To this day, Star Wars: Battlefront II is one of most played original Xbox games on Xbox Live. Taking the winning Battlefront formula then and applying it to the Lord of the Rings series - a franchise famous for its epic battles - should've been a repeat success for Pandemic's series. But sadly, it isn't.
In visuals, audio, execution and level design Lord of the Rings Conquest is unremarkable in almost every aspect. The majority of maps are cluttered, boxy and completely lack the epic-feel of the movies. The winning Battlefront formula has been hampered by dull combat, sloppy presentation and little respect for the Tolkien franchise.
Remember the epic Fellowship of the Rings prologue, which stunningly envisions the evil Sauron's defeat in a battle of thousands of orcs, elves and men? Here the battle is reduced to a twenty-man pile-in down a pit, where the dark lord simply turns up on the battlefield (accompanied by the annoying, never-shuts-up announcer "It's Sauron!") and then chases you around like a Scooby Doo villain whilst you backtrack and shoot arrows into his face.
The most epic thing about this entire opening battle is the hundred or so orc-shaped cardboard cut-outs in the background, flailing their swords like animated gifs. And yes - they're invincible too.
It's a bad opening to a disappointing game. As you'd expect Conquest's single-player experience takes the form of various Lord of the Rings battles chucked together in an order, book-ended with clips from the films, a licensed soundtrack and a voiceover by the bloke who did the Cillit Bang ads (sounds like him, anyway).
Just like the Battlefront blueprint gameplay's based on, each level challenges you to capture or defend specific points of the map, or eliminate special enemies such as orc captains and Oliphaunts. Pick your character class (Warrior, Archer, Mage and Scout), go for the objective, die, repsawn, die, respawn. Repeat.
The first two playable character classes are as bland as cornflakes; Warrior's are your basic hack 'n slash vehicles while Archers feel like Stormtroopers with guns disguised as bows. Mages and Scouts at least inject some strategy into online games with moves like the Scout's ability to cloak and backstab, and the Mage's arrow-blocking shield bubble keeping things slightly interesting.
With ranged combat and vehicles scaled back for the Tolkien setting, Conquest's battles lean towards close-combat, hack 'n slash scuffles that, while not disastrously executed, become repetitive quickly.
Lord of the Ring's giant creatures and monsters, Conquest's answer to Battlefront's AT-ATs and Scout Walkers, are sadly one of the most poorly-executed parts of the package. Taking down a giant Oliphaunt - one of most thrilling sequences from the films - should be an epic endeavour. Instead the struggle takes the form of three incredibly forgiving and very easy QTE sequences, which end with the 50ft gargantuan awkwardly flopping sideways and then instantly vanishing from the battlefield. Sorry but that's rubbish.
Hulking Cave Trolls too, instead of the intimidatingly aggressive foes from the films, are reduced to the easiest enemies to off in the game, thanks to a one-button QTE sequence. As you can imagine, this also makes the one-hit-kill critters slightly frustrating to control in multiplayer games when they're occasionally available.
Meanwhile mountable horses - which give you the ability to swipe left, swipe right, or get hit and fall off - are among the most useless modes of transport imaginable. And then - just when you think Pandemic would get a break - there are the Ents, which instead of being giant tree monsters are now 7ft grey... things, that flail, catch fire and aren't fun to play at all. No thank you.
But the worst thing about Lord of the Rings Conquest is the ridiculous, almost parody-style liberties it takes with the Lord of the Rings license.
Wormtongue, the traitorous servant to Sauruman who was dramatically defeated by Gandalf in the books and films, simply turns up during a fight as if he'd strolled off course on the way to the shops. This is all accompanied of course by our resident Monty Python-style announcer, who bellows award winning dialogue in the vein of, "Look! It's that bloke Wormtongue! Stab 'im!"
Reckon the powerful Witch King can deal with a metal gate? Nope, he's got to "press RB to pull the lever", according to John Cleese man, who's put on an Emmerdale accent for the baddie campaign. This, by the way, is the reason that LucasArts disabled Darth Vader's run button in The Force Unleashed - Conquest makes Lord of the Ring's most recognisable characters look absolutely ridiculous.
Online the maps feature slightly less scripted and cut-scene fat than in single-player. They offer support for up to 16 players (again, hardly epic) and sport the same 'capture flag, defend control point' objectives accompanied by dirty great floating arrows to show you where they are like in the offline mode.
