GetDotted Domains

Viewing Thread:
"lord of the ring return of the king"

The "Retro Game Reviews" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.

This thread has been linked to the game 'The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King'.
Wed 25/11/09 at 08:32
Regular
"edmond"
Posts: 0
Frusturating gameplay takes away..."
This game was another one of my Christmas gifts. It seemed kinda cool when I first played it, but within a few hours I was about ready to break my keyboard in half. That's why I made this review. To spare your keyboard from suffering the fate that almost overcame mine. Bad first, good last.

Graphics- 7/10 Well, I figure that my new graphics card could handle graphics toned up a lot. I was wrong. Not only was the change barely recognizable, things changed for the worse. The character models are GREAT, but they are supposed to get better as resolution increases. Instead, they, as well as the game, chop up like mad. It's just completely illogical, let alone annoying.

Multiplayer- 7/10 There practically is no multiplayer. It's co-op. That's it. It's not online even, which means that someone will have to use a gamepad, and another person the keyboard. But then what happens if you have no gamepad? Well, one person uses half the keyboard, the other person uses the other half. But then how do they look if only one person gets the mouse? Either use keys, or use a stick on one of the gamepads you might not have.

Pretty flawed multiplayer, huh? Online co-op would have been nifty, but what we get instead is a sad excuse for an attempt at more replay value. Speaking of which...

Replayability- 8/10 Well, multiplayer already taken care of, the missions here are fun enough to do a few more times. You also play the game through 3 paths, so if you didn't do all of that...

This is just one of those games where you like the levels enough to do them again. You can also get 3 secret characters, predictable as they might be, to use in the other levels. And they are more of hybrids than the reskin in TTT.

Controls- 7/10 You can customize them, but they start out kinda confusing. My usual 7/10 for here.

One problem I experience is the fact that its hard to keep moving in a straight direction, no matter what. My character tends to spontaneously turn around, even if I barely touched the mouse. But as normal, once you get used to whatever is laid out or once you customize, it is just fine.

Story- 6/10 ''What?'' you might be asking. ''I thought the movies were good!'' you might argue. That's because this game doesn't exactly follow the movie. For instance, you escape from that Gondorian city in one huge level instead of what happened in the movie. Ridiculous. And the whole Ent thing at Isenguard is stranger yet. The ents now attack inside a forest, and only ONE ent breaks the dam. REALLY strange.

The game distorted the story horribly instead of adding to it. I understand some changes are necessary to play a game, but EA went WAY too far here.

Gameplay- 8/10 Well, here we are at gameplay. It plays just like the other LoTR games by EA. That is, it's pure hack and slash. However, levels are more interactive. You can pick up spear and throw them. You can use the orc catapults. You can do many things you could have only wished for before.

One thing I bet everyone was looking forward to was the Minas Tirith level (sorry for any spelling errors; I'm not a hardcore fan). Don't expect anything other than a Helms Deep remake from TTT. This time it is harder however, with the few interactive things to make an attempt to spice it up. Gandalf actually says some of the exact same lines here as were said in TTT. Not very original, huh?

As I said before, the story of the game is the movie horribly distorted. So this time, you actually fight a huge epic battle with the King of the Dead, instead of just pulling a sword. I'm still not sure whether that is good, or whether that is horribly bad, but I'm leaning towards the latter. I'd much prefer movie moments over anything else. For instance, the fight with the witch king in the movie was neat. It would have been awesome to be the princess and attack him with the whole ''I am no man'' line. Unfortunately, you can't be the girl in this game. I swear, this is really pathetic.

Although I can't put my finger on it, something in the gameplay is still pretty good, and something makes it fun. I'm not sure though, but it is there, hence the 8, and not a 6.
There have been no replies to this thread yet.
Wed 25/11/09 at 08:32
Regular
"edmond"
Posts: 0
Frusturating gameplay takes away..."
This game was another one of my Christmas gifts. It seemed kinda cool when I first played it, but within a few hours I was about ready to break my keyboard in half. That's why I made this review. To spare your keyboard from suffering the fate that almost overcame mine. Bad first, good last.

