Lord of the Rings: Return of the King(which I'll later refer to as LOTR:ROTK) is a co-production of EA Games and New Line Cinema. The game was released in 2003, a year in which titles like Rayman 3, Devil May Cry 2, SimCity 4, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, Warcraft III, Manhunt and many others were released. LOTR:ROTK can best be described as a Hack and Slasher with RPG-influences.

The storyline is pretty self-explanatory, since most people are familiar with the Lord of the Rings movies. This game lets you play in certain events that happened throughout the movies, not only the third movie with the same title as this game. Some levels you'll be playing are Isengard, Mordor, Gondor and many more.

The graphics in this game haven't really aged well, that's something you'll notice straight away. It has a bit of a blurry feeling to it when compared to newer games. But at the time I first played it(at a friend's house, before purchasing the game myself) I was blown away, the graphics were better than I had ever seen before. And therefore it is only fair that we rate the graphics from that perspective. The details when it comes to the characters you control were great for that time, although having the same minor flaws that were common for games from that timeperiod such as capes not having ragdoll psychics and there having stuttering animation in between moves. The levels in which you fight in this game are a faithful copy of the areas in the movies, although a bit limited. This game was also the first game(and I think the only one I've played) that used clips from a movie to tell the story in which you can see the game switching over from a polygon-structured scene to a movie clip, which can be spotted right away of course but it doesn't really bother you.

The overall presentation of this game is quite good, this goes for the sound and music as well. The game features many songs and sound-effects from the movie, giving you that feeling from the movies. Whenever you hear that battletune from the movies, you know that you'll have to pay attention since you'll probably have to face off against many enemies.

The gameplay in this game is very, very smooth. I've spend countless of hours with my friends on this game, since this game also offers co-op(if you have a gamepad, that is). Slaughtering thousands of Orcs, beating bosses and solving puzzles is very fun in this game, especially in co-op. The fighting in this game has been executed very well, you'll be ploughing through crowds like it's nothing, if you've leveled up that is, because this game can become challenging at certain moments. Fighting in this game feels very nice and quick, especially with the rpg-influences this game has, such as the ability to level up and gain experience points which can be used to purchase certain combo's and moves, which add variety to the fighting. The unlockable characters and the leveling really extend the playing-time, because you'll end up trying to unlock every extra the game has to offer such as secret characters, bonus levels and many more.

There are however a few throwbacks in this game, an example of this is that at a couple of levels in the story line you'll find yourself being confused at what it is that you have to do, this can be extremely annoying when you have a timelimit. Another thing is that when playing co-op all things are shared, so if you aren't aware of it you'll end up having no experience points to spend on the stats of player 2's character. In co-op, lives are shared as well, let's say that you play on normal and have 3 lives, then you're both allowed to die once, but if you or your friend dies twice, you're automatically required to stay alive for the rest of the level, this might not seem like a big issue, but when being cornered by Orcs it can lead to having to start over.

So to conclude this review I think I can easily say that this is a good purchase if you ever happen to stumble upon the game, despite the few flaws this game remains to be extremely fun, both co-op and singleplayer, although I'd suggest playing it with a friend, since it adds to the experience. However, if you put great value in graphics and only want to see the latest high-detailed graphics I'd suggest to let this one go, since it's probably not your cup of tea. Another thing I'd like to add is that there's no online multiplayer, but if you look at what type of a game this is, it's not really a surprise. So to end this review I'd like to say that you should really give this game a try, it's extremely fun and probably very cheap since it's from 2003.

Dante's Inferno is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Visceral Games (formerly EA Redwood Shores, and also creator of Dead Space) and published by Electronic Arts, released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. The game is loosely inspired by Inferno, the first book of Dante Alighieri's epic poem, The Divine Comedy.

