Even though I've been blogging less I still have been gaming a good amount. I recently got Lord of the Rings: War in the North on the PS3 and wow this game really surprised me with how fun it was. I couldn't put the game down for a few days until I beat it. It has its share of problems, mostly in the form of semi-unforgivable bugs because it was rushed by its publisher WB Games probably. There are a few bugs that are game-breaking, forcing you to have to restart your game due to you being unable to progress in the game. I didn't have it happen to me, but my friend did, and so have lots of other people when you search about it online. Also, It is marketed as a 3 player co-op experience for online play, however the game seems to handle lag terribly and is pretty unplayable online. That saddened me as I looked forward to playing this online with 2 other guys, but playing it in singleplayer was really fun even still.The computer controls the 2 other co-op partners in the game, but they have an acceptable level of intelligence for video game AI and you can order them around a bit and make them act slightly less dumb.

I am a fan of the Lord of the Rings world. I found the movies to be so-so after re-watching them for the 2nd time recently. I read the book The Hobbit when I was in the 6th grade but dont know how I would feel about it now and I never read the rest of the books because the movies came out and ruined the story for me anyways. My opinions about the movies and books doesn't matter though since I am just a big fan of the setting of the series. I like the whole middle age era with crazy magical sh*t going on thing the series has ha. The enemies and villains in the Lord of the Rings are just so awesome too.

The above paragraph, although a bit of a tangent, does relate to how I feel about the game. The game does a great job of making you feel like it's part of the Lord of the Rings universe. It feels like the quality of a movie almost in the story and voice acting. It tells a tale of a dwarf, sorcerer, and ranger that is supposed to happen at the same time as the main story of the Lord of the Rings. It was cool to go through a new adventure rather than the same one from the books and movies again.

I am a big fan of the Two Towers and Return of the King games on the Playstation 2 and Xbox. They had great combat systems, cool level design, and nailed down the feeling of the Lord of the Ring movies. Lord of the Rings War in the North surpasses those games even imo. The combat doesn't use button combination style combo's like those older games, but feels actually more like a beat-em-up. You mash light attacks on enemies until and indicator pops up that lets you do critical hits. I've been told that the combat system is similar to the newer Batman games, even though I haven't played those myself. This combat system has healthy amounts of gore in the style of awesome beheadings and limb severing though ha. You also can shoot projectiles with your crossbow, and as you level up your character you unlock lots of special attacks that you can do easily by pushing two buttons together. The pacing in this game is really good too. The environments and enemies you fight change right at the best moments, right when you feel like you are almost getting bored of things. One other thing that keeps the game interesting is that you find tons of new weapons and armor throughout the game. You are rewarded for exploring the less obvious areas in levels with treasure chests and other goodies that help you a lot in the game. There are tons of different weapons to choose from and they alter your play style quite a bit which is nice since it gives the game a lot of replayability.

I wasn't expecting much from this game as it had fairly low reviews and I knew it would be a bit buggy. Despite the bugs though I had a huge amount of fun playing it as a singleplayer game. I would highly recommend this game to play offline either alone or in split screen. YEP, this game actually has at least 2 player split screen and seems like it would be a great local co-op experience. If you are looking to buy this game to play online, I'd not bother as its online mode seems to not have been tested enough and cannot handle the slightest bit of lag before things get unplayable. It is a shame since the core game is really well- made.

Even though I've been blogging less I still have been gaming a good amount. I recently got Lord of the Rings: War in the North on the PS3 and wow this game really surprised me with how fun it was. I couldn't put the game down for a few days until I beat it. It has its share of problems, mostly in the form of semi-unforgivable bugs because it was rushed by its publisher WB Games probably. There are a few bugs that are game-breaking, forcing you to have to restart your game due to you being unable to progress in the game. I didn't have it happen to me, but my friend did, and so have lots of other people when you search about it online. Also, It is marketed as a 3 player co-op experience for online play, however the game seems to handle lag terribly and is pretty unplayable online. That saddened me as I looked forward to playing this online with 2 other guys, but playing it in singleplayer was really fun even still.The computer controls the 2 other co-op partners in the game, but they have an acceptable level of intelligence for video game AI and you can order them around a bit and make them act slightly less dumb.

I am a fan of the Lord of the Rings world. I found the movies to be so-so after re-watching them for the 2nd time recently. I read the book The Hobbit when I was in the 6th grade but dont know how I would feel about it now and I never read the rest of the books because the movies came out and ruined the story for me anyways. My opinions about the movies and books doesn't matter though since I am just a big fan of the setting of the series. I like the whole middle age era with crazy magical sh*t going on thing the series has ha. The enemies and villains in the Lord of the Rings are just so awesome too.

The above paragraph, although a bit of a tangent, does relate to how I feel about the game. The game does a great job of making you feel like it's part of the Lord of the Rings universe. It feels like the quality of a movie almost in the story and voice acting. It tells a tale of a dwarf, sorcerer, and ranger that is supposed to happen at the same time as the main story of the Lord of the Rings. It was cool to go through a new adventure rather than the same one from the books and movies again.

