Toss Lord of the Rings Conquest into the firey depths or Mt. Doom
I suppose it says a lot about Star Wars Battlefront II that it still sits right behind Halo 2 as the most played original Xbox title on
The single-player campaign of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (also available as a 2-player co-op), will take you through the movie trilogy, leading the forces of Good in many of the famous epic battles you’ve probably already played in countless other LOTR games. You can choose from four classes: Warrior, Scout, Archer or Mage. Each class plays about the way you’d expect – Warriors deal a lot of damage, Scouts are quick and can turn invisible, Archers have a variety of special arrows, and mages can launch magical attacks and heal their teammates. Many levels also allow you to take control of a Troll or Ent, acting almost as vehicles would in Star Wars Battlefront. In another returning feature from Battlefront II, performing well will allow you to become one of many heroes and villains from the LOTR movies, such as Aragorn and the Balrog. Gameplay tends to range between yawn-inducing and frustrating, with few truly satisfying moments. Even key moments, such as fighting Saruman as Gandalf, tend to fall flat. Often times, you’ll find yourself failing objectives due to no fault of your own. In one instance, I was forced to restart the Battle of Osgiliath when an AI controlled Frodo that I was asked to escort was suddenly carried off by one of the Nazgul’s dragons, something I could not prevent. In fact, failing any level means you must restart from the beginning. With many battles taking upwards of 20-30 minutes on the hardest difficulty, this can be an exercise in frustration.
Once you’ve completed the Good portion of the campaign, you’ll unlock the far more entertaining Evil campaign. This campaign deals with a “What If?” scenario in which Frodo is unable to destroy the One Ring, thus falling into the hands of Sauron. From there, take control of the forces of Evil, blazing a path of destruction through Middle-Earth. While your tasks, such as summoning the Balrog in the Mines of Moria and sacking Rivendell, introduce enough fresh narrative to keep you playing, it is far shorter than the Good campaign, and a rather frustrating final level may leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
Much like the Battlefront games, Conquest seems primarily focused on multiplayer. Generally lag-free dedicated servers are available for all four game modes: Team Deathmatch, Hero Team Deathmatch, Capture the Ring, and Conquest. The team deathmatch modes are pretty straight-forward, although I found myself preferring the standard deathmatch, as Hero Team Deathmatch really removes the novelty of playing as the hero characters. Capture the Ring is most comparable to neutral bomb Assault in Halo – the ring sits at the center of the map, and you must carry it to the opposing team’s base to score it. IT is also without a doubt the mode I enjoy the least. While it’s Halo counterpart is usually a favorite of mine, LOTR’s Capture the Ring seems rather shoehorned into maps from the campaign that are clearly not designed to support the mode. As a result, capturing the ring becomes less about strategy and more about your luck with the respawn timer. The flagship mode of the multiplayer is of course Conquest, which should be familiar to anyone who’s played the Star Wars Battlefront games. You’re charged with capturing several points on the map, at which point they become available to you as a spawn point. Unfortunately, LOTR: Conquest is limited to 16 players per server, an oversight when you consider the PS2 and Xbox versions of Star Wars Battlefront II were capable of 24 and 32 players, respectively.
Perhaps the best feature of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is its audio. Hugo Weaving reprises his role as Elrond, narrating cutscenes in both the Good and Evil campaigns. The thunderous footsteps of Trolls and Ents be heard, and felt, across the battlefield, Howard Shore’s booming musical score from the films is also present, doing its best to inject emotion into the emotionless gameplay. Visually the game is passable. Certainly you’ll recognize Helm’s Deep and Pellenor Fields when you see them, but none of the environments will ever truly draw you into these epic battles the way you’d hope.
Ultimately, Pandemic’s Middle-Earth paint job didn’t include any work under the hood, leaving Tolkien fans with a frequently frustrating and mostly unfulfilling experience.
