Blast From The Past: Lord Of The Rings Conquest
After binge watching The Lord Of The Rings movies in one day, I decided to pop open the game case for Lord of the Rings Conquest, slap it on my Xbox 360 tray and boot it up. By the fiery lava of Mount Doom, LOTR Conquest is a blast from the past. Yes, there were some issues with the game, mostly AI but I’m not here to write about that. What I am here to write about is what I love about the game and what keeps drawing me back to it still. First, let me go into detail of what the game entails.
Description
Lord Of The Rings Conquest is a third person action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by EA. The game was released to North America on January 13th, 2009 to mixed reviews. Pandemic Studios was known for developing Star Wars Battlefront and some of the systems in Battlefront were transferred over to LOTR Conquest. The noticeable ones were mounting animals and classes, which each had specific abilities.
Gameplay
To get you used to the classes, you start off in training. The training takes place during the last alliance of Men and Elves. The player battles Sauron’s army as each class. The classes are:
Warrior: The warrior is the base infantry with a sword.
Abilities: Throwable axe, block, Fire Strike, Whirlwind Sweep and Flame of Fury.
Archer: The Archer is your typical Archer with a longbow.
Abilities: Multi-Arrow, Poison Arrow and Fire Arrow.
Scout: A stealthy adversary that attacks from the shadows with dual daggers. If the player walks up behind an enemy’s back from stealth, the right bumper will appear. If you press it, an execution will play which can instantly kill any foe, even heroes and villains.
Abilities: Cloak, Satchel bomb, Roll, For Hewer, For Hammer and Blasting Powder.
Mage: A magical being that can use lightning to kill chains of enemies. He wields a mighty staff.
Abilities: Defensive shield, Heal, Shockwave and Fire Wall.
You then play Isildur as the ending hero to kill Sauron. After that you have learned the basics of combat but every hero may have different special abilities. Other heroes include: Gandalf, Aragorn, Faramir, Frodo, Legolas, Gimli, Eowyn and Elrond. The Villains to counter the Heroes were Sauron, Saruman, Balrog, Grima Wormtongue, Lurtz, Nazgul, Mouth of Sauron and The Witch King. After completing the training, you have to play the first campaign which will unlock the evil campaign and instant action.
Campaigns
War of the Ring follows the base story of The Lord of the Rings. It is considered the good side campaign where you play as the forces of Rivendell, Rohan and Gondor. Each level gives you the ability to play as a hero of course. The levels in order goes:
Helm’s Deep: Where you defend Helm’S Deep as the forces of Rohan and Rivendell. Playable hero is Aragorn.
Isengard: Where you assault Saruman’s tower in Isengard as the forces of Rohan and Ents. I love Treebeard saying, “Take down those towers.” Playable hero is Gandalf.
Mines of Moria: This one is a little different. You traverse Moria to reclaim it from the Orcs but it just follows the plot from the movie where Gandalf faces the Balrog of Morgoth. Playable heroes are Gimli and Gandalf.
Osgiliath: You must defend Osgiliath as the Gondorians then escort Frodo across it to safety. The Nazgul flying above the bridge still gives me chills. Playable hero is Faramir.
Minas Tirith: You must defend Minas Tirith as Gondorians but you fall back level by level. You stage a last defense on the last level. Playable hero is Gandalf.
Pelennor Fields: My favorite mission in the game. You play as Rohan where you have to destroy Oliphaunts and Siege towers. You can mount the Oliphaunts like Legolas did in the movie and kill them with quick time events. You are able to play as Legolas and kill an Oliphaunt to get an achievement called, “That still only counts as one.” My favorite battle is when you play as Eowyn of Rohan to slay the Witch King. Playable heroes are Eowyn and Legolas.
Minas Morgul: A big twist is this level. You assault Minas Morgul as Gondorians to destroy its power source. It is a different look at what could have happened in the story and I think it is a nice addition since you partake in a siege. Playable hero is Aragorn.
The Black Gate: You assault the Black Gate of Mordor as Aragorn, Gimli, Gandalf and Legolas. You fight through the Orc forces, kill the Mouth of Sauron and then claim their camp.
The evil campaign is called, The Rise of Sauron. It is an unique and enjoyable twist as to what would happen if Frodo failed to destroy the ring. The order of the levels don’t really make sense to me but it is still a joy to play as the forces of evil. The levels go in order:
Mount Doom: You make your way up Mount Doom through a fortress to seize the One Ring by killing Frodo and traitorous Orcs.. You play as a Nazgul but the playable villain is the Witch King who gets resurrected.
Osgiliath: An Orc invasion of Osgiliath where you must kill Faramir.. Playable villain is the Mouth of Sauron.
Minas Tirith:The sacking of Minas Tirith. You fight on the highest tier of Minas Tirith and burn down the White Tree of Gondor. Playable villain is Saruman.
Mines of Moria: The Forces of Sauron fight their way through the Mines of Moria to resurrect the Balrog. The playable villain is the Balrog.
Weathertop: On the big battlefield of Weathertop, you must destroy Gondorian supplies and catapults. Then you fight your way up to the top to kill Aragorn. The playable villain is Saruman but I just like to play as a Troll.
Rivendell: The Forces of Sauron as well as Sauron himself assault Rivendell. You must fight your way through Rivendell and kill Elrond twice and Legolas. The playable villain is Sauron.
The Shire: You destroy the Shire as the Forces of Sauron. You kill Treebeard and Gandalf and the remaining allies in the Shire. The playable villains are the Balrog and Sauron.
Instant action is where you pick a map, pick a game mode for the specific map and press start. It is great to kill time and face off against AI on every map. You can pick as many maps as you want to play. The map loads and an option to play on the side of good and or evil shows. I like to play on the good side. I just love to drop onto Pelennor Fields or protect Helm’s Deep in Team Deathmatch. The game modes consisted of: Team Deathmatch, Hero vs Villain Team Deathmatch, Conquest and Capture The Ring. I like to play Team Deathmatch and Conquest since they go by faster than Hero vs Villain and Capture the Ring. All on all, Instant Action always draws me back to play LOTR Conquest.
Multiplayer
What better way to play a game then with your friends. You can either play online or get 3 of your friends and do 4 player splitscreen. Splitscreen allows the players to play both the campaigns and Instant Action. There isn’t Galactic Conquest like from Battlefront 2 but it is still fun to take part with or against your friends in iconic Lord of the Rings settings. A memory that has been burned into my mind is when my friend and I partook on a Capture The Ring match on The Shire. He played as the forces of evil while I was the forces of good. It took us a good four hours to complete the match and in the end I won. He tried to protect the waypoint with an Orc Warrior class while I was playing a Scout. At the last second, I rolled out of his first attack that was going to be a combo. The combo played through while I just ran the Ring into the objective to finish the match. It was a close match and we congratulated each other and said we were finished. What a great time it was and one of my favorite memories.
Lord Of The Rings Conquest is a blast from the past that I enjoy to this day. Even though it has its share of complications, I still like to boot up a match on a map and slaughter the AI foes and or my friends. I highly recommend this game and if it is a game for you, then you can check it out for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo DS. Thank you for reading this far! There will be more articles to come.
