PS2: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

I’ve been playing computer games since I was a teenager, and now I’m in the forties I still enjoy the challenge and excitement of a good game. Mostly I like RPG and strategy, but occasionally I will try different types of games. Generally I play games ‘alone’ on the PC, but find that I am able to play more games with my children on the PS2, Xbox 360, Wii etc.

Having watched the Lord of the Rings movies I therefore became very intrigued with the ‘spin-off’ games, especially as the characters in the game look like the characters in the movie….

Having played various games on different platforms that link into Tolkien’s world (The Hobbit, LOTR: fellowship of the ring’, and online multiplayer RPG and a few realllllly old RPG games I was intrigued to see if the masterful Electronic Arts could actually capture the essence of the world portrayed in the movie as well as the feel and atmosphere of the books.

Electronic Arts (EA) ‘stamp’ is obvious from the outset. While I would have expected this type of game to be a pretty traditional RPG (there is even a Middle Earth Role Playing game that they could have drawn the rules from – for a ‘paper and dice’ system, the MERP game is pretty decent ermmm so I’ve been told – I AM NOT A NERD…I am a GEEK…there is a difference!.

EA took the bold move of making this game into a mission based beat-em-up, which removes most of the elements you would expect from a game set in a fantasy world – gone are the mind boggling puzzles you know, stand on the platform, pull the lever and twiddle your wand and the constant traveling between locations that you have already visited 700 times before this annoys me about RPG games – I visit one location to find the magic harp, and ten minutes later I’m there again to pick up the purple pickle…why didn’t I see the pickle when I found the harp? I would simply have picked both items up and saved a whole lot of walking. Gone is the ‘item’ manipulation no more using the aforementioned pickle, placing it between a slice of bread, adding the mystical hamburger and feeding it to the guard dog so you can move on.

So EA made it into a mission based...

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