The “Break it Down” Blog

Summary [6.5 out of 10]

The Lord of the Rings Conquest is an action game created by Pandemic Studios. It is essentially Star Wars: Battlefront but set in the Lord of the Rings universe. You can play as either the side of good or evil. The good story line follows the plot of the movies, but the evil story line is newly created and is focused on Sauron stopping the Ring from being destroyed and then destroying all of the forces of  good.

Introduction

After really enjoying the multiplayer demo for Lord of the Rings: Conquest I was surprisingly really disappointed with the full game. The gameplay mechanics are still fun but it seems really bare bones. There is a huge lack of options available on what you can play.  Either you are playing the campaign mode or in public multiplayer matches on EA’s servers. The single player campaign does have some fun moments but it also has a tough difficulty curve at times.

The Good

• The core mechanics are a lot of fun. The 4 classes offer a nice variety on how you play with each one and there is a class for everyone’s play style.
• The good campaign is fun because you are playing through the movies’ plot lines. The score of the battles is great. You play as one of hundreds of people on the screen at a time in some of the battle just trying to fight off as many goblins or orches as you can to help turn the tide of the battle.
• The evil campaign is possibly even more fun because you get to play a new story plot that never happens in the movie/books. Playing as Sauron and the Balrog is a riot. You send enemies flying across the map and smash everything in your way.

The Bad

• The difficulty curve for some of the campaign levels is really rough. Even on the casual difficulty some of the levels took me 5 or 10 tries to complete.  Yet, other levels were much easier. I found it helps a lot to use the character class the game recommends at the start of a level. You might be able to complete the level with another class, but it is a lot easier when you use the suggestion.
• The achievements are really generic. They are all for completing levels, killing off the enemy bosses, and getting X number of kills in one life. Nothing that fun or interesting.

The Ugly

• The multiplayer options. There is no party system or private rooms for multiplayer matches. So, there is no good way to play with your friends.  The only way to get in a match with your friends is if you all join the same server room. Even then you may not be able to get on the same team. The game forces teams to balance as people join so if the team your friends are on already has one more person then the opposing team you can’t join their team. Plus, after each match the teams are reset and you have to again choose if you want to play on the good or evil team and hope your friends can all get on that team too.

Conclusion [6.5 out of 10]

Having completed the good and evil campains I have pretty much given up on Lord of the Rings: Conquest. If you like the Battlefield style of gameplay this is more of that that style, but with a Lord of the Rings twist. However, I like playing multiplayer games with my friends and that is not realistic with the lack of any party system. The campaigns are fun enough to make LotR: Conquest worth renting, but I would not recommend buying it.