Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Travel to Middle Earth to enlist in the ultimate battle between good and evil. Using the backbone of the Star Wars: Battlefont series, you pick from a variety of different classes in Lord of the Rings: Conquest to help turn the tide of battle in familiar Middle Earth locations by controlling nodes on a map. Third-person action over large battle fields with first person shooter gameplay mechanics is Conquest in a nutshell.



What's Hot
It is totally obvious you are playing a Lord of the Rings game from the beginning. The attention Pandemic paid to the buildings, people and architecture of the movies shines as bright as the Eye of Sauron. The painstaking detail on armor and weapons look really great on TVs as large battles happen all around you. Each battle field feels different than the last, which provides a lot of visual diversity to keep the action flowing in pretty locations. As eye catching as the game is, Conquest does an effective job at pulling you in at a visual level.

The balance between the soldier classes is competently done. You have the basic warrior who can lead the charge with a hulking sword to deal a lot of melee damage. Then there are the archers who range from a safe distance to pick off a few guys. Mages are more of a support class, offering health and a shield to allies in need as well as throw a few offensive spells to hold attackers at bay. Finally, the scout's purpose in life is to be the jerk (also known as the rogue). They go invisible and have the ability to backstab enemies for a devastating one hit kill. As you can tell, these classes interoperate very well and taking on your specific class' role is always going to be more effective. You'll be prompted at key parts of a battle to take the reigns of recognizable member of the Fellowship or forces of evil and dish more damage.

Part of the draw of the Lord of the Rings is the large scale the immediate battle is. Co-op is where you are going to get most of your enjoyment from. That carries through to the mission mode where you reenact popular battles and scenes from the movies. Some concessions were made to make the gameplay fit into some of the more famous battles like the Mines of Moria by adding tons of troops on either side. Interestingly enough, there is a campaign for the evil side that creates a story about what would have happened if Frodo didn't destroy the One Ring. To see a twist on the sacred story of the One Ring was fiendishly satisfying.

Music in video games rarely grabs attention but Conquest deserves some special credit for its achievement. The orchestral parts soar above the screams of the battlefield and the narration by Elrond, Hugo Weaving, take you from one battle to the next in perfect, epic Lord of the Rings fashion. With all that going for it, it is forgivable that the other Fellowship members aren't voiced by their movie counterparts as well.

What's Not
Conquest has its fair share of problems that are glaringly obvious and permeate throughout the gameplay experience. Something happened during the development that either signaled trouble within the actual development or EA pushed to get Conquest out the door before they lost the license to Lord of the Rings.

The mission-based objectives needing to win a battle keep the flow of battle going. However, enemies respawn all the time, and you have a limited number of lives before you can capture the next node. If you try and slog through all the hordes of Orcs and slowly crawl your way, you'll never make it. It makes more sense to rush to the next node, kill all the enemies in the circle and defend it. It takes away the strategy and skill to fight through mini-skirmishes that litter the levels and kills any risk/reward system.



What also makes the hack n' slash combat falter is the constant problem with the enemy AI. Not only will they swamp and take advantage of a solo player, they will also block a majority of your attacks making it hard to fight your way out of a cluster. Health is another area of concern because it seems to run out very quickly -- no matter what class you pick -- at the hands of the enemy that boast some impressive abilities to soak damage. Then enemies sometimes get stuck and not move a muscle. Friendly AI is rather weak and will run around without much rhyme or reason making them useless.

All this talk about the campaign experience and nothing about the online modes, there is a reason for that. The very essence of what makes the large scale battles of Lord of the Rings cool is vaporized by the 16 player matches. The levels aren't filled with the same amount of life or action. Since attempting the campaign mode solo is nearly impossible to accomplish and the online mode isn't a huge draw, the only thing holding Conquest together is the co-op.

Final Word
Conquest is very uncharacteristic of what Pandemic is capable of producing. Playing through Conquest, it was surprising to see the attention to detail in the visual department and the failure to execute in creating a smooth experience juxtaposed in the same game. Co-op in campaign mode holds the game together but it is a shame to see the game in the state it is in with bugs and flaws galore. It is questionable why Conquest was made as an uninspired third person action game with FPS mechanics. We can only assume that some dreadful deadlines were set because Conquest feels more like a retreat.