War in the North is uninspired in single player but is More Enjoyable with a Friend Except for Game-Breaking Bugs
Presentation:
I have to get this out of the way. The menus in this game suck. They look like something for a beta game. They just plain look like no thought went into them. There are also a lot of loading screens that feature the same artistic piece based on the game's charters. You end up looking at this loading screen a lot, so it's noteworthy that they could have at least had a couple of different art pieces for you to look at.
Graphics:
The graphics in this game look pretty good. The environments are quite good, and believable, the overall art direction of this game fits very well into the Tolkien universe of Middle Earth. The character models look fine, there are a few things here and there that stand out as odd (such as eyes and the like) but overall they look quite good. The animations in this game are very rigid and aren't varied enough to make the characters believable. It's unfortunate really, because if this game had been released even 2-4 years ago, it would probably be considered to look quite good.
Storyline:
I actually like the storyline in this game. You know you're getting into a Lord of the Rings game, so you know what to expect particularly if you've seen the trailers. I like the idea that some unsung heroes go north to fight a threat in the north. This idea is great, and is presented well in the trailers to the game. However, it feels like the developers felt that these trailers/opening cutscenes were enough to excite you about the game. Many of the game's cutscenes play out like RPG dialog pieces and while the voice acting is good, the charcters feel flat and underdeveloped. The reason for the War in the North is there, but it's not often emphasized.
Gameplay:
This is a hack-n-slash game with some light RPG elements. First it shuffles you down narrow corridors (with lots of invisible walls). This is unsettling, because the game encourages you to search for stuff and you end up constantly hacking containers and looking for loot to pick up (coins, arrows, jewelry you can sell, elf stones, swords, etc. The main meat of this game is the hack-n-slash of the enemies. This works well, at first. You fight a few enemies here and few enemies there and you begin to level up your character. You end up realizing that you only have a limited number of moves (2 attacks to be exact). No matter how much you level up your character you end up watching the same boring animations as you deal out light and heavy attacks. Let me make it clear: there are no combos and nothings else interesting for you to level up aside from some skills and armor/weapons you just end up doing the same thing over and over. I find this disturbing, not because I don't like hack-n-slash games but because hack-n-slash (LOTR none the less) from the last generation were more fluid in animation, more varied and more interesting to say the least. Even with this major gripe, all of this wouldn't be so bad IF this game threw hordes and hordes of enemies at you allowing you to feel like a real kick-butt hero. Which it does-but doesn't do. The enemy hordes feel light and thin for such a game as this, but then you realize why. Each enemy take numerous hits to bring down. This adds to the monotony of the game making you feel in capable of bringing simple Orcs down. Better swords help lessen these sponge enemies, but I can't help but wonder why Lord of the Rings Return of the King still is the best Lord of the Rings video game I have ever played-oh that's right, because it was fun, varied animations, combos, you killed hordes of Orcs quickly and with style. Those were the days. Snowblind Studios should have been taking notes from EA's LOTR games from the last generation, I had hoped this is what that game would be-a better version of those games. But sadly it's not.
Sound:
The game sounds great. The quality orchestra-pieces remind you of the Howard Shore score and the horn calls send chills down your spine. The dwarf's crys to fight the hordes of enemies reminds me of Gimli and really does a great job making me feel like I'm in middle earth. The orcs and the metal and metal sound great and overall the game just sounds right, not amazing but good none-the-less.
Conclusion:
This game is not without some minor errors as well. Sometimes enemies/friends jumped from one side of the screen to the other without so much as an animation to shuffle them hither. Occasionally, the game seems to studder under the weight of too many hordes of enemies on screen at once (but this is hardly noticeable). There is an occasional glimpse of screen tearing or an ugly texture but the biggest glaring problem is the gameplay. It has so much potential, I just feel if they had waited for a January release, they could have improved the combat system and animations a lot and ended up with a much better game. The character development and storyline could have used with some style and flare to help deepen it also. It just feels like there was so much potential going into this game, that I can't help but wonder what happened. It's a fun game overall but if I were you, I'd rent it first or wait until it's cheaper before picking it up. The only redeeming quality this game has is that it is a lot more fun if played with a friend. I've just sunk 5 hours playing this game with a friend and I can attest that the game is twice as fun with another person sitting on the couch playing split screen. I imagine that playing online would be a lot of fun as well. It just feels empty in a single-player play-through.