Lord of the Rings Conquest is a title that not only the gaming community has been looking forward to but is also in sight of the lore lovers from the LOTR franchise. I need to mention right off the bat that the intent of this overview isn’t to give you my entire take on the game as what I was able to see and play was not finished code that you will be seeing & playing. I hope I might be able to answer most of your questions in this overview but I also hope to give you a better understanding of what Pandemic has in store for us both with Conquest and other future titles.
Lord of the Rings: Conquest is obviously the new title coming out of Pandemic with an undisclosed ship date. While tons of speculation has gone around the community I can only say the development team is going to ship the game when it is done. So with that rumor squashed lets get into what Conquest is all about. The overall gameplay focuses on the “Good” and “Evil” sides of the battle and takes you through campaigns that tie directly to the lore we love and lore we have never seen written. You may ask what I mean by “have never seen written” so let me explain it a bit. Conquest not only focuses on the good side completing the task of bringing the ring to the fires of Mount Doom, but it also takes a twist on the evil side as if Frodo failed and the ring did get back into the hands of Sauron. Note for the hardcore lore followers I already know this will be a thorn in your side but again I need to mention Pandemic took the licensing with the greatest care and made sure they took the storyline from a point that made sense. I don’t think I need to tell you the entire way Pandemic is telling the story as I do not want to give away anything, but I have a feeling you’re going to love playing the evil campaign.
Gameplay:
So the actual gameplay is a bit in-depth from your normal Hack-n-slash type of game, and it is even different from Battlefront II in many ways. In Conquest you are presented with 4 options of classes & 3 game modes. Casual, Heroic & Legendary are going to be the modes that test your skills. The development team seemed to take pride in letting me know they would be surprised if I could beat legendary mode. So from the sounds of it for you hard core players you shall have a challenge. While playing at Pandemic I took on the Heroic mode and was getting slaughtered a fair amount of times. I heard complaints about the Casual mode not being any different but the development team let us know that the difference in our code build had not been tweaked. So I can’t comment on how easy it will be to play, but Heroic posed its own challenges on me making the game in-depth in regards to how to utilize each class in each battle.
Warrior: Your tank & spank class who is a key element in many multiplayer battles. Who main roll is to be the heavy hitter in the basic classes.
Scout: The Spy and mysterious character who traits include cloaking abilities and back stabbing.
Archer: Your range / sniper type character who excels at range attacks who has both fire and poison up his sleeves.
Mage: Your support class who can heal, buff and attack with a handful or range and up-close attacks.
Each class listed above has some key traits that you are going to find equally important in co-op and in single player games. You will instantly find out that each class has their own strong points and low points and will be forced to learn each ones exploits to make your way through successful multiplayer and singleplayer levels/ matches. In general I should also mention there is no customization system for your characters. But outside of your basic unit classes you are also able to expand to the hero class which ties into both singleplayer & multiplayer battles.
Heroes: I was not able to see the full list of characters that made the hero list but from what I was told the list is very long. I was able to snag a few so I will list those ones:
Balrog, Witch-King, Sauron, Gandalf, Isildur, Aragorn, Gimli, Saruman. From my understanding each map has 2 unique heroes tied to it making epics points in every battle. I also heard mention of Eowyn, Faramir, Gothmog, Worm Tongue, The Mouth of Sauron, Frodo, & Legolas. The only so called hero not in the game is Gollum. I am not entirely sure why he didn’t make the final cut…
The hero classes are all blessed with their own unique powers and much greater health bars. These units become available in Multiplayer at the same time for both sides so you have an equal playing field. The only other way to see more than 2 heroes is playing in the Hero Death Match game mode which we were unable to see while at Pandemic.
In LOTR: Conquest the gameplay is very well thought out from my perspective. Sure at points in my gameplay I might have felt overran by units but that was how it truly was in the books and I was still able to pull through by understanding my unit’s powers and capabilities. But the awesome part about the game is that Pandemic’s engine is set where the game does not have units waiting for you to hit a certain point in the level. They free spawn and come and attack you. So in turn each time you play a level you’re going to experience it in a different way than you did the first time.
