[*BASS*] It was only a matter of time until I came back to “Lord of the Rings”. Except, this time around, it’s a movie-based game, and one that’s not… horrible. One of the big reasons movie tie-in games were typically so awful is because they had very tight deadlines. The game had to be ready to release around the time movie came out. No, “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – The Game” had a lot of effort put into it. It’s rare to see a movie tie-in game turn out so well. It’s not without its issues. For example: actually trying to play it. Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those games… It’s not too difficult to find a console version of the game. The Gameboy copies are harder to find, since the Silk Road shut down. There are a few physical copies of the PC version being sold, but none digitally. If you get a legit version, it might not run at all, or get stuck loading. Some “alternative” copies have a bug where you can only play as Sam. Now, Sam did say he wanted to share the load, but I don’t think he meant it for fucking everybody… Luckily, there is a patch that makes my actual copy run. I don’t know if that fixes the Sam thing. There’s also a patch that lets you play the game in widescreen. The 3D part renders fine, but it will stretch out the UI. It still looks all right. This is a game that, ideally, you’ll play with a controller, but there are some issues there. The default settings are completely incorrect on PC, so you need to fix those. The game also doesn’t pick up on controller triggers. At all. I tried multiple controllers, did every re-mapping trick I could think of, but no dice. You’ll have to use a third party software for that, or just use the bumpers. Now, there is one thing left, which I can’t fix, and that’s the loading. It starts kind of like a lawnmower. [sound effects are looping abruptly] NARRATOR: “…leads him\Aragorn’s path leads him\Aragorn’s path leads him through this terrible…” [sound effects are looping abruptly] It’s a good motivation not to die, because loading takes a while. Even opening the in-game menu will cause everything to freeze up. But once it is loaded, everything is perfectly smooth. Even loading cutscenes or bonus movies aren’t immune to this. It can be odd when the game visuals transition into the movie scenes, like this one here from a battle. [*tone*] ORC: “Stay here. I’ll go get reinforcements.” [*BANG-pop*] [*BANG-swoosh*] [now eternally high-pitched cry of orcish suffering] So, it’s obnoxious to deal with, but it’s stable. I’ve never had the game to actually crash on me. Unsurprisingly, it runs and looks a lot better than the console version. Parts that would cause horrific slowdown on the Xbox, don’t even phase it here. The actual process of starting the game is just way more annoying, so… pick your poison. And with that, we can finally talk about the game. This is an adventure hack’n’slash orc beat’em-up. It’s actually very similar to the older “Gauntlet” games, but has more complexity to it. So let’s start with the visuals. If I could describe it in a word, I’d probably choose “grey”, maybe “brown”. I don’t know – it’s somewhere in the middle there. It is drab-looking, but it’s hard for me to entirely fault the game for this. The game is doing its best to mirror the locations from the movie authentically, and yeah – they did look like this. I still think they cranked some areas too far in the “drab and darkness” department. Even the greens in an area like a forest are really muted down. I understand that they wanted a darker tone, since the war to end all wars is going on, but when fantastical creatures, like a fellbeast or Durthu’s cousin start blending into the rocks behind them, I think you took it too far. Luckily, the enemies usually remain readable, so it’s not a huge problem gameplay-wise. I just feel my eyes glazing over sometimes. That being said, it’s impressive just how faithfully they recreate all these environments and enemies from the movie. What actually stands out to me most are the areas where they had more creative freedom. The Paths of the Dead are more standout in that department. The Fellowship never had to fight the undead in the films, but now you do. They really seem to have a knack for these creepy environments and enemies. Well, this was made by EA Redwood Shores, who would later change their name to Visceral Games. Yeah, these guys will be making “Dead Space” a few years later. I guess, I should have seen the clues. [ghastly moaning] [screeching wail] Though aspects like the models and textures have aged, there’s still one thing that really sticks out to me – it’s the animation work, with the quality and the sheer amount of it there is. Characters share a lot of combos and move-sets, but how they actually play out looks very different. These can get very elaborate. A lot of the motion capture for the animation was actually done by the real stunt doubles used in the movie – so they’re smooth and detailed, but, once again, seem very authentic to the film. It makes it easy to pick up a new character, while at the same time, feel like you’re playing something different. Sure, the button combo might be the same, but the speed at which it’s pulled off, the flourishes the character does – all of that makes it feel unique. They still have their own abilities to make them standout, but I won’t get into that just yet. I think it’s cool they took the time an effort to make this