During the Third Crusade, the story follows Dante, a Christian crusader general, who despite his faith, has committed numerous atrocities under his command. Attempting to seek atonement, Dante stitches a bloody holy cross-shaped tapestry onto his torso, which depicts every sin he has committed. First opening in the city of Acre, Dante has been ordered by King Richard I to seize a holy relic before the forces of Saladin capture it. During a raid by the peasants, Dante is stabbed in the back by an assassin where upon Death appears before him to be taken to the after life. Despite being led to believe by a Bishop his sins were absolved, Dante is ruled by Death to be condemned to "everlasting damnation for his sins", a fate his loved ones will also share. Dante however pulls the knife from his back and refuses to accept his fate, engaging Death itself in combat where he not only destroys Death but also takes his great scythe in the process. He returns to Florence, seeking a life of peace but finds his lover Beatrice Portinari and father Alighiero brutally murdered. Beatrice's soul appears before Dante telling him she knew he would come after her before a shadowy manifestation of Lucifer drags her into darkness, before the undead begin to rise and attacking Dante. After making it to a chapel, Dante seeks assistance by blessing the holy cross that Beatrice gave to him upon making their vows to be faithful to each other, to protect him against the evils that await. Upon doing so, a crack in the earth opens up allowing Dante to descend to the Gates of Hell.

During his journey, Virgil the poet aids you in your quest by telling stuff about the nine circles of Hell and its guardians, like Cleopatra at the circle of Lust. I'll give you the names of the nine circles of Hell: The first circle is Limbo. Limbo is the speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned, the guardian of Limbo is the Judge of the Damned, who judges each soul before assigning them a place in hell based on their sins. The second circle is Lust, which is self-explanatory. The guardian of Lust is an immense Cleopatra, as mentioned before. The third circle is Gluttony. The guardian of Gluttony is 'the great worm' Cerberus with its three heads. The fourth circle is Greed, in which the greatly deformed body of your father is the guardian. The fifth circle of Hells is Anger. The guardian of Anger is the great fiery demon 'Phlegyas'. After the fifth circle you descend further into hell by going into the City of Dis and entering the sixth circle of Hell: Heresy. The seventh circle is Violence, where murderers suffer in a pool of boiling blood. The eighth circle is Fraud, where simple thieves and false Popes suffer from their sins. And the lowest circle of Hell is Treachery. Souls like Judas suffer in this circle.

When you kill enemies you'll get souls, and with these souls you can buy new power-ups and stronger spells. By absolving or punishing enemies you'll get an additional soul bonus and with absolving souls you'll get Holy experience and with punishing souls you'll get Unholy experience. Both paths have seven levels. With each level the spells and abilities are stronger, but also cost more souls to purchase.

During this story mode you have to collect a couple of things in order to get bonuses. These things are: Silver Judas coins, (there are 30 pieces of them, with each five pieces you'll get a soul bonus, you can find these in yellow fountains) relics (you can find Holy and Unholy relics and some of them require a certain level in the specific path), Beatrice stones (there are only three of them, and when you acquire them all you're granted the ability to auto-absolve the Damned) and the Damned (you can punish or absolve these suffering souls, and when you absolve them you have to play a mini-game in which you can win an additional amount of souls or you can auto-absolve them when you've acquired all Beatrice stones).

The graphics of this game are difficult to compare with another game, but I think they're okay. However, we can use this game to compare with God of War 3. The level-design is fair enough, but I discovered some areas where you have to jump on a certain platform and there seems to be an invisible wall which almost makes it impossible to get on that platform.

To end this review, I think this game is enjoyable. At least EA was smart enough to release this game before God of War 3 was released.

This game was developed by Crytek and released by Electronic Arts in 2004 for the PC. Crytek was founded in 1999 by three Turkish brothers: Cevat, Avni and Faruk Yerli. The company is known for the game Far Cry which sold over 2.4 million copies world wide and has it’s headquarter in Frankfurt. The game has 2 expansions, Crysis Warhead and Crysis Wars.

In the game you play as a special forces soldier, ordered to evacuate civilians of a fictional group of islands in the South Chinese Sea that is being blocked and occupied by North Korea. Though when arriving on the island, you and your team soon realise that there's more going on than a simple evacuation. An alien civilization is discovered and you enter an alien structure that is built into the island itself. When leaving the structure, the aliens terra form parts of the island into a Tundra climate. When you find out that the aliens are trying to invade the planet, plans are made to eliminate the aliens. The situation then spirals out of control when a nuclear missile it launched at the island. The aliens get stronger and begin to attack a US carrier where you were evacuated too. On the flight deck of the carrier, you finally take down a war barge of the aliens preventing them from further invading the planet. Well that concludes the story.

