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LORD OF THE RINGS: CONQUEST Posted by Dan Pearson on Feb 16, 2009 17:37 (357 days ago) |
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Lord of the Rings Conquest is now with us, releasing as it does amongst some rather big hitters, so is this the one game to rule them all or should it be thrown into the fiery pits of Mordor?
With fan frenzy building over the current Del Toro Hobbit project, EA have sensibly released Conquest, a re-imaging of one of my favourite PS2 games Star Wars Battlefront. Like Battlefront, Conquest takes us to some of the more memorable battles that took place in Middle-Earth during the trilogy, unfortunately though something seems to have been lost in translation.  The first half of the game centres around the battles that took place on The Two Towers and Return of the King like Helms Deep and Isengard and include some inventive storytelling to allow you to fight in the great battles in the Mines of Moria with the Orcs, Trolls and Dwarfs all included for good measure. The second half of the game allows you to control Saurons hordes, the first level will have you taking control of the ring and killing Frodo and then you wreak death and destruction all the way to the Shire. Even though there is evidence of a huge battle going on around you, the game is surprisingly linear, you are sent along to capture a point, hold it, then repeat until you get to a boss. The open battlefield of SWB has gone, making the game a bit too repetitive. During each battle you are able to select from one of four classes, each has their own special powers and you will very quickly learn their strengths and weaknesses. The Warrior is your grunt, he has three strengths of attack plus a few special flaming attacks. The Archer is able to zoom plus has special abilities of triple fire, poisoned and flaming arrows. The Scout is a melée master who can go invisible and sneak behind enemies for a powerful backstab move. My favourite is the Mage, he has a good long range lightning attack that when charged hits multiple enemies plus a strong wall of fire that kills all that walk near. Both good and evil sides have the same classes, though the evil side is more satisfying and they have the Orc hobble down perfectly. In most battles you will be offered the chance to play as a hero, each one is a slightly more powerful version of each class, like Gandalf, Witch King and Eoyden. The most satisfying of these to play is as an Ent or Troll, you can stomp your way through the battlefield and hurl enemies with ease, very satisfying.  The multiplayer mode opens the game a little in that it returns to the more classic Battlefront modes. Team Deathmatch has you kill as many people as possible up to a limit. Conquest is a mode where there are approx five areas to control. The nature of the map means if your team is focused on one area, the enemy can sneak around and steal areas. This makes for good team work as long as you can find a good server. Thankfully the game selection is more akin to a PC game where it will show how many players are on and what the ping speed is like. Conquest is a mixed bag, the first half of the single player will feel like you have already been there and done that on so many other LOTR games, the second half though is great, with the Rise of Sauron giving some great moments that expand on the possibility that the quest to destroy the ring went wrong. Multiplayer can be a tough learning curve, the classes available will be hard at first to choose, but stick with what makes you comfortable and you will start getting the kills you need after a while.
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