Sorely disappointed (The Lord Of The Rings: Conquest (Xbox 360))

Member Name: mchitty

Product:	The Lord Of The Rings: Conquest (Xbox 360)
Date:	29/04/09 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Moments of fun... playing as LotR characters

Disadvantages: Shoddy clunky gameplay and graphics

To all intents and purposes, I feel as though I should like this game. All the elements are there - Lord of the Rings theme, big epic battles, several different character classes to play, recreated Lord of the Rings locations... so why can i just not bring myself to enjoy this game???

The general idea here is sound - just like the relatively good Xbox game 'Star Wars: Battlefront', the game puts the 'Battlefield 1942' mold of epic action gameplay into a popular movie franchise. That is, each stage takes place on a sweeping epic battlefield, and you are allowed you to play as either a mere troop amongst the masses or as one of the main characters from the series itself. You can play on either side (i.e. good or evil), which is a good feature, and whether you are in the campaign or online you will be fighting alongside and against hordes of other AI contrlled fighters.

The problem here is entirely in the execution. It feels as though very little effort has been put into creating this game - barely any effort at all, in fact. The game feels like little more than Star Wars Battlefront with some new graphics bunged in.

My main problem is probably the controls, or more accurately the feel of the game. This feels very 'arcadey' - like a third person shooter from several years ago - none of the actions in the game feel like they have any real physical existence. Your character glides along the ground, enemies drop to the floor pathetically when you kill them - when I compare this to other games, Lord of the Rings: Conquest just doesn't perform. There is no satisfying or epic feel to the combat, and seeing as this is the main element of the game, this is a major issue.

This shoddiness carries through into the graphics, which are equally disappointing. Landscapes are dull and unrealistic. Character animations are cringeworthy. Surely a Lord of the Rings game has enough of a budget behind it to make something more polished than this!? Again, I am disappointed!

To conclude, this game is highly disappointing. The epic feel that I expected from this action-based battle game was not there, and the polish that I would also expect from a Lord of the Rings game was also lacking. If you want a LotR fix - I would recommend trying out LotR Online on the PC.

Summary: I had high hopes...and they have been dashed!