Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and Snowblind Studios have launched their epic Action RPG, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North on PlayStation, Xbox 360 and PC.
The game brings a lot to the table, including an intuitive and enjoyable combat system, a brand new story never before told based on J.R.R. Tolkien's lore and beautiful environments based on locations in the Peter Jackson film adaptations of Tolkien's iconic trilogy.
Here is a closer look at The War in the North, to give you an idea of what the game is all about.
A Brand New Story
J.R.R. Tolkien's amazing literature is filled with stories that have yet been adapted into other mediums. The story in The War in the North is completely original, written by the team at Snowblind but before Tolkien purists get worked up, it's important to note that the story in War in the North is based entirely on actual lore from The Lord of the Rings and its many appendices.
In The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, players will join their own fellowship of three. Sauron has sent his chief lieutenant Agandaur into the North of Middle Earth with the task of overrunning the Northern realms with a massive army while other units attack in the South.
Our fellowship is made up of Andriel the Elven Loremaster, Farin the Dwarf and Eradan the Human Ranger. While War in the North is meant to be a co-op game, you can still play it alone with the intuitive AI picking up for the other two members in your party. You will choose a character at the beginning of the game, but as is the nature of War in the North, you will be able to switch to a different character later on as your needs change.
This fellowship must hunt down Agandaur and stop his assault in the North, before Sauron gains too much ground to be stopped. All the while that our party is carrying out their story, Frodo and Sam are on their way to Mordor and Aaragorn and company are fighting their way through Rohan and Minas Tirith. The story in War in the North parallels the events in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
One of the really fun features that fans of the films will enjoy is interacting with people and places that are directly inspired from the film adaptations. Our first example of this is meeting with Aragorn in the Prancing Pony at Bree, just days before Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin arrive there one rainy night. Take a look at this scene below:
After leaving the Prancing Pony, the adventure really begins in earnest. Players will find themselves running through and fighting in gorgeous environments ranging from The Barrow-Downs to the fortress Carn Dum, in the heart of the Grey Mountains.
Throughout the game, we came to really love the character progression and combat system. Snowblind is known for crafting deep, immersive RPG experiences and War in the North is no exception.
Combat & Character Progression
The combat system in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is fast-paced and heavily action-oriented. Fans of the Action RPG genre will love the system as it is sharp, intuitive and features some epic slow-motion finishing strikes. Players can expect to go up against Middle Earth's nastiest foes, including Saruman's Uruk-Hai, spiders in Mirkwood, massive and powerful trolls, Orcs and some more, brand new enemies unique to this game.
Each character has standard, heavy and ranged attacks but as time goes on they will be developed into even stronger attacks and players will unlock new combos to deal death in more ways on the battlefield. But, enough talk! Take a look at some highlights from combat in Lord of the Rings: War in the North below.
On the Character Progression side of the game, Snowblind has build a deep, immersive progression system that encourages players to string together bonus multipliers in battle so that they can achieve their next level as soon as possible. Players can assign skill and attribute points to their character which will influence the way they perform in the game.
Additionally, players can find or trade for armor sets, weapons and so much more. There are thousands of items to collect in War in the North and all of them can be used with various townsfolk and traders in the game to build your character the best setup of weapons and armor possible.
One of the cool features of character progression is that it is persistent. Meaning that if you rank up to level 10 offline, playing solo, you can jump into a friend's game online and rank up a bit, maybe grab a unique weapon if you come across one, and take all of that back to your offline progress.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has been a blast to play and is a testament to Snowblind Studios' ever-growing ability to craft in-depth, immersive and, most importantly, fun RPG experiences.
For more on the Lord of the Rings: War in the North, be sure to check out http://www.warinthenorth.com/. The game is out now on Xbox 360, PlayStation Network and PC.
Comments