The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review
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A World of Beauty As War in the North's story is more an excuse for sending you off to new areas of Middle-Earth, it's only fitting that those environments be the most striking visual aspect of the game. The Lord of the Rings films have some of the most stunning visual design in the fantasy genre, and it comes through excellently in War in the North. Whether it's the green trees and spiraling Elven architecture of Rivendell, or the towering cliffs and ancient stone-carved dwellings of the Grey Mountains, chances are you'll find yourself impressed at some of the backdrops. That said, considering the game's heavy combat focus, most of these boil down to corridors with occasional branching paths, but that rarely gets in the way of how pretty they are.
Beyond the environments, character models and animation are a bit more of a mixed bag. The three protagonists look great, as does all their armor and weaponry, with some excellent designs inspired by or straight out of the films, but secondary characters and some enemies occasionally suffer from lower-resolution textures and less-detailed models. Moreover, the likenesses for the film's characters are a mixed bag, ranging from "passable", to "what happened to your face?!" There's some brutal decapitations and lots of blood-splattering to be had (without becoming excessive, unlike Dragon Age II), and combat overall looks and feels like it's got a lot of weight behind it, but clipping issues and some occasionally wonky animation can also give War in the North a less-than-polished feeling at times.
Sound design is another one of those things that War in the North does well, but like the visuals, mostly by sticking to the films. The musical score uses a lot of the film soundtrack, but also contains some new works by veteran composer Inon Zur that blend in nicely. Much of the action and many cinematic sequences are also well-choreographed with the soundtrack, providing a movie-like quality to the proceedings. However, most of the time, the music forms the undercurrent for the tone and mood of the game, rather than standing out; it gets the job done well, but you won't find yourself humming any of the melodies when the game's switched off.
Sound effects and voice acting are another story. Though the quality of the effects is great, especially in the thick of battle, there are some occasional audio balance issues that can see some sounds coming out surprisingly muted, and sometimes the reverb and other audio effects can become a little bit excessive. Voice acting, meanwhile, is pretty good on average, but just as their faces, the sound-alikes for the film's characters can be very inconsistent - Elrond in particular sounding almost nothing like Hugo Weaving's performance in the films. Most non-film characters are fine, the sole exception being the Ranger; despite a performance by the almost comically omnipresent and usually quite emotive Nolan North, his voice work in dialogue sequences is painfully dry and stilted.
Finally, it's worth bringing a few technical points to light. The PC version of the game is a Steamworks title, and as such is invariably tied to Steam no matter where you buy it. A host of Steamworks-standard features, including achievements and Steam Cloud saving are present, which is quite welcome, but as some people aren't Steam fans, it's worth bringing up. For what it's worth, I encountered no Steam-related issues while playing. Elsewhere, however, fans have reported bugs related to the save system, crashes, stuttering, and inventory items disappearing. The game ran very smoothly under Windows 7 on my Intel Core i7-920 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470, but I encountered another strange issue in that certain graphics options, such as depth of field, motion blur, and ambient occlusion, apparently had no effect when switched on - whether this is the game at fault or NVIDIA's video drivers, I can't be sure at this point. Hopefully these issues will be identified and patched by Snowblind in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
It would have been easy for Warner Bros. to push out a quick-and-dirty product in a year's time and call it a day. Considering how common it is, and how many tragic stories of developers forced to rush out licensed games in half-finished states there are, it's easy to have reservations about such a title - even one with the Lord of the Rings name behind it. Instead, Snowblind has crafted one of the better Lord of the Rings games to date, and, not counting The Lord of the Rings Online, the franchise's best RPG to boot. With two-and-a-half years in development, the attention to detail and care comes through, and Lord of the Rings fans and RPG fans alike should find something to enjoy in the end, so long as the repetition in combat doesn't wear too heavily.
On the whole, The Lord of the Rings: War of the North is a solid action-RPG that provides a good amount of gameplay for the money, and also is one of the few RPGs out there to really handle multiplayer co-op in a way that feels integral to the experience, rather than tacked-on. While it may not have the staying power and replayability of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, or the sheer size and scope a "pure" Lord of the Rings RPG might, War in the North demonstrates that Snowblind Studios are able to branch out beyond their comfort zone, while still delivering an entertaining experience.
