Quick Look: Lord of the Rings: War in the North

Get off Jeff's back in regards to his lack of LotR experience. Who are you to criticize someone for not watching or liking a particular series? Oh, so he hasn't seen the movies. You'll get over it.

Also, in my opinion:

Dragon Age > Lord of the Rings.

Shocking, I know.

"Can you find and equip a different colored beard?"

I have to admit, I laughed out loud at that. This isn't Fable, Jeff.

@Vorbis: Yeah, the twins totally are Liam O'Brien. That guy never changes his vocal style, and it's getting a bit grating to me to hear it coming from so many different characters.

@EngineNo9 said:

From this video it seems pretty obvious that Ryan hasn't been paying attention and doesn't even know how to play the game. He isn't using the combo system and critical heavy hits right at all, paying no attention to the arrow that appears above enemies. And the info about leveling and resetting was wrong. And of course you can repair your equipment, had you bothered to talk to the blacksmith in town you would have easily found that out.

And the fact that Jeff hasn't read or seen anything to do with Lord of the Rings is just pathetic. Who's Mario?

If you had bothered to see the whole quicklook you would have easily found out that they did in fact, talk to the blacksmith

Looks boring.

This game is actually pretty fun, they don't seem to be playing it well though. I have this game on PC and they don't seem to fully get how to play the game. I'm surprised you got to level 8 without knowing about repairing your armor, if you had spoken to people in Bree you'd have that down. Also when you see the gold triangle over an enemies head you hit heavy attack on them and do a kind of finishing blow that gives you an XP bonus. they aren't fighting very efficiently at all.

Meh, doesn't look all that good.

In the book the eagles flat out spoke!

@tenaciousdave said:

One does not simply walk into a Quick Look.

ahahaha love this.

Get off Jeff's back in regards to his lack of LotR experience. Who are you to criticize someone for not watching or liking a particular series? Oh, so he hasn't seen the movies. You'll get over it.

Also, in my opinion:

Dragon Age > Lord of the Rings.

Shocking, I know.

Did Jeff say he hasn't seen Lord of the Rings? Really?

Brown is the new Brown.

Now I want a Giant Eagle flight sim.

Can someone who has the game explain me how the inventory/equipment works. Does the gear you put on your NPC henchmen really not persist? And if I understand correctly your level is tied to your profile, not specific characters? So all of the 3 characters always stay the same level?

It looks decent enough, but the spellcasting, dodge-rolling wizard character doesn't scream LotR to me. Also, the browns are too brown.

Considering all the video games inspired by lord of the rings, Jeff should at lease read the book.

Why does the staff cut off heads?

@Moreau_MD said:

"Dear Jeff,

please start posting videos at 480p/720p again for non-subscribers. Nobody

should be forced to watch 360p in 2011. Don't leave us out in the cold man,

many of us have been with Giantbomb for years now. We're poor but loyal, so

that ain't cool. Remember what drove you to create this site in the first place

and help make a good website truly great again. Yay Vinny"

this

@thebigJ_A said:

Lore-master?

Sigh.

I'm a LotR purist, I guess, so maybe I'm weird that it bothers me, but that's just not how magic works in Tolkien's universe. And most especially not with elves.

Gandalf doesn't chuck fireballs.

I'm such a nerd... !

I couldn't agree more. The closest he got to throwing fireballs was in The Hobbit, when he set pine-cones on fire and physically threw them at some wolves. That's a little different from sending blasts of destructive energy out of a staff, and that's from the strongest wizard in that world.

This game is the biggest surprise of the year for me. I am really enjoying this game even though I do not like Lord of the Rings. But I do love the hack n slash genre and Snowblind so it was a match made in heaven.

wait has Jeff never seen lord of the rings?

The game really opens up and goes to lots of different environments after the first area. So it's definitely not all brown hellhole.

Biggest surprise of the year for me. Fun as hell.

Not seeing the Lord of the Rings movies is almost on par with never seeing the classic first three Star Wars releases. Jeff...you should really be ashamed of yourself.

@Kiro said:

@EngineNo9 said:

From this video it seems pretty obvious that Ryan hasn't been paying attention and doesn't even know how to play the game. He isn't using the combo system and critical heavy hits right at all, paying no attention to the arrow that appears above enemies. And the info about leveling and resetting was wrong. And of course you can repair your equipment, had you bothered to talk to the blacksmith in town you would have easily found that out.

And the fact that Jeff hasn't read or seen anything to do with Lord of the Rings is just pathetic. Who's Mario?

If you had bothered to see the whole quicklook you would have easily found out that they did in fact, talk to the blacksmith

If you play the game you know that you actually start in the town of Bree with the blacksmith, vendor and all of the other NPCs, which they clearly didn't know. There are even some starting talk-to missions when you begin in Bree and they had obviously never investigated at all.

At the start of the Quick Look they were a few sections beyond the starting area and had also been given several chances to return to Bree. Yes, they did eventually fumble their way back and figure some of that out, but there's really no excuse for being so uninformed and blatantly wrong when giving impressions of a game.

Neither of the NPC characters got any blood splatered on them.

Using a staff to hack off limbs?! FINALLY!

@Scrawnto said:

@thebigJ_A said:

Lore-master?

Sigh.

