So guess who gets to take him on. Well, in EA’s follow up to the hugely successful Two Towers game, you do. This time around you get a little more freedom and more characters to do the trick.

Unlike the first game, where you could only be Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, you have a total of nine characters at your disposal. Granted, three of them are “secret,” but it’s still a big improvement.

There are three different storylines to start with. You can chose to take control of Gandalf the White on the Paths of the Wizard, the three from TTT in The Path of the King, or Samwise Gamgee in The Path of the Hobbits. Most people are going to start off with Gandalf simply because, let’s face it, Wizards kick ass. And this game sure doesn’t disprove that statement. The fact of the matter is, Gandalf is freakishly powerful. Right off the bat his long ranged weapon (firing a blast from his staff) can take down most enemies. He’s also extremely quick for such an old fellow, which allows you to both catch up and evade enemies as necessary. His story takes you from the forests outside Isengard to the walls of Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor.

In the Path of the King, you take lead of the three “main characters” as they gather the Army of the Dead, fight thousands of Orcs on the Pelennor Fields, and finally struggle through endless ranks of Orcs and Easterlings in front of the might Black Gate. These battles are unbelievably fun simply because you just keep pounding the special attack buttons and watch as enemy after enemy is vanquished. Repetitive? You bet. Fun? Oh hell yes.

Finally, you get the Hobbits. You wouldn’t think they’d be that great. But that’s what’s so special about this game. They are pretty much just as good as Gandalf once you level them up. While unrealistic, it does make for a fun game considering you have to be the Hobbits on their levels until you beat the quest. They go on the path Frodo and Sam took in the ROTK novel (which , by the way, if you haven’t read, go kill yourself). This quest is the one I found to be the most aggravating. The first level is just you leading poor Mr. Frodo away from the Nazgul trying to take the ring. Maybe it was just me, but I couldn’t beat this level the first 30 times. Frodo got caught every time simply because I either didn’t know where to go or the way was blocked far too heavily by Orcs. I refuse to ever play this level again. It was so frustrating I whipped my controller at the ground in rage and had to walk away for a few minutes.

Before I discuss the other issues I had with this game, I will talk about all of the improvements made to this title from the first one. Trust me, there are really a lot of them. EA took every complain from TTT and fined tuned it at least a little. The first thing I really noticed was the vast improvement made to Gimli. In TTT he was my least favorite character because he was so slow and useless. However, now he’s an orc-killing machine. The “X” attack makes him whip that big ‘ol axe around at amazing speeds that take out the warriors or Mordor by the hundreds. They also made Legolas better. No longer is he somewhat weak and only good for shooting, but now he is a true fighter with blisteringly fast strikes.

The graphics are better, but they had to be after a year. There is a decent amount of detail and the environments look spectacular, but the character models are seriously lacking. The animations are fluid and smooth most of the time, but at certain angles or during certain combos, they look rigid and fake. I found to be mostly true with Gandalf. When you see him run, it looks down right funny. On the plus side, the faces (other than Aragorn for some weird reason) look amazingly close to the actors that portray them in the films. The framerate is excellent for the most part, but when certain things blow up there is a tiny pause in the movement of everything. Fortunately, this never takes away from the game as when things blow up it usually means you are done. Overall, EA has done a good amount of improvement, and I don’t think that there are any serious visual glitches to take away from the score.

The biggest improvement of them all is the addition of Co-Op. The first game needed this badly, and now it is finally delivered. I played through the first time with a friend and it made the game much more fun. There are times when you can work together so seamlessly and so beautifully that you will be in awe of how cool it looks. As with any co-op where the characters share the same screen, there are some glitches that occur. The worst is when one player attempts to move along on the level or run from an impending death and their teammate gets caught on the side of the screen where they cannot move until the other comes back. Usually this isn’t too bad, but on some levels (Escape from Osgiliath) it kills you multiple times. You need to get to a certain point in a certain amount of time, yet it quickly becomes impossible. In the long run though, you can’t possibly get the most out of this game until you take on the Army of Mordor at the Black Gate with a friend hacking away at your side.

As anyone who has seen the LORT films can attest to, the music composed for the films is phenomenal. In ROTK, it has been used perfectly. You get the pounding drums when you take on a group of orcs, and the melodic music when you are causally walking through the forest. In surround sound, it gets even better. The music booms from every side and truly engulfs you in the game. The sound effects are also nicely done, as each sword, axe, or dagger clash sounds realistic. My favorite effect was the cackle created by Gandalf’s wizard shield. Finally, the voice acting is top notch. Of course, this was expected considering the actors did the voices for each respective character.

The controls are identical to TTT in almost every aspect, and are easy to pick up if you never played that. One button takes care of the “quick attack,” another handles the “strong attack,” and of course the necessary (TRUST ME) block button. It is simple to execute the numerous combos and special attacks, and once you get them memorized you’ll easy use them throughout the game. If I have any complaint it would be that sometimes the camera changes and masses of enemies can confuse you to the point that you forget which is up and which is down. So you may lose that level once or twice for this, but then you get it and never worry about it again.

Return of the King is a very well done game that captures the spirit of the films faithfully and calls back to a time when games were less deep and more fun. Granted, there are a good amount of flaws that prevent the game from reaching greatness, but it is just fun enough that the majority of these are quickly forgotten as you go back time and time again to confront Sauron’s forces. You can’t go wrong with this title as a rent or a buy. I wouldn’t suggest a purchase unless you have friends or siblings though. You will beat it within 2-3 days, but with the extra modes, lots of upgrades, and some undeniably addictive levels, you will come back for more for weeks and months to come.