Archive for the ‘ Lord of the Rings: Conquest ’ Category

The release date rumours continue, with Gameplanet Store New Zealand now apparently having an official release date for that territory:

Electronic Arts have sent word that Lord of the Rings: Conquest has been put down for a November 28th New Zealand release. The action game is coming for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC and NDS.

Since release dates for areas outside of the states are generally a bit behind, the already spread rumours for a November 4th release date don’t seem all that unlikely anymore. Stay tuned!

AtomicGamer has slung a new Lord of the Rings: Conquest preview unto the web — offering a detailed impression of one of the levels in the game. The preview is generally very positive, praising the graphics, atmosphere and gameplay mechanics;

It’s important to point out during these melees, the action unfolding around me was totally representative of the orchestrated chaos we’ve witnessed in the films–Peter Jackson would be proud. The developers have done an outstanding job of re-creating breathless battles with frenetic pacing, producing that intense feeling that you could be face-down in the dirt at any moment. Upon taking down another elephant-like baddie, and several more trolls and orcs, I hightailed it to the first tower and set it ablaze. While I admired the impressive fiery effects, a band of trolls took advantage of the distraction, ending my life and demo.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is currently in developement over at Pandemic Studios, and is expected to launch on the PS3, Xbox360, PC and Nintendo DS coming fall.

The Lord of the Rings Conquest has had quite a bit of attention in the press recently. Videos with huge mumakil, horses trampling orcs and fellbeast swooping around. Something that doesn’t, and rarely does, get attention is the “HUD” also “Head up Display” or simply Interface. In this article, using illustrated examples taken from gameplay videos, we will cover the interface in Conquest as it looks now. This article uses screenshots from a video over at G4. You can watch it here after reading trough the guide, and you’ll see that many things start to make sense

In this first image, we’ve used the archer to show two important areas of the interface. As with many games, most panels and information can be found in the corners of the screen. The top-right corner shows a map, the bottom of the screen is used to display health and abilities. In this example, the archer is “locked on” to a target. In this case, we see an empty health bar along with the class (an Orc Grunt). A full health bar is represented in green. Since it is locked on, we also see a “crosshair” that allows for more accurate shots.

On the bottom-right of the screens is what can only be the skills panel. The glowing edge around these skills indicate that they can be used. Since we know what skills the archer has, it is easy to determine which skill graphic is which. The top green image is the indicator for the poison arrow ability, the bottom left is the “quick shot” which fires multiple arrows, the bottom right indicator represents the fire arrow ability.

Two new previews have been slung unto the web to give us an even better insight into the new Lord of the Rings game by Pandemic Studios.

ActionTrip has a short hands-on preview from the recent Leipzig event, praising the game for retaining the “Lord of the Rings Magic”.

The LotR magic is definitely present. The developers have also shown the Mines of Moria level, as well as the famous battle scene outside the Black Gates. In the Black Gates area, the forces of good are about ready to march at Sauron’s porch. The battle kicks off as the huge gates start opening, letting swarms of enemies into the fray. Moving around won’t be a problem during battles either, since there are mounts at your disposal, such as horses (and wargs if you’ve sided with the bad guys).

Meanwhile, GameCyte has a slightly older, albeit still interesting preview from the EA Studio Showcase held prior to the LGC.

The first question that came to mind, obviously, was what made Conquest any different from Battlefront, apart from the fact that players were now slaughtering orcs and trolls instead of stormtroopers? Representatives of Pandemic were on hand to answer my queries, and as they pointed out, fighting orcs is a vastly different experience simply because they are not stormtroopers. While the change from sci-fi to fantasy may seem merely cosmetic, the key difference is that the armies in Tolkien’s world do not wield blasters. As such, the entire flow of combat shifts from gunfighting to melee; the gameplay in Conquest is instantly more intimate and head-on than in the Battlefront series. It’s no longer feasible to try and play the game like an FPS — half the classes, in fact, use little or no ranged attacks at all. Players can expect a much more intense, real-time fighting engine to be in place for Conquest, placing the feel of the game much closer to Dynasty Warriors while still retaining the basic principles of its Battlefront predecessors.

All in all it looks like the game is coming together quite well. Stay tuned for more!

Conquest is still giving the press a bit to talk about, although the amount of previews, videos and hands-on is starting to slow down now. Still, there’s plenty to read. An overview of the latest:

PSX Extreme has a new preview for Conquest, having some great details about the game. Amongst them is a list of all the heroes, and the revelation of a few new maps. The article also reinforces the already-circulating rumors about an unconfirmed “Guardian” class;

In total, 60 characters will be playable in the game, scattered across five different fighter classes. There are the Warriors, Archers, Scouts, Mages, and Guardians.

The preview also touches on some of the races featured in the game:

In addition to fighter classes there are also a variety of different races to choose from, including Gondorians, Rohirrim, Elves, Haradrim, Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Easterlings, Hobbits, and a few more that have yet to be announced.

Although the preview is relatively short, it holds plenty of new information and tidbits that are sure to fuel discussion on our forums and around the community.

