Lord of the Rings: War in the North (X360)

“Great game for co-op! Single player gets too repetitive too fast.”

“Great game for co-op! Single player gets too repetitive too fast.”

“Yes it's finaly here: Lord of the rings War in the north! Let me give you an insight on my history with this game; I preordered this game for a year in advance, the americain release date made me jealous because I had to wait an extra 23 days for...”

“Yes it's finaly here: Lord of the rings War in the north! Let me give you an insight on my history with this game; I preordered this game for a year in advance, the americain release date made me jealous because I had to wait an extra 23 days for it, when I looked at the reviews I was having serious doubts... Finaly 23rd of November arrived and upon placing the game in the disc tray one thought set into my mind: THIS IS S**T! it was the biggest disapointment since Dead island. The combat was so bad I didn't play the game till March the 16th. However when I started advancing some levels and getting some more skills I was hooked. Fish on the line hooked. Captain hook hooked. Having the time of my life hooked.


Story- Ok, if you have seen the films or read the books you will pick up the formulae straight off. A selection of heroes of different races and backgrounds do battle with sauron's evil minions.Despite the repetition of the Lord of the rings franchise it's still quite a cool senario. If you have read the lord of the rings books you will hopefully remeber Gandalf saying that Sauron would've won the war in the north and achived victory, if a handful of heroes had not stood in his way. During your quest you'll notice that you go from goblin genocide to scarcely surviving the attacks of Saruman's Uruk Hai, so the degree of difficulty raises drasticly over the course of the adventure.

Gameplay- The overall gameplay of the game strongly encompasses loot and hacking and slashing. Most of the game is actually slaying multitudes of bad guys and to it's strength it is immensly satisfying to attain a cool ability and use it for the first time. Having said that; those amazing skills take time to get a hold of, and when you first start out the combat is a sincere grind cosidering you can only make use of 3 types of attack and none of them seem to have any visable effect on the person you're attacking. Considering the massive focus on multiplayer I suggest not picking this game up unless you have a few friends to play with. Also you may want to take into account that this game is very linear and has its heart set on combat and gore, so this game is actually more of a hack and slash than a expansive RPG experience.

Graphics- Where the graphics are concerened there is only one thing coming into mind BLOOD. There is bucket loads of the stuff. Hit a goblin and blood start splashing everywhere, same applies to anything else that gets hit with a weapon. This is definitely a more gritty take on the classic world of middle earth and in honesty it is a completely welcome decision that took me by surprise a little bit.

If this game had a tad bit more polish and more replay value or downloadable content it would achive a higher score. But as it is, its definately a worthy entry to the lord of the rings franchise.

7/10
”