[Lord of the Rings: Return of the King]

After one of the saddest games I’ve ever played, Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers, EA has made another Lord of the Rings game. This game is called “Lord of the Rings, Return of the King”, probably because it follows the same story as the third Lord of the Rings book. This title did only let us wonder where the first part “Fellowship of the Ring” is…

This game is basically the same as its prequel, but the game play is a bit better because of the new features and it looks nicer as well. Enough reasons to give this game some attention.

Frodo: Pizza, where?

Bashing on buttons
Pressing buttons stays the main occupation of gaming, but I like some variation. This game is a typical hack ‘n slash game, better known as a button basher. this means that you must bash on a button till you drop dead (digitally or in real time). You can clear the easy mode with only pressing the A button, and sometimes, when needed, the L button. But you will need to make some combos if you want to beat the hard mode.
Just like in the Two Towers, there is an RPG element in the game and we are lucky, because they’ve improved it quite well. The improvement means that the characters have one special ability, making it really matter which character you use to play the game, and the moves look a little bit better. The moves seem smooth and the special moves are nicely done. The characters look even more real than in the first game. Now you can recognize them.

Next to this graphical improvements, this game has some other extras, like more and longer levels. EA also added, like mentioned before, some other characters, the whole fellowship excluding Boromir, with a bonus character, more bonus materials (interviews etc.), more scenes from the movie. They’ve also made the levels more interactive: you can throw things that lie around and there are some items with which your characters can perform special moves. But the best new feature is the CO-OP mode, and I don’t mean the store.

Nazgul flying away after he found a note: out for lunch, back in 2 hours.

Killing the enemy together
The co-op mode gives the player the opportunity to kill the evil forces of Mordor with a friend, a nice extra that, if you play together with a real Lord of the Rings fan, can give you a nice amount of quality time. But there are some things you must know…

Playing the game with a friend is easier than on your own. Rather than killing one enemy by yourself, there is an additional player to help you out. The game doesn’t become harder if there are two players involved. There is an equal number of enemies, the bosses have the same amount of health, and moreover, you are stronger with two players. You can set the difficulty to normal or hard, but you can’t make it as hard as the single player.

You can also see that the co-op is a direct port of the single player by the scripted events. There is a bridge you must cross, and it’s scripted to fall down, but if your friend is walking behind you, even if he’s really close behind you, he will fall down, because the bridge collapses right behind the first player.

Even with this side note, it’s still a nice mode, but it would be better if they added something like a versus mode.

Sam: Look, a bird

No license? We just make up our own story!
Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of missions in the game that cover the story from the book, or even in the movie. It is clear that this is their own version of the story with fights added and places that don’t exist in the film. You can nearly say that it isn’t a Lord of the Rings game, only the characters are in it, the rest is a made up. This as a warning for the people who want to do the same fights as in the movie: forget it.
It’s unclear why they didn’t add fight scenses from the movie. They game would be more interesting for the fans.

Ouch, my back

Conclusion
It’s a nice game, and it’s a lot better than the Two Towers. The co-op mode is great. The game is still quite fan-only, but your friends will now probably understand why you play the game. It’s a pity they didn’t follow the true story as much as I hoped they would. If you did like the Two Towers game, buy this one, it really is better.

Sound: Not very irritating, but not heavenly Lord of the Rings sounds. The sound effects are somewhat weird, but I can live with it.
Graphics: Better than in “the Two Towers”, sometimes Orcs run through walls and stuff. It isn’t high tech, but it looks good enough, your eyes will survive this one.
Gameplay: Sometimes a bit boring, walking while you bash on the A button. Sometimes you walk against an invisible wall. The camera at single player is very irritating, and you will get lost because it jumps from the first spot to the other. The hardness of the game is weird: easy is easy, normal is also easy and hard is very, very hard.
Lifespan: With co-op mode included, you can be sure of 20 hours of gaming… if you give yourself a challenge that is: play it on hard mode.

Score: 7

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