Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings license is one that lends itself easily to many different
genres of games, some of which can convey the epic scope of the movies more
than others. Unfortunately, those looking to be a hobbit in a MMORPG
are going to have to wait a few years, as the more complicated genres take quite
a bit longer to produce. However, those looking for a quick fix for their Lord
of the Rings itch can look no further than EA’s new game, The
Lord of the Rings: Two Towers, encompassing the first two movies. While
it’s not an RPG, an RTS, or even an Adventure
game, it is Lord of the Rings… isn’t that enough?

Despite
being an action-based hack and slash along the lines of Double Dragon,
Final Fight, or even (shudder) The Bouncer, Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers provides a surprising amount of depth and replayability to a
pretty short game. The old-school style of the game is also apparent, but it’s
been modernized to a pretty substantial degree.

In
the game, you choose between the human Aragorn, who is skilled
with both blade and bow, Legolas the elve, who is not as skilled at hand-to-hand
combat, but deadly with arrows, and Gimli the dwarve, who’s
throwing axes aren’t the equal of the other two’s arrows, but has
a melee attack with an axe that is better at short range. Each one can be taken
through the game on their own, enhancing the replay value, although none of
the quests are really individual or story-altering. The differences between
playing as Gimli or Legolas aren’t nearly
as profound as the different classes in a game like Diablo, but they
are noticeable, and appreciated.

Also setting it apart from the action genre, LOTR: TT incorporates
an RPG-like experience system, where doing more complicated combos
will give you more experience points allowing you to gain levels quicker. Even
here there are many differences. Each character earns roughly the same combos
at the same levels, but Gimli also gets to upgrade his health many times, and
upgrade his main axe a few times. Legolas only upgrades health once or twice,
but upgrades his bow constantly. Aragorn upgrades his sword, health, and bow
evenly.

Throughout
the game, you’re fighting nearly every second that you have control of
your character. You’ll constantly have fast-moving orcs with swords, slow
goblins with shields and pitchforks, Uruk-hai with crossbows,
and a very angry cave troll to contend with… usually all at the same time.
It’s ok, though… your character has plenty of ways to take on anything
Sauron can throw at you. Movement is done with the analog stick,
while X is used to parry sword thrusts and even block incoming
arrows. The B button is used to kick or shove your opponents
to knock them down, at which point you can use the R trigger
to make a killing blow. Holding the L trigger pulls out your
bow or throwing axes, and hitting A will throw one, while the left analog stick
spins your character towards other enemies.

Other than that, the A button is used to do a fast attack
against an enemy, while Y does a slower, but more powerful
fierce attack. The Black button allows you to jump backwards
with a dodge. Although the dodge is quite useful, it’s very difficult
to time the move, and even more difficult to get to the Black button quickly.

While the controls seem simple, you’ll never even notice it once you
get into the game. Trying to pull off the Orc’s Bane or Elrond’s
War Rush, doing it successfully and taking out three opponents at once is just
as pleasing as it should be. The enemy AI is done very well for the most part,
but a few of the enemies seem much more invincible than they should be, with
a sword attack that surrounds them completely, blocks arrows, and can’t
be parried. You almost have to wait till he knocks you down, and then do a rising
attack to knock him down, and do a finishing move. Unfortunately, you
will take damage trying this move. However, the bosses make
up for the cheapness of the minor enemies. Each one is relatively simple, and
a quick exercise in recognizing the weaknesses that his pattern allows. Each
one is individual and meticulously detailed. Some are quite simple, but others
will require quite a bit of trial and error to bring down.

Rarely
do you find yourself in a situation where it is simply your character and the
enemies on screen… the amount of NPCs (non-playable
characters) is staggering. Some are simply villagers that need to be rescued,
but many more are characters that fight on your side. In the Helm’s
Deep stages, the elven archers cover the walls, shooting arrows into
the backs of the Uruk-hai you’re fighting. In other stages, you’ll
find the other two playable characters with you, or even the hobbits,
Gandalf, and Boromir.

