This game follows a different group of warriors during the time of the Lord of the Rings when Frodo is taking the ring to Mount Doom to be destroyed. Unlike other LOTR games however, this group doesn’t follow behind the Fellowship, and it doesn’t exactly copy the Fellowship’s standard party. Close, but not quite.
This story takes place in the northern part of Middle Earth (go figure) and follows a human ranger, elven lore master, and dwarven warrior as they chase down Sauron’s right hand man who is trying to conquer the northern territories of Middle Earth. Along the way, many characters from the main storyline make cameo appearances, but they do not fight alongside you.
You get your choice of character, and then AI (or a friend or two if you’re lucky) take control of the other two. So you always have three characters fighting at any time. Along the way, you are occasionally helped out by other NPCs, including Elrond Halfelven’s sons and a couple of Dwarfs trying to use a weapon to destroy some Orcs. The problem with the AI is that they aren't all that bright. They are like hunter's pets win WoW on aggressive. They see a mob, they fight it. No discretion in targeting at all. Also, they aren't smart enough to stay behind cover. When the elf makes a protective sphere that enemy arrows can't penetrate, and that also heals the party, they don't stay in it. They walk towards the enemy instead of using ranged attacks.
The game isn’t quite “visually stunning”, but the graphics are definitely not sub-par. The worlds are beautiful, just not breath-taking. The maps are familiar to any LOTR fan. Even though they are new locations, they are very similar to locations played over and over again. A city under attack takes the place of Gondor. A dwarven city besieged by Orcs takes the place of the mines of Moria. Mirkwood is a beautiful location, home to a wizard and also a spider queen. All in all, the areas were refreshing in that they weren’t exact copies of former LOTR games, but yet they still had that LOTR feel, and followed the pattern of other LOTR games.
The characters, like I said, don’t exactly follow the old mold. But they are close. The ability to spec your characters using talent points in different trees really helps there. There is a human ranger whose main ability is his bow. But he can also use dual weapons, a two-hander, or a sword and shield. He has the capability of going into stealth and dealing massive damage from the shadows. He’s kind of a mix of a hunter (with no pet) and a rogue.
The dwarf warrior is the “tank” of the game (complete with a taunt), but he can also use two-handers (like any good dwarf) and can use crossbows to great effect. He can instantly revive others in the group (if specced right) and can add armor bonuses. Think a Paladin/Warrior mix.
The most perplexing of the 3 is the elven lore master though. She is supposed to be a support caster with healing capabilities. But I found out that if you spec her right, she is an amazing tank with the most armor, and is capable of dealing massive melee damage. The way I played her was basically a battlemage.
The game is beset with minor glitches that don’t affect gameplay, and a couple big ones that do. Snowblind has released patches to fix these, however. The one I ran into most was some text staying onscreen instead of fading off. It was out of the way, so it didn’t bother me much. Another one was actually useful, and kind of funny. While I was playing the caster, the dwarf would either teleport or run really, really fast towards the enemy to hit them. A major glitch that I am glad I didn’t run into is definitely a game breaker. It happens when you complete a quest but the game doesn’t recognize that you did, and so you can’t move forward. Only thing to do in this case is start over.
The game took me about 20 hours to finish on Normal difficulty. I made it to character level 22. Once you beat it on normal, you unlock a second playthrough on heroic, and then legendary. Each time you start a new playthrough you keep your level and gear, allowing for many repeated playthroughs. There is gear to collect, and sets to be matched. So the gear-whore in me wants to play it through over and over to get the best sets for each character. Higher level playthroughs also grant better gear.
The gear is color coded into what has become the standard. White for regular common gear, green for good quality, blue for rare gear, and purple for epic gear. In the normal playthrough I believe that I only received two pieces of blue gear, a lot of green, and a ton of white. In the beginning of the heroic playthrough I got lucky and found a purple piece for my hands, and then got a purple bow for the ranger. But other than that, the best gear is obviously reserved for the legendary playthrough. Reading online, many people play the legendary over and over to achieve their sets; which as I said, I can easily see myself doing. Especially to help my friends play.
Gameplay is your basic hack-n-slash. One button deals your regular attack, while a second deals a strong, slower attack. What was nice was the addition of a “Hero Mode”. As you deal damage, an invisible meter is filling up. Once it’s full, a visual indicator tells you to use your strong attack. Once you do, you are in hero mode, and deal extra damage. You stay in hero mode until you are staggered, as long as you keep hitting things. While in hero mode each hit adds to a multiplier, and if you are in hero mode at the end of the fight, you get a huge xp boost. I managed to get my multiplier up to 127 while fighting spiders in Mirkwood.
This game isn’t exactly a must have, but it’s fun. All in all, it’s a good game that either LOTR fans, or loot-based RPG fans will enjoy.
- Woody
- Woody
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