'Rings' video game is too cool to quit
By Anthony Breznican
Associated Press
The trouble with the video game version of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" is that it's too hard to conquer but too cool to quit playing.
Like its predecessor, "The Two Towers," this sword-and-sorcery fighting adventure fuses footage of the still-unspooling movie trilogy with first-rate digital brawling.
To get to the clips, you have to beat the orcs — and the orcs don't make it easy, ganging up on the heroes in ways movie villains (who usually attack one at a time) never do.
The characters earn points by killing as many orcs as possible without absorbing any damage, and those points can be spent at each level on new attack moves. Push a sequence of buttons and Aragorn spins, kicks, slashes and kills in one fluid move.
But there's a catch: While Aragorn is doing that fancy move to finish off one enemy, five others run up to pulverize him, making the elaborate gesture more of a liability than a help.
You're better off just doing simple slashes at the orcs as if they were a field of unwieldy brush. But then, that gets boring, and soon you're trying another ballet-style attack, getting your butt kicked, and having to start the level over again.
Even on the "easy" level, "Return of the King" is frustratingly difficult in ways "The Two Towers" never was. But one improvement over last year's game is a wider range of playable characters. The developers have wisely added the wizard Gandalf and the hobbits Frodo and Sam to the repertoire. All of them are voiced by the actual movie stars, including Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen.
There are also three ways to reach the game's end — following the wizard's route, the warriors' route and the hobbits' path.
J.R.R. Tolkien's world — as envisioned by the Peter Jackson movies — is beautifully rendered here in digital form. The highlight is the "Gates of Minias Tirith" level, in which Gandalf must slay orcs and kick down their ladders as the monster army attacks a sovereign kingdom. Another excellent level is "Paths of the Dead," in which Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli explore creepy caves.
"The Return of the King," released by Electronic Arts, is available on PC, Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2 formats.