Now as Special Forces soldier in the year 2020. You wear the most advanced armour, a Nano Suit. This suit can instantaneously increase the armour, strength or speed of the wearer. Even making him or her temporarily invisible. The nano suit in the game is inspired by a concept from the US military.

This game is virtually a sandbox game driven by commands. You can go anywhere but you can't continue the game unless you completed orders given to you. The terrain and the environment are beautiful and require one hell of a graphics card and processor. The game also utilises a day and night cycle which creates some variations.
There are numerous vehicles that you can pilot. Trucks, cars, tanks, you name it. Only jets, destroyers, forklifts and alien vehicles are not drivable

The AI is pretty smart and gets smarter with every increase of the level of difficulty. They will smoke you out of cover, flank you and blow your ass out of this world.

Up to 32 players are supported in each multiplayer match in Crysis. There are two different modes, each with six available maps: Instant Action, a death match type mode; and Power Struggle, which are played by two opposing teams, each trying to destroy the other's headquarters.
Power Struggle features the American Delta Force soldiers fighting the North Korean Army; both sides, however, have nano suits. All players begin armed with only a pistol and a basic nano suit. You may find weapons and vehicles throughout the map, but the majority of weapons must be bought by using "Prestige Points."
The aim of Power Struggle is to destroy the enemy headquarters, a task which is achieved using nuclear weapons in the form of a TAC Tank, a TAC launcher, or a Singularity Tank. To gain access to the nuclear weapons, you must first capture the facility which is used to make them, and then the alien crash sites which feed the facility the energy necessary to build them.

So to conclude the review, I had a lot of fun playing this game. It's beautiful landscape and intense battles made it a very good game. So I would really recommend this game for a buy.
There's only one thing. This game eats your computer alive if you have a weak one. You won't be able to run this game very well on a dual-core and a card from the GeForce 7 series.
I have played this game on a Quad-Core and even then I experienced some lag

This first-person shooter has been developed by Titus Interactive and published by MGM Interactive in 2003. Titus Interactive is a studio based in Paris and has released games like Superman 64 and of course Robocop.

The game begins after the end of the movie Robocop. You are put in the rol of a Delta City's cyborg police officer. There isn't a real story only that you are send to parts of the city to combat crime. And by combat I mean kill every one that is hostile to you. Charming.
To help you do this you have multiple weapons to your disposal such as his trusty pistol, a missile launcher etc.

The graphics in this game are bad and outdated, for a game of 2003 you would expect more than this. It looks like Half Life for the pc and even that game looks better. And that game was released in 1998, so the developers should be ashamed of themselves.
The levels are boring and it isn't always clear where you have to go. And if you have missed one hostile person, the game doesn't allow you to continue.
The characters look weird. With weird I mean that their faces are flat for the most part. So to counter this the developers had the idea to put the flat areas in angles so you would have the idea that the heads aren't flat at all.

The music in this game is weird. It constantly repeats itself so after a while you will be banging your head against the wall, begging to make it stop. Robocop himself talks too. When you pick up ammunition or energy, he will say what he has just picked up. It sounds real cool when you hear it for the first time, but after hearing it a thousand times you will go crazy.

The AI is stupid, really stupid. Instead of taking cover when you show up, they will stand right in front of you, firing at your metal ass. So you won't be having any problems completing the levels, unless of course you miss one individual.

So to conclude this review, don't ever download this game nor buy it. The graphics are bad, the sound is awfull and this game doesn't really make any sense. It's only a rip of from the movie.

Borderlands is a game created by Gearbox Software and was released by 2K Games. Gearbox Software is known for games such as Half-Life, Halo and Brothers in Arms. So it's clear that Gearbox is one of the bigger development studios out there and that it has quite a legacy to it when it comes to games, however I personally think Borderlands could've been way better. Borderlands is a shooter/RPG game.

The storyline of Borderlands is the following, you start out on Pandora, which is a planet known for having treasure in a vault under the ground, the Vault opens every 200 years. On the planet Pandora there are few settlements because the environment is very hostile and most treasurers don't choose the good path but rather turn into bandits. You're send as a mercenary to open the vault and see what it contains, whilst remaining on the good side of the law, because the information you get from the settlers is very important in order to accomplish your goal.

