The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a solid hack and slash game that will keep you playing for hours.
User Rating: 8.8 | The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King PS2
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the king is an excellent game that will keep you playing for hours. It really gives you an epic feel for the movies. The gameplay is excellent! It's very interactive, you can use catapults to your advantage, there are boss battles and now there is even a dazzling co-op mode. Although there are a few letdowns in the gameplay, who doesn't like hack and slash? As you play through the levels in this game, you will acquire experience points. With these experience points you can purchase upgrades such as: Combo attacks, upgraded arrows/swords ect. The levels put you deep into Middle-Earth as you fight in many well-known scenes from ROTK as well as a few scenes that concluded TTT. Areas like Minas Tirith, Paths of the Dead, The Black Gate, Shelobs Lair and many more (not to mention that there are a few bonus levels!) The characters you can play as range from Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Gandalf and the 4 Hobbits. Plus you can get unlockable characters to! The co-op mode is extremely fun and it will make you want to play levels over and over again. The enemy AI is fairly smart and there is a large variety of enemy units, however the friendly AI could use a tad more work. The only let downs are the locked camera, which can get extremely annoying at times and the game is kind of short. The Hobbits are also fairly weak which can make their set of levels hard to do. Other than that, great fun! Although the graphics aren't too much, they give some nice environmental touches. You will be surrounded by fog or dust at times and the explosion effects in this game are spectacular. The background around you is well animated and will give you the effect that you are surrounded by the enemy. At some points, you will wish the developers could have put more detail in certain areas. Apart from that, the graphics are more than playable. The sound in this game is phenomenal. A great voice over by the actual actors, screams, explosions, and Orc shouts in the background will really get you involved. The sound in this game is really impressive and it also features Dolby Pro Logic 2 surround sound. The music is excellent it suits the game very well (obviously since its music from the movies). Overall, Return of the King is possibly the best movie-based game out there and it is definitely a must buy for your collection.
