second floor, you need to keep tabs on attacking orcs, the Troll’s chain, and your own ammo, which may not even last you the whole fight. Amon Hen also has a very hard boss, the main Uruk-hi, which will block your attacks constantly. So, when you get this game, be ready for a challenge.

The game may be solid, but the area where The Two Towers truly shines is in the sound department. All throughout the game, beautiful melodies and dark, moody pieces will bode will with the game in nearly every area. I especially liked it when the orchestra would strike up a very quick, moody, dark little melody whenever an enemy would come up on you and surprise you. All of the actors from the film did voice acting for the game, something that almost never happens in licensed games. This really makes the yells for help and the war cries sound authentic, and helps to create the atmosphere that you really are playing the movie. Lots of time was taken here, and it shows.

In the end, The Two Towers is a surprisingly fun action game that really makes you feel like you are a part of the film. While the game really doesn’t add anything new at all to the action genre, it is a solid game with fun combos, great looking levels, some of the best sound I have ever heard in a game, and the ability to play with three of the coolest heroes to ever come along. If you are a fan of The Lord Of The Rings, I’m pretty sure you already have this game, but if you don’t, you should go pick it up. As for other people, you still might want to give this a rent, because if you choose to beat the game with just one character, it is a rather short game. The many residents of Middle Earth would be proud.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/03, Updated 02/14/03