Lord Of The Rings: Conquest

Lord of the Rings Conquest is another block in EA's video game franchise based of the Books by J.R.R Tolkien and the film adaptation by Peter Jackson. The game brings about a lot of features seen in the Star Wars Battlefront Series, along with intertwining it with the fast-paced action seen in the Two Towers and Return of the King games, by EA.

Name: Lord of the Rings - Conquest
Players: 1-2 (Co-operatively) 1-16 (Competitively)
RRP: £29.99
Developer: Pandemic Studios
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Action/Third Person Shooter
Release Date: January 16th 2009

-=Story=-

The game is split into two separate campaigns, consisting of two different stories. The first Campaign, the War of the Ring, follows the plot of the film and novels, as you fight alongside the forces of good, right up to the Black Gate of Mordor, though it throws in a couple of non-canonical missions not seen in either. The story, however, is focused upon the fact that you already known the plot to the books and film, so little is left for the narration. The second Campaign is based of an alternate ending, where Frodo failed to destroy the ring and it is reclaimed by Sauron. It is told by cinematic narrations between each mission which really do nothing more than to set the scene for each stage. Then again you are not really purchasing the game for the story.

-=Game play=-

As stated the game boasts two Campaigns, though they are loosely different, they are both enjoyable for the short time that they last for. You play as one of four classes; the Warrior, a sword swinging armoured suit of rage, whose game play style is very much home to those who like hack and slash. The Scout, a more stealth based class, useful for taking out key objectives and heroes. The Archer, a typical third person shooter play style, except with a bow and arrow. And lastly the Mage, who plays similar to the Archer except utilises magic to support his team. The classes are few but they do offer some variety in the way you play the game, though it will mostly boil down to, killing the enemy before your health bar drops. In addition to these four classes is the opportunity to play as Heroes, who are beefed up versions of each class, usually a main character from the film, like Aragorn or Gandalf. There are a variety of vehicles, such as horses, turrets, catapults and the ability to control of Ents and Trolls.

Progressing through the Campaigns mainly comes down to killing waves of enemies, destroying an optional objective, rinse and repeat. It can become very repetitive after extensive periods of playing so I would recommend playing it in short bursts. There are a few cinematic moments within the Campaigns, such as taking down an Oliphant ala Legolas style. Both Campaigns can be played through co-operatively with a friend, though I think it would have been a better design choice to support up to four players, but still it's fun none the less.

Online Multiplayer boasts a small variety of game play modes, including Conquest (securing territories on a map), Death match (both with teams and free for all) and Capture the ring (capture the flag). Multiplayer is defiantly the stronger point in the game, however it does make me feel severely disappointed with the lack of content for it. The Maps are smaller versions of those seen in the campaign, and can feel too small at a time, though no doubt it's to support the small 16 player multiplayer, which is my biggest gripe with the game. The majority of the games on the market today support up to 64 player skirmishes and this should be no exception especially a game which boasts `large and epic' battles. The lack of grunts and other ai units online makes the battles feel much smaller then they could have been. Still it is good fun to play online, but it could have been so much more.

-= Design=-

The game's controls come down to that of a button masher... on a mouse and keyboard. The game supports the use a 360 controller, though no other type of usb controller works. The combat however is simple and effective, though Online, memorising those fancy combos will not do much good considering you can easily be cheap shotted by any other class. A common misconception is the classes are incredibly unbalanced, which is not true, they are just overtly complicated to master. It will take you longer to be good with the melee classes compared to the range ones, but when you do gain profession in all classes then you can see things are a bit more balanced. The hud is simple enough and is informative enough to keep you updated on the game you are currently playing. A benefit which comes with the PC version is the fact that there will be mods in the future, which is something to keep an eye out for.

