Although the articles (as usual) are unfortunately full of bad puns, the October 25th edition of Entertainment Weekly featured a two-page spread on The Two Towers game for Playstation 2 by EA. The article features pics of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli figures, a FotR review of a Tolkien fan (but not gamer), and the obliging Elijah Wood’s comments on his gaming habit and how that worked on the shoot. The game itself got a B+, not a bad rating from EW.
I was unable to find a decent link on the website (which by the bye is advertising the Extended Edition of Fellowship all over the place). Here is an excerpt from the “It’s in the Baggins: LotR Star Elijah Wood Can’t Kick His Gaming Hobbit” by Geoff Keighley:
“”I’m quite the videogame fan,” he [Elijah Wood] cheerfuly admits. “It’s part of my geeky obsession.” To offer proof, Wood proudly cited his recent play-time with games like Eternal Darkness and Halo. He even fesses up to taking his PlayStation to New Zealand for the 15-month LOTR shoot. Unfortunately, it got about as much use as a hobbit show rack: “I plugged [it] into the wall and it burned because I didn’t get a power transformer for it.”
Person with no nickname suggested :”My 2 cents says maybe we will see a ringwraith “plunging” out of the sky? It would be pure PJ to do that, maybe in a startling way…just my guess, though
Jamie imagined something similar: “I suspect that the plunge will involve an aerial visual (roller-coaster in effect) involving the Uruk-Hai (or the Three Hunters) plunging onto the plains of Rohan from the Emyn Muil.”
Jacqui: my guess: “I’d guess that it starts with Deagol being pulled into the river and finding the ring, I mean its’ logical, he is plunged deep into the water, and i heard that there will b a flash back 2 that scene in the movie….”
Hardy elaborated on the Gandalf vs. Balrog possibilities:
“Here’s my vision of the opening (from an article I posted in the usenet’s alt.fan.tolkien:”
+++ begin LotR:TTT opening prophecy +++
New Line Cinema logo
Black screen, quiet music, Cate Blanchet voice over: “Three rings for the Elven kings […] where the shadows lie” (those eight lines have to be somewhere in the films)
Title on black screen: “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”
Black screen
A small, fiery red dot appears in the middle of the picture, it stars to grow, we recognize it’s something coming closer, faster and faster, now we can hear it SCREAM, it’s the BALROG falling through darkness!
Lit by the BALROG we begin to see that the camera is moving backwards, falling down the abyss of MORIA
The BALROG falls past the camera, closely followed by something small, a human shape, barely recognizable.
The camera turns around, gaining speed, chasing the human shape which is catching up withthe falling BALROG, it’s GANDALF THE GREY and in his hands he holds his sword GLAMDRING, ready to engage the fiery beast.
AK explained why he thought a Gandalf vs. Balrog opening would work:
“Would it be a good opening? It’s certainly right into the action, and would certainly grab the audiences attention right away. It will be a visually stunning sight to behold, so perhaps it is best placed at the very beginning. FOTR was void of an ending, so to speak, so to open The Two Towers with a bang seems like the good thing to do. In my opinion, flashbacks can sometimes be sloppy, and often are a lazy way of telling an untold story, so having it at the beginning instead of recalling it to Aragorn and co. would be a change in convention. A refreshing change.
“It also balances out the action. There really isn’t that much action in the first half of Tolkien’s Two Towers, and from the clues leaked onto the net of the structure of the film, it looks as though there’ll be a mass of action toward the middle and end. Perhaps including Gandalf’s flashback to Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas would cause an imbalance. (That said, I’m wondering whether Gandalf’s meeting would seem a little redundant without a tale of his fall).”
Max: “Since so many people are throwing their own two cents in, I thought I would as well. I must say, I have no idea of how The Two Towers will begin, but I will use my oh so educated guess.
