I was fairly excited when I heard about this game. I promptly pre-ordered it as soon as I could and eagerly waited for the date of release to arrive. I finally got it, only to be pissed off because I had too many assignments due that day for me to sit down and play it. The following day, I saw my chance and took it "Carpe Diem" style. So my first impression was that while not great, the graphics were fairly decent. I was disappointed (playing in co-op) that my friend couldn't pick the same class that I had picked. One of us had to be a dwarf and one had to be a human ranger (I got to be class I wanted to be anyway). I wasn't expecting customization but this limiting of choices severely handicaps the local co-op gameplay. Warning: Pick a friend who is easily manipulated into choosing the thing you want him/her to choose for the best local co-op experience.

After selecting our characters we watched the load screen, which gave us some inane hints (as per usual). Now, finally we got to the gameplay aspect. The screen is split straight down the center, no option for horizontal screen splitting in sight. Eh, I can deal with this, I shrug off the annoyance of missing half of the TV and catching the movements of my friend's character out of the corner of my eye while I play. The combat is brutal (not as brutal as Dead Island though), arms, legs and heads will be removed with resulting blood splatters hitting the floor and environment. Yay, finally I can dismember orcs and goblins my life is complete! Yeah? Yeah? You think? Well, yeah. Although blocking is fairly difficult and if you were to be swarmed be enemies you would be in very deep trouble. Getting gang-raped by a swarm of pug faced goblins kind of trouble. I have not seen the option for a counterattack ability, which strikes me as odd because the game sorely needs it. You can roll out of the way of attacks but that is not very effective when there are goblins/orcs surrounding you. Overall, if you do not enjoy button mashing, control your desire to punish some orcs and wait for another LOTR game. Oh, you can also use your bow/crossbow (if you're a human/dwarf) and there are skill trees, though they are not very extensive or impressive. The mage, as far as I can tell, can shoot magic projectiles that look like orbs of light. She can also cast spells that create a Halo style bubble shield that heals party members when they are in it.

The weapons are varied, clubs, hatchets, swords, two-handed swords and the like. Typical fair for a Hack N' Slash Hybrid RPG..thing. There are also shields that you can use as well. There are different armor types, which degrade as do the weapons over use/time (I haven't figured out which yet). Regardless, all the variations of duel wielding feel the same, it doesn't matter if you're wielding a cleaver and a sword or a mace and a cleaver (you get the idea).

But I digress..

After plowing through around two hours of the story, we have some nice weapons and shiny armor. Then the game freezes. Amongst a haze of various swears we reset the 360 only to find that my friend's character somehow got ahead of mine by 7 "sections" (Each chapter is divided into sections). How did this happen if we have been playing together the whole time? No clue. So we play on my story (your character can't play with another character in local co-op if his story progression is further then yours otherwise the game won't save). After spending another hour hacking down orcs, trolls (yeah they have them in this game too!) and some boss like orc commander we pass the chapter. I have the option to either return to Bree (your home base) or..play through the chapter again. No option to go to the next area. We try my friend's save game, his story progresses perfectly fine (my game doesn't save due to the aforementioned reason). We try my game again, same problem. So, I decide I'll just restart my character (traded my friend's character all the goods in my inventory) and my friend's level 10 dwarf can help me get through the chapter. Upon starting the new game his character is a level 1, no armor, no weapons, nothing in his inventory. I saved my game in the current save slot, he chose his character and saved it as well. Apparently, when the game asks if you want to "save game in current slot" it really means, "Erase your hard work and start over bitch".

With that, we gave up (for now). Utterly defeated by this weird occurrence. It is disappointing because the story is actually fairly intriguing (and there is a talking eagle! Don't deny it, you know you want to see it talk). Well, maybe I'll give it another try when my classes are done.

Overall though, I was really enjoying the game itself. :(

Update: There actually is character customization (It is set all the way in off in a corner of the tavern you start out in but it is not mentioned at all at any point).

Update #2: After that initial odd occurrence the game has been running smoothly and I love it :D