Gaming Target - Xbox: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Written by Ryan Genno on January 24, 2004

Full Review: I will never look at Jewellery the same way again.

If you are like a lot people out there you've probably seen what is easily one of the biggest movies of 2003: New Line Cinema's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The three-hour plus movie has already made hundreds of millions around the world, and tons of critics are naming it the best of the three films. Now that most movie goers have seen the flick, why not play the video game based on Return of the King, eh? OK, if you are already a die hard Lord of the Rings fan then maybe you bought a Сnever to be opened' copy of Return of the King the video game while shouting out a loud УGANDALF RULES!Ф For the rest of us however, we need to see if the game is actually any good. Many gamers have been burned in the past by bad movie to game translations, and if you want a few examples then maybe you'll remember video games like E.T., Cliffhanger, Terminator 3, and so many, many more. All I can say is don't worry because like the movie, the game looks incredible, the sound is amazing, and the game play is surprisingly deep. See why The Return of the King is an awesome action/adventure game whether you're a fan of the series or not.

If you don't know the story by now, The Return of the King is the final chapter of the trilogy series. You now find out whether or not the legendary but very evil Ring actually gets destroyed. Everything is on the line here, and the evil spirit of Sauron will stop at nothing to conquer all of Middle-Earth and get the Ring back -- at any cost. Can the fellowship of the Ring successfully defend peaceful kingdoms under attack, and can Frodo resist the lure of the Ring's power till he reaches the Crack of Doom? That brings me to one of this game's biggest improvements over the previous Two Towers game. The Return of the King follows a more non-linear path at times and now you can see three different points of view. One road lets you play as Gandalf the Wizard, the second is the Aragorn/Gimli/Legolas route, and the final path is one with the Hobbits.

The multi-path system was an awesome idea for the game, but the trade off is that the whole adventure seems kind of short now. There is only a handful of levels and even less stages in the new Co-op mode. To counteract the game's shortness however, EA made this title fairly difficult so the average player wouldn't beat this in one sitting. Fortunately, if the game is getting to be too hard, then why not try a different strategy the next time around? If you are being overrun by a large group of Orcs, then let your computer controlled players do the dirty work and try some long range shots Ц that way you can discover an alternate route, or you can spend your experience points on new moves and see how they work in battle. There are so many options here; it keeps the ROTK's gameplay very addictive until you completely finish it.

Not only is this game nonlinear in design this time, but the game looks just like the movie. I can tell Electronic Arts learned a lot from their partnership with Squaresoft because this game is filled with incredible over the top effects. Explosions and transparencies are even with the real in-game visuals. I never saw a single bland texture anywhere here, so it's that good! The only problem with the killer looks is all the СInvisible Walls' (these are barriers that block you, yet the path still looks useable) I encountered, but you can't win them all. It doesn't end there for high production values because most of the originals actors from the films lend their voices here too, plus the game even has the film's orchestral soundtrack to help bring the adventure to life again in the video game.