-=Presentation=-

I have read a lot of reviews complaining about the graphics, but to be fair the graphics are the last thing you will be looking at in the game like this. You will be constantly moving, fighting, dieing, that studying the scenery will be the last thought on your mind. That being said the game looks decent. Character models and animations flow, and some of landscapes look fantastic (Pelenor fields) though admittedly a majority of them do look very bland (Osgiliath for example). The game has a lot going on screen, and I would recommend if your game only just meets the system requirements that you try to obtain an extra gig of ram, just to give that burst of much needed frame rate. The game makes use of the Howard Shore soundtrack supplied in the film adaptation, which makes the battles feel that bit more epic. The narration during the cinematics by Hugo Weaving, is a bonus, though I cannot help but feel that he was not being paid enough, due to the fact he sounds very uninterested. Also less said about the narrator in game, the better

-=Conclusion=-

Lord of the Rings - Conquest is a fairly decent game. It has no doubt been rushed to the point where a lot of features that could have quite easily have been included were not, and the small multiplayer matches will leave fans of the Battlefront series feel somewhat cheated. If this game had a few months to polish it would have been fantastic. The majority of the reviews for the game are very harsh, due to the fact people's expectations for it were far too high, if you take this game with a pinch of salt you will not be too sorely disappointed, and I'm sure many of the issues and extra content will be fixed and added sometime in the future, along with community mods. If you are a fan of Lord of the Rings or simply enjoy fantasy third person action, then I would recommend Conquest, as it will keep you entertained for a small while.

What I meant by the title is

-The game is too much like Battlefront, it is in no way unique.

Pros.
-Good graphics (although majority of the time there's no more than 50-60 soldiers in the battlefield, the background is siprinkled with thousands of soldiers(in some battles) to give that BFME taste.

- Charracters voices sounds like those in the movie.
- A lot of heroes (meaning you can play your favourite charracters from the movie)
- Can play the evil and the good side...
- Multiplayer is fun.

Cons

* Loses the realism: when your charracter dies you respawn and lose a life.

* Storyline is copied from the movie, however some charracters are not meant to be in some places we play them in... So it kind of kills the movies plot

*Four classes archer,mage,soldier and scout. And there are only three diferent ways to kill your enemies.

*Annying enemies, if you get blown away from a Nazgul, you will either be thrown away from the map or your enemies will stab you to death(this becomes really annoying because of the next part)

*Even if you have lives, when you lose a base the game is over and you have to start from the beginning of the map.

*Too many base capturing, in all of the maps you have to capture a base and move capture another then destroy an object.

*Too much like battlefront...

Overall, I would download the demo before purchasing the game.

Given EA's past attempts at portraying Tolkien's world, it was with some scepticism that I installed Lord of the Rings Conquest. The game is a swords-and-sorcery fighter based on Pandemic's highly sucessful Battlefronts game engine, and on paper it all looks pretty impressive. However in practice, it doesn't work quite so well.

I tried the singleplayer campaign first, to get a feel for the game mechanics and fighting styles. The game gives you four archetypal classes to choose from; the Warrior, Mage, Archer and Scout. I was initially impressed by the Warrior's melee combat - the various moves available all felt weighty and substantial - but then discovered that compared to the rest of the classes, this was rendered fairly irrelevant. Anybody who has ever played a first-person shooter game will absolutely dominate the battlefield with the Archer, instantly killing most enemies with a single headshot, something that is extremely unbalancing in multiplayer. The mage can cut down swathes of melee opponents with little trouble, as well as possessing the ability to heal themselves. The Scout is the stealthy class, who can backstab and instantly kill any single target, as well as having the same basic direct combat moves as the Warrior. Overall the glaring class imbalances detract from the combat experience, and can make the game extremely frustrating in both single and multiplayer modes.

The main issue with the game, and the one that will ire Lord of the Rings fans the most, is how ridiculous the game's attempt to fit into the world of Middle-Earth is. The class system is an excellent example; every warrior has a magical flaming sword and the battlefield is swarming with mages flinging fireballs and pulling up force-fields, when in reality there were only ever five true wizards in the world - and their magic style was much more subtle and subdued. Some would say that strict adherence to the lore isn't necessary for the game to function as entertainment, but I argue that for a game to be truly great it must be immersive and engaging, and LotR: Conquest is just not convincing enough in its attempt to fit into the lore of its world, it just lacks a vital soul.

Overall though, Lord of the Rings: Conquest is certainly worth a try, and can be fairly fun for a few hours of cheery hack-and-slash, but don't expect anything ground-breaking. Another disappointing and entirely forgettable affair from EA.