“One person pointed out that we DO have a small hint…it is “pure Peter Jackson”. From what I gather from that, it isn’t pure Tolkien….SO! When looking at the whole idea of The Two Towers and how, in a very general statement, the “bad guys win”, I think it will have a bit of a beginning much like Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back (which in turn gathered ideas from Tolkien…heehee), AND something Peter has decided to add himself. In Empire Strikes Back we see Darth Vader and all of his evil very early….if I remember right. I haven’t watched it in a while. Since this second installment of LOTR is based on the invasion of Saruman and Sauron’s forces (basically evil getting even more powerful) I think, in the style of Peter Jackson, we will see our first shot of the Nazgul. Or at least something of the sort…maybe the Witch King. All in all, I think we are all going to open up in Mordor and in utter darkness and evil. It would be a great way for Peter Jackson to show and tell us, “LOOK OUT! You have no idea how evil all of this really is…this is your FIRST taste”.
“I could very easily be incredibly wrong and I’m sure some people are going to disagree with me. However, I remember very distinctly before seeing Fellowship for the first time, I heard Peter Jackson say something along the lines of, “This is a Tolkien movie made by a Tolkien fan.” This is Peter Jackson’s movie and he has a lot to say with this second film. Here comes Peter!!”
Stephen: “If it is pure Peter Jackson, think back to the camera plunge at Orthanc, where we drop from Gandalf at the top of the tower down through the depths of the furnaces. What about an opening from in high flight, with us seeing a wide landscape view of Rohan or the Emyn Muil (depending on where Jackson is starting TTT), then a plunge down to the action of the orcs running with Merry and Pippen being followed by Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. And maybe we are shocked to discover that we are seeing it from the point of view of a Nazgul in flight.”
We resume our Two Tower’s chats this weekend with Frodo and Sam still with the Men of Gondor at Henneth Annun. His own fate – and that of the quest – undecided, he is summoned by Faramir only to discover that he must to decide the fate of another.
Book 4, Chapter VI: The Forbidden Pool
Fate, chance or providence has lured Gollum back to Frodo’s side. Frodo discovers that, even with an opportunity, he is not easily able to disnown his feelings of obligation toward Gollum. It appears that although Gollum is bound to Frodo by his promise, Frodo is similarly bound to Gollum, something that could prove to the detriment of the quest.
Be sure to join us this weekend in one of our two scheduled discussions!
Place: #thehalloffire on theonering.net server; come to theonering.net’s chat room Barliman’s and then type /join #thehalloffire .
Saturday Chat: 5:30 pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30 pm (23:30) CET and 7:30 am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00 pm (13:00) ET and 4:00 am (04:00) Monday morning AET]
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Got a topic for Hall of Fire? E-mail us at Hall of Fire!
We’ve been asking everyone from age Seven to age Eleventy One to send in their reviews of the new games in the flavor of Middle Earth, including the new Video Games from Electronic Arts and Vivendi Universal, the Miniature War Game from Games Workshop, and the Card Game and RPG from Decipher. The comments have literarly OVERFLOWED the Gaming Havens news bag, which is GREAT! Keep those reviews coming! You keep writing them we’ll keep putting them up! Just drop an e-mail to Havens@TheOneRing.net!
Heres a review of Two Towers for PS2 from Electronic Arts’ by Zac Bertschy
Long time reader, first time writer. I bought the Two Towers game as soon as it arrived on shelves, since it had new footage from the second film in it; I didn’t really care what the gameplay was like, so long as I got to see the new scenes. To my surprise, the game turned out to be one of the best action games I’ve ever played. The combat system is fun beyond all reason, and the level-up system is rewarding and a blast to play. The graphics are outstanding and they did a fantastic job capturing the feel of the films and the tone of the characters and scenes they’re recreating. My only quibble is that the interviews – the ones with the actors from the film – seem ot be focusing on the game. The actors really wouldn’t have much to say about a video game tie-in, and it seems like they’re struggling to come up with something to say aside from “I don’t play video games very often..”. A fantastic game, probably the only example of a good game based on a movie.