The storyline is pretty cliché and you'll probably won't even bother to read any side information or listen to the woman that pops up in your upper-left screen every once in a while. My major problem with this game is that it tries to be two things at one and does a poor job at both of them, whilst they could've really made them work. I'll start with the gameplay, since that will make things a lot clearer. Borderlands is a shooter in that your weapons are guns and is an RPG in that you accumulate experience and your hits are displayed in numbers, along with an inventory system and quests. So where's the problem you might ask, well throughout the game you'll have to grind through tons and tons of enemies in order to complete quests or get level up. There's little variety in quests, there are only 3 types of quests, search-and-destroy, retrieving certain items and certain objectives. For the most part you're killing thousands upon thousands of enemies in order to level up, and I'm not even kidding here, I had to kill about 20,000 enemies in order to get to level 50. So it's pretty redundant to say that the gameplay gets stale rather quick.

The game doesn't really work like a regular shooter in which it just takes a few bullets in order to kill a certain enemy. In Borderlands you do a certain damage depending on a few factors such as your character's level and your gun experience level for that type of gun. So it's not really special that you sometimes have to shoot more than three cartridges in order to kill a normal enemy, if they happen to be a few levels higher than you. Not even mentioning the bossbattles, which will often lead you to deplete your ammunition for every gun type that you have. I find the inventory system to be an annoyance as well, because when you're completing quests in a rapid pace(it saves time to just accept every quest there is and do multiple quests in one area) you'll often lose track of your inventory since all these quests award you with equipment that you don't really need and when you find a gun or something else that you want to pick up, you're required to clean up your inventory first, by throwing out the stuff you just got from the quests.

It's also a shame that the creators of this game changed the graphics during the development of this game, at first they went for a Fallout 3 style look but later changed it to a cartoonesque style, similar to Prince of Persia. That's what also made it hard to be sucked into the game, the game had a cold, bland, empty feeling to it. Another thing that bothered me is that they re-use enemies a lot, I think there are only 6-7 different enemies in this game and they keep reappearing with different names, pallet-swaps and of course with better stats.

Soundwise there isn't anything that's the noteworthy neither on the bad or good side. The only thing that I thought could've been better is the background music, or the lack of there being background music. The only music that's in the game is the title music and combat music, whenever you get attacked you hear a song, but besides that there's no music at all, which doesn't really help with the fact that the game has a cold, bland, empty feeling to it.

My overall conclusion of this game is that it really let me down, I had been tracking this game for quite a while and I was disappointed when I got it. The repetitive grinding gameplay and the cold, bland, empty feeling to it, make that this game becomes boring pretty fast. If you were looking to buy this game I'd suggest trying your luck somewhere else, since this game isn't noteworthy on both the Shooter-side and the RPG-side. But the truth be told it isn't that bad, everything works like it's supposed to work, but the overall mediocrity makes the game a let-down, especially when you consider the fact that there was such a hype around this game. Oh yeah, about the millions of guns, that's a lie. Surely there are guns with different stats, but they all look pretty much the same, except for a few special ones but for the most part it's just the same gun with a different skin, different stats and a different name. They use the diablo-method of just randomizing the stats. So when you're considering to buy this game, I'd suggest trying your luck somewhere else.

The third title in the Red Alert series, it was released in 2008 by EA.

In RA3 you are introduced with a third faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun. This faction uses state of the art technologies, units and buildings. The other two remain the Allies and the Soviets

All three factions are playable in the campaign and start at the same time in the game. The intro shows you the Soviet Union at the brink of the defeat by the allies, most likely at the end of Red Alert 2: Yuri’s Revenge. By using a time machine general Krukov and colonel Cherdenko travel back in time to Brussels to the year of 1927, where the International Physics Conference is held. There they murder Albert Einstein, which prevents the Allies from obtaining technology that he would have created. When they travel back, they found out that the Soviet Union is winning the Third World War. But Einstein’s disappearance has had a second outcome. Without Einstein the Empire of the Rising Sun (a.k.a. Japan) has risen and declares war against the Allies and the Soviet Union. When Krukov and Cherdenko find out that they don’t have nuclear weapons because of Einstein’s existence, they are forced into a war on multiple fronts.

