The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"Battle in the defense of Helm's Deep!"

Briefing Room
Now for a limited time: includes Tekken style combos, 3 selectable characters, and a new upgrade system. But if you email us now, we will also include bonus levels, movie footage and interviews you can unlock throughout play, I would also like to finish with; these are part of the game regardless.

GAME PLAY: (6.8)
Have you heard the phrase, ''hack n' slash''? Some way or another its vile meaning was placed on Lord of the Rings. Have no worry that is simply not true! The combat alone is fantastic! The concept is not button mashing, but rather timed combos with Tekken like fighting.
As soon as you start Lord of the Rings you will see the in-depth control configuration, oh wait that is, 'Vibration: on/off.' I’m left wondering did they give us this great fighting system and excellent ranged attack feature only to say, 'hah, now they won’t be able to setup their controls, ha-ha.' It really doesn't add up to me, the only thing you can change is vibration, and the game difficulty. Based on how well you executed your combo attacks, you are given experience points which are spent on the different attacks, and weapon upgrades (such as bow, and shield improvements).
When it comes down to it; you can upgrade the attacks you get, and you can even buy new arrows/faster bows, but you still can't change the way you use the buttons or even how you view the virtual world(perhaps different camera angles?). All of that said, a portion of these flaws leave a bad taste in my mouth, and one ugly stain on Lord of the Rings game play.
Though on a better note, i must say the combat engine that drives this game is nothing less then pure ecstasy. Each of the three characters; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli have their own fighting style, and weapons. You can do a wide variety of attacks based on the combo strings you put together. To explain this further, imagine trying a combo like:(A+A+A+B L1+A), that would do one attack combo and then fire an arrow at the enemy. Whatever character you are; you have a ranged and a melee attack that you can switch between one another on the fly. Trust me, you will need both, the action pace is non-stop and if your not being chased by a huge cave troll, then your probably fighting off seven different Orcish Hordes, all of which want nothing more than to smash Helm's Deep into a pile of rubble.

GRAPHICS: (8.9)
While the integration between game play and FMV cut scenes is flawless, i love the look of Lord of the Rings and its graphical presence is very clear. Each and every single creature, level, and building are filled with realistic detail, the Xbox’s true 3d modeling power unleashed!
You can see that the hard work put in making Lord of the Rings visual appealing paid of greatly. If it was anyone thing, this was a game that looked very pleasant at all times. Like Baulder’s Gate, a previous Xbox release, you see a great battle engine, and awesome graphics. Sadly however, by the time you get a great feel for the game, and you begin to get drawn to it, the games already over. I hope gaming companies begin to focus more on game depth, the fundamental controls, and of course the storyline.
After you finish each level you can redo the level with one of the other characters, or else advance to the next level. After advancing you see a new movie scene, and the level selection image will show you if you have any new levels or interviews unlocked. Alone the interviews, and secrete level aren’t much of a present to commend you into unlocking everything, but the true fans will fall in love with the extras none the less. Each character has unique attack animations, and all three have their own type of weapons they can use. As you make your way through the story you will see your guy improve, his arrows take different colors, and even his weapon(s) light up with each combo completed.

SOUND: (7.7)
Once you selected your level and character, the sound/music variations took over the atmosphere shaping aspect of the game. When you walked into puddles of water you could hear your character struggle through the currents, each character had it own spoken dialogue, and best of all was listening to the DVD movie scenes that were unlocked in each level.
The sounds showed they were given extra attention from the start to the end. Every character had something to say when reaching an event in the game, and naturally they spoke during the movie scenes. The secrete interviews are completely original, and also include a few hours worth of comments on the game from the Lord of the Rings cast. The sound quality itself is near perfect, and its seamless integration into game play is topnotch. Yet that doesn't makeup for limited things to say in battle,
While a musical score doesn't exist, the longest 'song' is about a fifteen second drum roll looped over and over. This created mixed impressions on me; it was annoying to hear some of the music looped over and over, but when things heat up the constant 'drum roll war beats' was just the right touch for a realistic battle feel.

REPLAY: (5.8)
Another EA licensed title, including some things to unlock, and the option to select from three characters. But hold on, the total game time is about twenty-five hours! You could beat this game and unlock everything in about a week. After you unlock the levels, and interviews you will find no reason to ever load this title again. I had a hard time wanting to even continue playing after i beat it the first time, everything is completely the same. Unless your one of the huge fans, the mediocre incentives will most likely not keep you playing.
Multiplayer would have made this game much funnier, I had a vision for co-op battles, and the like making Lord of the Rings well worth playing many times over.

Closing Comments:
Join the Fellowship: This newest installment to the Lord of the Rings video game library has defiantly took a leap into improving the games, i hope this means better yet, is still to come.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/03, Updated 04/02/03