THE LORD OF THE RINGS: WAR IN THE NORTH (2011) REVIEW

Nice idea, not great execution.

PS3 version reviewed.

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a hack and slash RPG published by Warner Bros. and developed by Snowblind Studios for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

GAMEPLAY
Combat is decent, should be satisfying to hack and slash fans

Empty dialogue tree that will always lead to the same outcome

Switching characters takes too long

Bosses were really easy, except the first one, it's not like you even have to think about how to combat most of them, I found most of them could be finished pretty quickly by ranging them at the start until you run out of arrows, before being able to move in and use the old hit and dodge combo. Most of the bosses seem to keep a similar move set through the fight too, so they don't really require much thinking or change in strategy.

While plenty of the levels look nice, the dull feeling the game gives off is odd, as I'm not sure how they managed to do that with the LotR licence. Perhaps it's because every level feels so linear, you really are forced along a small narrow path for most of the game rather than being able to even slightly explore your surroundings.

Online can be messy, if you can actually find someone to play with

STORY
The characters are really boring.

GRAPHICS
The eagles and dragons look great

Everything else looks okay

SOUND
Not really that memorable but it does sound a bit LotR-esque at times, so in that regard it's alright.

VALUE FOR MONEY
Around 12 hours for main story

OVERALL
War in the North fails to stand out in a busy market, leaving little reason to play it, releasing next to huge games that will cater to similar crowds, such as Skyrim. It might be worth giving a go if you see the game on sale and enjoy the world of Middle-Earth, but don't expect anything special.