Published in three volumes
between 1954 and 1956, J.R.R. Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings trilogy is perhaps one of the most influential
works of literature. It was the Lord of the Rings that popularized
the fantasy genre, resulting in the fantasy boom during the 1970’s.
Tolkien’s work lead to the development of war games with a
fantasy setting, which in turn catalyzed the creation of modern role
playing games. The Lord of the Rings also inspired an animated motion
picture in 1978 and more recently the full motion pictures based
on the trilogy.

Around the time the first and the second movies came out, several
video games based on the trilogy were released. Although none of
these games were great successes, they gave players a chance to
experience the Lord of the Rings universe first hand. Now,
as the release of
the third movie draws near, Vivendi enters the scene with War
of the Ring: the first Lord of the Rings real time strategy game.
Unfortunately, generic gameplay mechanics make War of
the Ring seem like little
more than an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the trilogy.

War of the Ring offers
two single player campaigns, consisting of 10 missions each, giving
players a chance to experience commanding
both armies in the conflict depicted in the Lord of the Rings. However,
War of the Ring takes more of a background story approach. Missions
are based on events mentioned in the books but not discussed in great
detail. The good campaign tells the story of the things Legolas,
Gimli, and Boromir had to go through before arriving at Elron’ds
council, whereas the evil campaign is the story of how armies of
Sauron left Mordor and sieged Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor.
The fans of the trilogy are likely to enjoy getting insight into
the events that are not thoroughly discussed in the books, although
some may find inconsistencies.

One problem with the campaigns
is that, at times, the missions feel somewhat disjoint and unrelated.
For instance, upon completing the
two missions about how dwarves initially defended their lands against
the orc invasion, players are given access to a mission where under
Legolas’s command, a group of elves are pursuing Gollum. There
is no real transition between the two missions, completing the first
one merely unlocks the other. To make matters worse, the campaigns
fail to stand out on their own. Without a decent Lord of the
Rings background, the missions are very unlikely to be enjoyable.

War
of the Ring has music that is appropriate for the game, even
though it is not particularly memorable. The voice acting is acceptable
for a real-time strategy game where character dialogue is not the
main focus. However, fans of the movies should not expect to hear
the voices of the actors, as Vivendi has the Tolkien family license,
not the movie one. Unfortunately, the graphics could have been better.
The units look choppy and up close it becomes obvious that they are
made of a small number of polygons. In addition, the terrain looks
very confusing at times. It is difficult to judge relative terrain
height and it is not always obvious what areas the units can walk
through.

The game does have a good
variety of multiplayer features, which might keep players interested.
War of the Ring also features a nice
tutorial that can teach the basics of real-time strategy games to
inexperienced players. However, overall, the game will probably not
present a challenge to experienced players. The problem with the
games AI is not necessarily the enemy’s inability to produce
the right amount or mix of units to defeat the player. Instead, War
of the Ring’s AI fails when the enemy tries to control its
own troops. While playing the game for this review, I was building
watchtowers as a defensive line against the enemy. The enemy attacked
as one of my workers completed a tower. Instead of attacking any
of the towers, the enemies started chasing after the worker. By merely
making the worker run in circles around one of the towers, I was
able to fend off against the attack and kill all the enemy units
without suffering any casualties.

What is truly disappointing
about War of the Ring is the way it fails to recognize its potential
to be a great game. As many real-time
strategy games, War of the Ring uses the base building formula. Mills
are constructed over wells to produce food, and foundries are constructed
over mineral deposits to produce ore. These resources are then used
to construct buildings, make upgrades, and create the soldiers needed
to defeat the enemy. While this basic real-time strategy concept
works well in Command and Conquer or Warcraft settings, it fails
to reflect the mood of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lord
of the Rings is about a small number of people making a stance against the
overwhelming mass of evil hordes. It is the story of a desperate
attempt to keep freedom. When playing the good side, creating masses
of units and throwing them against the evil armies simply feels wrong.
The good armies just don’t have such numbers in the books.
They rely on the heroic deeds and superior fighting skills of the
few soldiers they have, which the game does not reflect at all. War
of the Ring would have been a much better game if it worked like
the Myth series, where a small group of soldiers are expected to
defeat a much larger group of enemies. The challenge in the Myth series comes from understanding the unique abilities of each type
of soldier and effectively using the limited resources available.
The challenge in War of the Ring is to build the base fast and to
overwhelm the enemy with a larger army.

Another reason why the
game fails to capture the mood of the trilogy is that War of
the Ring looks too much like Warcraft III. The cartoon-like
graphics of Warcraft III worked really well for Blizzard’s
real-time strategy hit. Brightly colored environments did not hinder
the games ability to convey its story effectively. However, a game
based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy should have had more serious
looking graphics. The nature of the seemingly hopeless struggle against
evil simply does not get reflected when the game looks like a cartoon.

The similarity of War
of the Ring to Warcraft III is not limited
to the game’s graphics either. War of the Ring plays and
feels a lot like Warcraft III. The gameplay dynamics of Warcraft
III are almost carbon copied in War of the Ring. Upgrades are made
to make units stronger. The number of camps constructed determines
the number of units players can make. Heroes gain levels and have
special abilities like in Warcraft III. The only difference is
that instead of using a mana based system, War of the Ring uses
fate points. Fate points are gained through fighting the enemy
and can be used by heroes to perform certain skills or to buy certain
spells. The available spells include summoning an Ent for the good
armies and summoning a Balroc for the evil armies, but this little
touch of originality is barely noticeable given the overwhelming
similarity of War of the Ring to Warcraft III. The things a player
generally needs to do in order to win a mission in War of
the Ring will not be new to those who have played Warcraft III. In the end,
the game ends up feeling very unoriginal. Warcraft III with Lord
of the Rings characters and names sums up War of the
Ring. Especially
with the lack of FMV sequences between missions and the introductory
sequence that merely consists of cut-scenes from the game itself,
War of the Ring also feels very uninspired.

Overall, playing through War
of the Ring is certainly not a bad
experience. Being able to command the armies depicted in the Lord
of the Rings trilogy and controlling heroes like Legolas, Gimli,
and Boromir is entertaining. However, those looking for a true and
original real-time strategy challenge will be very disappointed with
War of the Ring. Those looking for a game that truly captures the
atmosphere of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will also be equally
disappointed. War of the Ring can only be recommended to Lord
of the Rings fans with a casual interest in real-time strategy games.

Final Grade: C+

System Requirements:

• 256 MB RAM
• 32 MB VRAM
• 2000 MB disk space
• Sound card
• DirectX v9.0