The Lord of the Rings: War in the North

The fun of co-oping through Middle Earth with three unique characters overshadows some of the game's shortcomings, making for a very enjoyable game that I'm happy to recommend.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North is far from perfect, but it's an incredibly well-balanced beat-em-up.

There's something here for you guys who like the general approach of solving problems with a whole lot of sword-swinging, experience upgrades and looting – but the gameplay gets a bit worn the longer you play. So is the story enough of a draw to push this into the buy column for you? How about the prospect of having a game experience you and your friends can share? If neither of these things would push you from the undecided column to the must-buy column, approach this one with a bit more trepidation.

It's a genuinely good game with a lot to offer both Lord of the Rings and action-RPG fans, and it definitely has that "Snowblind" (Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance) feel to it. As long as you go into it expecting a diamond in the rough, that's exactly what you'll find.

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a fun but flawed experience.

War in the North is a solid game that has some challenging battles despite of the bad AI. The game can't stand up towards other big releases during this time of the year, but the three player co-op will keep fans of the franchise and the genre busy for many hours.

A solid action RPG with plenty of loot to collect. I really got a sense of Champions of Norrath the more I played it, and wanted to continue grinding, which is uncommon for me.

War in the North is hardly the most memorable adventure through Middle-earth, but you won't regret any of the time you spend fighting across its grim battlegrounds.

What keeps me coming back to War in the North is the fact that the game does a remarkable job of divvying out loot. Enemy drops, breakable items, and eager shopkeepers are all there to make sure that you always have a consistent IV drip of high-fantasy swag at your disposal.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North isn't the most innovative or original experience you will play on the Xbox 360, yet the co-op gameplay is very enjoyable. I can certainly see many gamers sitting back with their buddies enjoying mashing away through the games many levels while living out their LOTR fantasies.

The hack 'n slash category isn't exactly thriving on consoles these days, so if you've been hard up for a cooperative loot bonanza, War in the North is worth sinking a weekend into. Its lack of variety and polish, however, makes it hard to imagine it having any sort of longevity.

It's a comfortable Action RPG that makes up for its shortcomings with addictive fun, cool three-player co-op and a goddamned giant talking eagle. Just push a few boundaries and hire a scriptwriter next time Snowblind, please.

Apart from the three player co-op, there's not much to recommend about War in the North. Fighting the same enemies over and over again gets old fast, especially as they take way too much damage for the combat to feel satisfying. [Dec 2011]

War in the North is also quite a lengthy game, which although sounds great on paper does work against the overall experience.

It has some good ideas, but it falls short in depth and developing an interesting story. It's an enjoyable game, but it should have been much better, as it seems to lack the faith to try some new things or further develop the main characters.

When it works it really works well and its attention to the canon and lore of the Lord of the Rings is phenomenal, but it does too many things poorly to put it in the same league as a game like Dark Souls or The Witcher 2.

The tale may not be as finely crafted as Tolkien's, but it's reverent of his work and worth experiencing – just keep in mind that you'll have to kill a lot of orcs to do so.

A perfectly competent beat-'em-RPG, even if it doesn't do much to carve out its own niche in the Lord of the Rings universe. Its strength and weakness is that it's completely inoffensive -- the perfect middle-of-the-road game. Unfortunately, it's hard to see what helps differentiate War of the North from the pack, and the pack is where it's apt to stay.

While it doesn't reach the heights we wished it would, War in the North is still a solid experience with more than enough content to justify checking it out. The combination of action-packed combat, RPG elements, and iconic Tolkien vibe make it worth a look for anyone looking for a bloody good time, even if they don't typically care about the stories of Frodo, Gandalf, and the rest of the fellowship.

While it's admirable that the team had opted to create an original story set alongside the events in the books, you'll wish that they had attempted to take more risks with the project. The characters are bland and lifeless, and the combat, while fun at first, gets pretty repetitive before too long.

The hacking and slashing game is enjoyable enough over short stretches, but you'll inevitably wish that there was more to the game than that.

