LotR: Conquest was a game recommended to me by a friend, who branded it as "Star Wars Battlefront with Swords", something he knew would immediately get my attention as Battlefront II is the 3rd greatest game of all time (after Fallout 3, and Resistance FoM). I thought he was just making a comparision, but after looking into it more deeply, I realised that not only was it the same developer (Pandemic), but basically the same game engine.
LotR beats Battlefront in the game engine department however, because of the addition of grunts. Instead of just your standard '30-a-side' shoot-fests featured in Battlefront, now you have weaker, unspecialised enemies who can be felled in one or two hits, making the battles feel more epic, and not just two tactical forces facing off in their equivalent of 5-a-side football, a-la Battlefront.
The graphics are outstanding most of the time, but I feel more effort could have been put into Hero Characters (Legolas, Gandalf etc.) faces, and into the ents (Theres two ent models, making the battle in the shire feel like you're fighting lots of copied and pasted hobbits with a few copied and pasted ents). Apart from that thought, I can't fault the graphics, the scenery blew me away.
The music was decent, some from the films etc, but nothing spectacular. This didn't really bother me, because I always play Metallica over the top of games anyway. The voice acting was quite good, but it would have been better with the real actors.
The gameplay itself flows quite nicely, because as I said before, it's basically Battlefront. The only annoying thing is the times when you respawn, or sometimes at the start of matches, and you have to run for ages to get to a fight. And making the sprint automatic after a few seconds is annoying, I'd rather just have a sprint button instead. You get the stupid situation of a scout planting a bomb, and you strolling gently away from it, before getting blown up and falling into the pits of Isengard. Again.
There isn't as many classes as there was on Battlefront, as there is only Warrior, Archer, Scout and Mage. The scouts are basically useless in singleplayer as they have little health and a weak basic attack. They are good against bosses as they have bombs and a backstab technique, but generally dull to play.
Archers are my favourite, and they justdo what it says on the tin. Archer, shoots arrows at enemies. The different arrows add to the variation and the ninja-kick move is just fun. Nothing beats klling Aragorn with an Orc Archer by kicking him in the face.
Warriors have a ridiculous amount of health, making them extremely annoying to fight when your not one. The whirlwind move is also extremely effective against hordes of grunts.
Mages own. High damage, healing abilities, and a shield that blocks ranged attacks. 'Nuf said.
The replay value is OK, but once you have completed both campaigns you tend to end up playing the same 3 or 4 levels with a friend on co-op because 'you can't be bothered to do that stupid objective again' (such as the beserkers in Helms Deep, it was easy to do, but annoying when you missed just one and the entire wall got blown up. In the film, the wall got blown up first time anyway...). The achievements are mainly just for completing levels, and the few that aren't that or online achievements tend to have been got first time through anyway.
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Variation: 7/10
Replay Value: 6/10
Achievements: 6/10
OVERALL: 7/10
P.S. I would have also reviewed the online, but currently my wireless adaptor has broken, so I have not been able to try it.
Thanks for reading.
LotR beats Battlefront in the game engine department however, because of the addition of grunts. Instead of just your standard '30-a-side' shoot-fests featured in Battlefront, now you have weaker, unspecialised enemies who can be felled in one or two hits, making the battles feel more epic, and not just two tactical forces facing off in their equivalent of 5-a-side football, a-la Battlefront.
The graphics are outstanding most of the time, but I feel more effort could have been put into Hero Characters (Legolas, Gandalf etc.) faces, and into the ents (Theres two ent models, making the battle in the shire feel like you're fighting lots of copied and pasted hobbits with a few copied and pasted ents). Apart from that thought, I can't fault the graphics, the scenery blew me away.
The music was decent, some from the films etc, but nothing spectacular. This didn't really bother me, because I always play Metallica over the top of games anyway. The voice acting was quite good, but it would have been better with the real actors.
The gameplay itself flows quite nicely, because as I said before, it's basically Battlefront. The only annoying thing is the times when you respawn, or sometimes at the start of matches, and you have to run for ages to get to a fight. And making the sprint automatic after a few seconds is annoying, I'd rather just have a sprint button instead. You get the stupid situation of a scout planting a bomb, and you strolling gently away from it, before getting blown up and falling into the pits of Isengard. Again.
There isn't as many classes as there was on Battlefront, as there is only Warrior, Archer, Scout and Mage. The scouts are basically useless in singleplayer as they have little health and a weak basic attack. They are good against bosses as they have bombs and a backstab technique, but generally dull to play.
Archers are my favourite, and they justdo what it says on the tin. Archer, shoots arrows at enemies. The different arrows add to the variation and the ninja-kick move is just fun. Nothing beats klling Aragorn with an Orc Archer by kicking him in the face.
Warriors have a ridiculous amount of health, making them extremely annoying to fight when your not one. The whirlwind move is also extremely effective against hordes of grunts.
Mages own. High damage, healing abilities, and a shield that blocks ranged attacks. 'Nuf said.
The replay value is OK, but once you have completed both campaigns you tend to end up playing the same 3 or 4 levels with a friend on co-op because 'you can't be bothered to do that stupid objective again' (such as the beserkers in Helms Deep, it was easy to do, but annoying when you missed just one and the entire wall got blown up. In the film, the wall got blown up first time anyway...). The achievements are mainly just for completing levels, and the few that aren't that or online achievements tend to have been got first time through anyway.
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Variation: 7/10
Replay Value: 6/10
Achievements: 6/10
OVERALL: 7/10
P.S. I would have also reviewed the online, but currently my wireless adaptor has broken, so I have not been able to try it.
Thanks for reading.
