A week onwards from here, it's the 5-year anniversary since The Return of the King movie was released and to celebrate the occasion early on, I decided to scavenge a copy of action game made by EA following the movie's plot somewhat loosely. But not that it matters, instead of getting a game that would be a raw cash-in I got a game that was actually quite reasonable.

Unfortunately no screenshots this time, fraps + RotK = crash and the game does not seem to have built-in screenshot function.

Ash nâzg dûrbatulûk

The game basically follows the movie plot rather vaguely, makes use of footage from the movies in many cutscenes, has most of the actors providing voices to their respective characters. The game doesn't take it's time, after the intro, narration and other things you're instantly thrown into Helm's Deep fighting as Gandalf after he arrives there with the 'outlawed' rohirrim and their leader, Éomer. It looks mildly amusing to see old wizard beating up bunch of Uruks with his staff and sword - and there's plenty of enemies to whack around.

After that the game is divided into three branches, one is titled Path of the King (Aragorn & co), another one is Path of the Wizard (Gandalf) and last one is Path of the Hobbits (Frodo & Sam) and they can be played in any order. Only last two levels\missions in the game reguires all three branches to be finished first before accessing them in terms of plot. All of the can be played cooperatively. The game is also avaible for PS2 and Xbox.

Samwise the orcslayer

The controls are quite fluid: movement is responsive and solid, you have several diffrent attack buttons, ranged attacks, parrying (aka blocking) etc. You gain experience and levels by killing enemies and depending on your level and amount of experience gained you can buy diffrent upgrades, attack combos etc to your character or even to the entire fellowship itself, so it has rather weird RPG elements mixed but ultimately in a game like this, it works surprisingly well. Every character also have special ability that can be activated, E.G. hobbits can hide under elven cloaks and turn invisible, Gandalf can summon shield etc.

However, the game can throw suspension of disbelief to the garbage bin as I started my game from Path of the Hobbits playing as Sam, I realized he's far more efficient killing machine than entire Gondor garrison in Osgiliath, beating orcs, more orcs, even more orcs and even more orcs. I guess he took some secret lessons from Boromir or Aragorn.

The levels are usually following somewhat linear path with pre-set cameras (and the cameraman being drunk and high like he was born on top of a tree) where you need to go from point A to point B and there to point C, often followed by a bossfight. To my surprise the pacing is quite well done despite the simple idea, E.G. in Osgiliath you need to hide from Nazgûl while travelling on the rooftops aswell, in Minas Tirith the walltop is hectic as the enemies keep flooding in more or less and the courtyard is also easily another case of 20:1 ratio in terms of enemies... and of course, Gandalf being more efficient than every army in the Middle-Earth combined.

The world of cameramen will fall

Immersion in the game is somewhat well made despite minor ADHD effects here and there, but especially in Minas Tirith- based levels it can be quite hectic with all ambient yelling, whacking and such going around, but some other levels can be quite missing the original purpose: in Pelennor fields you see the entire rohirrim fighting on foot, the battle seems to be fought in a valley that was suddenly placed in front of Minas Tirith, the Black Gate has only several allies included while shitload of enemies pouring in etc.

Enemy AI is quite ok, nothing too specatcular but especially in groups they tend to often wait for you to expose yourself before attacking and when you're surrounded you need to be bit careful. Friendly AI... what AI? You see so rarely friendlies (besides in few levels) and they seem to be there just for a show, so basically old man and a person size of a potato sack are beter killing machines than trained soldiers. I am quite sure the hobbits - based on the game - are quest honours in dwarves' Hall of Fame.

But it's not really gamebreaking, mildly hilarious. Main reason is the fact there's nothing really to complain too much, as the basic functions are quite working, the immersion is decent, the controls are responsive, the game is quite challenging (atleast on hard, had to retry some levels more than few times) but if there's one thing that truly fails in the game: it's the camera. They're pre-set, often limits your vision too much in critical areas and especially when you need to escape from collapsing cave, it's almost impossible to figure out once in a while what is supposed to be ahead of you. If one were to make a course about video game design, RotK camera would be prime material of what you're not supposed to do as obviously they were too busy smoking money in a pot to give a toss about it. The game features co-op, and as much as it could be fun the camera makes it sound rather anal + only at the same comp, so you need either two gamepads in order to prevent your mouse and keyboard breaking apart.

Another thing that is bit silly is the speed-kill counter-attack (ala Assassin's Creed), but atleast every type of enemy reguires their own upgrade to use it and it doesn't even work on all enemies, so it's somewhat balanced.

But honestly, as much as I would go gripe about immersion, design issues, somewhat lame levels, Samwise the orcslayer and other things, the game does many things right enough to say it's not really an issue. The gameplay is working, it can be quite challenging, movie license is used quite well, controls are simple and fluid etc. It has some minor unlockable features such as playable characters, interviews or endurance levels but they are mainly some fancy decorations on the cake rather than anything else. It's not Ninja Gaiden or God of War, but still interesting to try out if you want.