The War of the Ring itself takes place during the conflict while Frodo and Sam were on their quest to destroy the One Ring by throwing it into the fire of Mount Doom. But unlike the approach of the recent action games released by EA, the focus is not on this quest, or necessarily the several heroes that made up the Fellowship. Instead, Liquid and Vivendi shifted their view to the battles fought to keep the forces of Sauron out of the lands of men, Elves, and Dwarves including conflict that occured before the actual War of the Ring. Many of the battles that are fought in this game aren't actually found in the Lord of the Rings trilogy or history as far as I could find (admittedly I haven't read the many volumes of the History of Middle-Earth). Instead the game offers a bit of an interpreted nature of the events before and during the year and a half that the War lasted.
War of the Ring is definitely presented and made for the average strategy gamers and those that may not have been drawn to the genre in the past. And to this end, it does a good job. You'll find all of the normal features that you would expect in a typical RTS. You'll have to construct buildings on a map that serve several purposes such as training units and upgrading their abilities. All the while you'll have to mine ore from deposits, found conveniently in mounds in green pastures (lame) and harvest food using wells, which were conveniently located near the ore deposits. Then you'll need to build up an army and loose it upon the enemy while making sure that your "town" is defended as well. Mission objectives differ depending on the level, most of which have been done before.
There are two campaigns here. One lets you follow the exploits of the good army and its struggle against the might of Sauron. Here, you'll find yourself constructing buildings and units of the three big "good" races of Middle-Earth (humans, elves, and dwarves) along with units of more magical and mysterious races such as the Huorns (more tree-like versions of Ents) and Beornings (a group of people that can change into bears as Beorn from The Hobbit did). This is really where I start having problems with the game, which could in large part be due to the fact that I'm a geek. Making a normal RTS out of the Tolkien history just doesn't make sense to me. Not only is it wierd for elves and humans and dwarves to all come popping out of buildings, but it's also weird that they're harvesting ore in the middle of a green field and recruiting Huorns (who really only played a part in the destruction of Isenguard) and Beornings (who really don't play much of a part in the books at all). In the same vein, as far as I can remember or find, Dwarves fought in the War of the Ring, but really only in their own territory alongside the men of Dale in defense of the Lonely Mountain.
For people that don't really know the books well or don't care, this is probably fine. Playing with Ents and Beornings is cool for them, so I can see the point of including them. But fans of the series are probably going to have the same problems that I've had. Constructing a camp with a barracks for each of the Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Ent races is just silly. Watching them all pop out and fight together is bizarre and just doesn't really sit right for most of the game.
This is especially weird considering the context of the books and history. The good races weren't vast in numbers. In fact, they were quite the underdogs in the War. Being able to just reproduce units doesn't sit right. I really wish the game had been more of a tactical nature where you begin with a set number of units and need to survive the mission with a certain number of survivors or at all. Units balanced to reflect the overwhelming number of Sauron's forces would have been nice as well. Harvesting and all that jazz just doesn't seem right for a subject so rich. It dumbs it down.
The second campaign actually lets players crack the whip at the back of the mighty hordes of evil. Because this is obviously a step out from the storyline, I didn't mind the way this was colored as much and in fact even enjoyed it a bit. Getting a chance to corrupt Middle-Earth doesn't happen every day. It's easier to forgive the license taken with the story and history of the land in this campaign. But once again, it just doesn't show the absolute might of the invading forces of Sauron. The population limit is set at 100 and when most of the creatures in your army take up at least 3 of those 100, it's hard to get the feeling of superior numbers.
The units in the Dark Lord's army are what you might expect. There's the basic Orc units such as Goblins (which are really just smaller Orcs), Goblin Spearmen, Orc Bowmen, Orc Slashers, Warg Riders, and the specially bred Uruk-Hai. Trolls, Giant Spiders, Wraiths, and Haradrim round out the rest of the normal units. The Trolls and Harad I can understand a bit more than the Giant Spiders and Wraiths, but all things considered, they were fun units.