From that moment onwards all faction have a different storyline, though there are some points where the different campaigns are a bit parallel to each other. But with other scenarios and outcomes of course. Every campaign ends in the same way. the faction you chose at the beginning of the campaign achieves global domination. You always play with a co-commander in the campaign. You can choose play with a computer-controlled AI or with another player online.

RA3 introduces a new range of units and only a few buildings are left from the previous parts. The allies still have the chromosphere and a variant from RA2 prism tower, only this time it’s called the Spectrum Tower. The soviets are still using their mighty Kirov airships and the famous Tesla Coils. The Empire of the Rising Sun is really the only faction that had to be build from scratch. The Allied and Soviet units can find their roots in RA and RA2. Every unit in RA3 has a secondary ability which must be activated manually.

The only thing I find disappointing the balance in the game, because it's almost non-existent. And I will tell you why. The Allies have their bombers that can tear apart almost every unit and even worse their carriers. There's is almost nothing you can do against these monsters, they have only 2 drawbacks: their drones can be destroyed and they suck at close combat. The Soviets have an almighty ground advantage with tanks that can rip through everything especially in the early minutes of a match . And last but not least the Empire of the Rising Sun. To be honest, it isn’t really good at anything as it relies more on adaptability rather than specializing itself. Some examples are transformable submarines that can turn into planes and helicopters that can morph into two-legged walkers. This means that the Empire is a difficult faction to play with, for it has no distinctive strengths or weaknesses.

Each faction has their own way of constructing their base. When playing as the soviets your buildings will be assembled in the field, while the allies are using the traditional way of base building. What’s the normal way you say? Queuing up buildings and when ready place them in the field, immediately ready for use. The Empire uses a more mobile way of building. Its Construction Yard spits out construction vehicles, which can be deployed anywhere and assemble themselves on site.

Resource gathering has been changed but only for a bit. In RA and RA2 you would find concentrated fields of ore (resources), in RA3 resources are centralized in pits which are scattered around the battlefield. You usually have two of those pits at your start position. These pits make resource make harvesting a bit easier, because refineries can be build in front of them. Both the refineries and pits use rotating platforms turn the collectors around pointing them in the right way and while doing so they load and unload the vehicles. Though they have changed one thing. All resources are evenly split between you and your team-mates.

But this has a positive and negative side. The positive side is that you also get resources even when your refineries are destroyed ( only if your partner(s) has any refineries standing). The negative side is that you never get the full amount of resources that you gather, which can sometimes mean the difference between defeat and victory.

The graphics in RA3 have been increased to a ridiculous level where it becomes cartoony. The terrain sometimes looks better than the units. But the one thing that draw my attention is the big detail of the water. It looks excellent when you compare it to the rest of the game. You can see shockwaves appearing in the water during naval battles.

To conclude this review, I had some fun playing this game. It's too bad that there's little balance in the game. But I would still recommend this game for a buy because it's not that bad and it's part of the Red Alert Universe.

Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit is a racing game developed by EA Canada and published by EA. The game was released in 1998 for Windows and Playstation. The police plays a big role in this game, because they try to arrest you and your opponent while racing on several tracks.

This game has no storyline, but has several game modes in which you can earn new cars and a new track. These modes are: Single Race, Tournament, Knock-Out and Hot Pursuit. Single Race is self-explanatory. Tournament is championship mode, in which you have to race on eight tracks against seven other racers. In Knock-Out you also have to race on eight tracks, but in this elimination mode the racer who finishes last is eliminated. In Hot Pursuit you can race against one racer, but the main objective is to outrun the police or to arrest six AI racers (Windows version). If you manage to outrun the police for a longer period, they will set up road blocks and spike strips to slow you down.

Tactical aspects of the police pursuits have also been improved since the last game. The police have the ability to deploy roadblocks (which simply consists of lining up police cars across the road) and spike strips (which puncture the tires of a racer's car that runs over the strip, and halts the car). Both tactics present weaknesses, specifically, gaps in the blockade that can be used by a racer to avoid collisions with police cars or tire punctures from a spike strip. The player may also listen to police radio chatter on the pursuits' statuses, revealing the current locations of racers, police cars, as well as roadblocks and spike strips.