happen for each character, when there are a lot of characters, and there are a lot of combos. It’s a great result! It’s easy to pick up and play like a party game, yet visually it looks like a highly competitive fighting game, all while looking faithful to what it’s adapting. [gunfire] The game also sounds excellent, and came with EAX support. It even goes out of its way to tell you that it’s THX-certified. That just means it killed some subwoofers. [BOOSH] [BA-BOOSH] The voice acting is also excellent, with about a dozen cast members reprising their role. Some of the voiceover in this was done before the film was ADR’d, so these guys were on the top of their game. SARUMAN: “Those trees are an ancient madness. They require burning, before they destroy all who live near them.” GOLLUM: “WE! ALWAYS! WINSS!!” SAMWISE: “Come on, Mr. Frodo, I know the way out of here!” [loud scream] FRODO: “Thank you, Sam!” GIMLI: “I have a very bad feeling about this place.” Sadly, this makes the non-cast acting stick out like a sore thumb. NOT-VIGGO MORTENSEN: “Stay alert! Move with caution!” NOT-ORLANDO BLOOM: “…made by those who are dead. And the dead keep it. The way is shut.” The soundtrack is also excellent, but that’s kind of cheating, since it’s just the film score. I mean, if you don’t know what that sounds like, then what are you doing here? So, overall, the presentation is excellent. Now we can talk about the mechanics. After a brief tutorial mission in Helm’s Deep, the game opens up, and now you have three different Paths to choose from. The Fellowship Crew will let you choose between the three main members of the Orc Genocide Squad. The Path of the Wizard and The Path of the Hobbits are restricted to Gandalf and Sam respectively. At least at first. All of the missions are linear: your goal is just to get to the end. Sometimes, they mix it up. You might need to kill a certain amount of enemies, sneak around, defend something, or fight a boss. The goals always remain straightforward. The missions are all distinct from each other, and none of them feel like filler. The game measures your skill by how you build up a combo meter in combat. Ideally, you wanna be killing the bad men in very quick succession. When you land hits or parries, your Perfect meter starts to go up. Kills are worth more and more. When you max that out, you go into Perfect Mode and become a glowing god of… ehm… Melkor? No… I don’t remember the lore. Anyways, your damage goes up, and the enemies become worth A LOT more points. It will only last for a short while, so you need to make the most of it. At the end of the mission, your experience points are all tallied up, and you get a mission rating. That will give you a bonus and, hopefully, send you more towards the next level. This lets you spend all of your points on upgrades. The better you do – the stronger you’ll get. As I mentioned before, a lot of the characters can use the same combos. While you COULD pay to unlock a new combo for one character, or pay slightly more to have it for every single character. This always struck me as odd for a few reasons. First: why would you not pay slightly more to have it for everyone at once? If you level up a lower guy in a mission, now they can use a bunch more combos. You also can’t replay a character’s mission, until you’ve beaten the last level, so you can’t go back and grind. So, if you weren’t buying these upgrades, you could be playing some endgame levels with a very weak character, and make it pretty hard on yourself. Speaking of “hard”: the balance for this game is completely out the window. Difficulty doesn’t just affect the enemy damage – it affects how much XP you get. Here’s an example. “Fair” is the lowest rating. On Hard, that gives 7 points. A step above that is “Good”, which gives 18. So, that’s slightly more than Normal, right? Because you’re fighting harder enemies? Well, no… On Normal, “Fair” gives 75 and “Good” – 150. So it’s roughly a 1000% difference. At least on the lowest kill – “Good” is slightly better. What’s especially odd is that Easy only gives slightly more points than Normal. If you’re playing on Hard, you’ll be playing this game a long time, maxing out the characters, so at least there’s that… Still, would someone playing on Hard NOT get a Fellowship Upgrade? I guess, it’s POSSIBLE for that situation to arise, but I can’t imagine it happening. Especially since, by far, the most useful skills in the game are Fellowship Upgrades. By that I mean “Bane”. All of the “Banes”. What you do is you parry an attack, you press a button, and they instantly die, and you go in Perfect Mode. There’s no buildup, and you’re invincible while doing it. These are spread out, and there’s not one for every enemy in the game, but it makes a lot of them trivial. I’d be fine with it, if it didn’t make you go into Perfect Mode. As it stands, once you have them, getting a perfect score is trivial. Maybe Hard is more tolerable if you’re constantly using a “Bane”, but that’s pretty boring. When I compared this to a party game earlier, I wasn’t kidding. If you have some action game experience, this won’t be the hardest game you’ve played. There are a few challenging parts, and some levels that would be good for farming have no checkpoints, to punish you. So, ultimately, it’s a system that’s flawed, but adds some fun progression to you playing the game. Your later upgrades make mashing a light or heavy attack button 4 times a