The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for Gamecube is a surprisingly solid hack-and-slash adventure that throws players into the heart of Middle-earth. While not without flaws in repetition and uneven difficulty, the game delivers thrilling action, letting you slash through hordes of orcs as Aragorn, Legolas, or Gimli. It seamlessly integrates iconic moments and music from the films, creating a genuine Lord of the Rings experience for fans. Though somewhat dated by today's standards, it still offers a captivating journey through a beloved fantasy world.

This is how you adapt a film with absolutely not enough development time while focusing on gameplay that just works. Featuring four distinct characters (I prefer Legolas and Aragorn), The Two Towers renders the two films with shocking devotion to atmosphere and a population density which seems shocking during the Helm's Deep level. It's too easy to cheese the combat, but you get what you get with some complexity and plenty of replayability. I might have to finally play The Return of the King to see if that's the improvement I hear it is.