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(More customer reviews)This is absolutely THE best game I've ever played. I'm not huge into games, but I'm a big fan of Lord of the Rings, and received a demo disk of the game from a friend. Our behemoth of a computer couldn't handle it, so I was ecstatic when I received a laptop as a big gift one year, and gleefully discovered the demo worked. This is proof positive that marketing gimmicks like demo disks work, because the thing prompted me to shell out $20 for this big guy...and I don't regret a penny of it.
On the Two Towers "wimpy" DVD, there was a preview for this, and one of the game developers said "You won't play this game and know everything that went on in [previously unreleased] Return of the King, but you might play this game and FEEL everything that went on." He's absolutely right.
As you already know, you start with three paths. You can play any path from the beginning, and/or if you get tired of playing Sam, you can go and take the Path of the Wizard, or King. You have no option about who to play on the Wizard and Ringbearer paths, but let me give you some advise: when starting on the Path of the King use Legolas. I know, it doesn't fit for the Elf to be leading the trio through PotD, but he's the best fighter to start out with. From there, you go on to fight the King of the Dead (tough), with escape from the Paths as a second part of the level. Both are arguably the hardest levels in the game. Then you journey to Gondor, fighting hundreds of orcs and uruks (if you stick around) at the Southern Gate, then encountering more hoards of uruks and Haradrim on the Pelennor. Then you must do battle at the Black Gate, which shouldn't be TOO hard if you have saved and earned combos wisely.
Gandalf must first assist the Ents in destroying the last elements of Saruman's rule, then he goes to Gondor, where he fights on the Top of the Wall to keep the forces of Mordor at bay. When that ultimately fails, he runs below and fights uruks and huge trolls in The Courtyard.
Sam must Escape Osgiliath with Mr. Frodo, then rescue him from the throes of Shelob's Lair, then follow him to the tower of Cirith Ungol, and rescue him from the orcs that captured him. Finally, he must assist Frodo in defeating Gollum in The Crack of Doom.
You absolutely must begin on easy, or beginner level; you will find that hard and challenging enough! Even so, there will be times when you'll want to perform the killing move "Computer bane" on your computer while playing this. It's insane how tough it is to beat sometimes. But if a rank amateur like me can complete it, you can! Also, unless you have a super-computer you'll want to lower the graphics settings so that you can have smooth game play. It won't make a huge difference in the appearance. It helps, because I didn't figure this out until I was trying to escape the PotD after beating the King of the Dead. Running through the mists make you go slower on high graphics, but the surroundings collapse on a time basis, because you go slow, you'll die.
It's true, you can't do a lot of exploring, and there's not a whole lot of secrets you can go back through and discover. The cheats only work after you complete the game (cle-ver!), but they give them to you. (So why do the cheat sites list them, I wonder?)
Also, if violence is of concern to you, you can bet there's a lot here. Nothing worse than you find in the trilogy ... sometimes less. I do not like the gory, bloody, violent video games, but I do enjoy this one. Blood is nonexistent, except for the occasional dark stuff that might fly out of an orc when you smack him with your sword. There's no beheadings, and most of the enemies you fight are very non-human, either spiders or orcs. Towards the end, you do fight heavily-armored Haradrim, which are human. In one of the killing moves, Aragorn kicks the human to the ground and then knifes him in the head. It's a war game, so it's to be expected. But it's about the good guys kicking the bad guys' butt, and after a hard day's work, sometimes it's a little stress-relieving.
Bonus features include interviews with the cast, stills from the movie, stills from video game production, two bonus levels (Palantir of Saruman, and Palantir of Sauron...you'll probably want to use cheat codes for them) and bonus characters Faramir, Pippin, and Merry. You could say Frodo is an extra character, because you can't play him until you've defeated the game. Why the geniuses at EA Games didn't put a playable Eowyn/Dernhelm is BEYOND ME.
You can also use (or in my case, purchase) a game pad, and plug it in to your computer, and play with two. It's often frustrating to play with two, when one is low on health and the person who is high on health accidentally picks up the health. ("YOU TOOK THAT ON PURPOSE! THAT WAS MINE!") But it's also fun. Once you defeat combo (you have to go through the entire game again on combo -- single play defeat doesn't count for combo play) game play, you can play the Palantir levels, or play Gandalf and Pippin on the Top of the Wall, recreating the movie scene.
Again, the game is tough, and you'll get discouraged. But don't worry, you'll get through it and have fun in the process.
I love this game, just like I love Lord of the Rings, and I think if you like one, you'll like the other. You'll love it. Buy it. (Now can we PLEASE get the Two Towers game put out on PC?!)
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Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
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