combo. So, if you’re looking for something really skill-intensive, this probably isn’t your thing. That said, the combat itself is still a lot of fun. You have a good sense of your character’s control, and can even change your attack direction mid-swing. The game’s balance outside of the experience system is incredibly fair. Someone like Legolas might not do a lot of damage, but is very forgiving, due to his speed. Plus, some of the insane arrows he can get. Then you have someone like Gimli, who needs better timing, since it takes him a calendar year to swing, but he does WAY more damage. The hobbits have less reach than the PlayStation Vita, but their levels have tools to exploit. Sam is basically an orc Grim Reaper. And Gandalf? Well, Gandalf’s a wizard. [Marv scream] Hobbits can cloak and backstab, Gandalf is magical, and the Fellowship can… increase their Perfect Mode faster. It would be nice if these three had more unique abilities, but they are on the same Path, so it can slide. My biggest issue with the combat – and, really, the game – is the camera. You have no control over it. Occasionally, it will be a zip code away, and you can’t tell what’s happening while you’re being mobbed. Sometimes, it will keep switching angles when you’re moving around, and completely throw off your sense of direction. Random stuff in the foreground obstructing your vision. Even some of the regular angles are just awkward. The game actually does a lot to prevent these situations, like making objects and characters transparent, but when things go off the rails, you always notice it. It doesn’t stop the rest of the game from being enjoyable. It’s still a really solid experience, and it can be elevated even more if you have a friend. This game has co-op. It’s no secret that any game is fun with friends. While it does lack some elements as a singleplayer game, in co-op, it fully makes up for them. You can play the entire game with someone else, and now different fighting styles can compliment each other. You share a life pool, so, if one of you dies, you both have to start over. At the same time, you also share the experience pool when it comes to buying new upgrades. The Fellowship skills have more sense here – they help both of you out. Really, the only downside to this is that the camera will be more awkward than before, especially now that you’re latched to another person. You can also expect to be hit by more off-screen enemies and being trapped on the edge. You need to stick together. The co-op is really the highpoint of this game. Trying to get angles on enemies together, covering each other – it all works out great. I’d still say the singleplayer is good, but the co-op is where it truly excels. The single player still has a lot of good stuff, especially if you are a big fan of the movies. Because it was made during the film production, you could see things like the Witch Kings old design, scenes that were deleted from the theatre release, scenes that I don’t think were in any release and a lot of “behind the scenes” features. Some that should maybe stay buried. DOMINIC: “Well, Elijah is a pretty good gamer.” BILLY: “The best player would be Elijah.” ELIJAH: “Well, this is where I get to st… to pat myself on the back. I’m definitely a better gamer than the two of them.” ELIJAH: “YES-S!” It is surprising they made Elijah Wood the Gamer King. I thought it might be Sean Astin, because Sam murders so many orcs in this. I guess there is only one way to get the answer… [static] SEAN: “Hey, Mandalore, it’s Sean Astin here!” SEAN: “I understand that you and your friends have been playing EA “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”,” SEAN: “and then in the bonus features SOME concede that Elijah Wood was the best gamer?” SEAN: “Now… (sigh)” SEAN: “I’m not sure what to make of…” SEAN: “I’m not sure what to make of… of this…” SEAN: “I’m not sure what to make of… of this… poppycock.” SEAN: “Do you mean that Frodo (in-game Frodo) was tougher than in-game Sam?” SEAN: “Because… I mean, I played the game when it first came out, had a ball doing the voices.” SEAN: “A lot of people have approached me to say how, you know, if it wasn’t for Sam, they wouldn’t have… you know…” SEAN: “I don’t know… Reach nirvana, playing the game or something… But...” SEAN: “But if you mean, like, in-person…” SEAN: “Like, Elijah and Sean on this set of “Lord of the Rings” gaming, or Elijah as a person, like, through his whole life is seen more of a gamer than Sean…” SEAN: “Ehm… I just don’t know what they… I didn’t… I… I… I don’t remember the extra scenes.” SEAN: “So, what I will say is a little anecdote about how Elijah’s game of… Ehm… “Bond” game – he had a “Bond” game.” SEAN: “I can’t remember the platform we were on.” SEAN: “And I was playing 006, and we were in the South Island of New Zealand, and the door was opened into our dressing room,” SEAN: “and people were walking by, and there was a lot of drama going on, and…” SEAN: “But then, for the first time on the movie, we met… we met Sean Bean – he was walking by.” SEAN: “But, literally just as he was walking by, my Sean Bean character in the… game took one to the head.” SEAN: “So, it was like: Oh, I’m dead! Oh… I’m reincarnated, look at that.” SEAN: “Sean Bean! Hi, Sean! Look, this is Elijah!” SEAN: “Anyhow, Elijah…” SEAN: “I honestly don’t know! I can’t even answer this question.” SEAN: “But just know that I take gaming very seriously.” SEAN: “I think gaming is