THE LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR IN THE NORTH – Another Lackluster LOTR title?

Snowblind Studios recently came to NYC to show off The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, with a fully playable level in tow. This is obviously the latest title in what’s become a huge gaming franchise, and if it feels like they’ve done all they can with it, you may be right. We’ve killed Orcs and Uruk-hai by the thousands in the last ten years since the films came out, in all manner of games. Action, RPG, MMO, RTS- they’ve run the gamut of genres, on every conceivable gaming platform.

But War in the North is trying for something different with a three-player co-op action experience. But wait- you say, wasn’t 2009’s Lord of the Rings: Conquest a three-player co-op action title? Well, yeah, you’re right, although this one’s got a little bit of RPG flavor mixed in to it. Plus the graphics are a bit prettier.

Those dreading another retelling of Lord of the Rings need not worry, as War in the North doesn’t follow the main story, instead showing some of the battles taking place while the Fellowship were on their way to Mordor. Have to scrape the bottom of the barrel at some point, right? J.R.R. Tolkien’s amazing world is always easy to settle back into, though, so I was willing to give the title the benefit of the doubt.

The producers set up the demo and we jumped into the game- myself and two other writers who each had our own screen. We each chose one of the three available characters and I ended up with the Elf, who is the ranged fighter and plays much as you’d expect with all his bow and arrow attacks. My companions were a dwarven warrior and a human wizard, and you can guess how each person played their characters. The warrior charged right in swinging with all of his powerful attacks and the wizard hung back, shooting offensive spells and casting shields that protected the rest of us from arrows. Familiar stuff.

The ranged controls are familiar and comfortable, controlling like any first person shooter with the left trigger to aim, right to shoot. If enemies got too close I made good use of my melee attacks, the usual weak/strong pairing of buttons that gives you a few combos to play around with. There are a few special attacks that take a while to recharge after using, which gives you more options when dealing with crowds or stronger enemies, like the trolls.

Our level saw us defending a stronghold which was under attack from siege towers much like those used in the attack on Minas Tirith. They came smashing up onto the battlements and Uruk-hai came surging out. I used my character’s impeccable aim to get headshot after headshot on the advancing horde, trying to pick them off as soon as they jumped off the towers and headed towards my companions, who held their own pretty well. Only once did someone get downed and fortunately he was quickly revived, because one death here means that all of you lose.

 This is the first M-rated Lord of the Rings game ever, so you’ll get to see beheadings and dismemberments as you hack at your foes. It’s nothing too explicit but it does give it a much more brutal feel. As you kill enemies and finish objectives the entire team will earn experience points which can be used at any time to level up your character in various ways. A skill tree for each character lets you play the character any way you want- so if you decide that your Elf is going to be a bruiser instead, you can do that.

The main trio are all new characters. The Tolkien estate apparently let Snowblind go nuts with the story but you won’t play as any of the characters from the books. That’s not to say you won’t run into a few familiar faces and locations however, and the voices are provided by sound-alikes to their film versions.

Sadly, the game wasn’t just that exciting. Perhaps the level wasn’t the best for a demo, as it only featured a circular grey room that we had to defend, hardly an interesting location. The usual waves of attackers came, stronger and stronger, till you were dealing with trolls and trying to keep them from knocking down the doors. After Lord of the Rings: Conquest failed to deliver a great co-op experience I was hoping that this would blow me away, but the slow and stilted gameplay didn’t do anything for me. The campaign was created with three main players in mind so if you’re going to play through it bring two friends, because if this was as bland as it was with actual humans playing I can only imagine how bad it will be with the CPU. There’s no competitive multiplayer in the game either, just the campaign. Hopefully it will offer more than what we saw.

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North hits Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 1st.