Of interest also is the fact that a forum user over at Pandemic’s official game forums is answering some questions about Conquest. He was able to play the LotRC demo on Leipzig, so its worth checking out!

GameSpot has a preview for Conquest as well. Not revealing a lot of new details, the preview discusses the controls in the game, praising them as being “fluid” as opposed to some other recent previews.

The next portion of the level involved getting close to enough to some oliphants to climb them and take them down. Getting into position was a bit of challenge, considering that the stomping heel of a pillaging pachyderm generally means instant death in almost any scenario. Once we were in the right spot, a flip of the trigger initiated a short climbing sequence that was vaguely reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, and once we’d climbed far enough, a God of War-style button-mashing sequence felled the behemoth once and for all.

As the LGC press frenzy reaches its end, we are preparing to once again update all our content and give you a nice overview post soon! Stay tuned.

If you thought yesterday’s press blow-out was fun, then you’re in for a treat. Pandemic is far from finished showing off the game, and we aren’t the ones to complain about it.

Firstly, GameDaily has a new hands-on preview for the game. Although mainly positive, it is not so happy with the controls:

With access to both the films and the books, it appears that EA and Pandemic are onto something special, though during our playtime, it was clear that the hack and slashing needs tweaking. Although decent, Conquest doesn’t control nearly as well as EA’s previous The Lord of the Rings games, The Two Towers and Return of the King, respectively. It just lacks that visceral feel of connecting sharp steel with flesh, and we hope the development team continues to evolve the game so that it’s just as brutal as its game and the movie predecessors.

Meanwhile, UGO has a somewhat more combat-oriented preview that gives us some great insight in the combat mechanics, criticised above.

No longer is combat a target and fire affair.  Even Conquest’s ranged characters are fully equipped to fight in close, though somewhat less competently of course.  The X, Y and B buttons and an Xbox 360 gamepad deliver light, medium and heavy attacks, respectively.  Pressing these buttons in different sequences leads to a variety of combo attacks.  The LB button serves as a modifier; whenever an on-screen meter has some juice in it, press LB in conjunction with any attack buttons to deliver even more powerful attacks.  For close-combat fighters, at least.

It also has a very interesting note about the heroes, which seems to contradict the system used in Battlefront:

Heroes remain on the battlefield for as long as they are kept alive.

Last, but not least, Gametrailers.com has been kind enough to post two new videos! yay!

The press coverage blow-out for Conquest continues to rage on! There’s a new video over at GameSpot, revealing some information about the class and hero abilties and the multiplayer aspects of the game. Watch it right here.

A Czech gaming site has posted an 8 minute gameplay video for the game as well:

IGN has posted a new preview for the game, along with yet more videos:

Something important to note about the creation of the game is that rather than building one scene to completion and then moving onto the next, Pandemic is working on the entirety of the game simultaneously. So in the case here, even though we’d seen the battle at Pelennor Fields before, and only a month ago, there was new stuff do see this time around, and the whole thing looked to be improved from almost every angle.

Now, we’re not quite sure what Gondorians are doing in Moria either…

And it doesn’t just end here. Pandemic has sent out a bunch of new screenshots for the game, showing us Gandalf, the Mouth of Sauron, the Black Gate and a ton more. Check them out on our screenshots page!

Stay tuned for more.

Gametrailers.com has bumped up a new interview with Eric “Giz” Gewirtz, director for the Lord of the Rings: Conquest. The video shows some brand new footage from the Pellenor Fields level, offering us a first hands-on look of the Rohirrim class appearance in the game as well. The interview doesn’t spill any new beans, but offers another basic insight into the base mechanics of the game.

Watch the interview below:

Stay tuned for what are sure to be a bunch more videos from Leizpig ‘08, and the Penny Arcade Expo a few days later!

Thanks to Epyon from the Pandemic Forums for the heads-up!

G4TV’s X-play programme will show a new preview video for the Lord of the Rings: Conquest later today. The show will cover the Lord of the Rings: Conquest from the Leipzig GameCon, amongst a few others:

Adam and Morgan bring you an All Access look at the upcoming pirate game Age of Booty, as well as three incredible Previews for the highly anticipated titles, Prince of Persia, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and Red Faction. Also, our favorite eccentric video gamer creator/guru is back with his take on the “Caped Crusader” in The Will Wright Minute.

The episode will air live, on the X-play website, at 8pm ET on August 20th. If you can’t watch - or missed the show, you can re-watch it at the following times:

• August 21, 2008 at 4:30 AM
• August 24, 2008 at 10:30 AM

For more information, and to watch the episode, visit the X-play website.

Thanks to blackkfox from the Pandemic Forums for the heads-up!

G4TV has posted more gameplay goodness from E3 a few weeks ago. It showcases the same Minas Tirith level, with the same soldiers, but this time not featuring any disrupting commentary or background noise. The actual in-game sounds can be heard, which always adds to the atmosphere. You can view the video below, or visit the G4TV site to watch it in High Definition.