It's also possible to play this game split-screen. In split-screen Tournament mode there are only two other racers instead of seven in singleplayer. In Knock-Out there is only one other racer in split-screen, but both players have to finish ahead of the AI racer in order to proceed to the next track. In Hot Pursuit both players can race each other to the finish or one player can be the police and has to arrest the other player (only in the Windows version).

When starting a track, you can change the weather conditions. You can also race in day-or night time, or change the amount of laps you have to race. When playing Hot Pursuit you can get more fines when racing more laps, but when you aren't fined for a long time (let's say four laps on an eight lap race) you're arrested right away when you get caught.

The graphics of this game are, considering that this game is made in 1998, very good. I have only one complaint. When you drive behind an AI racer or police car, it seems that they're floating above the track, since they change driving lanes much faster than you can change lanes.

The sound of this game is okay. The soundtrack playing in a race changes when something happens to you.

I own this game on my Playstation, and I have to say that I had a lot more fun with that version of the game than the Windows version. The difference between these games is that the police talks to you, and not to each other, just like in the Windows version and when they talk to you it's more fun. For example, when you hit a police car he screams (mostly when he crashes) or you can hear him say 'Hey, this is a new paint job' and you don't hear that with the Windows version. However, the graphics of the Windows version are a little bit better. The gameplay itself however, is very funny. It's even more fun when you play it with a friend.

LOTR: Conquest is a third-person action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts in January 2009 for PS3, Xbox 360, Windows and Nintendo DS.
The game uses elements of the movie, but also from the original book written by JR Tolkien.

The game follows parts of the movies and the novels, but they let their imagination loose and put parts in it that really didn't make any sense. One example is the Battle of Minas Morgul, which never took place in the novels.

There are five different classes:
-the Archer, A long ranged unit with a bow and arrow that plays like a third-person shooter. Different types of arrows can be equipped: fire arrows, which can knock down enemies and deal explosive damage; poison arrows, which slow enemies down and do damage over time, and the ability to fire a volley of three normal arrows at multiple enemies at once. They also have a kick for use in close-quarters, which knocks back the enemy. They can also hit stealthed Scouts with the multiple arrow skill. A headshot will allow the archer to kill most enemies in a single hit, but that's virtually impossible online because of the MASSIVE lag.

-the Warrior: A melee combat unit which uses swordsmanship. Unlike the other classes, whose special attacks recharge over time, warriors can only gain strength by defeating enemies, which allows them to unleash more powerful attacks with a flaming sword, such as spinning to hit every adjacent enemy. They are the only class that can block or perform counterattacks with special moves. The warrior also has a throwing axe as a secondary, medium ranged weapon. You don't want to be playing this class when playing online. The warrior's only purpose is playing target practice for the mage and scout.

-The Scout: A master in the art of moving unseen. The scout’s primary weapons are two daggers, and he has the ability to become temporarily invisible and assassinate units instantly from behind with a sneak attack. As a secondary attack, he carries satchel bombs filled with blasting powder as a ranged attack. Listen to me! Listen to me carefully, I control your brains. This class is the most hated class online. Only the weak and most pathetic persons will use this class. These BACKSTABBING bastards are your primary targets online. You will show no mercy when you encounter these weaklings.

-The Mage: A mage's primary attack is a bolt of lightning, which can be charged up for a more powerful attack that can also damage other enemies in close proximity to the target. He also wields a “firewall” attack, which creates an expanding circle of flames that will heavily damage if not kill enemies who are within the circle. For close range attacks, they have a shockwave attack, which knocks enemies back and allows the mage to finish them off with his staff. Mages can also heal allies. For defensive purposes, a mage can create a magical shield around himself to protect anyone inside from ranged attacks of any sort, provided the attacker is outside of the shield, which allows people to walk through. While the shield ability is active, the mage is unable to do anything else and is therefore highly vulnerable to melee attacks. This unit is overpowered when playing online, as people tend to use the mage a lot.

