Lord of the Rings: Conquest

I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy both in book and movie format. That type of fantasy is probably where I get most enjoyment from games and books. Games such as Fable, Fable 2 and World of Warcraft is where I like to go to get away from every day life. Don’t get me wrong, I have to deal with plenty of dragons and battle axes every day in the work place but none of them yield any mysticism, they are just annoying. When the Lord of the Rings dropped through the door I was really looking forward to seeing what the game had in store for me and getting the chance to play some of the tales heroes was exciting.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest gives you the opportunity to play as any one of the heroes in the film, the most famous probably being Gandalf the wizard, Legolas the elf, Gimli the dwarf and Aragorn who in the film eventually takes his rightful place as king. You don’t get to play the heroes all the time, most of the time you get to play one of the four available classes which are mage, warrior, scout and archer. Through each level you have to pit your skills against the opposing faction by capturing tactically important points and killing major enemies.

During gameplay you start off with a good solid training level which takes you through the basics for each class. At the end of the training you fight in a crazy long battle and eventually down Sauron who is the main antagonist in the Lord of the Rings. After training you get to fight your way through all the major battle scenes on the good side which is excellent for fans of the movie because you get to defend places such as the ancient fortress of Helms Deep through to the huge battle at Black Gate which is the main entrance to Mordor, the dwelling place of Sauron….. who’s already dead in training, remember!

Once the War of the Ring is complete the Rise of Sauron becomes available to you. This is an excellent part of the game because you get to play through a storyline that didn’t happen in the books. In the main story Frodo the hobbit had to destroy the magical and evil ring, but the evil campaign is based around what would have happened had Frodo not survived.

On top of all this is the multiplayer option which includes Conquest where you have to capture all the bases so the enemy cannot respawn or hit the point cap first if you cannot manage that. Capture the Ring, hmmm… funnily enough based on capture the flag style multiplayer. The twist to this is that when you have the ring a your are laden down which is very similar to the what happens to the ring bearer in the books. Finally you have team deathmatch which again is decided by points but you can also play hero team deathmatch where you get to play any of the heroes on the good or evil side.

The gameplay itself is really very easy to pick up. You have basic attacks of different strengths but you also have special attacks such as exploding or poisonous arrows and flaming swords. The control system is very easy to get to grips with which means you can get right into the game without worrying about what button comes next. There are combinations available for the more adventurous but they are not vital to progression.

As you move through each level and play in multiplayer you feel abosrbed by your surroundings. The areas you fight in a true respresentations of the scenes in the film which makes it enjoyable. The sounds that come from the fights are good and make you feel as if you are accomplishing something. The only problem I had with the mechanics would be the camera which is sometimes too close for a third person game. This really causes problems when you are playing melee classes like the warrior and the scout because you cannot turn very easily to attack or see behind you. If Pandemic wanted it to work this way then maybe a first person angle would have been better.