The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

"A good hack-n-slash that has a few problems"

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a rare breed. A fun movie license game that actually captures the movie's feel. LOTR:TT allows you to play as three members of the fellowship: Legolas, Gimli, and, of course, Aragorn. You hack and slash through hundreds upon hundreds of orcs and Urak-Hai (SP?). The game is quite good, one of the better hack-n-slashes out there, but it still has a few problems.

Gameplay: 7/10 The levels range from fun (Balin's Tomb, Amon Hen) to dreadful (Plains of Rohan). The two fun levels I mentioned have you fighting wave after wave of orc, the bad level I mentioned has you fighting very limited amounts of orc, and instead focuses on you saving civilians. Not fun. This level takes away the most fun part of the game, the combat. Each character controls the same and all have the same moves, with different animations for each character. Legolas is fast, Gimli is powerful, and Aragorn is right in the middle. Besides those differences, the characters are largely the same. The game is pretty difficult and parrying (blocking) opponents attacks is critical. Of course, all the parrying makes the awesome combo moves nearly impossible because you will be constantly interupted by an enemy from behind. The game controls quite well, no problems there.

Sound: 10/10 By far, the best part of the game. The game has all the actors lending their voices to the characters of the game and also has all the wonderful music from the film. Truly a perfect example of placing the audio of the film into a game.

Graphics: 8/10 Not as good as Halo or Splinter Cell, but still very good. Character models are fantastic (Aragorn really looks like Aragorn) and the enemy's look quite neat, even if enemy types are limited. Enviroments look nice, not great, but good. Cool effects like wood splintering when you slice it with your sword is a pretty nice effect. Animations are the best part of the graphics. All your moves look really freakin' cool. Slicing through crowds of enemies has never been this cool looking.

My biggest problem with the game is that the just plain cool-ness of the Helm's Deep scene is wasted by two BORING levels, but is still saved by a sweet one at the end. The first Helm's Deep level has you kicking ladders. Nothing else. Seriously. The second has you standing in the same place shooting arrows at the incoming enemies. You only move to fight a really boring boss.

The game has great presentation, decent gameplay (although it is repetitive), and captures the movie very well.

A purchase for LOTR freaks and a rental for everyone else as it is very short.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/18/04