Lord of the Rings: Conquest Review
- Posted January 19th, 2009 at 15:49 EDT by Steven Williamson
- 21,733 views
- 31 Comments
Review Score
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest
- PSU Review Score
- 5.0
- Avg. user review score:
- 5.6
Summary
The only thing epic about Lord of the Rings: Conquest is its musical score.
We like
- The enjoyable LOTR hero segments
- The high-quality soundtrack
We dislike
- The unbalanced and awkward combat
- The shallow gameplay
- The outdated graphics
See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings
(continued from previous page) ...and Scout, has distinctive abilities and range of moves that are specific to them, which require a combination of button presses in order to achieve the more advanced attacks. The Warrior uses sheer brute strength and the might of his sword to win the battle. The Mage comes equipped with a staff and magical abilities that allow him to stand back and cast spells on upcoming foes from a safe distance. The Scout can turn invisible and sneak up on enemies and stab them in the back. Finally, the Archer can fire arrows from a distance. The latter is one of the most boring fighters that we’ve ever encountered in a videogame, hampered by a poor zoom function which makes it difficult to try and stay focused on an enemy whenever they move around. Multi-shot attacks and fire-emblazoned arrows are little solace when you get killed so easily, whereas the lack of an auto-lock on function makes it extremely frustrating, especially online, where enemies easily dodge your arrows and then can take you out immediately with a simple combo attack.
The special abilities, which include the Mage’s ‘shockwave’, where he can pummel the ground sending foes crashing to the floor, or the ‘crowd breaker’, which knocks down any foes surrounding you and send them sprawling backwards, certainly add some visual flair to proceedings, but you’ll do equally well by banging on the buttons as fast as you can. The occasional boss battle, which includes Gandalf vs. Sauron and Aragorn vs. Saruman, provides some much needed, albeit brief excitement, but essentially we got the impression that the heroes are just more powerful versions of the four classes rather than being individually tailored fighting machines.
Online, Lord of the Rings: Conquest does provide a bit more excitement and entertainment value - and at least you have real, intelligent people on your side rather than having to rely on the questionable A.I. from the single player campaign. The Team Deathmatch, Conquest, and Capture the Ring modes are nothing new, but there’s a nice variety of battlefields to fight across, accommodating eight on eight matches. We got a nice feeling of camaraderie when we managed to get into a good server with like-minded people.
Still, the classes feel slightly unbalanced and unless everyone does play as a team, which you're unlikely to find unless you create your own room and invite friends only. Most of our the time (particularly in Conquest mode) was spent getting killed every 30 seconds or so, and then having to wait for the respawn and make the trip back again to the same area only to be killed in one fell swoop by a Scout's invisible backstabbing tactic, or some equally irritating death. It's just not that much fun, most of the time.
The Mage also feels more powerful than the other classes. Despite its long recovery time, his devastating lighting bolt spell possesses a power that other classes don't appear to be able match. The fact that the Mage is the only class that can heal itself also meant that we were able to last much longer without dying in comparison to other classes. No wonder there's so many Mages roaming around the online arena!
The inclusion of mounts does make things a bit more exciting. Though jumping on the back of the horse or Warg (wolf) is only really useful for getting to an area quickly, you can also play as the likes of an Ent or a Balrog and cause some decent damage. You'll always see a rush for the bigger, better mounts at the beginning of each game; despite the fact that they move much slower and are clumsier than the standard mounts, they're much harder to kill, so at least you survive a bit longer and can cause some carnage along the way.
Ultimately though, Lord of the Rings: Conquest doesn’t deliver. We grudgingly played through the entire single-player mode because we expected something great to happen. It didn't. Lord of the Rings lovers may be drawn in by the fact that they can play as the likes of Frodo or Gandalf, Sauron or Saruman, but we reckon even the most hardened fan will be disappointed at the game's general lack ... (continued on next page)
Comments
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Kurupt-The-Don
- 4:14pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 5
i played the damo..and god damn..1min later i deleted from my hard drive..and im not even jokin..its bad..really bad..avoid this game..dont even play the demo..lol
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lordAlucard |
Sympozium_666- 4:38pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 8
LOL OMG LOTR: Battlefront it doesn't work with the same system what the heaven are EA thinking has pandemic released a $$$ game I already tell
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RogurtNChzz |
RogurtNChzz- 5:09pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 9
I actually thought it was kinda interesting at first. It was like a LOTR version of battlefront. But ya it did lack depth and i still wouldn't buy it.
It was still kinda enjoyable since i hadn't played a LOTR game since " The Two Towers movie game came out" (Own it on ps2)
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darthrazorback
- 6:40pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 10
I am so glad they released a demo, because I almost purchased it based on preview info. The demo had such terrible controls and gameplay that I nearly threw up in my mouth.
