User Rating: 8.4 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King PS2
ROTK is a great game altogether. It has all the classy touches for an excellent result. The gameplay, although just basic hack and slash all the time is unusually fun. You have to ability to “buy” attacks in this game – after each level you will receive some experience points to buy some new moves which provide an incredible edge in the battlefield. Examples of these moves are combos, added power to an attack you already have, and permanently increasing your health. However, sometimes this can get a bit tedious as you not only have to push a number of buttons quickly to activate your move, the enemy will almost always attack you while you are doing this – argh! The graphics are nothing special I’m afraid, although they aren’t so bad. The animations are done to a certain extent, so that increased the score. Sound-wise, this game is great as you hear common phrases from everyone, and every noise brilliantly done. Sadly, this game isn’t very long. You’ll only get about 6 hours worth of playing from it before you beat the game, but nonetheless, it is considerably tougher than other games on the market. Each level may take a few tries before you complete it, and it hardly ever gets annoying. You can choose between 3 difficulties (Easy, Normal and Hard) and you will find that Easy and Normal aren’t exactly very different from each other – it is a somewhat tricky game even on Easy mode. However once you have passed about 5 – 7 levels, it all gets rather simple. You sometimes get a time limit in levels, or mini-games (such as kicking down ladders – yeah, I know). All in all it’s a great game, improving on both its predecessors.