Even in Middle Earth, 'tis grim up north

Parallel stories are a great way to make use of an iconic IP and still be able to do your own tale. Tolkien's Middle-Earth universe is vast and mostly untapped, and despite the film trilogy being long over, it seems the overlords over at Warner Bros are still interested in carrying the legacy. Lord of the Rings: War in the North is the latest videogame to make use of the IP, and whilst it's still set around the same time as the events of the film, this new band of plucky heroes take a completely different road altogether.
 

That's never going to get old, we can tell...

Unlike, say, The Third Age (which was released in 2004) you're not following in the real fellowship's wake, conveniently ending up being involved in the same events as Frodo and his band of merry men and assorted races. As the title suggests, you're instead going t'up north, where it is mentioned and hinted at in Tolkien's lore that the war was being fought there as well as in Gondor and Rohan. Not a lot is actually written about this conflict, only that there was indeed fighting in the lands around the Shire, Bree, etc... which has allowed the studio a great deal of creative freedom.

The game uses a 'class' based system, with each of the three main characters following a different typical archetype. Eraden is a Dunedain Ranger, human, and so he is the 'Ranger' class. Farin is a Dwarf from Erebor, and is the Champion (mêlée) class, and Andriel is a an Elf from Rivendell, and is the spellcaster class (although they are called Loremasters, since the Tolkien universe doesn't really have 'mages'). Each class however is adaptable, depending on what skills you choose to invest in, and so each character can easily branch into another area. The Champion class can easily become good with the bow, the Loremaster can become handy with a sword, and so on.
 

"YOU. SHALL NOT. PA- oh wait, that's been done already"

There's technically a fourth member of your band - a Great Eagle. You can't play as him though, but he is involved in the plot and as far as combat is concerned, he represents a very powerful ability which is basically him swooping down and gnawing something to death. It's pretty cool to watch, actually. Combat can be quite frantic, even in the most simplest of battles - there's a tendency to just mash away until something is dead, and whilst that may work for the small-fry, medium - big sized enemies require a lot of dodging and tactics. Firing from afar whenever possible helps, as does making good use of your abilities.

War in the North revolves heavily around co-op, so much so that it must be one of the few games out at the moment to include pretty much the full range of possible options. You can do local split screen, system link, Xbox Live... whilst it's not one-class per person, the game is very geared towards that set-up. Each class has its own special ability that only it can do - Farin can mine for Gems, Eraden can find hidden ranger supply caches... and apart from potions the only way to really effectively keep yourself alive is to have a Loremaster with healing abilities. Saying that, it's a shame there's no real combo skills or anything like that, other than just successfully using teamwork. Everyone loves a good combo move and we can't help but feel Snowblind has missed a trick there.



It also touts a very old school like loot and customisation system. As we mentioned before as far as skills go there is some degree of flexibility as you level up, and this is reflected in the loot system as well. Everything from weapons, armour sets and jewels can be found on the corpses of your enemies, and you can equip tour heroes in a variety of different ways. Obviously, some things are locked by certain conditions, but it's easy to equip your hero in a manner that reflects the direction you're taking him/her in.
 

Do golems have knads?

Maybe you're getting tired of Lord of the Rings games by now, maybe you're not. At least there's a fresh adventure for you to get to grips with here, and the game itself is a nice blend of action and old-school RPG elements. The developers have clued in that the only way this is going to be fun on the mass level is through co-op, and this actually could be a fun game to play with friends - I mean, it's not like Skyrim has multiplayer, right? The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is due out on PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 1st in North America, November 4th in Europe and (bizarrely) November 25th in the UK.

Most Anticipated Feature: We have to say, there's nothing in particular that stands out about War in the North, but that doesn't mean it's not one you can get excited about.