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Lord of the Rings: Conquest

$19.30

User Reviews about Lord of the Rings: Conquest

I was interested in this game when it came out, due to the promise of being able to make your own impact in the world of Middle-Earth. Unfortunately the promise is not quite fulfilled, but it is a fun enough game...on the DS, anyway. Essentially Conquest is a Middle-Earth version of capture-the-flag, but with a few things to make it more interesting, such as the ability to switch character types during battle, and of course the trappings of the Lord of the Rings world.

While such a simple enough game goes well with the DS and is great fun on it, it doesn't go well on the 360 at all. I can't speak for the PS3 or PC releases, but the 360 version is a complete opposite of fun. It's ridiculously hard, and not because it is challenging, but because the controls are stiff and unresponsive, the enemies are better-organised than your allies will ever be, and the game has no balance whatsoever.

You really have only to play the first proper level to see how lacking the game is. Was there any playtesting done? It doesn't seem like it. It's easy to fall to your doom, to an inaccessible area below, but what's worse is, if you have an item necessary for the completion of the level and fall off, you might as well start over. You can never recover it. A very clear example of sloppy game design. And yes, I did mean start completely over, as there is no interim save, nor any sort of checkpoint, featured in Conquest. The levels are not really short, but if one single thing goes wrong, you're doomed.

Enemy AI is overpowered and ruthless, whereas ally AI is asinine and virtually no help at all. However, at times enemy bosses will fall afoul of the same problems that plague you, such as stumbling to their doom over the many treacherous ledges in this game, which really should have been tempered somehow.

You will spend the battle constantly knocked down and out, or running for your life as you try to get a better vantage point or recover your energy. Conquest feels more like 'Lord of the Rings: The Prostitute Simulator' because quite frankly you spend 90% of any given level on your back. The difficulty settings are worthless, because even on the easiest one, you are beaten like a rag doll no matter what you do.

The 'Instant Action' option is useless, as is most of the Campaign, if you want to have any real fun. The official pitch is that you can unlock heroes from the story to use, but the reality of it is that you only are rarely able to use them, and even then it's usually only against other players, which limits it considerably since the game's online play servers are no longer in operation. This makes the DLC with extra heroes completely useless, since you can only parade around in hero deathmatch arenas...alone. Boromir's pretty impressive, too bad all he can do is beat up an empty courtyard.

More or less every mode is as little fun as the main game, and you're so completely outmatched on any difficulty setting that it's not even remotely entertaining. Battle your foes, who are so overpowered that you have no chance and constantly have to respawn...what a blast.

The voices are not bad, but they're misused horribly. Your allies constantly bark at you during any battle, and what's worst of all is that they bark pretty much the same thing, or exactly the same thing. It takes very little of this before you will become absolutely sick of hearing it.

The DS version is entertaining, simple, and straightforward. Though it has only a handful of maps to it, and naturally much fewer options in terms of modes, it's a significantly better game. It controls well, it's simple, it's capture-the-flag fun with some bonuses. It's entertaining to play, you can pick it up and do a stage, put it down and feel satisfied afterwards. It may not be for everyone, but it's certainly fun enough and will satisfy especially fans of Lord of the Rings.

Unfortunately the 360 version, at least, is nothing like that. While ambitious, it managed to fall short in pretty much every way. The stages look very pretty, though to me they didn't really seem very much like Middle-Earth. The music was fine. The voices became irritating very quickly. The gameplay is atrocious and ridiculously difficult, though not challenging -- just frustrating and poorly-implemented. The game is full of holes and bugs, clearly not playtested or put through quality control of any kind. It's a pity, especially since it held such promise. It could have been a really good game. But there's absolutely no reason for anyone to waste their money or time on such a bad game.

I understand the online multiplayer was fun, and I'd believe that it can't be any worse than playing against the hideous computer, even if I'm not that fond of playing against other players. But the game at its root is just a bad game, and that is quite an unfortunate thing. It could have been something very special. But for whatever reason, and I'm tempted to believe it was probably pressure from EA, well-known for ruining many games, none of the promise of this game was fulfilled for anything but the simplified DS version.
-- Okay for DS! For other systems, not so much.

I bought this game for my brother because he really liked Star Wars Battlefront II for the playstation 2 and he loves the Lord of The Rings. And I was thinking that since this was new it would be much better than Battlefront, but I was wrong.

Cons
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First- if you play quick match on two player you cant be on the same team.

Second- the Campaign is short and boring.

Third- Bosses are either too hard or too easy.


Pros
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1. Vehicles are fun and interesting.

2. After you win the regular campaign you get to do an evil campaign where you can play as ringwraiths, Sauron, and more.


Overall I would recommend to just rent the game for a week or play the demo first and see if you like it.
Hope this helps! :) -- Beware: Don't buy thinking it will be like Star Wars BattleFront

This is an excellent game, especially if you enjoy playing split-screen as it offers split screen career mode as well as the ability to play a variety of game types in single player or split-screen. A must-have for any LOTR fan! -- Fun Game At An Incredible Price!