8.3 out of 10
IGN.COM

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EA's game Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is based on the movie, which is different than the Universal Interactive game, based on the J.R.R. Tolkien's literary works. That one is an action-adventure game, while EA, partnering with Stormfront Studios, has assuredly created a visceral, high-action beat-'em-up that hugs closely to the concept of Golden Axe, yet layers the game with options, rewards, multiple playable characters, and a progressive combat system. As a result, the game extracts the best qualities of Devil May Cry and The Bouncer (believe it not) than Golden Axe, yet it's clearly still a heavy hack-and-slash-a-thon if ever there was one.

Not to take away anything from EA or Stormfront, but in many ways EA has take its production cue from New Line Cinema. It's risen to the same quality level, set forth by Director Peter Jackson and crew, and in doing so has created a cleanly designed game, a beautifully dark and accurate game steeped in Middle-earth foliage, and one that's heavily invested in the movie's resources, integrating movie and gameplay like few games have done before.

The best example is in the telling of the story. Before each level gamers see movie footage from LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring and LOTR: The Two Towers, which the developers then perfectly modeled and choreographed into in-game cutscenes. Instead of changing from FMV to in-game models at the normal juncture, the FMV clips merge into the in-game scenes before the game starts, sustaining the level of disbelief, carefully fooling you into believing you're playing the movie. The effect works brilliantly.

As for the game style, it's clearly distinctive from Universal's title. The whole game is a shrine of movie images, movies, art and interviews, taken from both Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, offering these very assets as rewards for beating various stages of the game. It's wealthy with unique assets, even if the interviews range drastically in quality. For instance, Elijah Wood is a great interview because he is young enough to know games, while Ian McKellan and Viggo Mortenson clearly know little to nothing about them, and oddly they can barely act their way out of the interviews!

[INFO PROVIDED BY IGN.COM]

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Internet Reviews:

The Two Towers is good, twitchy action-fun. Based on the movie, this fast-action style beat-'em-up is well adorned with great supporting elements from quality sound, graphics and other movie-related resources. There is no doubt that EA has beat the bad movie-to-game formula, integrating a wealth of movie assets into a game that neither looks nor feels like it's been hampered by movie license red tape. In fact, it looks like the opposite. EA has stuffed this game with an enormous level of excellent stuff from both movies, resulting in a real treat of a game, especially for Tolkien fans. That in itself is a great thing.
As a game on its own merits, The Two Towers is a solid beat-em-up that's definitely worth owning. It's not the longest game, it begs to be a multiplayer game (particularly a two-player co-op game), and it could use more moves, more adventure aspects (though, I guess it's not really an adventure game, so that's not entirely fair), and more levels. But, it's still a thrill to play as Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas.

It's different enough from Universal's title, which is an action-adventure title based on Tolkien's literary works, for gamers to warrant a look at both. But if this game's score indicates anything to you, you'll know which one to pick.
IGN.COM

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