The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Tie-In Game Gives Sam His Hero Moment
My most anticipated game for SGDQ last week was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I’ve not played the game since I was a kid, and while I still have it on GameCube, I’ve got some audio problems with the console that I need to fix before I can replay any of my childhood favourites. The SGDQ run was fairly straightforward, more about optimising levels and kicking arse than performing complex glitches or breaking the game as other speedrunners often do, and this helped to bring back my memories stronger than ever. I love all speedruns, especially at GDQ, but watching Linkus7 perform a thousand inputs a second to propel Link arse-first through the seas of The Wind Waker doesn’t really reflect how I played it.
The Return of the King run by Maxylobes was beautifully nostalgic, and watching him run through the iconic levels brought the games of my childhood flooding back. He completed the entire game in the time it took child-me to do a few levels, but it was enough to remind me of just how good some of those movie tie-ins were.
Related: Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Devs Explain Its “Creepy” Elves And Melian’s Role
The way Maylobes powered through waves of Uruk-hai with Gandalf was magnificent, his shots with Legolas’ bow were pixel perfect, and his dodging of the ever-present Eye of Sauron was exemplary. What do you expect from an SGDQ speedrunner? Even with all that going on, the one thing that struck me most was Sam’s levels, and in particular his fight in Cirith Ungol.
Samwise Gamgee is the hero of the Lord of the Rings. Anyone who has read the books, or even just watched the films, knows this. Sure, Frodo carried the Ring, but Sam carried him (often literally). While Frodo got the plaudits, and more importantly
Read more on thegamer.com
