Lord Of The Rings: Conquest Review – Heaven or Hell?

by Sith Lord Jim:

©2009 James McIntyre:

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There are a lot of average games out there, but Lord of the Rings: Conquest is not one of them. I had heard a lot of negative stuff before playing this game. So it was with a large amount of dread for the task ahead of me, that I popped the disc in the tray.

A few hours in I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about. Sure the game had its issues, and I was getting sick of falling over, but really it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it would even become fun once I got the hang of it, I reasoned.

Skip ahead two more hours and you will discover me in tears yelling at the screen swearing and punching things (all manly like).

Pandemic’s Lord of the Rings: Conquest is Star Wars Battlefront – the fun + frustration – cool Jedi + Annoying hobbits. The basic premise behind it is brilliant. Play as either a Mage, Scout, Archer, or Warrior and take and hold or defend objectives in battles from the LOTR universe. At certain points in levels you get the opportunity to play as heroes from the story, like Legolas and Aragon.

Unfortunately the premise is one of the only things this game has going for it; that and a good use of the Lord of the Rings license environment-wise. If you have read the books or watched the movies  you will instantly know where you are when you see a level even if you have ignored the bland cut-scenes. Graphically this game is not the worst thing you will see this year, but is definitely nothing to write home about.

The highlight of the single player is playing back through as the orcs, and killing hobbits. Unfortunately to get to this you will have to complete the game as the forces of good first. A task that had me ready to put my controller through the screen on even the easiest difficulty. There are 8 levels in each campaign, and no checkpoints throughout the level. Fail an objective and you have to
restart the entire level.

In execution the premise all falls apart. There are two major issues in the campaign and a bunch of minor ones that not only ruined the game for me, but really pissed me off as well. The first problem I had was that your allies are the dumbest bunch of bots you will hopefully ever see in gaming this year.

I get it, the game was obviously built with multiplayer in mind, but seriously half the time it may as well be you versus every orc in Mordor.

Your allies will stand back and shield themselves from arrows that aren’t being fired, or simply hang back while you try and take the objective.

It makes sense that you would have to press forward yourself, but the amount of times I pressed forward only to discover that none of my allies had come with me was just plain ridiculous.

The second major issue I had was the fact that nearly every other attack anyone does seems to knock you over. I honestly felt like I spent ¾ of the game with my character on his ass. Heroes will often just knock you over repeatedly until you’re dead. This is even more frustrating, when most the levels have lots of cliffs and edges for you to fall off. I died more times from falling or being knocked off a cliff than simply being slaughtered by enemies. It is just way too easy to fall to your death.

The four classes all play very differently, and complement each other nicely. Of course you won’t really see much of this in single player as your allies will be too busy staring down some poor orc, rather than healing or helping you. Mages can cast lightning, create boxes of fire on the ground, shield from magic and arrows, and heal. Archers arch, and can fire poison, fire, and multiple arrows.

Scouts can turn invisible, back-stab, throw explosives, and do some combat moves. The warriors have a throwing axe to knock enemies down, a charge to knock enemies down, and some spin combat moves to knock enemies down. Unfortunately rather than doing anything interesting with the heroes, they play exactly like one of these classes, yet are slightly more powerful.

The voice acting is quite horrible. Hugo Weaving does the narration, and sounds  like he is occupied with doing something else much more important at the same time as reading the lines. If you didn’t despise hobbits before just wait till you have to escort Frodo. Lines are bland and delivered over and over again, in case you weren’t already incredibly frustrated.

Multi-player is quite obviously what this game was built for. There are three multiplayer modes: conquest, capture the one ring, and team death match. Working with your team-mates to take objectives is quite enjoyable, and, as long as you’re an American, will probably be the saving grace for this game.

As is the issue with way too many EA games, most matches are practically unplayable as an Australian due to lag connecting to the EA servers. While more bearable because you are sharing the pain and frustration with 15 other players, the multi-player still suffers from the many issues that plague this title.

All in all it seems that everything in this game just works together to make for a rather frustrating experience. What EA was trying to pass off as the first big release of 2009 is actually the first trashy game of 2009. If you can somehow score this game for free, enjoy the feeling of anger coursing through your veins, dress up as Legolas on a weekly basis, and have no soul then go ahead and pick this game up. Otherwise just run into a brick wall a few times for a more enjoyable experience. Yes this game is not a mediocre title, it is just plain bad.

“3.5/10

©2009 James McIntyre:

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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News | Tagged: Lord of the rings conquest reviews, LOTR Conquest, lotr reviews, Pandemic, Star Wars Battlefront