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jigglespsu
- 7:15pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 13
It wasn't as bad as some are touting it to be however it is plagued with the horrible EA online registration madness that means that I would never buy this title and nobody else should either. There is absolutely no need to register with 3rd party developers to play online when I have a perfectly good PSN account. I don't wqant EA spam or from their buddies, and I certainly don't want to hand them persnal info to play their poorly executed games.
EA have lost my dollar here. Don't give them yours. If you still want to get this game then I would reiterate the point about the graphics ... they're rubbish
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ThaoNguyen
- 9:15pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 14
You know, you could make a really awesome and epic game based on the LOTR trilogy, but it seems like every time someone makes a LOTR game, it turns out like (virtually) every other movie-based game, lame. I guess there's not enough of a market for it to justify spending much money on development *shrugs* oh well
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rivel
- 9:26pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 15
Gave the game an 8, played the demo and loved the online, needs a few balancing to the classes but anyone w/ skill in an fps (clearly something the author of this review has none of) will enjoy playing an archer. Mages are completely overpowered, but any game has teh noob class or gun that idiots fall to. The playable beasts should be left to offline only but its totally worth playing.
The single player is kinda weak, beat both campaigns in one day and theres no rewards for beating it on the unlocked difficulty. Trophies are pretty easy to get, the online ones can be a lil crazy but didnt take long to get the platinum (100%) I didnt like the previous lotr games that iv seen but the demo/online sold it for me. The review given here is garbage and the ppl who didnt like the demo are probably wow players or actually thought R*2(resistance 2) was a good game
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jphuff |
jhuff- 10:00pm GMT - January 19th, 2009
- 16
Well, I'm a life-long hardcore LOTR fanatic so most games that are based on LOTR, I like. I don't think this game is nearly as poor as a lot of what I've read about it.
However, this review does highlight the areas that disappointed me a bit. I couldn't put my finger on it at first- just had a sense of disappointment when playing the game. Although I'm not all the way through it yet, the issues raised in the review are indeed accurate. I just think that if you're a big LOTR fan you'll still get some enjoyment out of it as I am. I've been dying to have a real "next gen" LOTR game as was very disappointed to hear that "The White Council" had been cancelled as well as NOT reading about any others planned yet. Hopefully with "The Hobbit" being made into a movie and released in the next couple of years there will be some more titles and hopefully they won't be limited just to the store of "the Hobbit."
Bottom line, I think if you love LOTR that you'll have some fun with this game and enjoy it. It's just not all we would hope it to be and is unfortunately flawed. I didn't think the graphics were bad at all however. It's not Killzone 2, but it's definitely a cut above the earlier PS2 titles.
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Ocelot1987 |
METSTM- 1:15am GMT - January 20th, 2009
- 19
I don't think graphics make a game great. If anyone is complaining about the camera it is very similar to MGO's camera so it wasn't a problem for me. The online is actually very fun to play and the trophies are fun to collect. I don't think this game deserves less than a 7.5.
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n0na90 |
nona90- 2:10am GMT - January 20th, 2009
- 20
Bad graphics, bad gameplay, everything was a major letdown to me. I did suspect it would turn out like this anyway. I bought Battlefront on day 1 and loved it and Battlefront 2 too. But this is such a fail. I want an oblivion-like LOTR game for my ps3! Epic graphics (come on EA you got the money) intensive swordfights and a good story. And I also want Battlefront 3, but not if it turns out like this.
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SpyroViper
- 4:10am GMT - January 20th, 2009
- 21
The demo was awful. Pandemic really have lost that special 'something' they once had.
Epic FAILZ!
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Noloatmo |
Noloatmo- 7:47am GMT - January 20th, 2009
- 24
I was so sure this game was going to be fun, I didn't even play the demo. Shame on me. This game is a complete disappointment. It's a stupid combat game without any depth or variety. It's not even faithful to the Lord Of The Rings background. Fighting Grima Wormtongue? Come on! He's a political advisor, not a ninja!
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Free_Agent
- 3:29am GMT - January 21st, 2009
- 27
Yeah, this game wasn't too great. Well, the PS3 version anyways. It's much worse than the 360 port. Oh well, no surprise there. It's really just SW battlefront in the LOTR universe. The SP is definately lacking, but the MP is fun.
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muhy00 |
muhy00- 7:31pm GMT - February 23rd, 2009
- 30
its a decent game i just think the graphics can use a bunch of work, i mean i feel like i'm playing a ps one game and i have an hd tv so yea graphics are pretty trrible. one thing i do like is the multiplayer its rather good and i can say that some of you guys arn't giving it the chance it deserves
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