Yes. As far as I know the first two parts did not sell well so the third one was not ever made.
I did not play them, but I have heard quite different opinions about them (bad games/best Tolkien based games ever). In any case it is pity that they left the trilogy unfinished.

But at least in this case we know the end of the story (from the book/movie). In case of original games it is worse. I remember RPG "Betrayal in Antara" from Sierra - the main villain was just found out at the end of the game and at that moment he was untouchable for heroes (being in too high position). But both he and heroes knew about each other. This was clearly something expected to be solved in sequel. However since the game was not very big success (mainly because of an ugly engine), that expected sequel was never made. Nobody knows the story here ...

Mirek

Thank you very much for your reply! 😎

Just pulled my floppies out and tried these games on DOSBox to see what they sound like on an MT-32, as I only ever heard them on a SB16. I originally bought the games as a combo pack that I found in a bargain bin for $10-20 (they were at least a few years old at the time) Looking back on them, I have no idea how I managed to beat both of them - I must have been really bored at the time (in fact, I remember it was winter when I was playing the first one, so maybe that explains it).

The first game was terrible. Almost no music, poor sound effects, disorganized levels that almost felt like they were designing and developing the game at the same time. Wort of all, the game didn't feel very alive - there was no atmosphere. You just ran around trying not to get lost while you killed stuff and got killed. The graphics were decent, mostly because they were colorful 256-color VGA. Looked like they were made in DeluxePaint II though...

The second game was much better, despite using the same engine. The music was the best part: it has some of the best music I've heard in a PC RPG, and the songs fit the mood of what was happening in the story. The music really took advantage of the stereo capabilities of the SBPro/16's OPL chips which also impressed me because most games didn't take advantage of anything higher than the original, monophonic OPL2 in the Adlib/SB.

The second game also had a much stronger sense of story and purpose that pulled the player in. A unique feature that I've seen in very few games is that it would occasionally switch to one of at least 3 separate parties under the player's control, so you were playing at least 3 separate plotlines at once (Frodo & Sam, Merry & Pippin, Aragorn & Legolas & Gimli). Still, the graphics, interface, and game mechanics were only slightly improved from the first game, and there were a lot of hunt-the-pixel subquests.

In summary, only the second game is really worth checking out, and expect it to be hard to get into and/or stick with.

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Also, a bit of trivia about Betrayal at Krondor (one of the best PC RPGs ever in my opinion): It was made by Dynamix (who had most of their games published by Sierra), who had the original idea of using a flight simulator engine (for which they had been mostly known for) as the graphics engine for an RPG. It looked ugly as hell, but the interface was one of the best ever, and the music was excellent. The plot, gameplay, world size, and game mechanics were all very impressive as well.

The floppy version of the game was released for free, but if you find a copy make sure to patch it because they didn't release the final version for some reason.

Also, they did make some sequels, of sorts: There was Betrayal at Antara (which I never played) which was marketed as a sequel, but really was a totally separate game that was only connected to B@K in that it used the same engine. The true sequel was Return to Krondor, which was one of Sierra's first 3D Windows games. It used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds (which I loathed the use of in 3D games due to the inevitable occurence of confusing and odd camera angles) combined with 3D characters and items. Some people praised it highly but I was never able to really get into it, despite thoroughly enjoying the books on which the series was based.

The music was the best part: it has some of the best music I've heard in a PC RPG,[...]

Since you now have an MT-32, you could record some of that music you find so good and share the recordings with us. 😁

I'll see what I can do. Are you talking specifically about LotR:Two Towers, or do you have some other requests?

I'm talking specifically about LotR since it's an RPG and I would need to play a lot to record some of the music. I have an MT-32, though.

It would be nice if there was a site dedicated to MT-32 game music since there are only some sites dealing with special games. Queststudios is good but they focus exclusively on Sierra titles. Since I will soon be able to connect the MT-32 to my notebook via a Midi-to-USB cable I would be willing to contribute but I have no time to create an entire site.

Sounds like it would be as easy for you as me to get MT-32 recordings for that game then, except that I've played it before...

You could probably actually hear a lot of the game's music by just playing for an hour or so, allowing the game to cycle through each of the 3 sub-parties in the game at least once.

Or you could just convert the ROL files (XMI actually) into MID with Winamp's MIDI plugin or Awave Studio.

Indeed, ROL was a red herring - the .ADL, .ROL, and .PCM files are all .XMI files in disguise, which Winamp can play if you rename them. I think ADL are meant to be played on Adlib/Soundblaster and ROL on MT-32 and compatibles (actually I think it may be targeted for the CM-64, as some of the files seem to be sound effects that I don't hear, and some of the songs seem to get notes clipped due to polyphony limits of my MT-32). I don't know which hardware the .PCM are intended for.

If you try to play them in Winamp, be sure to configure the MIDI input plugin to associate with XMI files. Also, configure it to use immediate mode and show the MIDI control panel because you'll want to set 200% tempo or the songs will play too slowly.

Strangely, some of the songs cause my MT-32 to distort as if some internal volume levels are too high, even though the overall output volume isn't peaking. I found that I had to reduce my MT-32 to a volume level of about 80% to prevent these scratching sounds. I find this odd because I haven't experienced it before. It may be a side-effect of playing in Winamp...

The songs aren't quite as good as I remember, but I'd still recommend:
Battle, Entmarch, Entsong, Fellow (the intro song), Orc, Success, Theoden, Vampire, and the three Walk songs (which are the themes for each of the 3 parties)

EDIT: The PCM files sound like crap - all one one channel with no instrument definition. The ADL files seem to sound the same as the ROL files, although I didn't do a side-by-side test. It's possible that the ROL files contain extra sysex data or something.