WARNING: There be spoilers here for both the game and the movie. Though I suppose anyone who's gonna buy this game already has read the books and knows how the story ends, so chances are I'm not gonna ruin too much for anyone. Still, better safe the sorry!
RotK is the tie in game to the movie, following the same format as the first two tie in video games. It's a fairly straightforward slash and hack game, with little bits of problem solving here and there for good measure. The storyline follows the basic plot of the movie, though it begins at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers and covers just the huge honkin' battles from the last book. Fans eager to play the game and unlock movie clips of the as yet unreleased movie will see snippets here and there, but not as much as they hoped since the vast majority of actual film footage used is stolen from The Two Towers.
But you're here to play a game, not see a movie, so let's get down to the nitty gritty.
Game Design:
The object of RotK is to survive, plain and simple, through a series of scenes that follow the storyline of the movie. Video segues with an original voice over from Ian McKellen himself tie in the various scenes, but only the most basic of plot is dealt with. This leaves most of the rich story of the book by the wayside, but allows the player to focus on what you came here to do: kill orcs.
There are three Paths you follow through the game, each with it' s own scenes and challenges. You start on the Path of the Wizard with Gandalf, plunked right in the middle of the battle of Helm's Deep. Gandalf follows the story to Minas Tirith and the struggle to protect as many people as possible. The Path of the King follows Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli first on their quest through the Paths of the Dead, then through the Southern Gate and Pelennor Fields to eventually meet up with Gandalf at the Black Gate for one last stand against the horde of evil. The Path of the King is the only place you have a choice of characters. In single player mode you can choose between the Man, Elf, and Dwarf for each scene, or go back and replay a scene as a new character once it's been completed. In co-op mode you and a friend fight side by side, but you cannot got back and replay a scene. Finally there's the Path of the Hobbit, where you are Sam attempting to get Frodo to Mount Doom, with stops at Shelob's Lair and Cirith Ungol along the way.
You advance in the game in the same way as the previous ones. You level up each scene by defeating enemies, each kill gaining experience towards the next level. Kills are rated on a scale of fair, good, excellent, and perfect, and the higher the kill rating the more experience you gain. At the end of each scene you can purchase upgrades depending on what level you are and how many experience points you've earned. In single player this works very well, where you can replay the Path of the King with everyone, and have stronger characters purchase upgrades for the whole Fellowship so weaker characters can advance quicker. But in co-op mode it can get dangerous as you're experience points are combined, thus whoever gets to upgrade first can use up all the points leaving player two with nothing. Also, because in co-op you cannot replay a scene the opportunities to level up are greatly decreased and can make harder scenes very difficult!
Another problem is the contrived feel of some of the situations. At the Battle of Pelennor Fields you're main objective is to keep Merry and Eowyn safe from rampaging olephants and Nazgul, since apparently game Merry and game Eowyn are weak, dumb rocks who can't defend themselves. If you succeed then you get to see Eowyn kill the Lord of the Nazgul, leaving you to wonder why the heck she needed defending in the first place!
Characters:
RotK eventually lets you play as most of the fellowship with a few bonus characters thrown in when you unlock them. While at first only certain characters can play certain scenes, when you beat the game it unlocks everyone and you can play anyone anywhere. This lets you have a bit of fun, plunking Sam in the middle of the Path of the Dead to see what the little guy can do.
All the characters are very well rendered after the actors in the movies, and the voices are those of the actors lending to a very accurate representation of them all. They even move and fight in a very realistic manner for each character. However the effect fails in close up shots when game rendered characters are shown talking, since the mouth never moves at all in any attempt to lip-sync to the voices. Thus you get this feeling Aragorn is performing some strange ventriloquist act when confronting the King of the Dead.
Gandalf and Aragorn are clearly the most powerful of the fighters. They have a nice balance of sword and ranged attacks, and their more powerful attacks are able to quickly take down even the strongest foe. Gimli can cleave his way through mounds of orcs with his ax, but he's slow and his throwing axes take too long to be very effective. Legolas ends up being a complete wimp once again. He looks impressive wielding those two swords and he's fast as lightning, but he takes twice as many attacks to kill an enemy then anyone else. While his ranged attack is impressive, and he certainly can send out a hail of arrows in seconds, there are too few times where that is useful.
As for the Hobbits, Sam seams to have appropriate fighting skills for his character, and the designers did a good job of placing him in situations where he can use his brains to defeat hordes of orcs and not have to hack and slash his way through an army like the other characters. Frodo is about the same, although the only fight in the game you can play as Frodo is the climax at Mount Doom, and that battle is more about strategy then actual fighting skill. Otherwise he's mostly a NPC, and an annoying one at that! Sam's main job the whole game is to protect Frodo, however Frodo the NPC is very good at getting himself in trouble. He has a bad habit of wandering around lost, not even defending himself from attack, making you want to smack him upside the head and yell, "HELLO! Defend yourself!" Plus for several scenes in the game as Sam you run around trying to rescue a captured Frodo, who ever so often calls from the distance with a pathetic, "Help me, Sam!" that can make you want to roll your eyes and leave him to the orcs to eat.
NPC's in this game include an army of Rohirrim, soliders from Gondor, and any major character not currently being played. They're pretty useless most of the time, never really killing anything, and you get the feeling they're sole purpose seams to be distracting the enemy till you have a second to attack. In the Path of the King the one or two Fellowship members not being played tend to lag behind and their power is greatly reduced, and in scenes where you're job is to keep them from being killed it can feel impossible when Aragorn suddenly can't kill an orc that should present no problem. Plus they tend to be dumb as stumps. On top of a wall seiged by orcs it's Gandalf's job to kick off ladders and keep siege engines from unloading a horde on the wall. Despite being surrounded by an army you can feel like you're the only one fighting the whole battle, since ladders will appear right in front of NPC's who'll ignore them as if they weren't there.
The unlockable characters include Merry, Pippin, and Faramir. I didn't get a chance to play with everyone, but since Pippin is my favorite I couldn't resist trying him out at the Southern Gate to see what the little Hobbit could do. Let me just say this: PIPPIN KICKS ASS! I'll take him over Legolas any day! He 's fast, deadly, and surprisingly strong, and even at level one was dropping orcs left right and center! It's not necessarily the most authentic portrayal of a character, but it's certainly tons of fun to watch Pippin take down bad guys twice his size without breaking a sweat!
Special Features:
As you progress through the game, features unlock for you to enjoy, most being production stills from the movie and interviews with the cast. The production stills are nothing spectacular, but enjoyable. The cast interviews range from excellent and entertaining to slightly strange commercials for the game. Most of the actors were obviously asked to play the game and talk about their character. In some cases the interviews sound more like commercials for the actual game, but others give you some nice insights into the characters and how the actors played them. A fun segment of "Hobbits on Gaming" shows the guys bragging about their various combat skills, and when you unlock the three special characters you not only get interviews but little personal congrats from the actors that are kinda fun.
If you continue to play the game after defeating it and destroying the ring, there's a special last scene that's a marathon battle. If you beat that you get one last little special tidbit I will leave spoiler free.
Diehard fans will enjoy these unlockable bits, but will certainly be left wanting more, especially if you purchased the game before the movie opens and you're looking for anything from that last movie. In fact when you beat the game it actually ends up feeling a bit like one big commercial for the movie.
In the end I did like this game, and it has a nice replay value once everything is unlocked. If you're looking to get this game for the special features or the movie scenes you'll be quite disappointed, but if you just want to shoot flaming balls at orcs as Gandalf, or take down a troll as Aragorn, then this should be a ton of fun