As for Vivendi Universal’s game, well, if it didn’t seem such an obvious attempt at cashing in on the success of the films, I wouldn’t be as biased against this title. The graphics are okay, but the character design seems.. well, stilted. Gandalf looks a bit too much like Sean Connery and his voice is an obvious attempt at impersonating Ian McKellan. Character animations are okay and the combat system, while a little easy and repetitive, isn’t horrid. The fact of the matter is, they glossed over too much. In this day and age, if you’re going to do something relating to LOTR and you’re going to boast about it being ‘based on the books’, then make it as painfully accurate as possible. We already have the ultimate version of these books on film; trying to recreate Tolkien’s vision in other forms of media needs to do what the films can’t, which is be endlessly faithful to the books and include everything. Yeah, parts of the game will be pretty dull, but they needed to do something with this game that wouldn’t make it seem like just a knock-off of the movies. As it is, they include Bombadil and the Barrow-Downs, and that’s about it. Everything else is included in the films, and there’s really no reason to play the game. Aside from that, it’s terribly short. This should have been an epic-length game.. there’s no reason you should be able to finish it in less than 10 hours. Buy The Two Towers instead.
Here’s a review of the Fellowship of the Ring for XBox from Vivendi Universal by CCanedy
The idea alone of a Lord of the Rings game for the next generation consoles was incentive enough for me to venture out and buy this game on release day. So I popped the game into my Xbox and started playing. As far as visuals go they aren’t the best. The developers did not use the full potential of the Xbox and while Graphics don’t make the game it is somewhat disappointing. The controls are decent enough to not cause many problems. The AI is pretty bad though. Enemies give up on trying to kill you if you run far enough away and on some occasions let you attack them with long distance weapons and bat an eye. I was willing to forgive all these problems because just the idea of being in an interactive Middle-Earth is excitement enough but then I lost all patience. I was 3 hours or so into the game, running around Bree as Strider. I ran into the stable and got the hay needed for the objective. I saved and ran out of the stable and died soon thereafter. No big deal. So I reloaded my saved game to find out that the only exit to the stable was blocked by some sort of invisible wall. The game glitched on me. This thoroughly disappointed me to the point where I returned the game soon thereafter. It wasn’t worth the effort to play the game if it is going to effectively ruin my experience and halt my progess with a glitch. My opinion is that this game is a definate rent not buy and around a 5 out of 10. Buyer Beware. On the upside, I think The Two Towers Game is better by far but that’s for another day.
Here’s a review of Universal’s The Fellowship of the Ring for PS2, XBox, and PC by CTruppi
Universal’s title is so below average that it reeks of marketing gimmickry! The gaming formula is tried and true: take a good (in this case great) license, throw in some flashy graphics and a game engine that feels rushed and untested and , voila, you’ve sold a million copies. Unfortunately, Tolkien fan reviewers have bought it hook, line and sinker! They’re so darn happy that someone actually made a LOTR game for next-gen system that they’ve overlooked the myriad problems and assigned much higher than deserved scores for these reviews. These are both deceitful and insincere and mislead us fans into thinking that while there are problems, this game is worth our time. WRONG!
The first problem is in the fraudulent ads put out by Universal stating that the game would be true to the text. Some missing areas from the text include: Bilbo’s birthday, Gandalf’s actions in the years following Bilbo’s birthday, Gandalf’s captivity in Isengard, Caradras, Lothlorien gift giving, Boromir trying to steal the ring and others. Considering the brevity of the game (I finished in 5 hours), these scenes would have added depth to a disjointed gaming experience. Also, the ending was completely changed and was done very badly. It seems as though Universal read all the complaints Tolkien fanatics had with the movie and threw in Tom Bombadil, the Barrow Wights and Glorfindel and said, “see, we’re sticking to Tolkien!”.
