Wednesday 16-Jul-2003 3:07 PM EA's concluding take on the tumultous battle between Gollum and Frodo, Saruman and Gandalf - good and evil. Details here! The Lord of the Rings is such an obvious candidate for EA to make a title from - huge, bombastic action sequences on a vast scale - and the third instalment of the game looks set to be at least as visually stunning as anything that's gone before. We spoke to product manager Jonathan Harris to find out just what to expect from the title this time round...
So what can we expect from Return of the King?
Harris: Well, obviously the game is based on the third movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The game is coming out November 4 in the States, and October 31 in England, which is actually about six weeks before the movie goes on general release.
In the game you play pretty much all the main characters from the film. You can play as Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Sam, Frodo. So that allows us to tell all three stories, take all three story paths from the movie, with Sam and Frodo with the ring, Aragorn, Leglas and Gimli battling away, and Gandalf following his own path.
So unlike last year's Two Towers, where we only focused on a few of the characters, this time you'll get to see it all.
What else have you changed?
Harris: Environments are much larger, much more expansive, there are a lot more locations. You can interact with a lot of different objects, so instead of just fight fight fight, there's other stuff going on.
But probably the biggest change is multiplayer co-op mode. You can play with a friend on the same screen, it's just like old style Gauntlet.
You can also mix and match characters through levels, so that as you play through the game for the first time, as you unlock a level, you'll be able go back and play through those levels with a different character as you progress through the game.
So presumably you've made good use of your access to footage from the movie?
Harris: Absolutely. In the game itself there will be footage from the movie just like in the last game. We've got voice-overs from the actors, the soundtrack is lifted straight from the films, the storyline follows the plot of the film very closely.
So what would you say are the key features of the game?
Harris: We've got six playable characters, plus another three characters that can be unlocked; there are 14 levels, which is one more than last year's game; and the levels are also much bigger than in last year's game.
With the interactivity in the gameplay there's actually a lot more variety in the action this time too. So for instance, if I take Gandalf into battle I can actually pick up these objects in the environment and actually throw them at my enemies. I'm not restricted to the basic attacks I have.
All the playable characters have upgrades, so you can get new combat attacks, new skills, upgrades to your weapons - it's a kind of RPG-lite system. There are also different weapons, and the AI's been much improved this year.
Last year, although you could fight multiple enemies, you were always taking them on one at a time. So we have much more robust AI this time, you'll get attacked from all sides, which naturally makes things tougher.
What you want is a game that makes you feel like you're actually playing the movie. And when you consider how awesome the movie's turned out, being able to take those visuals and build a game around it, I think we've captured Tolkien's world.
So what stands out to you that makes this game better than it's predecessors?
Harris: I would say the choice of characters, the way you can unlock combos, the variety of the battles - all those things separate this game from past titles. You can customise your characters using the points you're allocated at the end of a level any way you want to.
Obviously the visuals of the game are awesome - we've got one of the best looking PS2 games on the market this year, if not the best. Return of the King is going to be out on every platform, of course, and it's gonna be huge on every platform.
These creatures you see on screen here, our trolls, they don't just look like the ones from the movie, they are those trolls, taken straight from the movie. We take the model from the movie, and of course we have to take the detail level down, but still this is the same model from the movie, which is pretty awesome.
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