- The Heroes: These units are not that different from the normal classes, they're only a bit harder to kill, except when you're playing a backstabbing bastard. Then it's only an assassination away, because they aren't immune to the 'special' backstabbing ability that the scout possesses.
Their attacks and special attacks are the same, they also move the same as the normal classes. But you can only choose them when you have a certain amount of points or when you are playing a Hero Team Deathmatch.

You're also able to play as special units. The good side has the Ents and the bad side Cave Trolls. These units are much stronger than the normal units, but there are only a few of these units available at the same time.

The game also has multiplayer. The game modes aren't very special. You're able to play a few game modes, like Team Deathmatch, Capture the Ring and Hero Team Deathmatch. On PS3, the max amount of players is 16 and no bots are added, so the battles online are very empty. At first I was able to play this game online on my PS3, but after a couple of months they shut down the European servers. I think they realized what abomination they've created and saved us from further infection of the brains.

The graphics of this game aren't bad, but they aren't special too. You should think that the creators of the Star Wars Battlefront series could do better than this, but unfortunately they didn't. I even think that the graphics of Star Wars Battlefront II are better than those of this game.

So in the end, I think you should steer clear of this game, especially when you're a fan of the LOTR novels and movies. I also think that Pandemic Studios could do way better than this, because they've showed that with the Battlefront series.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the second game in the Uncharted series, with the first game(Uncharted: Drake's Fortune) being released in November 2007, and the Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in October 2009 . Both games follow the story of Nathan Drake, an explorer that got dragged into an adventure when he found about Sir Francis Drake, who's a long dead relative who travelled around the world exploring stuff. Both games were developed by Naughty Dog and were published by Sony Entertainment. This game is an action-adventure game.

In Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Drake is looking for a long lost treasure, throughout his journey he'll meet many old buddies and some new ones. You'll start out by hanging from a train that has somehow fallen of a cliff (which you'll later have to face again, since it's a leap in the future) and as you progress you'll see various cutscenes explaining what you're going to do in the next level and it's explained as well what it is you're after. After that you'll be betrayed by your best friend Flynn. As you progress throughout the game it'll become clear why your friend betrayed you and who's actually to blame for all the trouble Drake gets in throughout the game. You'll also start unravelling the big picture. But in the end all will be good, except for one good guy, but he was merely a figurant. Things will be set right and the bad guy will be put down. The storyline of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves isn't extremely original but the way it has been executed is simply amazing, the entire game feels like a movie in that it keeps you captivated from beginning to end.

The gameplay in this game is really varied, offering a fun experience from beginning to end. There are sections in which you have to shoot a lot of enemies, there are sections in which you have to climb in order to reach a certain point, there are sections in which you'll have to figure out puzzles and there are some sections in which you have to kill boss-like enemies. The execution of the gameplay makes it so that you'll never be bored playing this game and that you can play this game for hours on an end. Climbing feels very smooth although it's often overly obvious which route you should take, but that can be easily forgiven since it prevents you from getting stuck in certain areas. The shooter-aspect of this game is also executed well, everything feels smooth and natural, this aspect is also blended in nicely with the climbing aspect which means that you can shoot enemies whilst hanging from a ledge and many more. Another thing I'd like to add is that the enemies in this game can take a lot of bullets, which can get annoying when playing the game on Crushed since it could happen that you have to shoot an enemy with all the ammo you've got and still come short. The puzzles and the bosses aren't really that hard or complicated, most puzzles can be figured out in under a minute since the game gives you overly clear hints in your diary, which didn't really bother me since I hate puzzles. The bosses often have simple methods of killing them, however the simplicity of the killing method doesn't necessarily mean that these bosses are easy, especially on the later levels you'll often find yourself trying to defeat the same boss over and over again, but once you've done it, it'll feel so rewarding.

The graphics in this game are simply magnificent, personally I thought they were even better than Assassin's Creed 2. The environments are so detailed and colourful that you'll be amazed every time you visit a new area in the game. The characters are extremely detailed as well, although slightly cartoony, they feel realistic, well except for the fact that the fact that most of these characters are invulnerable.

The sound in this game is great as well, every character in this game has convincing voice-acting and the sounds of explosives and such are rather realistic as well. The music in this game has an epic adventure feel to it, it makes you feel throughout the game that you've embarked on a huge and epic quest, so in that perspective it really adds to the game rather than just filling the silence.

