An action RPG with a focus on cooperative multiplayer through the untold story of the war in the north on the world of Middle Earth, famous for being the setting for Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings saga.
How does it play?
Right from the start you are introduced to the events taking place in Middle Earth if you haven't seen the movies or read the books. Your journey will take you through familiar and new areas of the world alongside a group made by Andriel the elf Loremaster, Farin the dwarven Champion and Eradan the human Ranger. Each character plays a bit different with unique looks, weapons, skills and abilities.
The Heroes.
If you are familiar with other RPGs you will quickly grasp the gameplay behind each character, the Loremaster is your typical mage or sorceress, low on stamina and armor but has powerful spells that can heal friends and damage large number of opponents. The Champion plays like the classic warrior or tank with high armor and melee damage with powerful buffs for friends. Finally, the Ranger plays like an archer or rogue utilizing stealth and long range attacks to fight their enemies.
Through each character's skill tree you can customize their abilities and powers, as an example, the Loremaster can only utilize staves as weapons but, once you spend the required skill points she can also duel wield swords, maces and axes alongside her staff.
The game lends itself to a lot of user customization, not in looks but certainly in how you want to play, there is enough variety and experimentation.
Inventory.
Although you play as 3 original characters you will meet several characters you might have heard of like Gandalf, Elrond, Gimli, Frodo as well as others who you haven't like Elrond's sons Elladan and Elrohir, Radagast the Brown and the great eagle named Beleram . Some are crucial to your journey while others provide information and history about the world and its current conflict.
When approaching NPCs (non playable characters) you will be given choices of dialogue and unlike other RPGs there is no moral ramification to these choices, its all about learning more lore.
Gandalf is one of the iconic characters you will meet.
The game is split in 8 chapters with each taking place in 2 or 3 areas as well as a town (to buy, repair and get new quests). There is one main quest per chapter as well as a few side quests which might provide additional rewards. Once you reach the end of a chapter there will be a boss fight.
Your journey will take you around 8 or 10 hours to complete depending on how much you play, it isn't a long or challenging game and its pretty linear with a few detours here and there. Each location you visit has a different look to it as well as the creatures and enemies that inhabit them.
In one area you might fight a group of goblins and in another giant trolls which take several hits to take down. The enemies themselves are not very smart and some just serve as cannon fodder, very few enemies in fact will present a challenge.
These 2 aspects of the game are what bring the experience down, even if the game does provide higher difficulty levels to play through with more loot and harder enemies.
Pesky trolls!
Also the game sports some great audio with orchestrated music and weapon and spell effects that sound just right. There is a full voiced cast for all the conversation and scenes some characters sound great while others sound bad. None of the actors from the movies reprise their roles here (as far as I know).
Fun: 4/5 (some repetitive gameplay)
Final Score: 4/5
As a hack and slash RPG it is easy to think its all about mashing buttons and while this might be true for the most part the game feels fresh with different combination of abilities and attacks. The game itself tries to mix things up a bit with enemies that require different use of abilities to take down and even throwing some turret (or in this case, giant crossbows) gameplay too.
Finally the coop multiplayer is what the game is designed for and should you purchase the game with the intention of playing it alone please keep this in mind. While the game can easily be played with your AI companions, the experience is so much more rewarding if your playing with human players who can communicate and interact.
How does it look?
Before the game was released, I read several comments from people saying the game looked like a Playstation 2 era game, I find these comments to be used quite often for lesser known games or when users believe a game is not good. This game does not look like a Playstation 2 game and in fact I doubt a PS2 could even render it.
The graphics look great, particularly when you look at the armor on your characters its incredibly detailed and well designed.
Some areas do have a lack of polish as well as some animations, but for the most part the game looks the part burrowing heavily from the style set in the movie trilogy.
The graphics look great, particularly when you look at the armor on your characters its incredibly detailed and well designed.
Some areas do have a lack of polish as well as some animations, but for the most part the game looks the part burrowing heavily from the style set in the movie trilogy.
Also the game sports some great audio with orchestrated music and weapon and spell effects that sound just right. There is a full voiced cast for all the conversation and scenes some characters sound great while others sound bad. None of the actors from the movies reprise their roles here (as far as I know).
Final veredict?
I think its easy to dismiss the game as a typical hack and slash action RPG and therefore nothing worth a look. Its true, it did release a few weeks before this year's massive The Elder's Scroll V: Skyrim which had a lot of player's attention (and money) but me personally, I went with War in the North and you might ask why?
LOTR: War in the North provides something Skyrim does not and that is a cooperative multiplayer experience, which might be short but at the end of the day its enjoyable if you like this genre.
It probably will be lost to other more popular games and its been receiving some pretty harsh criticism but I enjoy it and I think its pretty fun and at the end of the day isn't that what games are about?
Presentation: 4/5 (great character design but some things lack polish)
Gameplay: 4/5 (short and a bit easy, but enjoyable multiplayer)
Gameplay: 4/5 (short and a bit easy, but enjoyable multiplayer)
Fun: 4/5 (some repetitive gameplay)
Final Score: 4/5