Obviously, my ideas of Tolkien's works have colored my feelings a bit. Vivendi wanted a title that RTS gamers could understand easily and identify with. So let's disregard any of the story and setting for a moment and take a look at the gameplay itself.
War of the Ring is pretty much your basic RTS. It has all of the conventions that we've come to know, as I discussed previously. But because it doesn't take any steps forward doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad gameplay experience. Really, anybody is going to be able to pick this one up and play it. It was obviously made to appeal to more than just a niche crowd, which is both a plus and a minus. Hardcore strategy fans aren't going to find a lot here that they haven't seen before but many newer and more casual gamers will like the light hearted color and fantasy fun.
Controls are basically the same as what we've seen in the past as well, which is always good to me. Mouse controls can be changed for those that are used to right mouse or left mouse button RTS games as well. Everything else will be equally as familiar, from training units to upgrading abilities.
There are a couple of new features that Liquid has added to the mix, which add a fun spot of action. The biggest of these are fate points. These fate points work a bit like the Yin and Yang points from Battle Realms. The more you fight, the more fate points you gain. Fate points can then be used for a couple of different things. First off, both the evil and good sides have fate powers, which cost different amounts and can be used at anytime via a handy button at the top center of the GUI. You can use them to blind enemies, block ranged attacks, heal units, or even summon creatures like the mighty Balrog (which also died in the books, but we'll overlook that for now) and a giant Ent that can both throw huge boulders and slap enemies in melee distance. Both of these units will only survive a certain amount of time, but are incredibly tough and can be used as tanks to take damage for you. Throwing one of those into the middle of a game is certainly a good way to muck things up for your enemies, especially in multiplayer, which is really where the strategy of using them comes into play.
Fate points can also be used to unlock powers in each hero's arsenal of abilities. Some of them come at a one time cost of one fate point. But others, such as the Witch King's ability to create Nazgul out of a wraith costs points every time that it's used as well. The hero abilities aren't quite as powerful as the fate powers, but they've also been designed well and can turn the tide of a battle. Take Gandalf's meteor shower for instance. While it doesn't damage units a whole lot, it can light every building within its radius on fire, causing havoc in a base and making enemies take workers away from harvesting to douse and repair buildings.
Finally, there are the places of power, which are basically statues scattered throughout a map that can be captured. Most of them will give players bonuses in one way or another (such as faster generation of fate points or more damage resistance) but others serve more directly for gameplay. In order to finish some of the missions, players will have to capture certain points of power and keep them from attacking troops. They make an excellent place for centering conflict, especially in multiplayer games as they keep players from just turtling inside their bases.
Really, War of the Ring isn't bad from a gameplay perspective. It doesn't really break any serious new ground and even uses some of the old ground to a fault (I'm still thinking of those ore piles and wells just sitting around the map), but it does what it does decently.
Graphically, I'm going to have to revert back to my earlier stance on Tolkien's works. Technically, the game is sound. Units look better than they did in Battle Realms (this game runs on an updated version of that engine) and environments are done well (especially all of the wildlife running around the maps), but it doesn't capture the Tolkien feel to me. I suppose that's pretty subjective, but that's how I feel. While Middle-Earth is a fantasy world, there was always a very real cast to it thanks to the incredibly detailed writing style of the author. That realism is missing here. The look is just too cartoony and disproportionate. Even the old cartoons of The Hobbit and Return of the King weren't this cartoony. It needed more flair of some kind. I can't exactly put my finger on what it was missing, but there's definitely a hole there as far as the art and majesty of Middle-Earth goes. But at the same time, there were certainly a couple of things done right. The Balrog is wonderful as is the giant Ent. They're very detailed and look fantastic. It's almost like they're different styles of art entirely and they definitely fit with the fiction better. Unfortunately, the game did stutter a bit at 1024x768 resolution, even on the 3GHz, 1gig of RAM, and GeForceFX Ultra at work.
Sound on the other hand, is done pretty well. Gollum's voice sounds a bit like Peter Lorre and I can't say I liked the dreamy "Yes, Elf-friend?" acknowledgments, but most of them were pretty good, better on the evil side. And aside from the opening song, which reminds me of early Nintendo days, music was good.