The actual unit gameplay is awesome to the point of controls and abilities. Each unit has their own range of special attacks that allow you to excel on the battlefield. But outside of that each character has their own set of button combos that will allow you to take out large groups of units. I found this excessively too much fun with the warrior class and I am sure it is just as much fun with the other classes. When I ask the developers if they planned on letting us know what other combo’s were built into the game outside of the ones they show you in the tutorial the response was “There are a massive amount of combo’s in the game but it is true that they are not listed” so boys and girls this opens the doors to you being able to find those sick combo’s that little Mike in New York doesn’t know so you can gain access to the hero’s on the battlefields.
In singleplayer you start out each level with objectives which are clearly communicated to you up front and are also marked on the maps as you go. With that each goal has a so called rally point of sorts that you are able to swap out what class you are playing. So as you progress you are able to grab the class type that will work out for that battle. In this I found that this option allowed for a more diverse type of gameplay as I moved through each campaign, I know if I didn’t have the option I would have been stuck at some of the first bulky bosses that kept tearing me apart. The overall campaign isn’t very long in regards to amount of levels but Pandemic made it very clear to us the campaign was in place to tell the story we love and to tie the gamer “You” to how the game plays and how to own noobs like me online. The bulk aspect of the game is to really take place online with friends, family and the entire world.
Singleplayer Battlefields: “I have randomized the order so not to ruin the fun”
Forces of Good: War of the Ring – Osgiliath, Pelennor fields, Minas Morgal, Helms Deep, Isengard, Mines of Moria, The Black Gate, Minas Tirith.
Forces of Evil: Rise of Sauron - Mines of Moria, Weathertop, Osgiliath, Mount Doom, The Shire, Rivendell, Minas Tirith.
I was not able to setup the multiplayer maps, but I am sure all these maps are playable in Multiplayer as well.
The multiplayer aspect of the game is very much where this game is focused on. I would say multiplayer is the #1 focus of the entire game with #2 being the evil campaign. But in general the Multiplayer aspect was beyond fun, we were able to get a game of 16 players in Capture the Ring. The gameplay is very much like capture the flag but in this case it was the One Ring. The gameplay required team work and the knowledge of how to play your class. I found myself enjoying this game mode until the scouts kept back stabbing me 20 feet from the return point. I think the teams were split with 4 of the developers with 4 guys from the event on each side and I have to say if you don’t have team work the other team is just going to wreck face. So if you don’t have a microphone for your PS3 or Xbox pick one up pronto. All aspects of each class come into play in each Multiplayer battle but I will have to say the knock back effect from archers and mages got to be a bit annoying at points when players teamed up on you. But if you don’t like Capture the Ring mode you will also see Conquest Mode, Death match & Hero Death match.
In both singleplayer and multiplayer aspects of the game you will gain access to what most would call vehicles or special units. The units include Mumikil, Trolls, Ents, Horses, Catapults & Wargs. In general the horses and wargs act as units to allow you to move faster across the maps. The Mumikil and Trolls have attacks that are pretty sweet and add a complete new dynmaic to battles. I found the overall controls for the vehicles pretty easy on the Xbox box controller and can see how it wil be even easier on the PC side. The units are available on certain maps and I am sure you will understand why they are not on all maps once you start playing the game.
Perks:
Pandemic has joined the club of adding achievements to the title for both the Xbox 360 side and the PS3 side with some pretty funny ones in the mix. I would tell you a handful of them but I really don’t want to ruin the funny ones. For the PC and DS side I do not think there is any sort of achievements built into the game But I could be completely wrong in that respect. I mainly say this as I was unfortunately unable to play these 2 ports of the game.
Pandemic also made mention that they might have map packs and other downloads for this title. What maps and how many were not disclosed as final details are being determined at this point.
The game overall is shaping up to be a great Lord of the Rings title and will be one I add to both my PS3 and PC collection. Between the epic battles Pandemic was able to recreate and the sick heroes that are in the game I am positive this game will fly off the shelves on its release date. I am looking forward to more news and content about the game to roll out from Pandemic and hope you will return to MEC to read about that information as well.
Also if you have more questions or even questions that I did not answer please feel free to post them here and I will do my best to get you the answer you need.
Box Art:
Tags: community day, community summit, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, overview, questions, sledgehammer70
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