Lord of the Rings: Conquest Review (Xbox 360)

Ever since I can remember, I have always longed for that game that would pit me as a normal foot soldier in the medieval times. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wished for something like this growing up, but, like many others I’m sure, this is not what I imagined for my “dream game”. You see, when I heard that they were combining the Lord of the Rings series with the Battlefront formula I was ecstatic, but instead Pandemic has combined the Lord of the Rings series with only half of the Battlefront formula.

The game doesn’t fail on every level, however, the game does accomplish its primary purpose – to be a simple yet entertaining game. It’s more than a button masher, but it’s not overly complicated. The result is something that nearly everyone can pick up and enjoy, but the game can still leave you entertained throughout the entire campaign. There is also no denying how much fun the lore of fighting alongside Aragorn or becoming Sauron himself is.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Star Wars: Battlefront series, the objective of the game was to capture and hold enough territories until your enemy’s reinforcements depleted, pretty much your standard King of the Hill game mode. What made the game special was that you were just an ordinary foot soldier in the Galactic Empire or The Rebel Alliance. Lord of the Rings: Conquest uses the foot soldier approach, but, for some reason unbeknownst to me, they have replaced the King of the Hill antics to travel to point A, complete this objective, then travel to point B. Needless to say, the game’s linear ways grow trivial by the end of the second campaign.