The NPC’s can’t compete with your own character for the amount
of damage you can unleash, but they can help quite a bit, and even when they
aren’t helping, they provide for lots of atmosphere. Unfortunately, there
is no multiplayer option. I would drop another $50 for an expansion disk
that allowed the NPC’s to be controlled, whether in split-screen
or system link. Having one or even three other friends controlling the other
characters in Moria as we’re assaulted by orcs and the
troll would be ungodly.

The variety in the missions is definitely there. The objective is always to
kill all your enemies, but sometimes in different fashions. In some missions,
you may have a time limit in which to kill a certain amount, or you may have
to also find trapped civilians and free them. In other missions, you have to
destroy all the explosives in the city, or knock over ladders to stop the flow
of Uruk-hai. Although the real point is obviously always the same, EA manages
to convince you that you’re doing something different, extending
the replay value.

Lord of the Rings is a pretty good looking game. It uses a pretty
inventive tactic for delivering the story throughout the game, by playing FMV
from the movies, and then morphing it into real-time gameplay at the end of
the scene. This produces environments in which at the very least, the starting
point is exactly as the player will remember from the movie. This also leads
to a better sense of immersion in the game than you normally get after watching
a visually stunning FMV cutscene stop and wait for the actual game to load.
Unfortunately, this makes the job of creating the characters that much more
difficult, since we see their real-life counterparts only seconds before. Luckily,
EA didn’t drop the ball too badly here.

The
enemy characters all look incredible, with great texturing, high polygon counts,
and good animation. Unfortunately, there is a lot of repetition within their
ranks. One of the great things about the movies is that they manage to make
individual orcs look like unique individuals, rather than a bunch of clones.
The game forgets this, but it’s not a cause for concern so much as an
annoyance. Of the “human” characters, most look pretty
good compared to their onscreen counterparts, but Gimli stands out as looking
the worst. His ruddy complexion and beady eyes from the movie look like a pile
of raw hamburger with eyes in this game. Aragorn, however, looks incredible,
nearly as close to Viggo Mortenson as Nightfire’s
James Bond is to the real Pierce Brosnan.

The environments are very well done, and have plenty of animation in the background,
especially in the Amon Hen mission, and they are very good across the board,
but some do have a problem with being very dark Overall, the game graphically
is very good. While it may not boast lots of the extra graphical touches like
reflections, shadows, and light sources, it looks very well, animates very realistically,
and can do it all at a constant 30 frames per second.

Every hack, slash, thump, and zing of your swords, axes, and arrows sounds just
like you’d think it would in real life, and the orcs and goblins do an
excellent job of putting fear into you with their guttural growls and shrieks.
Even though there aren’t that many sound effects, they fail to get repetitive.
The soundtrack to the game is one of the best in recent years, likely because
it was directly lifted from two of the best movie soundtracks in years. From
the beginning theme as the narrator describes the origins of the ring to the
final theme of Isengard playing during the Helm’s Deep missions, it’s all authentic, and gives the somewhat simple gameplay a
much more epic feel. As expected, the real actors
voices were used in the cutscenes, but also during normal gameplay, much chatter
is heard between members of the fellowship. Whether it was recorded solely for
the game or rescued from the cutting room floor, much of the dialogue didn’t
even appear in the movies, but works fantastic here in the game. Excellent use
of the movie license throughout.

Though the game itself is short, you’ll find yourself
replaying it a few times with all the different characters, trying to get each
to as high a level as possible, and collecting all the combos. There is even
a secret character and secret level for you to unlock, as well. There’s
even quite a few extra interviews and footage from the movies hidden on this
DVD, all waiting to be unlocked. The game can be beaten on Easy mode in a few
hours, but you’ll likely have to replay a few of the levels several times.
In hard mode, the game becomes quite unforgiving, even with
maxed-out characters. Unfortunately, there is no two-player mode, and this
title practically screams out for it. The simple addition of multiplayer
would’ve extended the life on this one for hours.

Overall
Score: 7.5/10 [Not an Average] Worth
a closer look!

• Official
  Game Site
• Electronic Arts
• Lord
  of the Rings: Two Towers Screenshots (Temporarily Unavailable, Sorry.)
• Lord
  of the Rings: Two Towers Hints and Cheats

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