‘The Lord of the Rings: Conquest’ Review (360, PS3, PC)

Thu, Jan 15, 2009

It's awfully hard to make a "Lord of the Rings" game so mundane and run-of-the-mill that even a diehard Tolkien fan like myself starts getting bored of it within an hour, but "The Lord of the Rings: Conquest" did it. Based on the series of books and movies, "Conquest" focuses on the aspect of "LotR" that everyone loves most: epic battles. Contrary to past third-person action games taking place in Middle Earth, though, this game doesn't revolve around the heroes; it revolves around the nameless grunts that populate the fodder that eventually needs saving: warrior, archer, mage, and scout.

Players can select one of the four aforementioned classes, and control them in both off- and online battles. Each class has its own unique abilities and weaknesses; the warrior is the master of melee and taking a beating, the archer can shoot from far away and has a few trick arrows up his sleeve, scouts can backstab and turn invisible, and mages can shoot lightning, heal, throw fireballs, and do all sorts of overpowered things.

Much like "Star Wars: Battlefront," "Conquest" is obviously developed with multiplayer in mind, a fact that is readily visible when playing the single-player campaign. The campaign is split into two paths: the good guys, and the bad. The good guy path follows the actual story; the darker path is unlocked upon completion of the normal story, and lets you play as the forces of Sauron in a "What if?" scenario that asks: "What if the Fellowship failed?" It’s a shame that Sauron's side of the coin is only available after completing the regular campaign, because it's by far the more entertaining of the two.

No matter which of the two you're playing, though, you’ll run into the same issue. Enemies always seem to focus fire on you, even though you are, for all intents and purposes, just another grunt. Are the forces of evil playing a prank? Did they all get together before the battle and agree to pick on one unassuming person for no reason, a la Janitor in "Scrubs?" I don’t know, but it makes no sense.

The combat -- the focal point of the game -- is also disappointing. While each class has several unique attacks and combos, ultimately you’ll end up using one or two per class because it’s just more effective. It doesn’t help that the single-player campaign can be incredibly hard, due more to cheap shots than actual intelligent enemies. In any given level, you can expect to die a few times due to random headshots, some uncontrollable event, or one-hit KOs from stronger enemies.

"Conquest's" single player also has a fair deal of clipping glitches and ally AI issues. Glitches don’t occur often, but when it rains it pours. On the Isengard level, for example, at one point I played through three consecutive restarts; the first two ended with my character becoming stuck in the environment when I had no lives left. The third? I happened to use an exploding arrow on Sarumon, and he fell through the floor and ended up stuck inside of the ground beneath his tower. Another restart, another frustrated sigh.

As for the AI, you're basically better off pretending you had no help. On that same Isengard level during my second playthrough, Wormtongue died by falling off of a bridge, and subsequently dropped Isengard's key—which you need to pick up—in a pit that equaled instant death. The result? More than half of my allies followed Wormtongue to his death like Middle Earth lemmings, and it took a few minutes for the key to respawn. Right in the middle of the gigantic enemy horde which now greatly outnumbered us.

Thankfully, online play can at least be entertaining, even if it too has its faults. Its biggest faults are an imbalance in character classes and a feeling of datedness compared to recent online games. The number of players you can get in a game is 16. Not 16 on each side -- 16 total. In an era where massive multiplayer battles are all the rage, 8 on a team in a game of this nature is a bit of a letdown.

"Lord of the Rings: Conquest" doesn’t come close to living up to the name on the box. Is it set in the "Lord of the Rings" universe? Sure. Does it feel epic, or like it belongs? Not at all. Combat becomes dull; the graphics are a few years behind; the single-player campaign is filled with stupid AI, cheap enemies, and occasional clipping issues; and multiplayer is fun, but at the time lacking of any real tactics beyond "Kill everyone fast!" I’m positive there are some out there who will be more forgiving of the game than I am, as it's a very polarizing type of title, like "Dynasty Warriors." I’m even more positive, though, that there are just as many "LotR" fans who bought the game and, like me, wished they would have rented it first. If you're interested, rent it or borrow it to try it out. Don't purchase it purely because of the license on the cover.

Action, licensed product, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, online, Pandemic Studios, PC, playstation 3, PS3, Tolkien, Xbox 360

This post was written by:

Brendon Lindsey - who has written 274 posts on GameCyte.

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4 Comments For This Post

Ali Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 7:12 am
I thought game is quite good.Im enjoying it alot,but your right about the multiplayer it does get quite unbalanced but.
Hghcycle Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Great!! I love this movie
Brendon Lindsey Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I enjoyed it at first too, Ali. It just didn't hold me interested for very long. Had this come out in 2004 with Battlefront, it would have been fantastic. Unfortunately, since then the genre and industry have moved very, very fast, and this game just didn't keep up. Fun for a few hours of play, but not something most people are going to enjoy as much beyond that first day of play.
Barnes Says:
January 18th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I played demo on PS3. Never seen such a bad game realisation.

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