Lord Of The Rings: Conquest

I bought this game hoping to play online with my friends, then when i finally got it i couldn't go online. EA have closed the multiplayer servers and will not be opening them back up. So do not buy if you want the multiplayer experience as its just a waste of money.

Being a huge Lord of the Rings fan myself, I was really looking forward to this game. I remember the Two Towers and Return of the King on the PS2 which I both really enjoyed - ROTK more than Two Towers. I bought this in the hope that the game has been capitalized on (though I never owned BFME2) with online play and the fact you can play the campaign as evil. So, first, the negatives.

One thing the game seem to focus on a lot, is the introduction of a 'hero'. You'll be halfway between a campaign and then you're interrupted with 'Do you want to play as a hero?' Whatever thrill this is supposed to give the gamer is not there. The 'heroes' don't seem to be any different with their attacks - they're just more powerful. The only fun 'hero' the play with was Sauron because the attacks were different and varied. All the other heroes had attacks that related to their type of infantry e.g. Legolas - Archer, Aragorn - Warrior, Gandalf - Mage. Just nothing different.

While campaign does have some good parts, it generally does just feel very rushed and lacking like there is no challenge. I completed the game within a couple of days and I think I must of only died a few times when doing this. The fact you can kill a troll by climbing on their back and pressing a button is not very satisfying. The campaigns don't seem to have an 'epic' battle feel to them. For example, Helm's Deep, swarms of Urak Hai should be attacking you, instead you get about 2 or 3 come in little groups. This makes everything so much easier and boring. The end of the missions are awful too, you'd think there would be some difficult task to be, but there isn't. They just seem to end...

The characters you can play as are not that interesting either and seem a bit false. I haven't read the books so I can't be sure, but were mages able to create rings of fire/lighting? Could archers fire poison arrows? And could warriors turn their swords into flames? It all seems rather far fetched. The only fun character to play as was the mage, but only because you can heal yourself and fire lighting I found.

Online play is very average. There are only 3 game modes - conquest (like territories), Capture the Ring and Team Deathmatch. Multiplayer sounded good at first. 16 players, range of characters, maps and a few game modes but I just found the games to become very dull soon on. If you're a warrior, archer or scout, you'll find yourself on floor for the majority of the game due to being hit by arrows from the other side of the map or a mage hitting you with lightning. This can become very irritating. What makes things worse is when you can't fight back to a warrior when you're on the ground because you're continuously being struck and killed. Then of course throw in the people that activate trolls and ents and it makes thing even worse as you get killed in one shot or again, find yourself on the ground, or running away for a lot of the time.

I've noticed that there aren't actually many positives about game. The fact it can be fun to play as evil and the other 'heroes' can be quite good, though I only found Sauron any fun or different. I'm not really sure what other positives their are to be honest. It just seems so rushed and not well thought out from pandemic. Previous games have been fantastic with a huge amount of battle involved where you get experience and can learn new moves and combos - and with an epic feel to battle. Conquest fails to have this.

So overall, it can fun at times but generally feels very slow and not challenging at all. It's good for renting for a couple days just to play through campaign and then return, but not for full £40 which is why I am already selling mine. Hopefully any further Lord of the Rings games will differ from this and really be good, but I can't see it happening with the disappointment of this, the fact nothing will be new in terms of the story and as it will probably throw people off.

I had given the game 3/5 at the start of the review, now I find it hard to find many positives it'll have to be 2/5. Big disappointment i'm afraid, especially for Lord of the Rings fans.

I have played through both campaigns and done some multiplayer stuff and I have to say that this game is great. Gameplay is excellent and the battlefront experience for LOTR is as good as I hoped. There are a couple of drawbacks though which loses its fifth star. Going on a horse or warg is difficult and often frustating- but trolls and other big dudes are fine. The multipayer options- although xbox live is great and playing with your mates also brilliant there is no option for instant action same team play with only two players. Although this may not matter to a lot of folks. Also occasionally the graphics do go a bit- can't really explain that but you know when you see it. These are minor flaws though. The thing that just niggles at me is that it doesnt have the same feel as battlefront. I would have to put it down to the difference between lots of melee combat in LOTR and lots of ranged combat in Battlefront- it just feels better to be shooting rather than slashing. It still is a superb game though and I recommend it to everyone as an excellent buy. Just doesn't quite maek the five stars