The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

LOTR: Conquest is a third-person action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts in January 2009 for PS3, Xbox 360, Windows and Nintendo DS.
The game uses elements of the movie, but also from the original book written by JR Tolkien.

The game follows parts of the movies and the novels, but they let their imagination loose and put parts in it that really didn't make any sense. One example is the Battle of Minas Morgul, which never took place in the novels.

There are five different classes:
-the Archer, A long ranged unit with a bow and arrow that plays like a third-person shooter. Different types of arrows can be equipped: fire arrows, which can knock down enemies and deal explosive damage; poison arrows, which slow enemies down and do damage over time, and the ability to fire a volley of three normal arrows at multiple enemies at once. They also have a kick for use in close-quarters, which knocks back the enemy. They can also hit stealthed Scouts with the multiple arrow skill. A headshot will allow the archer to kill most enemies in a single hit, but that's virtually impossible online because of the MASSIVE lag.

-the Warrior: A melee combat unit which uses swordsmanship. Unlike the other classes, whose special attacks recharge over time, warriors can only gain strength by defeating enemies, which allows them to unleash more powerful attacks with a flaming sword, such as spinning to hit every adjacent enemy. They are the only class that can block or perform counterattacks with special moves. The warrior also has a throwing axe as a secondary, medium ranged weapon. You don't want to be playing this class when playing online. The warrior's only purpose is playing target practice for the mage and scout.

-The Scout: A master in the art of moving unseen. The scout’s primary weapons are two daggers, and he has the ability to become temporarily invisible and assassinate units instantly from behind with a sneak attack. As a secondary attack, he carries satchel bombs filled with blasting powder as a ranged attack. Listen to me! Listen to me carefully, I control your brains. This class is the most hated class online. Only the weak and most pathetic persons will use this class. These BACKSTABBING bastards are your primary targets online. You will show no mercy when you encounter these weaklings.

-The Mage: A mage's primary attack is a bolt of lightning, which can be charged up for a more powerful attack that can also damage other enemies in close proximity to the target. He also wields a “firewall” attack, which creates an expanding circle of flames that will heavily damage if not kill enemies who are within the circle. For close range attacks, they have a shockwave attack, which knocks enemies back and allows the mage to finish them off with his staff. Mages can also heal allies. For defensive purposes, a mage can create a magical shield around himself to protect anyone inside from ranged attacks of any sort, provided the attacker is outside of the shield, which allows people to walk through. While the shield ability is active, the mage is unable to do anything else and is therefore highly vulnerable to melee attacks. This unit is overpowered when playing online, as people tend to use the mage a lot.

- The Heroes: These units are not that different from the normal classes, they're only a bit harder to kill, except when you're playing a backstabbing bastard. Then it's only an assassination away, because they aren't immune to the 'special' backstabbing ability that the scout possesses.
Their attacks and special attacks are the same, they also move the same as the normal classes. But you can only choose them when you have a certain amount of points or when you are playing a Hero Team Deathmatch.

You're also able to play as special units. The good side has the Ents and the bad side Cave Trolls. These units are much stronger than the normal units, but there are only a few of these units available at the same time.

The game also has multiplayer. The game modes aren't very special. You're able to play a few game modes, like Team Deathmatch, Capture the Ring and Hero Team Deathmatch. On PS3, the max amount of players is 16 and no bots are added, so the battles online are very empty. At first I was able to play this game online on my PS3, but after a couple of months they shut down the European servers. I think they realized what abomination they've created and saved us from further infection of the brains.

The graphics of this game aren't bad, but they aren't special too. You should think that the creators of the Star Wars Battlefront series could do better than this, but unfortunately they didn't. I even think that the graphics of Star Wars Battlefront II are better than those of this game.

So in the end, I think you should steer clear of this game, especially when you're a fan of the LOTR novels and movies. I also think that Pandemic Studios could do way better than this, because they've showed that with the Battlefront series.