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Genre: Action

Format: CD

Developer: EA Games

Mac Publisher: Aspyr Media

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.2.6, 800MHz G4, 256MB RAM, 32MB video card (GeForce 2/ATI RADEON 7500 or better), 2.2GB hard disk space, DVD drive

Review Computer: 1GHz G4 iMac, 768MB RAM, Mac OS X v10.3.3

Network Feature: Internet or LAN

Price: $39.99

ESRB Rating: Teen (violence)

Availability: Now

Official Website: [url=http://www.eagames.com/official/lordoftherings/returnoftheking/us/index.jsp]http://www.eagames.com/official/lordoftherings/returnoftheking/us/index.jsp[/url]

I loved all three Lord of the Rings movies. I had never read the books; I doubt I had even heard of them before the first trailer. However, the first movie ignited a passion in me. It made me want to grab a sword and start chopping off orc heads. So, I waited and waited and finally, once the second movie was released, EA Games released Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for console systems. I loved it. The controls were simple, the graphics were wonderful, and the game was addicting.

Then, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out in theaters. Despite the never-ending ending, it was the perfect conclusion to the series. And, to complement it, came the game based on it, also by EA Games and carrying the same title as the movie. It added new features, new characters, new levels, and the greatest part of all: multiplayer.

In the game The Return of the King, you actually go on the three different quests that the different characters go on during the movie itself. The first is the "Path of the Wizard." You follow Gandalf's path as he goes from Helms Deep to Isengard, then to Minis Tirith and finally the Black Gate. The second quest, "Path of the King," follows Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas through the land of the dead, then to Pelennor Fields and finally to rejoin Gandalf at the Black Gate. Lastly, "Path of the Hobbits" follows Samwise and Frodo as they escape Osgiliath, meet with Shelob, and finally reach Mount Doom. In certain levels, only the specific characters that follow that journey can be used, but once you beat the game, you can any character on every level but one.

Each level begins and ends with cinema scenes. Usually, it will begin with clips from the movie, which will transform almost seamlessly into the in-game graphics and then to the game itself. In fact, the closeness between the in-game graphics and the movie are astounding...one of the main highlights of the game.

As each character, you get a third person view of him through the level. You travel ground, using your various fighting styles to kill enemies. You can really only wander in one direction at a time, so it takes very special skills to get lost. Every once in a while, you will be stopped from your killing rampage and forced to focus on a particular enemy or find a way to open a new path in order to continue. Usually nothing very difficult.

Each character in the game has his different strengths. Gandalf has a fast attack and one of the strongest ranged attacks. Aragorn's long sword can take down several enemies at once and his bow is decent. Gimli has a slow attack, but it is much stronger than anyone else is in the game. However, his axe-throw ranged attack is weak and takes the longest time to reach maximum damage. Legolas has a quick but weak attack, but the fastest and strongest bow with the shortest power up time. Samwise and Frodo's attacks are about the same speed and strength as Legolas's, and their dagger-throw ranged attack is similar to Gimli's axes.

There are five basic types you can use in the game. There is the swift attack, which is really effective for taking out unshielded enemies quickly. Unfortunately, it does nothing against shielded enemies, and if you use it against one, it will make you stumble allowing them to attack you. So, to take out shields, you use your fierce attack. It is a slower attack than the fierce attack, but can break shields and the armor of stronger enemies. If you want to knock over or backwards an enemy or a siege ladder (necessary on one level) you use your kicking move. It does no damage, but will knock back a shielded enemy and knock over a regular one. Once an enemy is on the ground, you use your killing move to finish it off. An axe to the face, a sword in the stomach...that sort of thing. Last is the ranged attack. For Gandalf, it is a bolt of magic from his sword, from Aragorn and Legolas come arrows, Gimli throws throwing axes, and the hobbits toss daggers. If you charge up the ranged move, once it is fully powered up, it can break shields. Otherwise your projectiles bounce off.

There are a few other things you can do with your character. You can parry, keeping you fairly safe as flaming arrows or swords assault you. You can jump backwards; very helpful for dodging the club of a cave troll you are trying to kill. You can use the special move, which as you can tell, is very special. It is a character unique skill that is very helpful in the specific path that your character is part of. For Gandalf, you get the magic shield he uses against the Balrog. It makes him invulnerable, and enemies who touch the shield take heavy amounts of damage. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas all have the same technique, allowing them to do about double their normal damage in any attack and reach perfect mode faster (explained in next paragraph) for a short period of time. The hobbits use the cloak that Frodo used to cover Sam to hide from the Easterlings in front of the Black Gate in The Two Towers (wow, I'm such a geek). Anyway, they hide under their coat and become invisible to enemies for a short period of time. While this is active, they can walk at a reduced speed, but cannot attack. Lastly, you can use the action move, only usable when you see a blue glowing circle. If by a spear, you pick up the spear and can throw it (usually a one hit kill, even with trolls). If next to a rope, you can slide down it to access a lower level. Sometimes you can tip rocks or vats of boiling oil on enemies below you, or less violent things like use a gate wench to open a gate.