I'm a LotR purist, I guess, so maybe I'm weird that it bothers me, but that's just not how magic works in Tolkien's universe. And most especially not with elves.

Gandalf doesn't chuck fireballs.

I'm such a nerd... !

I couldn't agree more. The closest he got to throwing fireballs was in The Hobbit, when he set pine-cones on fire and physically threw them at some wolves. That's a little different from sending blasts of destructive energy out of a staff, and that's from the strongest wizard in that world.

I completely agree. The world of Middle Earth is made unique from other fantasy settings in a number of ways, but how it treats magic is one of the most important. The game's use of the license is cheapened by inserting generic magic-wielding archetypes.

Why not make your game stand out from the crowd and appeal to purists by incorporating the Middle Earth mythos in a more strict fashion?

Edit: Those twins are totally Liam O'Brien.

@EngineNo9 said:

@Kiro said:

@EngineNo9 said:

From this video it seems pretty obvious that Ryan hasn't been paying attention and doesn't even know how to play the game. He isn't using the combo system and critical heavy hits right at all, paying no attention to the arrow that appears above enemies. And the info about leveling and resetting was wrong. And of course you can repair your equipment, had you bothered to talk to the blacksmith in town you would have easily found that out.

And the fact that Jeff hasn't read or seen anything to do with Lord of the Rings is just pathetic. Who's Mario?

If you had bothered to see the whole quicklook you would have easily found out that they did in fact, talk to the blacksmith

If you play the game you know that you actually start in the town of Bree with the blacksmith, vendor and all of the other NPCs, which they clearly didn't know. There are even some starting talk-to missions when you begin in Bree and they had obviously never investigated at all.

At the start of the Quick Look they were a few sections beyond the starting area and had also been given several chances to return to Bree. Yes, they did eventually fumble their way back and figure some of that out, but there's really no excuse for being so uninformed and blatantly wrong when giving impressions of a game.

As always on GiantBomb, Ryan will constantly let his personal feelings about a game or licence control his impression of a game. Immediately you can tell he doesn't like like the game and by doing so gives a poor impression of the game. That being said, there are lots of issues.

"Bubble Up" is infectious. I now will say this in daily life.

tedious junk

This seems reasonably fun.

God, what does Jeff like?

@SparkEngineer said:

As always on GiantBomb, Ryan will constantly let his personal feelings about a game or licence control his impression of a game. Immediately you can tell he doesn't like like the game and by doing so gives a poor impression of the game.

Err, what do you think Quick Looks are for? They aren't marketing tools but just them talking about their opinion on the game. If Ryan doesn't like it, he's going to tell you. Just because he didn't validate your opinion of the game doesn't invalidate his opinion.

Make a good Lair, with giant eagles. Oh shit, Ram-Man reference!

@GioVANNI said:

God, what does Jeff like?

Less brown games

@SmilingPig said:

Considering all the video games inspired by lord of the rings, Jeff should at least read the book.

Or at the very least watch the theatrical releases of the movies. They're very socially relevant and super great movies. They're not my favorite things ever because medieval-style fantasy isn't really my thing, but they're amazing movies.

I definitely share sentiments with everyone complaining about the GB crew's lack of knowledge about the game they are playing. I notice things that they don't all the time, even when they're playing a game I never have. That said, try to keep in mind that they aren't playing these games the way they normally would on their own. They're trying to provide meaningful and entertaining commentary while keeping the gameplay active and fun, with the pressure of knowing thousands of people are going to be watching it later. It isn't easy and I think overall they do a great job. Imagine 5 minutes of mostly game audio while they do nothing but talk to NPCs.

Not learning the game mechanics is the downside of jumping into the game fresh to provide 'first impression' content. I prefer the quick looks where the one at the controls has played the game some and has had the time to not only get a better impression of the game, but has also had time to choose which parts of the game they should show.

Also I love Jeff being seriously disturbed by the giant eagle's first appearance. You'd think it was a giant spider or something.

@GioVANNI: crazy Japanese games with schoolgirls, obviously.

Looks boring.

Lord of the Rings.....*YAWN*......fantasy *yawn*

@FoxMulder said:

Lord of the Rings.....*YAWN*......fantasy *yawn*

Do...you even know what fantasy, as a genre, even is? Or is fantasy to you, just swords and magic?

@Dagmar said:

@FoxMulder said:

Lord of the Rings.....*YAWN*......fantasy *yawn*

Do...you even know what fantasy, as a genre, even is? Or is fantasy to you, just swords and magic?

Yeah youre right...Swords and magic fantasy...YAWN

No Gelatinous Cubes = No Sale.

@Dagmar said:

@FoxMulder said:

Lord of the Rings.....*YAWN*......fantasy *yawn*

Do...you even know what fantasy, as a genre, even is? Or is fantasy to you, just swords and magic?

C'mon man. He's trolling you.

still somewhat interested.

Linear LOTR games will always suck. Make an open world RPG/action adventure and maybe I'll be interested.

beard loot is the best kind of loot

@zoner said:

@GioVANNI said:

God, what does Jeff like?

Less brown games

That's so racist.

@GioVANNI said:

God, what does Jeff like?

Call of Duty

Considering all the video games inspired by lord of the rings, Jeff should at lease read the book.