There are some undeniably cool settings and promising combat mechanics, but the experience doesn't have the depth to draw players through to the end of the campaign.

War in the North is not a bad game, but it is an average one.

Although the story is original and its combat and roleplaying gameplay is a good idea, there are things that doesn't work well. Roleplaying elements are well-made, but they are not that important, and combat lacks depth, and the enemy AI is limited. An average game that won't make history.

It's by no means perfect, but Lord of the Rings: War in the North is still one of the better games to come out of the franchise, particularly if you play co-op. If you've been missing middle earth you're bound to get some enjoyment, just be prepared for it to be a little rough around the edges.

The story is decent at times but fails to compare to the magnitude of the original books' story. Leveling up and getting new gear is fun, but the combat becomes repetitive quickly.

An new take on the fiction, a genre I thoroughly enjoy, and a designed-for-co-op experience; this should have been a home run. But, robotic animations, sometimes bland voice work, invisible walls and ignorant enemy AI sucked much of the life out of it.

When it works (and when you have friends to play with), the game is a perfectly average hack-and-slash RPG. However, the laundry list of aforementioned issues not only hold the game back, but inhibit it to the point that it's not fun.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North is fine for a few hours of jolly good fun, but once you realise that the game has played its hand early and really has nothing else to offer then the lustre is soon lost. Poor AI, boring combat and pointless quests all add up to a disappointing game that would be better off dropped into the fires of Mordor.

Saved by the co-op mode, but this is a repetitive action RPG with quite a few bugs.

In short doses and with a good team, War in the North is not without its compulsive charms.

While New Game+ lets you restart the adventure with all of your gear and experience, there's not much variation to the storyline, and the light RPG conversations add little in the grand scheme of things. That said, if you're aching for a solid, fun co-op game, War in the North might be worth a stab.

A decent little distraction, but it's out during a period when "decent" distractions should be low on a gamer's list of priorities.

Too many frustrations interfere with the joys of killing orcs and collecting loot in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North.

Overall, the entertainment is there, but usability is lacking.

I can only say one good thing about War in the North: It could have been awesome.

There's a fair amount of content here, but it's tedious and repetitive enough that you won't want to play it for very long.

This isn't too bad for a couple of hours of button hammering with two friends. [Issue#118, p.112]

The flaws are just too much to look past. [Issue#80, p.82]

In small bouts and when playing with friends, War in the North is not devoid of any redeeming features. Compared with the big RPG of the moment, Skyrim, it comes off seriously lacking, but by offering mindless multiplayer fun and split-screen, it manages to carve its own niche and save itself from being instantly consigned to the bargain bins. Give it time, though.

Lack of imagination and repetitive combat send this hurtling into Mount Doom. [Feb 2012, p.96]

War in the North, by being a blunt object of a hack-and-slash game with a facile story and an aversion to genuine characterisation, adds itself to the long list of Lord of the Rings games that just aren't Lord of the Rings games.

I might have had less aggravation if I had a dedicated group of other players to go through the game with from beginning to end, but I wouldn't ask any of my friends to pay full price for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. Thankfully, since War in the North was released after Dark Souls, before Skyrim, and on the same day as Uncharted 3, there's a good chance the game is already in the bargain bin for a fraction of the MSRP.

A soulless cash-in that has little to do with its license, and nor is it much fun in its own right. If you're lucky enough to not encounter any game-breaking bugs and if you have a friend or two to play with, then it can be pretty entertaining for a few hours. But that's a lot of "ifs" for so little payoff, since overlong levels and axe-sponge enemies inevitably whittle this dungeon crawl down into a slog.

War in the North never quite manages to exceed in neither gameplay or presentation. Ultimately, lackluster environments and repetitive combat make for an experience that seems out of place in the world crafted by Tolkien. Even if Lord of the Rings precedes the title, War in the North does not live up to the level of quality set by previous franchise media.

The Lord Of The Rings is yet again denied a decent tie-in, with this desperately uninteresting and half broken action role-player.