Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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168 of 173 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow, wow, wow!, November 7, 2003
This is a killer game. I've been playing almost nonstop for two days and this is the most fun I've had in a long long time. The art is rich and the environments lush. The units are full of character and each of the heroes are unique. I was really surprised, I was expecting a more-of-the-same Warcraft III, but this thing blew me away. Warcraft III came off as a big bloated over budget yawnfest. This game is a lean mean, hit and run, "screw them before they screw you" kind of game with some of the smartest AI I've seen yet. I didn't know what to expect because I didn't want to play a game with the visuals that the movies have. I like the movies alot, but I don't want to look at a mishmash of browns and grays on my monitor. This game's art style is not that at all, it's just simply really cool. The colors are rich and it looks like you're in a painted graphic novel. The special effects are wild and the voice acting is great. The single player missions are awesome with scenarios behind the scenes and including the main storyline. The campaigns that take place in cities are cool with rich details like damaged buildings, rubble, and a bridge you have to demolish to hinder the enemy. Helm's Deep and Osgiliath are simply amazing. This game really shines in multiplayer too. For the good side, you have Gondor Swordsmen, Rohan Riders, Elven Archers, Elven Lightbringers, Dwarven Axethrowers, Dwarven Shieldbreakers, Huorns (Ents) and Beorning (wildmen that turn into Bears) For the evil side you have Orc Slashers, Orc Archers, Uruk-hai, Wraiths, Haradrim, Troll Stone-hurlers, and Troll Bone-cleavers, Warg Riders, and Spiders. Also, each of the heroes are designed so that you have to adapt your strategy according to which heroes the enemy has in play. Gimli can steal your towers and temporarily stun melee units near him, Frodo and Gollum have stealth capabilities, the Witch King can convert Wraiths into Nazgul, Legolas can increase allies mobility and protection from ranged attacks, Saruman and Gandolf are just killer wizards that can turn the battle and Aragorn, man, Aragorn is the KING. He just becomes the melee unit of all melee units the more he gains levels. In addition to all this are the Fate Powers, which you can use by accumulating Fate Points, which are acquired based on how much damage you inflict on your opponent. The Fate Powers are unique spells that can easily shift the tide in a battle. With Fate Powers, the Evil side can summon spells that can do things like slow enemy units down, or a giant cloud of crows that protect the evil side's units, etc. There's an evil Fate Power that summons a giant obelisk that bursts through the ground and absorbs damage for the Evil side. The ultimate evil Fate Power is summoning a Balrog with a flaming sword that just makes mince meat out of anything in its path. The Balrog's fire effects are just stunning! On the Good side, there are Fate Powers like Blind, and a spell that creates a field of brambles that damages enemies running through it. The ultimate Good side Fate Power summons a giant Ent (Treebeard) and he attacks by throwing a massive boulder at enemies. I would really recommend this game to the experienced or novice game player. Have fun!
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57 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
True to Tolkien and fun gameplay, November 16, 2003
I picked up War of the Rings just the other day and have been playing it since. It has a tremendously realistic feel for all Tolkien fans out there. The graphical sets for each of the missions are very much how I pictured them from the books, as well as true to the movies so far. The setting is Middle Earth and the Good Campaign chronicals all of the major heroes in the literary work. You are tasked with many different missions, some pre-requisites to others, and follow the books well into the story. Example of this are the Battle for Helm's Deep, the battle for Lothlorien, tracking Gollum, that battle for Gondor, etc. The graphics and storyline pay the game off extremely well, but the gameplay itself is typical of most RTS games; easy to learn and simplistic in nature (think WarCraft series). The r-click, l-click dilemma is solved in WotR with it being an option to choose, which is a nice added touch. The game came fully working and, unlike 95% of RTS game's first releases, had no noticable bugs for my system (2.2g, 512MBRam, Win XP). A very pleasant surprise. Anyone that's a fan of RTS or Tolkien would do well to pick this game up. It's simple to learn, fun to play and very immersive since it has such a prolific history. I can't wait to start the "Evil" campaign and get back into the storyline!
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46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This War of Middle Earth is Great, December 6, 2003
Reading reviews from all over the net it is pretty clear this is the type of game you are going to love or hate. I personally love this game so I thought I would categorize the reasons why to help others with their purchasing decision.The War of the Ring is based on the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien, what does this mean exactly? First it means this game is not based on the Peter Jackson movies so do not expect things to look or feel exactly as the big screen version. However that said the developers of this game actually had more material to work with, just take a look at all the indexes and appendices (not mention main story elements) that were left out of the movies. War of the Ring does an excellent job covering both the main story line and events only glossed over within the book. This makes the game seem familiar yet fresh for diehard Tolkien veterans. The graphics in this game are superb. The backgrounds are highly detailed and just interactive enough to keep them interesting. The first time you send 80 elven archers through a field of blowing grass and watch it realistically react to their presence will have you in awe. From Mind bogglingly beautiful waterfalls to nightmarish fortresses this game has a graphic style that surpasses Warcraft III in its majesty. The individual units are a little under whelming unfortunately. They seem to be just a few polygons shy of acceptable. That said this is an RTS game and 99% of the time you will be zoomed out so far that it is irrelevant. From a distance the units look great and the massive battles will make you a true believer. The audio portion of the game is a mixed bag. The music and voice acting is top notch. A symphony orchestra keeps the pace as booming voices please your ears. However unit sounds leave a little to be desired. For example the gigantic Stonehurler makes merely a muffled noise as it rips giant boulders asunder from the earth, not exactly anything to get excited about. In all fairness most of the games unit audio is great from the elves shouting a battle cry to the noise of their arrows whooshing in the air. This high standard makes the bad or missing sounds that much more noticeable however and it does really detract from the immersion factor. Game play is where this title will live or die for you. If you love fast paced, simple real time strategy, with little or no micromanagement you will cut off your ring finger for this game! Simple and sweet is the name of the game. The best way to describe the mechanics is to imagine a simplified Warcraft II. Only two resources proper exist they are easy to acquire and plentiful to harvest. Scavenging the map for resources is usually not necessary. Places of power can be found on each map that also act as a kind of resource, controlling a place of power gives your units a special bonus and weather you or the enemy control these can make the difference in a prolonged campaign. Speaking of the enemy the enemy and friendly AI in this game is beautiful. Archers smartly stay back from a battle if melee troops are in front of them. Units do not stupidly stand by if they are under attack. The enemy occasionally tries to lay ambushes and uses scouts to great effect. This makes the single player campaign very enjoyable.
Building units is very straight forward, and the tech tree is mercifully short. The recent innovation of adding hero units to real time strategy has been carried over to great effect in this game. Hero units use fate to gain more abilities; this caveat alone keeps you in the action as you have to fight intense battles to earn fate points. I could go on about how fun the evil campaign is, or how cool the Lord of the Nazgul looks. This review is long enough now so consider everything else just icing on the cake. To put it bluntly this game is just fun. Not perfect and defiantly not for the detail and stat freak this game easily scores 4 stars by me.
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