Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

The Return of the King��s incredible in-game cinematic experience is blowing people away. Me? I��m just impressed by the fact that we��ve finally found a movie-licensed game that doesn��t belong on the cutting-room floor. At its core, King is a tarted-up hack-n-slash game, �� la Golden Axe or Gauntlet. That isn��t a bad thing, mind you. The difference here is that ROTK is the best at what it does: letting you experience a movie as if you were in it through cinematic storytelling that melds together movie clips and the game.

The Middle-earth amigos

The bloodthirsty among you will be glad to know that Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are all here to deliver orc-sized helpings of whoop ass. In addition, you��ll have a full contingent of the fellowship to back you up: Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, and (for the sake of avoiding too many spoilers) three more unlockable adventurers are available to join your quest. Each starts with a basic set of moves and attacks, but by completing each level in style, you gain experience points that you can use to purchase more attacks. There��s a wide variety of bonuses and power-ups, but an interesting feature is the ability to share the wealth��that is, you can opt to blow all your experience souping up one character or invest extra so every other playable character will have the same upgrades. Still, while each fighter has a variety of special moves (spellcasting and cloaks of invisibility notwithstanding), this is strictly a button-mashing experience. Hell, who knew that Samwise Gamgee and Gandalf were such ass kickers in battle?

Your course is charted through tightly scripted camera angles, so if you haven��t seen the last film or read the books, this game will pretty much ruin the story for you. There are also plenty of things to interact with in the environment, some of which will award bonuses and help you in battle. A good throw of a pike, for example, will fell a troll in one shot. While some objects seem superfluous and will even slow you down, most of the things you can interact with are there for a reason. In one level, for example, if you don��t use the catapults, you��re screwed��the enemies will keep swarming you until you��re dead. Thankfully, there are occasional hints and audio cues for those too boneheaded to realize what needs to be done next (ahem).

The fellowship has broken

The game looks great, no doubt. ROTK is gorgeous on a high-end system running at 1600x1200. In addition, at certain points, the camera angles simultaneously make the game very dramatic and very annoying. For example, I died many times while trying to escape from the Hall of the Dead��the camera hastily changed positions as I attempted to navigate past falling rocks. And at the gates of Minas Tirith, a huge troll disappeared into my blind spot between camera angles, resulting in multiple clobberings for me.

The scripted sequences look very cinematic and dramatic, but like the extras on a film set, many of the NPCs do little when off camera. Gimli sat by on his ax while Legolas occasionally chipped in with an arrow shot or two as ghosts and goblins swarmed me. Likewise, enemies waited in the wings even though I could plainly see them lurking not a few steps away. At least you can draft someone to join you in multiplayer adventures. One thing that boggles the mind, though, is why the PS2 version of this game supports online play while the PC version doesn��t��everybody on the planet has their PC connected to the Internet at this point. Hey, and while we��re on a roll here, why are the save points so few and far between? I lost track of how many times I died and was forced to wade through the same huge battle.

Ultimately, Return of the King is a basic but very good action game. The only thing missing is that coin slot to buy more health for the wizard who "needs food badly." This is the place where I��m supposed to tell you to race out and buy the game because it��s so much damn fun. I won��t. In fact, don��t buy this game until after you��ve seen the final movie in the trilogy. With all the action and unlockable DVD-like special features, this is not only a good game that drags you right into the movie, it��s also a fantastic supplement for die-hard Rings fans.

Verdict

4 Stars

Check your brain at the door for this sword-swinging, spell-slinging good time.

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Electronic Arts

Genre: Action

ESRB: T

Required: Pentium III 700, 128MB RAM, 32MB 3D card, 2GB install

Recommended: Pentium 4 2GHz, 512MB RAM, 128MB 3D card Mulitplayer: 1-2

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.