Episode 45: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord Of The Rings is unquestionably the most impactful fantasy work ever written.  And in 2001, Peter Jackson did what many thought was impossible, bringing Tolkien’s vision to the big screen in an enormously successful way.  The movies were cultural phenomenons, praised by critics and fans alike, and for many is the definitive adaptation of the works of Tolkien.

With the success of the movie game companies were galvanised to create a video game based on it.  Tolkien heavily inspired fantasy role playing games, of course, but this was an opportunity to capture the imagination of thousands of movie watchers.  In fact, the game we played this fortnight - The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers - was released several weeks before the movie, filled with footage and interviews that was only available from the game itself.  Many people have fond childhood memories of this third person action rpg brawler.

But was Two Towers actually a well crafted video game that really complimented the movies, and made you feel like Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli?  Or was it a cheap and nasty job, cashing in on fans and their hype for one of the best movie series ever made?

On this episode, we discuss:

• How well does The Two Towers capture the spirit of the movie's story?  Is it important for the  story to get fully fleshed out in an action video game?
• What does it mean for a video game’s combat to be ‘clunky’?  Are fixed camera angles, low mobility options and delayed input combos intrinsically unfun, or do they have their merits?
• How important are concepts like poise and hyper armor when designing and playing a third person brawler?

We answer these questions and many more on the 45th episode of the Retro Spectives Podcast!

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Intro Music: KieLoBot - Tanzen K

Outro Music: Rockit Maxx - One point to another

LOTR: The Two Towers Soundtrack -  Howard Shore

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Is Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King a worthy sequel to this game?  Are we wrong in our criticisms?  You can suggest new games for us to play or tell us exactly why we’re wrong on our text based community discord server!