The second, and major problem, is that the game just isn’t any fun! The battle system is horrible, and considering that after Bree, 75% of the game is fighting makes the experience even less fun (compare to EA’s TTT excellent fighting game to understand how much fun a fighting game could be). The boss battles are plain stupid, non-challenging and anti-climatic! The whole thing feels rushed and I’d love to speak with a tester at Universal to see what the heck they were thinking to allow this game through the beta phase!
In conclusion, while many reviewers add scores to this title because of the Tolkien license, I actually take points away. My love and admiration for the Professor’s works raises my standards not lowers them. Universal should be ashamed of the claims they’ve made and the garbage that they’ve released with LOTR name stamped all over it. I give it a resounding 3 out of 10!!
Here’s a review of The Two Towers for PS2 by Electronic Arts by JKugler
One word can describe this game, awesome! Gameplay is superb, graphics are very good, and the never before seen TT footage was jaw dropping. I especially love when you beat the game, and it shows the scene where Gandalf is talking to Aragorn about how Sauron is blind to Frodo, and how the ring moves closer to Mordor each day. We see a little of this in the trailers, but it goes on for a good 30 seconds. The Helm’s Deep levels are absolutely amazing. It’s so intense, you really get the feeling that your outnumbered 30 to 1. At some points when the Uruk Hai just keep coming, you get the feeling of despair, just the way you feel in the book, I love it! I’ve beat it twice already, once with Aragorn and Once with Legolas, now I’m working on Gimli and Isildur. The Tower of Orthanc level is pretty cool, though not as hard as I thought it would be and I was hoping to fight Saruman at the end. All in all I give this game a 9 out of 10, well worth the price.
Here’s a review of the Fellowship of the Ring for XBox by Universal, and a review of The Two Towers for PS2 by Electronic Arts by Gloin
First ill tell you my thoughts on lord of the rings the fellowship of the ring for xbox. now this game i do like, but it just didnt seem to live up to the books. i would give it a 6 out of 10, to really enjoy this game you pretty much must be a fan of the books, which i am, so i did enjoy it.
now to the lord of the rings the two towers for ps2. this is now my all time favorite console game ever, i mean it really feels like the movie, and it looks great! it has the most replay value in a game i have ever seen, i have beat it with all characters already and unlocked everything, but im not finished with it, i just cant get enough pleasure out of killing all the uruks at amon hen so i keep coming back to it and kill them all over again. i give this game a 10 out of 10, this game i think ANYONE can enjoy.
Here’s a review of the Trading Card Game, The Fellowship of the Ring for XBox, and The Two Towers PS2 Game by Electronic Arts by Ramen
The card game is lots of fun, I think it is the first time since Magic: the Gathering that I’ve seen a card game actually pull off simple yet interesting play mechanics. I was THRILLED to read in my last PC Gamer that the card game will be going online! Sweet!
Then I bought the Fellowship of the Ring for XBox. Listen, I’m a true Rings fan, but I should have known when the clerk at EB warned me to, “Give this one time…”. Well, I gave it 2 hours. As much as I was dying to see the book scenes that hadn’t made the movie, I couldn’t stomach this game (I am really sorry, Quickbeam! 🙁 The voice acting was fine, it was the controls, the way Frodo moved, the combat system, and fighting with the camera angles I just couldn’t deal with. I realized I was most decidedly NOT having fun, and that’s why I play games, so…back it went, alas.
I wasn’t about to give up though, and plunged right in to Two Towers for the PS2. Good LORD, this game is wonderful! If you like the story, I fail to see how you could NOT like this game! I love it to death, the way they merged the movie and the game is groundbreaking and I hope to see this in other movie to game projects in the future (like The Matrix, for example). I’m not a huge fan of hack and slash games, but this is just a treat to play.
I hated to admit I didn’t like the Fellowship of the Ring game, but I do not feel any such need to apologize for the Two Towers game, I just hope they will definitely make a sequel for the third movie!
Wow! Thats a lot of reviews! Keep sending your reviews in to Havens@TheOneRing.net and we’ll keep posting them here on Gaming Havens @ TheOneRing.net!
