Lord of the Rings - Return of the King videogame is now out for just about every platform. You can be Aragorn, Sam, Gandalf or other characters on your quest to save Middle Earth!

Made in the same style as Two Towers, the game covers the third movie complete with video clips from the movie, actor interviews, voice-overs by the original actors and much more. Gandalf's actor, for example, jokes that the wizard in the game seems to be far more agile than the wizard in the movie was :)

The gameplay is very similar to Two Towers and apparently they made many improvements based on user feedback. For example, when you do character upgrades, you can choose just to upgrade the character you are currently playing with (say Faramir) or to upgrade ALL characters for that ability. That makes the upgrade paths VERY interesting.

There are three main event paths. There is the way of the Wizard, where Gandalf takes on the Gondor defenses. There's the way of the King, where Aragorn builds up his army. Then there's the way of the Hobbit, where poor Sam and Frodo struggle their ways into the depths of Moria.

It's a great preview of the movie, showing lots of film clips of the various battles and scenes. There are many very slick changes between video and gameplay that really make you feel involved. The character movement is great, between the combo attacks and killing blows.

It's not just a hack and slash, there's a fair amount of strategy involved, both in in-game handling of the enemies as well as how to upgrade to get all characters to the end point. And once you reach the end - the game isn't over. There are characters to unlock, and special skills to earn for each one. You go back through the various levels with each character, trying to get even higher scores and build up your characters.

Co-op mode adds to the fun - pair up Aragorn with Gandalf and wade your way through massive piles of orcs. If you want to see something truly impressive, wait until you get to the final battle at the black gate and SWARMS of orcs, each an individual AI person with its own direction and attitude - are seething around you. Now THAT is impressive.

The sounds are amazing, the blasts of smoke, fire and thunder surrounding you truly give you the sense of battle shock. The game plays fast and can be replayed indefinitely. A definite must-have!

Return of the King Walkthrough

Buy Return of the King from Amazon.com