The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Review 7/10

THE GOOD: PLAYING AS THE VILLAINS

THE BAD: CAMPAIGN IS RATHER SHORT

DON’T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB: THE VOICE OVERS ARE EMBARASSINGLY BAD

By now everybody either knows, or, at the very least, has a slight understanding of the events that take place in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo, a meek and humble Hobbit inherits the One Ring from Bilbo, and embarks on a journey to destroy it. Along the way he is joined by heroes such as Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli.

 The first half of Conquest has you playing out these events, but not from the heroes’ perspective like you might assume. Instead, you are allowed to enter the field of battle as one of four classes, including a swordsman, archer, mage, and the assassin like scout.

The majority of the game play takes place in large scale battles like the Battle of Pelennor fields and the Siege of Minis Tirith. Upon reaching certain checkpoints in the levels, players are granted the opportunity to play as one of the aforementioned heroes and use it wreak havoc on the battlefield.

After successful completion of the canon campaign however, a question is raised, what would happen if Sauron had regained the One Ring? The game now opens up for the second act, in which it is assumed Frodo failed in his quest, and Sauron did retrieve the ring! Players now have the unique opportunity to lay waste to Middle Earth as all of their favorite villains, including the Nazgul, Witch King, and even Sauron himself.

These two campaigns make up the single player experience, but unfortunately, are extraordinarily short and can get rather repetitive. Moderately playing, most players will breeze through these two campaigns in about six hours, which makes it hard to justify the sixty dollar investment. Another shortcoming of Conquest is that, at best, it is a button masher, and at times it can get a bit repetitive. The game combats this by giving players the chance to change classes often, but even that still does not entirely defeat the feeling of repetition.

Among other things, the game modes in the single player experience also bring on a feeling of repetition. Almost every objective on every map revolves around capturing set points; you do this by defeating enemies surrounding an outpost, and then stand around it yourself to capture it. After the 5^th or so point, a feeling of boredom begins to ensue.

The game really shines though when you are tasked with bringing down one of the hero characters! Between playing as the Balrog and fighting Gimli, and killing Frodo as one of the Nazgul, I couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about the game. Fortunately events like this occur often enough to keep the game feeling rather fresh and exciting, even if the capture the flag like objectives do get old.

Fans of The Lord of the Rings will find a lot to like, but just keep in mind it is rather short. Players may be better satisfied renting the game rather than buying it, but I still give it a 7 out of 10.