This Is A Great Game And Should Be Played By All. Even If You Don't Like LOTR's Still Play It Anyway.
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is the official game from New Line Cinema. But will it live up to the grand scale of the films?
For the few people who haven't read the legendary books by J.R.R Tolkien or seen the epic film by Peter Jackson the story of Lord of the Rings revolves around a young Hobbit called Frodo Baggins. Hobbits are small creatures who live isolated from the rest of the world and are oblivious to other matters. Frodo inherits a magic Ring. The One Ring. He must take it to the cracks of Doom in the dark land of Mordor and destroy it. The reason being if the Dark Lord Saruon gets it he will cover the world in darkness. Frodo has 9 friends to protect him in the quest. In this game, instead of controlling Frodo you take control of the main 3 fighting characters from the movie (or book depending on how you look at it). I would give the Story 9/10
GAMEPLAY : This is in short, a hack and slash game. At the start of nearly all levels you choose which warrior to play as. Aragorn the Man, Legolas the Elf and Gimli the Dwarf. Each fighter has different strengths and weaknesses. For example, Legolas has great skill with ranged attacks and can hold more arrows for his bow but fares poorly in Melee combat. Gimli on the other hand is very slow but makes up for it in his powerful attacks. Your character is plunged into epic battles from the movie and must kill as many foes as possible. You gain Experience after each level which can be spent on new moves for your character. The better combos you make the more Experience you shall gain. The levels are very difficult in some places, especially at the end but you can adjust the difficulty at any time. It is extremely easy to control and within minutes you will have completely mastered the controls. This, of course is where the RPG Elements come in. When fighting the hordes of Sauron, you gain experience points for each one you kill depending on how much he got a successful hit on you. If you got absolutely beaten like a **** you receive a poor for your horrendous fighting skills. If you get an average kill, you will receive a good which will net you average experience. If you completely 0wN the orc, then you get an excellent which will net you a high amount of experience. If you happen to be good enough and not get hit for a period of time, your little adrenaline meter at the bottom of the screen will charge up, once this is full, you will do massive damage to any living thing in your path and at the same time, gain lots of experience. How good does it get?
To be able to dish out the damage to your enemies, you need to be able to use the right attacks, this is where all that experience comes in. At the end of each level, you are presented with a level up screen where you can buy upgrades, combos and attacks. As you level up, the amount of upgrades becomes greater as you work your way up the ladder.
Each of these upgrades remain basically the same through each of the characters with only slight changes of animation (you wouldn’t expect to see Gimli prance around like Legolas now would you?) and a name change for each of them, however, they remain basically the same throughout the game.
SOUND : The game has the award winning music from the movies and it fits in very well. Each level is given music to suit your surroundings. And also the actors from the film have supplied their voices for the game so it really does feel like you are in the film. Be prepared to hear Frodo shriek for help as he's attacked by Moria orcs.
GRAPHICS : Real detail has been put into the characters models and the environments. At the start of each level footage from the film plays and it transforms into the game amazingly. They're are great lighting and water effects too. A ray of light gleams down on Balins tomb and your characters reflection can be clearly seen in the realistic looking water. This would have to be one of the stronger points in the game. Although I’m not really the best in the world at describing graphics in a game, they are simply amazing. The surroundings of each of the levels you go through are lush and are full of detail. Whether you’re at the Gates of Moria where gloom hangs around every corner, or the lush landscape of Amon Hen with Urak Hai jumping out from everywhere.
Real time lighting effects are put to good use in this game as light flickers through tree branches as they sway in the wind and fire casts shadows across walls as you walk past them.
Another feature which I really like was the way they merged actual DVD scenes from the movie into the game. At the start and end of each level, a DVD clip will play and then eventually merge into the game giving it an effect which is quite good IMHO and really shot up that WOW Meter!
It can be completed very quickly but they're are many secrets to unlock after you have completed the last level. There is a secret character unlockable and a secret level and interviews with the game makers and actors from the films. There is an awful lot of stuff here but when you have done everything you'll probably not play it again for a long time.
If you like this kind of game or are big fans of the films then buy it. A rental may be enough to finish it but if you are not sure then rent it if you must.
This is a great game. It has the feel of the films and is great fun.