Lord of the Rings: Conquest: B-
"Lord of the Rings" video games hold the distinct honor of being the only movie-based franchise that includes a roster of consistently good games. From hack 'n' slashers and RPG's to strategy games, the LOTR games have been generally well-executed, faithful recreations of Tolkien's universe. The latest installment, "Lord of the Rings: Conquest," aims to put the player in the boots of a soldier during the epic battles of the movies, and the game sticks to proven territory for a generally fun, if not shallow, experience.
The idea sounds solid: combine proven "Lord of the Rings" hack 'n' slash with a "Battlefront" -- style class system and territory gameplay. And the execution shines. The four classes - fighter, archer, scout and mage - are all well-balanced and generally fun to play. Fighters hold in their arsenal multiple combo attacks and plenty of health; archers get to hang back and fire into the fray; scouts can become invisible, kill from behind and throw bombs and mages have a bit of everything: strong ranged and melee attacks, but little health.
The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect: tons of enemies fill the screen, and it's up to your character to destroy them. You usually have plenty of allies, but they're not really good for anything except distracting some of the army you're going up against. Though the fighter gameplay doesn't involve too much more than button mashing and the archer doesn't do much more than aim and hold down the right trigger, the other two classes have more varied skill sets and somewhat deeper gameplay.
The single player takes all the epic battles in the movies, from Helm's Deep to the Black Gate of Mordor, filled with tons of allies and enemies, and then plays through them with different objectives (mostly involving capturing and holding rally points). After that, there's an equally long "what-if" campaign, where you play on the evil side after Sauron steals the ring back from Frodo. The action is fast and furious, with objectives flying by pretty quickly. "Conquest" is easy enough to make you feel like a hero most of the time, especially when you're given the option to play as one of the main characters, like Aragorn or Gandalf. Coupled with levels that don't usually exceed 15 minutes in length, "Conquest" turns out to be unfortunately short.
Online multiplayer features the usual team death match, capture the flag (except it's the One Ring instead of a flag) and conquest, which translates the territory gameplay from the single player. Though playing against real people is much more challenging than the computer, the diminished sense of scale definitely takes away from the experience. For a game that would theoretically be strongest here, the multiplayer just doesn't cut it. Online co-op does add some value to the campaign, however.
As is typical of battlefield-style games, "Conquest" sacrifices graphical detail for the sake of drawing lots and lots of characters on screen, and for the most part the game pulls off the feeling of being surrounded by thousands and thousands of troops, as seen in the movies. The game isn't ugly, but there's not much of a "wow" factor that might have really made "Conquest" shine. The best that can be said about the environments is that they're a very faithful rendering of Middle Earth.
The audio, however, is excellent. Hugo Weaving narrates the game, and the rest of the sound-a-likes do a good job as well. The game uses new pieces from old LOTR themes to create epic music that matches up well with the action.
"Conquest's" biggest issue is that there's not much more to it than the gameplay you experience in the first hour. It's fun for a while, but unless you're a big LOTR fan, there's not much to keep you coming back. The multiplayer isn't as spectacular as it should be, and the single-player campaign, while solid, doesn't feel like it has much replay value. The class-based gameplay works well, but for $60, there's probably better stuff out there.
You can reach this writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
