tsukaesugi
Holy shit, it's a ninja!,
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2002
- Posts
- 6,933
Anyone else download the demo for Lord of the Rings: Conquest?
I was very hyped when I heard a new LOTR game was coming out from Pandemic. I loved both Battlefront games, and I've always loved Tolkien (I just finished reading "The Children of Hurin"), so I thought this would be a match made in heaven.
So after downloading and playing the demo I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping the game would retain both the simplicity of the BF series, as well as the quiet simplicity of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Instead it seemed to me to be an overcomplicated, generic fantasy brawler.
Each character had four or more special attacks, which you could access by pressing various combinations of (on the Xbox 360) LB, the triggers, and the X, Y, A, B buttons. So already it was way more complicated then BF. Plus each of these special attacks were "magical" which meant that regular footsoldiers are throwing around more magic in one battle then Gandalf did in the whole series. The "scouts" are what really did it for me though - they're more like ninja-elves than scouts - they can cloak themselves and enter stealth mode, and then sneak up behind people and take them out Tenchu-style. Interesting in theory, but very un-Middle-Earth like.
The whole demo is just the training mode from the proper game, so you can't play an actual level, which was also a bummer. Sauron shows up at the end of the demo though, and wow. They did a perfect job of capturing him (or at least the movie version of "Sauron"). It was very impressive watching him stride through the battle, whomping people away with his huge mace.
After the demo ended, there was a brief movie showing clips from the rest of the proper game - this looked a lot more interesting, with orcs and trolls in Rivendell, Mumaks (the attack elephants) in the Shire etc.
I'll probably buy and play (and enjoy) this game despite its faults, but I'm going to have to shut off the Tolkien-fan part of my brain while I do it.
I was very hyped when I heard a new LOTR game was coming out from Pandemic. I loved both Battlefront games, and I've always loved Tolkien (I just finished reading "The Children of Hurin"), so I thought this would be a match made in heaven.
So after downloading and playing the demo I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping the game would retain both the simplicity of the BF series, as well as the quiet simplicity of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Instead it seemed to me to be an overcomplicated, generic fantasy brawler.
Each character had four or more special attacks, which you could access by pressing various combinations of (on the Xbox 360) LB, the triggers, and the X, Y, A, B buttons. So already it was way more complicated then BF. Plus each of these special attacks were "magical" which meant that regular footsoldiers are throwing around more magic in one battle then Gandalf did in the whole series. The "scouts" are what really did it for me though - they're more like ninja-elves than scouts - they can cloak themselves and enter stealth mode, and then sneak up behind people and take them out Tenchu-style. Interesting in theory, but very un-Middle-Earth like.
The whole demo is just the training mode from the proper game, so you can't play an actual level, which was also a bummer. Sauron shows up at the end of the demo though, and wow. They did a perfect job of capturing him (or at least the movie version of "Sauron"). It was very impressive watching him stride through the battle, whomping people away with his huge mace.
After the demo ended, there was a brief movie showing clips from the rest of the proper game - this looked a lot more interesting, with orcs and trolls in Rivendell, Mumaks (the attack elephants) in the Shire etc.
I'll probably buy and play (and enjoy) this game despite its faults, but I'm going to have to shut off the Tolkien-fan part of my brain while I do it.