Plus, every level is just more of the same with countless foes thrown in your path until you eventually cleave your way to a boss and, well, beat them up too. You can also level up to improve your skills and gain some unique attacks to add to your arsenal as well, but it never feels like your progression adds to the experience in a significant way and you never look forward to hitting the next level with the same kind of rabid fascination that you would expect in a regular RPG. You have a strong and light attack, and if you pummel foes enough you get the chance to unleash a critical hit that can sever limbs and bring a swift end to proceedings. Oh joy.Ĭombat is pretty much a case of bashing buttons until your foe drops out of sheer disillusionment. Much of your time will be spent traipsing over the same delightful vistas that you may be familiar with from watching the movies, only you won’t just be enduring a fleeting look as you’ll be spending hour after hour wandering rather bland and linear fields, tombs, castles and ruins. Sadly that is not quite the case either, as there is too much repetition in terms of both the combat and exploration on offer to make this anything but a decent dungeon crawler. Of course, the lightness of the subject matter and its rather tenuous link to the films/books would be neither here or there if the game was engrossing to play. Maybe that good reason was some epic gaming set pieces? Seems unlikely. In fact the game does a damn fine job of flat out stating that most of them are acting out of character, and generally don’t fight against other people unless they have a good reason. ![]() It seems to be a race to ensure a battle with every major fantasy creature, while the actual motivation for any of these beasties is kept in the background. Turns out he brought along a bunch of orcs, so you get to beat them up, then he makes an alliance with trolls, so you get to beat them up, then a wight, followed by a giant, throw in a dragon and so on. The problem is that there is no direction to your actions, and things just feel like a merry quest through various locales in order to provide the pretence of seeing as much as possible. It turns out that Sauron sent a nasty bloke up north to stir things up and it is down to you and your posse to stop him. ![]() The story weaves in and out of the main tale, with you being ordered about by Aragorn and Gandalf or swapping pleasantries with Frodo and the like – just don’t try and beg a look at that bloody ring or he’ll go nuclear. It is as if this game was the development equivalent of an RPG by numbers, with every facet of being added by rote rather than with any flair or imagination. Taking on the role of one of three new heroes, a mysterious ranger, doughy dwarf fighter or spell wielding elf, it all feels rather generic. "Let the dragon staring contest commence." As the game hardly has the same towering scope and storyline that you might come to expect from the series, instead boiling down to any number of clichéd moments and rather forced appearances from many of the novel’s main protagonists. Unless you are a massive Tolkien fan that is. That means that the storyline of the game actually has the honour of sitting side by side with the grandmaster of all modern fantasy, which can never be a bad thing. In a rather unique start, War in the North is actually being considered as canon when it comes to events during that rather pesky Sauron infested period of time. Is it time for a new beginning with Lord of the Rings: War in the North? Anyway, it is fair to say that Tolkien’s rich fantasy world has been plundered for heroic derring-do on multiple occasions but so far we’ve never quite had a game that could live up to such a rich heritage. ![]() Apologies all, we were swayed by peer pressure and love you all, even though you get paid more than us. Hold on, it seems that this particular war is in fact taking place in the fictional confines of Middle-earth – rather than across the financial divide of the UK. Apparently there is a war in the north, so it’s time for us northern folk to team up and show those soft, southern lightweights how to rumble.
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