Relieve epic battles
The box-office movie trilogy may have ended about five years ago but in Lord Of The Rings Conquest, you can relieve the epic battles all over again. The single-player portion consists of two campaigns - one for the good guys and one for the evil chaps. Each campaign consists of eight scenarios which you must complete in linear order to advance the story. For the good campaign, you start fending off the massive assault at the Battle of Helm's Deep and move on to the Battle at Isengard where the Ents take down the evil wizard Saruman. Then, go on to reclaim the Mines of Moria with Gimli, hold Osgiliath with Faramir before finally doing the heroes' entry into Mordor, where Frodo destroys the One Ring by tossing it into the fires of Mount Doom. That is when the real fun begins. You unlock the evil campaign where you play as Nazgul, Lurtz, the Mouth of Sauron, Saruman and other evil characters as you turn the hands of time and rewrite history.
You begin by slaying Frodo to stop the destruction of the Ring, then sacking Minas Tirith, Rivendell and finally, carry out a genocide on the entire Shire. There are four basic classes to choose from - warrior, archer, mage and scout. Within each scenario, you can switch classes at designated switch points within each scenario. The warrior can withstand more hits and excels in close combat and, therefore, forms the frontline of the army. The archer can take out enemies from afar using headshots as well as slow down with poison arrows but is extremely vulnerable at melee range. The Mage's primary attack is the lightning bolt and he can chain electrocute a bunch of orcs with a shot but his medium attack range makes him vulnerable to the longer archer shot. The mage however, is a great all-rounder because he can heal himself and his allies and can cast a shield that blocks all ranged attacks. That said, he cannot attack when activating his shields. The scout is only good for two things - turning invisible for a short time and then killing foes with a single backstab.
As you progress in the scenarios, there will be opportunities to switch to one of the heroes but the heroes are just a more powerful version of the four basic classes. The campaigns are fun and can be challenging at times. I found myself replaying several scenarios to find new ways to complete them. The sound and graphics are decent although the cave trolls look more like gorillas than trolls. Fans will also be pleased with the generous use of footage from the movies. However, the game suffers from one flaw - the combat moves are limited and they become very repetitive after a while. Playing as one of the heroes does not give you new moves since they essentially fight the same way as any warrior, archer, scout or mage. For Xbox achievement points hunters, the good news is that it is quite to get them and hitting the full 1,000 points is definitely attainable with just a little effort.
