Star Wars Battlefront is a wildly popular series and the same can be said for Lord of the Rings. When EA and Pandemic announced they were bringing the Battlefront idea to the Lord of the Rings license, fans were excited at the potential. But the final product is not a great game and does not do the Lord of the Rings license justice and in the end feels more rushed then anything.
Gameplay
The game is a pure action fest where you control one of four different classes of characters from Mages, Scouts, Fighters and Archers as well as you have opportunities to control heroes or memorable characters from the movies such as Aragorn, the Witch King and more. Each character controls the same but each one has different actions. Scouts can become invisible and assassinate the enemy with ease, Mages can heal, create fire walls and shields, Archers are snipers and do their best work at a distance and Warriors are the pure action class and capable of knocking back the enemy at east. Heroes are just more powerful versions (most of the time) of the base classes with some extra special attacks.
Sadly some of the heroes are wildly unbalanced and weak such as the Ring Wraiths or Nazgul who can be killed very easy when you control them, but when you are fighting against them they will easily walk over you and the troops fighting with you. I have to wonder if the developers read the books or watched movies at all. Did they think of balancing the game at all? These are two of the biggest questions I have after playing the game.
Multiplayer is simply a bad and laggy affair but if patched it could be a fun multiplayer experience, especially if the game is moved off of EA’s servers and onto standard Xbox Live servers (unless I am mistaken and the game is already on standard Xbox Live). While playing side by side with a friend is fun, the online component is not very fun and I with the bland multiplayer modes make this feel like an added on piece of gameplay rather than a game which was built for multiplayer mayhem.
Graphics
Poor level design and some questionable animation bring down the graphics from what could have been an outstanding graphical experience. Most of the characters in the game all are recognizable but barely as they are low quality and I can understand why because the amount of action and number of characters on the screen at any one time is impressive especially when you consider that the game never slows down in frame rate during single player. Multiplayer on the other hand the game suffers from slow down and frame rate issues most of the time, but I doubt that is the game and in fact Electronic Arts servers.
Audio
Audio wise the game has the same stellar music we have come to know from the Peter Jackson movies and other previous Lord of the Rings games from Electronic Arts. The sound effects are well done and suit the game well and are never out of place, and the narration by Hugo Weaving is some of the best we have heard in a game. But other voice over’s are done by sound alike voice actors are horrible, such as the voice actor for Frodo, who I would like to say is annoying and crazy off the wall sounding.
Value
With the poorly implemented multiplayer and unbalanced gameplay the actual value of the game is almost nothing. The game had huge potential, from a well respected developer so I have to say it is sad to see what Lord of the Rings Conquest has become.
Bottom Line
A weekend rental at best due to the game being wildly unbalanced and not a fun game but just a mediocre title. If it is patched and it’s balancing and multiplayer issues are addressed it might be worth a second look. Hopefully EA will return to the fold and give us another great game like Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, an awesome Role Playing Game that I would love to see a similar game released this generation.
+ Has Lord of the Rings footage from the movies...
+ Nice mix of Heroes from both sides
+ Easy to run up some achievements
+ Co-op has potential if patched
Cons
- Very repetitive missions and gameplay
- Good campaign is way too easy, evil campaign is way too hard
- Most of the voice acting is bad
- Unbalanced
- Graphics suck at times
- Multiplayer is laggy and boy it’s bad at times
Here's a small guide to help you understand our evaluation of games.
PRESENTATION GRADE
Can be from the game's box to the contents of the booklet, and even the game introduction. (Intro, menus, options, etc)
GRAPHIC GRADE
Up to what point the graphics have been worked on my the developper. The design type, the effort used for textures and environments, as well as animations and framerate.
AUDIO GRADE
Is the soundtrack a good match to the game's style, he ambient sounds keeping with the gameplay and the sound effects clear and convincing?
GAMEPLAY GRADE
Placement of the controls and the inferface that the player with be using during the game.
REPLAY VALUE GRADE
The most important factor in the evaluation of a game. It identifies the lifespan of the game and the fun of coming back again and again.
I’ve always been an advocate for cheap and easy...Er...when it comes to gaming, that is. Unfortunately, it’s because of this that I’ve missed out on some of the bigger titles over the past few years. (CoD4, anyone?). Buying used games, ordering online from sites like Amazon or Ebay, is a simple way to avoid high pricing, (at least until you factor in...
I’ve always been an advocate for cheap and easy...Er...when it comes to gaming, that is. Unfortunately, it’s because of this that I’ve missed out on some of the bigger titles over the past few years. (CoD4, anyone?). Buying used games, ordering online from sites like Amazon or Ebay, is a simple way to avoid high pricing, (at least until you factor in... 
DarkCanuck
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