For fans of LOTR, and hardcore fans of really challenging action games.

User Rating: 8 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King PC
Even at easy mode, the game's still unnecessarily challenging. I mean, it's foul-mouthing hard. At some point, you'll wish the game was never made. Most of the time, the checkpoint is a joke, as there's only 1 or rarely 2, in a really difficult mission, though you'll still appreciate that it's there.

The level up system makes the game more engaging with more combat moves and special abilities, but the downside is that you can only wait til the end of a mission to apply the level-up options. Also, the game in the first play-through doesn't allow you to train or beef up your character like in most role-playing action games, so you're stuck with the level and skills for the next mission even though you feel he's not ready for it.

Well, put my disgruntled ramblings aside, the game features decent graphics with impressive film-to-game transitions and sleek combat animations. The sound is awesome in every aspect, from the original voice cast of LOTR to the score by Howard Shore. Be sure to have a good sound system to compliment it though.

Though the main campaign is fairly short, the reloads and try agains serves to push up the replay value to around 20 hours, if you suck in action games like me. Nevertheless, it's still one of the best games imported from a movie.

KingLim