Graphics- 7/10 Well, I figure that my new graphics card could handle graphics toned up a lot. I was wrong. Not only was the change barely recognizable, things changed for the worse. The character models are GREAT, but they are supposed to get better as resolution increases. Instead, they, as well as the game, chop up like mad. It's just completely illogical, let alone annoying.

Multiplayer- 7/10 There practically is no multiplayer. It's co-op. That's it. It's not online even, which means that someone will have to use a gamepad, and another person the keyboard. But then what happens if you have no gamepad? Well, one person uses half the keyboard, the other person uses the other half. But then how do they look if only one person gets the mouse? Either use keys, or use a stick on one of the gamepads you might not have.

Pretty flawed multiplayer, huh? Online co-op would have been nifty, but what we get instead is a sad excuse for an attempt at more replay value. Speaking of which...

Replayability- 8/10 Well, multiplayer already taken care of, the missions here are fun enough to do a few more times. You also play the game through 3 paths, so if you didn't do all of that...

This is just one of those games where you like the levels enough to do them again. You can also get 3 secret characters, predictable as they might be, to use in the other levels. And they are more of hybrids than the reskin in TTT.

Controls- 7/10 You can customize them, but they start out kinda confusing. My usual 7/10 for here.

One problem I experience is the fact that its hard to keep moving in a straight direction, no matter what. My character tends to spontaneously turn around, even if I barely touched the mouse. But as normal, once you get used to whatever is laid out or once you customize, it is just fine.

Story- 6/10 ''What?'' you might be asking. ''I thought the movies were good!'' you might argue. That's because this game doesn't exactly follow the movie. For instance, you escape from that Gondorian city in one huge level instead of what happened in the movie. Ridiculous. And the whole Ent thing at Isenguard is stranger yet. The ents now attack inside a forest, and only ONE ent breaks the dam. REALLY strange.

The game distorted the story horribly instead of adding to it. I understand some changes are necessary to play a game, but EA went WAY too far here.

Gameplay- 8/10 Well, here we are at gameplay. It plays just like the other LoTR games by EA. That is, it's pure hack and slash. However, levels are more interactive. You can pick up spear and throw them. You can use the orc catapults. You can do many things you could have only wished for before.

One thing I bet everyone was looking forward to was the Minas Tirith level (sorry for any spelling errors; I'm not a hardcore fan). Don't expect anything other than a Helms Deep remake from TTT. This time it is harder however, with the few interactive things to make an attempt to spice it up. Gandalf actually says some of the exact same lines here as were said in TTT. Not very original, huh?

As I said before, the story of the game is the movie horribly distorted. So this time, you actually fight a huge epic battle with the King of the Dead, instead of just pulling a sword. I'm still not sure whether that is good, or whether that is horribly bad, but I'm leaning towards the latter. I'd much prefer movie moments over anything else. For instance, the fight with the witch king in the movie was neat. It would have been awesome to be the princess and attack him with the whole ''I am no man'' line. Unfortunately, you can't be the girl in this game. I swear, this is really pathetic.

Although I can't put my finger on it, something in the gameplay is still pretty good, and something makes it fun. I'm not sure though, but it is there, hence the 8, and not a 6.

Freeola & GetDotted are rated 5 Stars

Check out some of our customer reviews below:

Unrivalled services
Freeola has to be one of, if not the best, ISP around as the services they offer seem unrivalled.
Thank you very much for your help!
Top service for free - excellent - thank you very much for your help.

View More Reviews

Need some help? Give us a call on 01376 55 60 60

Go to Support Centre
Feedback Close Feedback

It appears you are using an old browser, as such, some parts of the Freeola and Getdotted site will not work as intended. Using the latest version of your browser, or another browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera will provide a better, safer browsing experience for you.