Conquest is and was always going to be billed as a game geared for the online experience. But ultimately surrounded by the mess of dull combat, embarrassing set-pieces and the sort of franchise liberties that'll have Tolkien break dancing in his grave, it's just doesn't live up to today's expectations.
Where Battlefront lovingly recreated our favourite Star Wars battles, Conquest parodies Lord of the Rings. Where Battlefront provided exciting Rebel vs. Empire laser shootouts, Conquest offers dull and repetitive combat.
The pairing of large-scale online battle game with the thrill-packed Lord of the Rings series should've been a winner, but as it's turned out, Conquest won't possibly satisfying any Battlefront fan or Lord of the Rings buff at all.
I wasn't remotely impressed with the demo. The preview videos made it sound like you'd be taking on hundreds of enemies in massive dramatic sequences and it was half a dozen guys running at you with dodgy voice acting. No penalty for death other than that "Hero" not being available for a bit. Great.
I also found the controls really clunky. Keeping the Scout cloaked and moving should have been a toggle to prevent RSI and strange wrist shapes.
I'm not normally a fan of these hack 'n' slash games anyway, but I recently tried Heavenly Sword and that was good. This doesn't compare. Very much a case of "so much potential, so little substance".
Heavenly sword is a different beast altogether I don't think you can compare it to that.
I enjoyed the demo playing with my son, but i was expecting much more from the full game, and it seems I have already seen it all. i was particularly looking forward to playing as a Troll or other monster, but the review has really put me off this game now. I still commend it for including two player local and I might still pick it up on the cheap.
Is this one man's opinion at CVG, or is this a collective CVG review; because this game has recieved EXTREMELY mixed reviews, and I'm getting confused as to wether this is actually worth playing at all.
I really enjoyed the demo and the voice over for the demo at least was hugo weaving as far as i could tell. reminded me of the movie tie in games that came out for the PS2 and Xbox.
Don't know about the full game though.
Thinking the guy that did the fan was either a) A really big star wars fan. B) a really big battlefront fan or C) a really big Lord Of the rings Fan (book more than film)
I thought that Battlefront also did a suitably shoddy job of Recreating Starwars in a similar clunky and underwhelming way.
But to spend an entire review comparing it to another game without even attempting to assess it on its own merits as a thing in and of itself is pathetic.
There's only return and its not of the king its of the jedi. right guys!
WheresMyMonkey you seem to forget that this game IS basically a carbon copy of another game, with new skins, and apparently worse Gameplay.
I enjoyed the Battlefront games to a degree, but I thought even they were clunky and repetitive, the fact it was Star Wars was the only pull, just like the fact this is LotR will pull in mindless fans of the LotR lore to play this game.
The review comments entirely on this games ommitance of any 'merits' and sounds pretty fair.
I cant believe this game, I played the demo on the 360 and couldnt get over how bad it was, if I had paid full price for this I think I would have thrown up. A very very poor game indeed.
as soon as i saw this was coming out i decided to buy it. Loved the battle front games and like lord of the rings enough to make this an essential purchase. Luckily i tried the demo and quickly realised was a crock of poo this game is! everything about it is wrong, hated every second of it. AVOID. Should have realised it would be rubbish as its being released at such an odd time. A real mess.
i have been playing it all night and sure it isnt a 10,but it certainly doesnt deserve a score as low as 4..i myself would give it a 7,and i havent been online yet,i have just finished the 2 single player campaigns
yup,there are faults with the game...but not enough for it to get a 4,it has Too Human on this site having a 6.8,sorry but that game was garbage,and IMO much worse than this
i do know that OXM also gave this game a 4,but the reviewer in it also said he didnt like star wars battlefront,which instantly made that review obselete
Who are the morons on Play.com who give this game the highest rating!? It p**ses me off to no limit seeing assholes telling people to buy shoddy games.
Seriously, I want to ask the people who made this game "do you think this is a good game?" Surely you should at least try and make improvements on your last titles. This has to be THE MOST REGRESSIVE game ever. It really belongs on last gen consoles, but even then.... It would still be sub standard and dare I say it "A BAG OF s**tE'.
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Character classes add strategy elements
