The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Xbox 360

    The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is an action-RPG developed by Snowblind Studios. Fans of the genre will recognize the developer from such games as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance as well as the Champions of Norrath series. The game appears on PC and the Playstation 3, though this review was written for the Xbox 360 version of the game.

     The game's story follows three companions; a Human Ranger, an Elven Loremaster, and a Dwarven Champion. This unlikely band of heroes finds itself traveling across the northern areas of Middle Earth combating the dark lord Sauron's army, headed in the north by the evil lieutenant Agandaur. 


 
   The group's journey takes them to many areas of Middle Earth which have not previously been featured by games or the popular movie trilogy. Players are able to explore areas such as the Barrow Downs and Mirkwood Forest, which are major locations in The Hobbit and The Lord Of the Rings, though this is their first real appearance outside of the books.

    Along with the new areas to explore come some familiar locations and faces to be seen throughout the adventure in the North. Characters from both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings make cameos throughout the game, though the majority of the cameos take place in the Elven city of Rivendell. The game's graphics are nowhere near amazing, but the art design clearly screams Lord of the Rings and is done quite well.

Farin, just before he drank every Elf in Rivendell under the table. It has since been called "The Hundred Beers War".

    War in the North's game structure is made up of levels filled with combat and exploration (albeit very linear) separated by hub cities where characters can stock up on supplies and repair items. While in the field, all three characters have a basic attack, heavy attack, block, and roll abilities. On top of these basic functions, each character has three skill trees of abilities unique to his or her class that can be unlocked by spending skill points upon leveling up. Eradan, the Ranger, can unlock abilities which augment his skill with a bow, his proficiency with two handed or one handed weapons, as well as the ability to become more stealthy and make sneak attacks against opponents. Farin, the Champion, has skills which increase his power wielding different weapon types, enhance the party's fortitude, and special abilities which enhance what his crossbow is capable of. Andriel, the Loremaster, has abilities which allow her to cast support spells, heal her allies with magic, as well as abilities which make her more effective in melee combat.

    The party will need to make use of all of its unique skills to combat the threat posed by Agandaur and his dark army. Hordes of enemies from all areas of Middle Earth work against the heroes as they travel. From the smallest Goblin sappers which suicidally charge at enemies with explosive results, to giant armored trolls capable of smashing whole groups of enemies under their massive clubs, there is a great variety in the enemies faced by the heroes. This diversity of enemies as well as the skills available to each character makes for a combat system which is enjoyable.

Middle Earth's famous "Running of the Orcs" festival.

    While the combat system is enjoyable, I often felt that it was a bit too simplistic. I found that even though I had a decent number of skills available for use, I often was just mashing the basic attack button with a couple of heavy attacks thrown in every now and then for good measure. Skills are just not powerful enough to be worth using with much frequency. I found that I could easily defeat enemies just as quickly using basic attacks as I could when I unleashed multiple skills. This basic strategy also avoided the period of helplessness encountered while initiating the special attacks due to their animations.

    Loot plays a huge part in how effective characters are on the battlefield in The War in the North. Enemies and chests constantly drop new armors and weapons with varying stats and appearances to be equipped. New pieces of equipment not only change each character's stats, but also change their appearance depending on the type of item equipped. There is little better in games than to constantly find new, more shiny items and have your character's appearance change accordingly to show how far you have progressed.

It's common knowledge that looking fancy increases one's lethality.

    Lord of the Rings: War in the North offers both single player and cooperative play options. Two players can play locally together via splitscreen, whereas three players can play together over Xbox Live. Personally I found a max of three players to be odd (literally) as four seems to be the standard number for online multiplayer games, though this oddity doesn't affect the quality of the game at all (not unless you usually play as a group of four, in which case, someone's going to be crying). The game is relatively short lasting around 10-12 hours, though new difficulty levels unlock upon completion of the game which allow you to keep your level, skills, and equipment from your previous playthroughs. I mainly played the game cooperatively with my wife, though I did go through a good portion of the game solo to catch up, BECAUSE:

    This game is full of bugs! Some are funny, some will break your soul (which others may find funny). After playing for a good 5 hours or so cooperatively with my wife, we decided it was probably a good idea to go back to a previously cleared area to make sure that we collected everything. No! Bad idea! After clicking OK to travel, we were presented with the normal load screen which then froze the game. After reloading multiple times and trying different variations of character load order without success, I researched the issue online only to find out that it is a common problem with the game. The worst part of the glitch is that it appears to happen completely randomly and destroys your save. Other bugs include what I like to call "The Stoic", a bug where enemies simply stand there and let you wail on them without reaction, "The Forgetful", a bug where the game mysteriously loses save data for one player while it continues to record the journey for the other player in co-op play, and finally "The #%&^$*@#!", a bug where the screen turns red and the game tells you that you have died even though your health bar is still at least half-full. While most bugs are minor, the game-ending glitch described first is unforgivable, especially so since Snowblind has not fixed the issue in a patch.

Mr. Troll laughs at your pain.

    Achievements in the game are pretty straight-forward, most of which being unlocked through normal play of the game. There is one collectible achievement, though I found all items for the quest without realizing it so I'm not sure how hard it actually is. Achievements for doing x amount of things in a single playthrough as well as completing the two successively harder difficulty levels round out the list making for an easy group of challenges to be tackled by achievement hunters.

    Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a flawed but enjoyable game. Like many other games, I have found that War in the North is much more enjoyable when you are playing it cooperatively than solo as human players add more personality to the game, making the innate flaws more forgivable and in some cases more humorous (insert flashback to a level in which Andriel got stuck on a ledge and a troll walked up, froze beneath her appearing to look longingly at the Elf maiden, and Rebecca in her closest approximation to a troll voice saying "Hark, what light through yonder window breaks?"). This positive influence may have raised my opinion of the game higher than it should be, but some things can't be forgotten. No matter how much I enjoy the game, I will always have the dark shadow of a possible freeze and complete data loss hovering in the back of my mind which puts a major dampener on the experience and forces me to lower the game's potential rating.

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