When I purchased Conquest, I was expecting very good things. The idea seemed awesome, and the demo was excellent, especially online. It’s just a shame that it stopped there.
The first level is probably the best level you will get to play (the same as the one in the demo). Slashing up orcs is great for half an hour, but once you realise that all the other character classes apart from Warrior suck, then the game starts losing it’s appeal. The gameplay is very dull and repetitive, especially when all the enemies seem to do is block. The level layouts are designed horrifically basic, and often have you ending up dying by accident by falling into water (yeah, you can’t swim!) or falling off a cliff because your flame attack throws you that way. There is nothing to explore, just a linear path with some open area’s in the middle. The missions range from destroying things, to killing a main character with another main character, even though half the time you die and have to do it with a normal class.
The concept is amazing, especially the Rise of Sauron campaign where it plays as though Frodo didn’t destroy the ring. It also pieces together parts of the film to make it go with the story, which works very well. It’s just a total shame that the gameplay cannot back it up.
The graphics in Conquest are nothing compared to what the Xbox can, and has pulled off before. Maybe if this was released in 2006, it would have been overlooked, but living in the times of graphically superior games like COD4, Mirrors Edge and even Burnout Paradise, you would expect Conquest to be brilliant, especially where the Lord of the Rings world is so mind blowing in the films.
When playing the game online, I found it frustrating that it was only possible to get a kill by either luck, or being the asssassin and becoming invisible. The game modes are okay at best, the Deathmatch mode is boring, even the Capture the Ring mode sucks, and that’s what I was looking forward too most. Most of the matches were laggy, and had characters jumping around everywhere, which caused me many times to just take out the game and punch it, repeatedly.
The game was such an awesome idea, and had me excited about it since it was announced. It’s such a shame that it was obviously a rushed, money making attempt at making one more Lord of the Rings game. The gameplay is rubbish and stressful, and the graphics are laughable. The online play is not even worth looking at, and will probably be dead within a couple of months. If you want a half decent Lord of the Rings game, you’re better off trying the film tie-ins on the PS2…99p on eBay!
4/10
