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The Lord of the Rings: War in the North tells a tale that runs parallel to the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary trilogy and subsequent Hollywood interpretation. With some M-rated violence and online co-op, it's coming out strong in one of the biggest market fights this industry has ever seen.

War in the North's biggest problem isn't that it's particularly bad, it's just that it does what a ton of other role-playing games already do, just on a far less impressive scale. The Rings flavor doesn't really add anything to the game, especially with a graphically unimpressive, corridor-based representation of Middle Earth. There's no joy to be had in exploring Tolkien's universe in a game this visually unremarkable, populated as it is by dull characters who have never been seen before and will never be seen again.

The fact that it resembles an RPG in only the most aesthetic of ways is fairly disappointing. Despite its leveling system and dialog trees, the game only makes vague and halfhearted attempts at being anything more than a linear trek from point A to B. In games with a strong narrative or exciting pacing, linearity is perfectly fine, but there's a dishonesty to War in the North that sees it attempting to look more open than it actually is. The dialog trees, for example, don't influence the outcome of conversations as there's only ever one "right" reply that advances the conversation. There is a single player choice in the entire game, but it comes during the final boss fight and exists solely to obtain an extra Achievement/Trophy. Even more insulting, the game's mandatory objectives have been called "quests," as if to try and trick the player into thinking they had any other choice. There are no "quests" in the game, there's one mission with straightforward targets.

(Destructiod)