I am a big fan of the Two Towers and Return of the King games on the Playstation 2 and Xbox. They had great combat systems, cool level design, and nailed down the feeling of the Lord of the Ring movies. Lord of the Rings War in the North surpasses those games even imo. The combat doesn't use button combination style combo's like those older games, but feels actually more like a beat-em-up. You mash light attacks on enemies until and indicator pops up that lets you do critical hits. I've been told that the combat system is similar to the newer Batman games, even though I haven't played those myself. This combat system has healthy amounts of gore in the style of awesome beheadings and limb severing though ha. You also can shoot projectiles with your crossbow, and as you level up your character you unlock lots of special attacks that you can do easily by pushing two buttons together. The pacing in this game is really good too. The environments and enemies you fight change right at the best moments, right when you feel like you are almost getting bored of things. One other thing that keeps the game interesting is that you find tons of new weapons and armor throughout the game. You are rewarded for exploring the less obvious areas in levels with treasure chests and other goodies that help you a lot in the game. There are tons of different weapons to choose from and they alter your play style quite a bit which is nice since it gives the game a lot of replayability.

I wasn't expecting much from this game as it had fairly low reviews and I knew it would be a bit buggy. Despite the bugs though I had a huge amount of fun playing it as a singleplayer game. I would highly recommend this game to play offline either alone or in split screen. YEP, this game actually has at least 2 player split screen and seems like it would be a great local co-op experience. If you are looking to buy this game to play online, I'd not bother as its online mode seems to not have been tested enough and cannot handle the slightest bit of lag before things get unplayable. It is a shame since the core game is really well- made.

Sweet. I played the demo for this game and I liked it enough, but I had a hard time paying 50 bucks for it when there's just so many other games I want. Reading this makes me wonder about the future of Lord of the Rings games.

There' been a lot of garbage LOTR games released in the past, so was refreshing that this one was pretty great. Don't think it sold very well though sadly.

I loved the hell out of it.

I've been on the fence about this one since it came out. Had really gotten excited leading up to its release but the reviews and word of mouth wasn't great so I cooled on it. I was looking forward to the co op and it seems like you say it's busted which is a bummer however you're the only person who really enjoyed the story that I've heard from. Rest of people said it was whatever. So you've given me more to think about in this blog good read.

There's something that distinguishes 'generic' fantasy from Lord of the Rings, and it doesn't have anything to do with the lore or the enemies or elves or Gandalf, or whatever. It's actually about the tone, and when you make something that is Lord of the Rings but your character is actually just a badass warrior, that disappears. I didn't play War in the North, and that's why - it looked like a generic fantasy game in Tolkien's clothes.

that talking eagle is a fuckin boss.

YOU CAN CALL HIM FOR SUPPORT PRETTY MUCH WHENEVER!

this game is great

I realize this sounds like flamebait, but the game was just so terribly visually boring to me.

I didn't mind the visuals but the combat was very lack luster. Still I enjoyed the game more than I thought I would though.

If you really like the world that much, you should try out LOTRO if you haven't already. They did an amazing job of recreating the world, even if the gameplay can be a bit meh.

The GB forums is no place for such contrarian opinions!

greenmangaming.com has it on sale now for $9.99 if any one is interested. I have been wanting to give it a go despite the QL making the game look rather bad. For $9.99 what the hell. It's an even $7.00 if you use their 30% off code GMG30-DEC01-ARFC9.

I really liked the rpgs that were tie-ins to the films when they were released. I haven't played them in a while so they could be awful but I would play that co-op with my brother or friends and had a blast. I was always Legolas or Gandalf.

@D_Bones Well the story wasn't amazing, but I thought the voice acting was pretty well done for a lotr game and the story was above the normal lotr game story. The fun gameplay is the best part of the game, so if you mainly want a good story the game might not be what you want. Its gotten pretty cheap now though so it's working checking out regardless.

@thedj93 Yea, I also liked the talking eagles ha. Raining down death from the skies with a giant eagle never got old.

@mtcantor Meh, I never really care about graphics all that much for a game if the gameplay is fun, and it was in this game. I don't remember thinking the graphics were too bad either.

@mordukai Well, I saw them in theaters when they first released and I loved them. But rewatching them this past year I could see a lot of flaws in the movies. They feel really dragged out in parts for no good reason. There is a lot of cheesiness in those movies that I didnt really recognize when I was younger as well. The parts where sam and frodo are all sappy and whining at each other takes up a ridiculous amount of time in the movie as well. There more why I didnt like the movies as much after rewatching them, but it's been about a year since I've done so, so can't remember everything. I still like the movies, but don't think they are as amazing as I remembered them when they first came out.

@crusader8463 For that price I think even if you are unsure about it, it's worth it.

I really wanted to love it but I hated it! Although in fairness I only ever played it split screen with my mate. Just so many little things wound me up about it, for example the sound kept cutting out and restarting, and whenever one person went to speak to someone it would go full screen meaning that the other player is stopped from doing anything. This got so annoying in the various town areas.

most annoyingly the large trolls and enemies could seemingly knock you down in one hit and it took so long to get up again that they would hit you for a second time and keep you down. Although that may just be because I was doing something wrong!

It was really fun to play! I disliked how strong the enemies got later on (and stagger immune, meaning 3-4 of those bad asses would gang up on you and knock you silly over and over and over and over again) but the story was fun and the environments where pure fantasy magic. Loved it a whole lot and would recommend it to everyone interested in a decent hack and slash with rpg tints (loot, experience, talent trees!).
 
Being a fan of the series made me appreciate a lot of the environments, like the Barrow Downs that felt a-fucking-mazing to visit.