Each time you kill an enemy, you gain experience. Experience lets you gain levels, levels allow you to power up your characters. However, the amount of experience you get from a kill depends on two factors: the strength of enemy (stronger enemies give more experience points) and your skill meter. As you slaughter your enemies, your skill meter fluctuates. Quick, consecutive hits build up the meter, and the higher your meter goes, the more points you will get from a kill. If you get enough hits, you can go into "perfect mode" in which your attacks will be much stronger and you will get the maximum amount of points for a kill. You always want to get as many points as possible for a kill and level up as much as possible so you can buy upgrades and combos.

The upgrades are available at the end of each level. You can buy individual character moves and power upgrades, and both individual and group combo attacks, but only for the character that you beat the level with. For example, if you beat a level with Legolas and you gained a level, you could make your arrows pierce through people and hit targets behind them, but that would only affect him. However, you can buy combos like Orc Bane for either yourself for a small price or for the entire fellowship for a higher price (but less than it would be to buy it individually for each person). The combo moves do higher damage if you use them, and they can help you reach perfect mode faster.

Now, if you have read my review of Kelly Slater: Pro Surfer, you know that I hate button combo memorization games. However, this game worked for two reasons. First, you only had to worry about pressing the attack buttons in order instead of also having to face a certain direction at particular moments in the combo. Also, I could sometimes just button mash and make great combos. Thank God for button mashing.

After you beat each level, you get access to a game exclusive interview with a different actor from the movie. In each one, they explained their character in the game, and tried to convince you that their character was the best. Additionally, once you beat the last level (featuring Gollum as an annoyingly easy boss), you get two extra levels, three bonus interviews, and access to cheats. The three bonus interviews are that of the characters who play Boromir, Pippin and Merry—the three bonus characters (with the exception of appearance, Boromir is the same as Aragorn and all the hobbits are identical in skills). The two bonus levels are both endurance levels, during which you try to defeat twenty rounds of increasingly stronger enemies. The cheat codes, which cannot be used until the game is beaten, can give you options like infinite projectiles or unlimited health.

Multiplayer is basically the same as single player. The only difference is that I believe the enemies are stronger. There is the same amount of them, though. The progress of your single player game doesn't carry over into multiplayer, but the levels and skills of your characters can.

I have only four big problems with the game. Number one: Unless you have already beaten a level with a character, you have to watch the movie cinemas at the beginning and end of the level. They would splice pieces of the movie together in scenes lasting sometimes up to several minutes. And you can't skip it. It drove me crazy. You go to the theater to watch the movie, you buy the game to play in the movie. Don't make us watch the movie while we are dying to kill Sauron. Or, at least allow us to skip the scenes if we want. And we do want to.

Number two: The skills that your characters gain as they level up are extremely useful for each succeeding level. However, if you didn't do well on a level, sometimes it is impossible to beat the next level with that character because he isn't strong enough. But, you cannot beat a level twice with the same character until you beat the final level. So, if you have only played with Aragorn and on the last level you can't beat it because you aren't strong enough, you have to go back and build up either Gimli or Legolas. Major pain in the butt.

Number three: The game really doesn't work well on computer. In fact, with the exception of FPS and card games, very few games work well on computers. My computer couldn't keep up a good enough frame-rate to make the game look or work nicely in some of the explosion-filled levels, and the keyboard controls just don't feel as nice as a console controller. At a certain point, I borrowed the Game Cube version of the game from my friend and played the game with that (there are no differences between the console and computer versions except it looks nicer and I love the feel of the Game Cube controller).

Number four: The game needed a female playable character. You should have been able to control Eowyn. She was freakin' awesome in the movie. Beat the crap out of the Witch-King. Hell yea.

Actually, there is one more thing I would have liked; it would have been cool if Gollum were a playable character. But, I can't complain about that because I can't figure out what his attacks would be. Fish throw? Dead rabbit slap? Doesn't matter. Either way, the game is awesome and is definitely worth buying. You might want to buy it for console instead of computer, but the choice is up to you.

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