The very first mission in the game sort of jumps out at you. You watch a video and then without warning you ARE in the game and have to start doing things. Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn seem to think that you, Gandalf, are their ONLY hope of surviving which gets a little humorous. First, Gimli gives you your basic buttons. For the XBox that is A to speed attack, X to parry, Y to fierce attack and spin your staff to break the shields. It can get confusing who to hit in here. Look for those L-shaped swords and bash away.

There's no time limit on this level despite everybody screaming at you. So kill lots of guys on the ground to rack up your points. You get points for each clean kill, so kill lots of people in sequence to build up your bash-o-meter and get the higher points.

When you're ready, go to Legolas and climb up the ladder. Now Legolas is going to help you with ranged attacks. Use the L trigger and then pound A to fire off magic missiles. Note that you DO have an "ammo count" so don't go too crazy. In the game, you get more ammo from finding it on the ground or by killing bad guys (who then nicely drop ammo for you).

OK, now Aragorn needs your help!! Use the action button (black on xbox) to follow Legolas nimbly down the cable. Go to each catapult in order and use the action button to fire it. There are spear piles in between the catapults if you want to have some fun spearing the orcs along the way, but you don't have to. When you fire the third catapult, the mission is over.

Gandalf says, "Return to your master - creatures of shadow". You get the video of the victory from the end of TT and the horse scene.

I got 9960 xp pretty easily on this, so you should be able to get around 10k to work with.

The game now reviews the story of the ring, talking about Minas Tirith in Gondor. Then you get the actual level-handling area and already have 2 special features unlocked:

film concept art
hobbits on gaming

You now see the three "paths" before you. The 3 choices you have are:
the road to isengard (wizard)
paths of the dead (king)
escape from osgiliath (hobbits)
Return of the King Walkthrough

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