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The Lord of the Rings Conquest
Electronic Arts and Pandemic
Game details:
Release Date: Jan 13, 2009
Genre: Action Adventure
ESRB: Teen
Platforms: PC, XBOX360, PS3, DS
It is not surprising that a game placed in the Tolkien universe is not that hard to come by, yet you rarely if ever see one that transposes the battles of the movies well. While there have been other forays into massive third person action adventure games using Lord of the Rings as a license, like Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and last but not least Return of the King, there hasn't yet been a game that would place you in the middle of the epic battles in the movies... until now. Conquest is made by the same developers that made the Starwars: Battlefront series, and, true to its roots, pans out pretty much the same way.
About the game
Ever since seeing the Lord of the Rings movies, all of us must have secretly wanted to have a more involved part in the epic battles than just stand by and watch. Conquest makes it possible, to a point. While its purpose of becoming an action game in which you are pitted along with other guys against even more other guys has been met, because of the technical and gameplay limitations involved by playing such a game have made it not have the scope we perhaps have expected. The maximum players present in a multiplayer game, while high at 16, is not nearly as high as the large battles of LotR would be. This is countered by the fact that each player plays a minor captain, rather than a measly soldier, and speaking of those, there are lots of those controlled by the AI, to at least add a little bit of cannon fodder for each side. Even so, I doubt there is any other game in which you directly control an Oliphaunt (beside Battle of Middle Earth, but that's an RTS).
Gameplay (how to swing your bow and shoot your sword)
When starting the game you have to choose between multiple classes to play with. Each of them are completely different are quite adept at killing enemies in their own way. The Warrior can cut a swath into his enemies with his sword, can make it take on flames (and do special attacks using his energy bar) as well as throw a weapon to knock down distant enemies. Mages or wizards can heal and raise shields against incoming ranged attacks, do a nice blast attack (you can not pass style) as well as fire bolts of lightning and fireballs. The archer fires normal arrows, sniper arrows, poison arrows, fire arrows, multiple arrows and can kick to add a little bit of spice to all those arrows. The scout can throw small satchel bombs which knock back everyone in the blast radius, can stealth and kill you instantly while invisible. They've also got some nice dual daggers with which they can do some nice special moves. You can also play as the legendary heroes of Middle-Earth, and all of them are interesting to play with, despite some of them having non-canonical moves, like Aragorn using ghost attacks in the battle for Helm's Deep.
Controls
The controls in Conquest are nice and not clunky, although you might sometimes end up attacking someone else than you might wish. You use both the mouse and the keyboard in a typical action game manner, and the archer is basically controlled FPS style. Everything is seen from a third person manner, so as to accomodate sword fighting better. It sometimes get a bit frantic in the middle of a fight because of having to mash all your attack buttons, but it's mostly quite simple. You always attack using your mouse, even having to press your mousewheel to do a medium attack. This can be a bit annoying with mice that have a hard to depress scroll wheel, like my G5. Despite that, the fact that combos are always done by using the attacks in an ascending manner makes it simple and effective, as well as visually impressive.
Graphics - not bad, not epic either
Despite the epicness of Conquest, the game does not make use of very heavy graphics. It is beautiful enough, to be sure, but nothing too special. The visual effects in the fights look great, but the shaders on both the units and the world look a bit bland in lots of places. Despite the graphical downside, the fact that the game is set in the Tolkien world is clearly seen because of the great difference in the beautifully detailed environments very faithful to the movies as well. It's nice seeing the tomb of Balin, with the light falling on it, all the while blasting orcs with fireballs and lightning.
Epic sounds!
The sounds in Conquest are every bit as epic as the movies, seeing as most of it is taken from them directly. The narrator, Elrond, does a great job at narrating before and after the missions, and all the guys that issue orders during your missions sound involved, especially the orcs that make you really feel like you are a maggot. The spells sound and feel powerful, the shrieks of death of the hobbits sound satisfying, and you will sometimes start immitating them yourself while shooting arrow after arrow at the enemy groups.
Kin' I be evil?
Conquest sports two campaigns in the single player mode. You have to finish the first campaign to pass on to the next, and they also have a logical succession, albeit a non-canonical one. The first campaing, War of the Ring, goes on the events shown in the movies, seen from the good guys side, all the way from the battle of Helm's Deep to the Black Gates, with some added levels which are non-canonical, like the battle to reclaim Moria. The second campaign, Rise of Sauron, shows the theoretical story of the Nazgul killing Frodo and reclaiming the Ring, thus starting Sauron on his road of rampaging through Middle-Earth. These battles are all made up, and use scenes from the movies to great effect to describe the hypothetical nature of the whole campaign. Besides, you get to butcher hobbits, so it's all maliciously sweet. The multiplayer campaign has three modes, all of which have been seen before in other games, like Team Deathmatch and Conquest ("Zone Control mode"), in which you stand in an area while killing enemies to get enough points to win. What you ought to play first though, is the training mission, which is set in the final battle of the Second Age, when Elrond and Isildur battle Sauron in Mordor, and it's quite amazing.
What keeps you playing
One of the primary things that grip you to the game is the fact that it's Lord of the Rings. Of course, the movies were great, and so were the battles. So why wouldn't Conquest be great? It is a nice game, but while you may see on the backdrop of the battles a lot larger skirmishes going on, you then look at your field and see that it's almost nothing compared to the movies. You are shown a clip from the movie from the black gates in which the army of the Men of the West are standing in the middle of a sea of orcs, yet when the gate opens in the game, only 2 dozens or so come out. It dissapoints a fair bit when it happens, but you tend to forget it when you start cutting them into pieces.
What doesn't keep you playing
While you might be compelled to finish the campaigns, after doing that the game gets bland. The instant actions are generic and boring, the multiplayer is not quite as epic when seeing that you have to get a certain amount of points, and everything else just yells "I'm done!". Conquest is fun in short bursts. While you might play it for an hour or two after finishing the game, button mashing and being insta-killed by enemy scouts tend to deter you from playing any longer. Adding insult to injury, there are a great many ways in which your character can die, usually instantly, despite being a hero or troll or whatever. Falling into a hole is instant death like it was for Mario, and similar to that, the lives system makes a comeback, this time a lot harder, since if you lose all your lives you start from the beginning of the level. Playing as a troll isn't that much fun either when warriors keep getting behind you and jump-slashing you for half your health, and being an ent means that you are like a match for fire happy wizards and archers alike.
Conclusion
Lord of the Rings - Conquest is a solid game for the fans of both the genre and the movies and books. It adds for a great amount of frantic and chaotic fun, but also large amounts of frustration as you fall to your death or get skewered by invisible scouts. It's a great single player experience, albeit quite hard, as well as a nice multiplayer game. Get it if you think you would like it.