important on a lot of levels. I’ve actually done several documentaries. “Video Games – The Movie” – I’m the narrator.” SEAN: “So, it’s sort of a fun… fun little take.” SEAN: “I could go on about this, but I just love that you’ve reached out to me and you’ve brought me in… back to “Return of the King”, “Lord of the Rings” at EA.” SEAN: “EA Sports – it’s in the game…” SEAN: “I like the sports games too, by the way. Racecar driving and… I could go on for hours.” SEAN: “Much love, best wishes!” SEAN: “If you need to know who’s better – don’t look any further than right here.” Oh… Counter-argument. ELIJAH: “I’ve actually made the… the controller float, and without touching anything, I’ve managed to play the game. It only happened a few times, but…” "OH-H!" I haven’t talked about the story, because, really, it just follows the film. Most of the movie scenes they do use are from the “Two Towers”. They probably didn’t want to spoil the footage of the new movie, or it just wasn’t filmed yet. If you didn’t know the film material already, at best, the game would seem disjointed, and at worst, you’d be completely lost. You don’t wanna play this for the story. When you do beat the game, you unlock new characters and some appropriately challenging Challenge Maps. The new characters are just clones of the ones you’ve been playing already. The funniest part is Faramir uses Aragorn’s animations, but they didn’t give him a combat knife. Instead, he just punches them into the Shadow Realm. That’s something to look forward to. I’d definitely recommend this game, if you do have a way to play it. This is a game in Licensing Hell, so I don’t expect it to be sold digitally or anywhere easily anytime soon. It’s sad, because there are some good “Lord of the Rings” games out there. This, “Battle for Middle Earth”, “The Third Age”… But they’re becoming harder to find and harder to run. So, if you have an opportunity to play it – then go for it. Bring a friend if you can. The next video will be something a little more sci-fi. I’ll see you then! Big thanks to everyone who made that one part happen! And to everyone else making the video happen at all! If you’re gonna do something on a movie licensed game, do it very carefully. You might have to spend days, figuring out what’s triggering something to be blocked and what’s not. It can drive you crazy. Anyways… Matthew Simmons: “Are there any projects that you’d like to do, but are hard to do?” “Total War” Warhammer is the big one. That’s my White Whale. A lot of RPGs, too, like “Baldur’s Gate” or “Pillars of Eternity” – stuff that need a lot of time investment to do right. So, I’m gonna put those off for a while. Anzeroth: “Do you like hard or punishing games, like Dark Souls?” Yeah. It feels rewarding when I beat those. vCount: “What can make you stop working on a video for something, besides overexposure?” It’s usually technical stuff, or if a game is very text-heavy. If it’s something like an emulator being questionably ran, or a small community, where I might cause more harm by showing it. I try to balance it out. Some Sketchy Guy: “What’s your favorite 40K faction?” Imperial Guard. Orcs being a close second. At the absolute bottom for me is probably the Eldar, and I think I was trained to hate them by “Dawn of War”, but I can’t remember exactly why. I try to block that kind of thing out. We’re gonna be talking about 40K more this year, so you might get some more insight into that kind of thing. Thanks for watching! I’ll see you in the next video. JOHN NORTON: “Aleya, get out of the house, now!”
This game was fantastic, as was The Two Towers. If you can find these in a game store, definitely pick it up
They were amazing. I bought them both for the Gamecube. The best part was the movie soundtrack being used.
These plus BFME 1 & 2 were solid LOTR games. It's a shame all of them are so hard to get working these days. I still have my legit copy of BFME2 and it hangs when loading the game on Win10 even with Compatability set. Can't figure it out
The quality of Mandalore’s content has come a long way from his start making videos making fun of The Old Republic and BioWare.
I'd love to see them ported for modern resolutions on PC/consoles. I'd gladly pick them up! These games were fantastic. The third age was not bad either from what I can remember. A turn based RPG I think.
The thumbnail alone triggered some nostalgia. I fondly remember playing this co-op on the PS2 with my cousin.
This game was developed by EA Redwood (Visceral Games). Looking at their Wiki, it's such a shame EA shut them down so quickly..
Dead Space Series, LotR, 007 Agent Under Fire and Everything or Nothing (Great early 3rd person cover shooter), The Godfather (underrated imo), The Simpsons game..
Anyone else remember asking their parents for the Two Towers game for Christmas and they buy you that terrible Fellowship of the Ring game instead?
Is there even a remote chance of any of the EA LOTR games getting rereleases? The Third Age, BFME, and this game were all some of my favourite childhood games, but it's basically impossible to play them in a convenient way. Could EA give distribution rights to WB or the Tolkien Estate or whoever controls this franchise now? I know it's pretty rare for 6th gen movie tie in games to get a rerelease but these are some of the few that warrant it.
Southrtn Gate was the best level in the game! I remember me amd my friend playing that level exclusively for hours.