Gamertell

Title: The Lord of the Rings: Conquest
Price: $59.99
System: *Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Release Date: January 13, 2009
Publisher (Developer): EA (Pandemic Studios)
ESRB Rating: “T” Teen, for violence
Pros: Fun to relive the great Lord of the Rings epic battles. Good environments. Good music.
Cons: Mindless button mashing. Horrible AI. Poor Graphics. Terrible controls. Lots of bugs and glitches.
Overall Rating: One thumb sideways, one thumb down; 65/100; D; * 1/2 Stars out of five.

It is hard to believe it has been nearly six years since the last Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King, hit theaters. With still a long wait before the next installment, The Hobbit, EA is determined to milk its acquisition of franchise with yet another movie/game tie-in with, The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (LOTR).

Lords of the Battlefront

Conquest is, and wants to be, a Star Wars: Battlefront clone. Not only is Pandemic Studios the developer of this title (they were the studio responsible for the previous two Star Wars: Battlefront games), but Conquest borrows many of the same elements and characteristic of the Battlefront series. Unfortunately, if you were a fan of that series, then don’t expect the same thrills this time around with LOTR: Conquest.

The story is by far the only real thing that works for this title. Not only does it follow the film’s primary plot line, more importantly, and more enjoyable, is the “What if” scenario call, Rise of Sauron.

In Rise of Sauron single-player mode, you assume control of various evil forces that served the film’s antagonist, including at times, Sauron himself. In this mode you can change the outcome of the movies by conquering (as the title suggests) all of Middle Earth.

The second plot option is The War of the Rings. This follows the events of the three movies, not bothering to really deviate from what we already know.

It can be fun reliving the epic battles of the films, but there isn’t anything here that the players don’t already know, or haven’t already seen. And if you are new to The Lord of the Rings, then don’t expect the game to bring you up to speed as it only uses montage clips from the film to get the primary plot elements out of the way.

Serf of the Hack and Slash

Game play boils down to a simple hack and slash. We’ve done and seen this in dozens of other titles, including Dynasty Warriors which, at times, this game feels like it has more in common with than Star Wars: Battlefront.

Objectives are always pretty straight forward: Kill this, destroy that, run here and then run there. You’ll die a lot completing these tasks but that is part of the game as the developers want you to try out each of the four character classes that you get to choose from.

Both factions have soldiers, mages, scouts and archers to supply their ranks. However, the differences between the good and bad sides are non-existent, which takes some of the real fun and spirit out of the game.

Like Star Wars: Battlefront II, you will at times be allowed to play the films primary heroes and villains but, still, they don’t offer too much variety either. It is pretty hard to believe that Sauron can be defeated by a lonely foot soldier or *gasp* a hobbit. But these characters do add more value to the overall experience.

Dug Its Own Hobbit Hole

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is a mess of a game, both visually and mechanically. The controls are clunky and unresponsive at times to the point of utter frustration – not to mention, this game is very repetitive.

There are a handful of special attacks and combos that the four classes and hero characters can unleash but mostly you are going just spend your time repeatedly hitting the same button over and over.

It doesn’t help matters that the AI is horrible as its main tactics for defeating you is, first, to charge then wait for you to hit them. And while you can defeat twenty enemies in front of you easily enough, too often you’ll die because you were hit off screen by a lucky shot fired from some unseen archer. This makes deaths feel very cheap.

Graphically, by now the whole style of the Lord of the Rings games is getting old and boring. EA has used the film visuals, props and general characteristics of the three movies in several games already.

Instead of expanding on the movie universe, this game just recycles what we’ve seen dozens of times already in the previous LotR film/video game tie-ins. It just lacks any imagination and design.

There are plenty of other smaller and big issues that just sap all the enjoyment out of Conquest, from the sometime lagging frame rate, clipping, repetitive character modeling and terrible hit detection. Even graphics and textures seem more at home on the original Xbox than on any next-gen system.

The world too is surprisingly small. All missions, for the most part, are all linear, as appose to the more open game play of the Star Wars: Battlefront series.

It will take some time to complete your objectives, but it all really just boils down to going from point A, to point B, with a couple of big boss battles thrown in between.

If the developers really wanted to give the players a real sense of the scales of these epic battles, then it would have been wise to really open the game world up more than they had.

Fellowship Stay Away

For most LOTR games I might normally write something here like, “Fans of The Lord of the Rings would enjoy this game and everyone else, stay clear.” However, I don’t think that even the most loyal Lord of the Rings fans will get too much value out of this game.

The online elements add only a few extra hours of enjoyment but, like the single player game, there really isn’t much under the hood to justify this game’s price tag or your time playing it.

It is too bad, too, because the franchise still has a lot of room to expand and source material to offer. You would think EA would capitalize on such a beloved and entertaining franchise instead of publishing the same old tired crap it has been since the first film’s release.

Most of all, would it kill EA to actually try and make a Lord of the Rings game that isn’t a totally rip off of another, better game?

Site [The Lord of the Rings: Conquest]