The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ROM

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a 2002 action hack and slash video game developed by Griptonite Games. A version for Microsoft Windows developed by Ritual Entertainment was cancelled during development. The game was published on all platforms by Electronic Arts. Originally released in North America for the PlayStation 2 in October 2002, it was released in November 2002 for the Game Boy Advance, in December 2002 for the Xbox and GameCube, and in May 2003 for mobile. In November 2003, EA released a sequel, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

The game is an adaptation of Peter Jackson’s 2001 film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and his 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which was released shortly after the game. As it is not an adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers, the second volume in his Lord of the Rings novel, anything from the novel not specifically mentioned or depicted in the films could not be represented in the game. This is because, at the time, Vivendi Universal Games, in partnership with Tolkien Enterprises, held the rights to the video game adaptations of Tolkien’s literary works, whilst Electronic Arts held the rights to the video game adaptations of the New Line Cinema films.

EA chose not to publish a game based on Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring film, instead incorporating some of the plot and footage into their The Two Towers game, which was released a few weeks after Vivendi’s The Fellowship of the Ring game, a licensed adaptation of Tolkien’s novel The Fellowship of the Ring. In the Game Boy Advance version, which is played from an isometric three-quarter top-down view, the playable characters are Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf, Frodo and Éowyn, with Gimli available as an unlockable character once the player has completed the game with two other characters.