GB Feature: The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review
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However, where the combat begins to lose its luster, the story and additional game elements jump in to fill the void, keeping things enjoyable for the duration of the campaign. Although it runs parallel to the events of the Lord of the Rings films and novels, the plot of War in the North makes up a side-story to those events, fixated upon the hunt for Agandaûr, a Black Númenórean man who has risen to become Sauron's "right-hand in the North" during his war campaign against Middle-Earth. Though the plot begins as a simple mission to distract the forces of darkness while Aragorn and the Hobbits escape the Shire, soon it becomes clear that Agandaûr and his huge Orc army serve as a legitimate threat even as the Fellowship makes its way towards Mordor.
Throughout the game, you'll likely be surprised at just how much dialogue there is. As mentioned above, the game employs a Mass Effect-style dialogue system, with the traditional choice of responses and an "investigate" branch which allows you to ask additional questions. Dialogue, though perhaps lacking some of the character and emotion of other games, fits perfectly into the Lord of the Rings archetype, with a pleasing lack of anachronisms, references to myths, history and culture, and internal consistency which some other games lack. Rather than the typical "paragon/neutral/renegade" responses, your options on conversation tend to pertain more to different lines of questioning. The three player characters share most of their dialogue with one another, and there is a lack of real choice and consequence in the story (only a bit of it shows up in some of the side-quests), but generally solid voice acting and the sheer amount of lore and trivia packed in makes the conversations enjoyable; that said, it's still easy to skip past if you wish to avoid it.