Laeglass writes: Hey! I found an article on Orlando Bloom in a Teen People magazine. It talks about him getting the role of Legolas, his upcomming movies, and just about him in general. [Article Scan]
Full Bloom from Teen People (US), December 2002
As the best-looking Elf ever to hit the big screen, The Lord of the Rings’ Orlando Bloom has launched himself out of Middle-Earth and into the mainstream.
Forgive Orlando Bloom, but he’s still reeling. Three years ago he was a student at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, just days away from graduation, when he won the role of a 2,931-year-old elf named Legolas in the hottest project in Hollywood, the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The next thing he knew, the boy from Canterbury, England, who got his start reciting poetry at local arts festivals, was jetting off to New Zealand for 18 months of filming on the mystical epic with the whole process shrouded in secrecy. “We weren’t allowed to take photographs [of ourselves],” Orlando recalls. “I would have to wear a hooded jacket in the car on the way to the set and home every day too if I still had the elf ears on.” The first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring, catapulted Orlando to unexpected screen-idol status.
And this month’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, in which hobbits Frodo and Sam journey on to Mordor while Legolas and the rest of the gang fight the evil forces at Helm’s Deep, is sure to keep him there. “I’m overwhelmed by it.”
There is one downside to this kind of success: Orlando’s so popular now that people want to gossip about him and pass around wrong information on the Web, which strikes him as really strange. To set the record straight, he insists his idol is not These days he has a bounty of choice roles coming his way. Next up, Orlando’s an outlaw in the movie The Kelly Gang, co-starring Heath Ledger. “It was an all-boys thing,” Orlando says, “riding around on horses with guns,” Then he has to cope with another ring – the boxing kind – for a British comedy called The Calcium Kid. “I play a working-man’s hero, a young guy who is a milkman, but he also boxes,” says Orlando, who’s now in training for the role. “I drink a lot of milk.”
Superman (“I’ve been trying to live down this story forever”) and he didn’t start acting to pick up chicks (“Rubbish,” he says. “I liked to perform from an early age”), Orlando hopes to have his own site up soon to help squash the rumors.
Until then, know this: He puts family first, living in Canterbury, where his mother runs a language school for foreign students (his dad died when Orlando was four), and he’s in love with Maude, his dog. As for his romantic life, his last big relationship fell apart while he was making The Lord of the Rings. Still, Orlando’s not giving up on love. “When you start falling for somebody and you can’t stop thinking about when you’re going to see them again, I love that,” he says. “Women are beautiful. They deserve to be cherished and respected.” And, he adds with a laugh, “They’re a handful.”
VITAL STATS
NAME: Orlando Bloom.
BORN: January 13, 1977 in Canterbury, England.
SCREEN FAVES: Johnny Depp, Edward Norton and that cute French flick Amelie.
GOOD LUCK CHARM: A small pyramid of the blue gemstone lapis lazuli, which he keeps on his bedside “for wisdom.”
XTREME PURSUITS: Skydiving, bungee jumping, surfing and snowboarding. “Keeping fit,” he says, “comes easily to me.”
LIFETIME MEMBER OF THE E.R.: To date, he’s broken his back, both legs, an arm, three ribs, his nose, a finger, a wrist, a toe and cracked his skull three times. “I feel like I’m in competition with Evel Knievel,” he says.
NAIL MAN: “I am a vegetarian,” says Orlando. He does, however, nosh on his nails. “Sadly, yes, ever since I gave up smoking. Now I’m trying to give up nails.”
This year, the best guess from Wall Street analysts, professional box-office watchers and Hollywood executives inside and outside the two studios is that “Harry Potter and Chamber of Secrets” (opening on Nov. 15) and “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (Dec. 18) will dominate the holiday season, taking in at least $600 million between them in the United States, and twice that much overseas. But many expect “Lord of the Rings” to beat “Harry Potter” this year.
