The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

""It pains us! It pains us, precious!""

I liked the Lord of the Rings movies. Wasn't as crazy about them as everyone else seemed to be, but they were well-made movies nonetheless. And it was from those movies that an entire series of Lord of the Rings games were spawned. Some were good (The Two Towers on consoles), some were bad (The Fellowship of the Ring) and some were just mediocre (War of the Ring). So which one does The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on GBA fit into? You're about to find out.

Towers on GBA generally isn't a very good game at all. Although I originally liked the idea of whoopin' butt with Legolas on everyone's favorite little screen, After some time I had the chance to rethink my decision and it came off a little rusty. Truth be told, once you get through the shiny outer edge you'll find a repetitive, shallow, gimmicky game with a great license tagged on. And how can I be surprised? That's the way most movie-based games usually turn out, so I should at least be happy that it wasn't worse.

Towers is nothing more than a simple hack-‘n'-slash game. Nothing special. Whereas Towers on the consoles gave you a fun, original experience that has you traveling across well-designed levels using various button combos to defeat waves of various enemies, this GBA game has you trekking through huge, boring, maze-like level encountering the same enemies over and over that are defeated by simply bashing the A button. Fun.

EA tries to mix up the action with a supply of items for each character, magic spells and passive abilities, and the idea of leveling up your character. These ideas are well implemented but don't even come close to covering up the game's weak, repetitive nature. Levels designs are constantly asking you to find this switch to open that door, and get to the end of a level. Objectives are always the same and leave you asking for some variety.

The graphics are pretty ugly for the most part. The characters look okay since they're drawn with that nice it-looks-like-it's-3D-but-it's-not look, but they're also jagged and badly animated. Considering this, the environments themselves look surprisingly 2D and flat in comparison. they lack any real detail and fail to stick out on the tiny screen, and such things as the Balrog (which looked fantastic in the movie) look unrecognizable on the little screen because they lack any animation to speak of..

To be fair, Towers remains very true to its roots. All of the settings are taken right out of the movies and books, and some of the quotes are actually direct as well. It's also got all of the battles and such that made the movies so much fun to watch (but aren't as fun to play as you'll soon realize). So, at the very least it's a familiar experience to all fans. Also, you'll see some very slick and good-looking scenes taken straight from the movies and recreated perfectly on the GBA, as well as the movies' soundtrack. Unoftunately, the game just isn't very good.

Pros

+ It's Lord of the Rings!
+ Good-looking footage from the movie.
+ Decent attempts at adding depth.
+ Plenty of replay value if you like the game.
+ Soundtrack from the movies.

Cons

- Dull and repetitive.
- Shallow fighting system (just tap A).
- Terrible level design.
- Ugly graphics.

Overall: 4/10

As I said, I like The Lord of the Rings, but this is just a sloppy effort that's not worth your time unless you're a die-hard Rings fanatic. It's just too boring and repetitive for most players, and the video clips and soundtrack straight from the movie just aren't enough to make up for it. If you must get a Lord of the Rings action game fix, I would recommend that you pick up the highly superior console version instead of this. It's not the best thing ever but at the very least it's a fun and enjoyable action game that isn't a waste of time.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/03, Updated 08/29/04