After 6 years since the last movie, EA games have decided to bring out yet another LOTR game. We have already seen a huge array of these LOTR games. So will this one be different? Sadly no. This game has terrible graphics and in my opinion game play and originality. I’ve been playing the PC version and it looks like the game has just been scraped off a PS2 game and shoved onto the PC.

The button bash style game play is more suited to a console, however these style games can be made well if done properly, however sadly this game hasn’t.

There’s no doubt that Lord of the Rings: Conquest has been designed with multiplayer in mind; the fact that the online option appears above the solo-player campaign in the main menu is proof enough. You would then expect to see support for a large number of players in online mode, however there is only 16!  This is hardly the huge battles you see in the movie! There is the traditional ‘Capture the Flag’ online setting and also a co-operative mode in which you and up to 3 friends can battle through single player together.

There is a narrow set of mission objectives during single player, from capturing strategic points on a map, to defending them for a set amount of time, or just surviving in an area without being overrun.  Such objectives form the bulk of gameplay in Lord of the Rings: Conquest, although there is the some variety: with the quest to hunt and kill Frodo at the start of the ‘evil’ campaign, or killing a set number of orcs to resurrect the Witch-king, are just two examples. Boss battles against Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron are other examples of when the gameplay is broken up, but none really detract from what is a repetitive and unimpressive campaign.

Conclusion:

The game has been put together badly and the graphics are very poor. To me this looks like an attempt of EA games to get the last few pennies from the LOTR contract. This game will only really appeal to the die hard Lord of the Rings fans.