Anime Forum Games Links Movies Music Profiles Survivor TV Shows Having read the book and seeing the movie before playing through this game, I knew pretty much what was in store. I felt EA did a somewhat decent job with The two Towers and thankfully they refined most of what I had problems with in that game. The story is sort of like the movies but some stuff from The two Towers is here, like the whole Ent attack thing is in Gandolfs stage and the whole castle stage is in Sam's quest. There is also some added moments that are questionable like the part after the Dead King boss. But overall, the game follows the story kind of well. The graphics are a mixed bag in my opinion. In game is fine, a very errors here and there where an enemy turns see through for no real reason. My problem with the graphics is how grainy the footage from the movie is, it just looks really poor at times. Otherwise the graphics are pretty much top notch. The control is simple to get the hang of. Combos and moves are easy to pull off. My only complaint is the stupid circle button. It's used on one stage and one stage only and you don't know you need to use it because you've never used it before. I had the same problem in The two Towers so I quickly figured it out this time. The voices are supplied by the cast from the movie. Good stuff but some of the acting is actually bad in parts. No offense to Sam's actor but his acting during the Shelob scene is pretty bad in the game (it's fine in the movie). The music is loud and epic, getting your blood boiling for battle. However, it isn't as good as the music in the movie so don't get your hopes up. Sound effects are basic, nothing great. The gameplay is the same at it's core but now a few things have been added. First of all the game is split up into three paths. Same, gandolf and then the threesome (Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli). Now this is one thing I hated. To beat the game you need to play through all three paths to unlock Sam's final stage, this is stupid because the other stages have some tough moments and it's not fair to the gamer to be forced to play through something they don't think they can beat right away. I would have prefered that the ending is edited so that you only get the ending moments for the characters you've beaten the paths with. At it's core though the gameplay is hack and slash. You have a quick attack, a heavy attack, guard, and a throwing attack. You need to learn quickly on which enemies are weak against what attack. It's fairly easy to figure out except the stupid spiders, god I hate spiders... You gain EXP when you kill enemies, this is used to gain levels and what not but also to buy new abilities. The cool thing is that you cna buy an ability for your group but not the group that's playing with you. By group the game means characters who share the same attacks. Legolas, Sam and Gandolf share the same moves. The best new feature is co-op play which is a great idea, no clue why it wasn't in The Two Towers. There is also online play which is alright, basicly it's co-op but with strangers. My biggest complaint is that the AI is horrible. Your partners can't deduce that a guy with a shield needs to eb hit with a heavy attack for the shield to break and their quick attacks to acually hurt them. Besides that the gameplay is pretty good. Replay Value is a mixed bag. The game is insanly short, about 3 hours long. There are extras like secret characters, levels and cast interviews. Co-op and online play really boosts the replay value but incase you didn't know, the game is Broadband only and as far as I know it's only in the North American version. I know for a fact the UK version does not have online play. It's adecent effort from EA and it's much better than the previous game but I can't help but feel it could have been so much better. It's really short and for the most part easy except a few spots here and there. A great game to rent and if you can go online a good buy but personally, I would wait for a price drop. Control: 8 Game play: 7 Graphics: 8 Replay value: 7 Sound: 7 Story: 6 Final score: 74/100 Reviewed by Americanpieflute Reviewed on January 8 2004.