New in the series is that they've added an online mode for this game, which allows you to play both competitive and co-operative. There are many edited standard modes in this game, such as Capture the Treasure, Team Deathmatch(no normal Deathmatch), Survival and many other. The sad part of online modes is that they're completely dependant on their online community and sadly after playing a few matches I came to realise that I didn't like the game online as much as I did offline. Some online players seem to have find it extremely funny to just wait next to you until you die instead of reviving you and this is just one example of the entire list. So I'd recommend to just buy this game mainly for its single-player mode and maybe for the co-op mode online with friends, and besides this game emphasis lies on its single-player mode. Multiplayer, besides these standard modes, also features leaderboards and a leveling system in which you can unlock stuff, just like in single-player in which you can unlock various bonuses with money you've earned getting certain medals and some of these medals also grant you a trophy. The leveling in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is simply done by accumulating money that's granted with kills, getting medals and completing objectives.

My conclusion is that every PS3 owner should at least try this game or buy it, because you won't regret it, it offers a lot of gameplay, has beautiful graphics, a well-executed story and a great feel to it. This is one of THE games of 2009, sharing the same league as for example Assassin's Creed 2.

BFMEII is an RTS developed and published by Electronic Arts. It is based on the fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and the film trilogy. The game is the sequel of The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. The Windows version of the game was released on March 2, 2006 and the Xbox 360 version was released on July 5, 2006. A Windows expansion pack for the game was released on November 28, 2006, called The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king, which features a new faction known as Angmar and new units.

The story of BFMEII is divided into Good and Evil Campaigns. The Good Campaign focuses on Glorfindel, an Elf who is alerted to a planned attack on the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell. With help from the Dwarves and other Good forces, the Elves attempt to eliminate Sauron and his army to restore peace in Middle-earth. In the Evil Campaign, Sauron sends the Mouth of Sauron and the Nazgûl to muster wild Goblins. With his army, Sauron moves forward with his plan to destroy the remaining Good forces in the North.

The most important building of this game is the fort. You need a fort to train builders and revive or summon heroes. You're able to upgrade your fort and build defensive structures attached to it, like catapult towers and walls.

Besides the campaign, there is also a war of the ring mode. In this tactical mode, Middle-earth is divided into territories; players can construct buildings to produce troops only in a claimed territory. During each turn, the player can move their armies into neutral and enemy territories to take control of them. While neutral territories are conquered by simply entering them, enemy territories must be wrested from the other player by defeating them in a real time battle. Troops can be garrisoned in conquered territories to defend against enemy attacks. When the player chooses to attack another territory, or one of their territories is being invaded by an enemy, they can either simulate the match and let the computer determine the outcome (sometimes it's better to do that, because you will lose anyway, and when skipping it you won't lose much of your precious time), or play the match by commanding the units in real time. The winner of the skirmish gains the territory, and all surviving units gain experience points. To win the game, you must either control the enemy's capital territory, or take over a given number of territories in Middle-earth. The only problem is that these battles take way to much time. Most of the time the enemy has more units when starting a battle, so it's guaranteed that it'll take longer to defeat your enemy and also much harder.

Just like in all RTS's you'll need resources to create buildings and training units. Each faction has their own unique building that provides resources. For example, the Elves need some sort of a tree (which can be build) to gather resources, while the Humans gather resources from farms. There is only one resource type, which is a bit strange, since you make buildings and units out of it. How is it possible to harvest building material out of a farm? I don't know, but in this game it is possible.

When playing this game for the first time, the graphics of the game are on a very low setting. At first, I didn't know that so I almost had to puke. Luckily, the graphics can be adjusted, and when playing it on the highest graphics possible it is bearable to sit through. The only problem is that the battles itself aren't that entertaining. With most RTS's, like Age of Empires, I get a wonderful feeling when starting a match, and I don't mind that it will take several hours to complete the level. But with this game I just want to complete the game as fast as possible and never look back again.

In conclusion: I don't like this game, it's fun to play for a couple of hours, but then it gets annoying. But I can understand why some LOTR fans like this game. The game is bearable when you play it on very high graphics.