I think the hardest thing to grapple with now that the final installment of the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy has come and gone, is that come December 2004 - there won't be a Rings event to look forward to. No more Frodo staring into the camera, no more Gandalf yelling at foolish hobbits and no more lusting after cheeky elf princesses. Yes, friends, unless New Line Cinema can acquire the rights to make Tolkien's The Hobbit a cinematic reality, the only thing movie nerds have to look forward to is Star Wars 3: Dude, Where's My Clone? , of which I am not dying to watch or which can compare to the majesty of Peter Jackson's films.

So, when it was announced that EA again obtained the right to create a game based on Return of the King, I got so excited that I put on my Wizard's had and danced in the streets. After a few gang members beat me within an inch of my life, I realized two things: The first was that EA had its work cut out for it; they needed to create a game that matched the intensity and quality that Peter Jackson had infused into his movie, and secondly, gang members HATE it when you ask them the way to Bucklebury Ferry.

It's no secret that movies turned into videogames haven't ever been the cream of the crop. Yet, EA surprised many when Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers evaded the trend last year by giving gamers a true-to-movie feel; actors from the movie lent their voice talent to the game and EA created all-new dialogue and script to complement the film. Sure, it wasn't the best game of the year, but it was a game worth playing, a definite rental and actually did the film justice. Luckily, EA has improved on Towers and supplied the Gamecube with a third-party title worth buying.

Rather than bore you with intricate details to the plot and storyline of a videogame of an epic movie that already squishes down hundreds of pages full of spectacular events, I'll just give you the skinny. Hobbits run away from orcs, orcs blow up from explosions, Gandalf uses magic, Aragorn swings his sword around, orc heads fly, oliphaunts and Nazgul try to kill everyone, giant spiders try to eat Sam’s face off, Gollum screams punches Frodo in the face and more orcs explode.

Let's just say that if you watched the movie, you’ll already have a good familiarity with what happens in the videogame since it uses the exact same storylines - but with a few twists. In order to make the characters more "battle-ready", EA has taken creative license by giving some of the characters more "oomph" than we're used to. Now, hobbits don’t just run away from Sauron’s warriors, they pick up swords and tear it up - and although Ian McKellen may not be in his prime, Gandalf is not above scaling castle walls and taking down entire armies all by himself.