Any thoughts on Lord of the Rings, War in the North

Played a few more hours today. Fun game.

Thought we hit the end early though when we couldn't get past
Thorzog the Orc Chieftain
. We played that boss fight at least 20 times before beating it. Very tough. I thought we were done for. Somehow we got lucky and beat him. It took some crazy strategy of my dad rolling around the battlefield while I tried to single out the boss and do the damage, lol.

The game difficulty on the whole is pretty tough, but I do have to say, it is paced pretty well. Every time I feel like we won't survive the next wave of enemies, a strategically placed store is there to reload us. It's nicely done.

Some of the enemies are ridiculously tough. I'm duel wielding and it seems I have to hit undead 20 times before they die. Or shoot 20 arrows through their skull. Kinda weird, but still fun.

Co-op is a blast. It takes awhile to orient yourself with the split-screen, and the field of vision is very narrow, but once you get used to it it's not too bad.

For $20 I feel it was a great pick-up. I would have paid full price for this game probably, I feel it is worth it, but we'll see more as it goes on. So far it's great.
 
I did pay full price and felt it was worth every penny.

It is a pretty tough game, although I didn't have any trouble with the battle you mentioned I have read on the internet that many people do.

A couple tips, the game is set up for multiple play through so you wont be able to fully develop your character in 1 play through. So don't spread your points out as you wont be able to do enough damage if you do and the game will be much harder.

For instance I played the ranger and didn't put any points in ranged and focused mainly on evasion and melee and still didn't max out either.

I highly recommend evasion so you can go into stealth mode and revive your companions without getting hit. Otherwise if you get hit it stops you from reviving them. Also it give you a very nice sneak attack damage bonus which can take down many enemies in 1 hit or severely weaken them.

Blocking is a must and you will block in 360 degree radius so its effective against multiple enemies, beware bigger foe will hit right through your block. also the roll is you friend and you can roll through enemies which is a huge help. Hit enemy roll through them hit them in the back when they turn around do it again. That's the best way I found to take down bosses.

If you are not playing the mage you can call her to defend you and she will come over and cast her healing shield which will heal you and block all projectiles. If you don't call her she will still cast it but never seems to be at the appropriate time. You can also tell AI controlled players to attack specific enemies. I played pc version so not sure how its handled on xbox but it's essential if you want to use her healing abilities.

When you see the yellow arrow over an enemies head for a critical be sure to hit them quickly as that will kill them out right 99% of the time and give a cool kill animation as a bonus. If you don't get them before the arrow goes away they will be able to take several hits again.

Use shield bash to break there block otherwise that can block all damage.

It was actually a much deeper combat system than I thought it would be. You definitely can't just go in swinging and expect to survive you need to use all your skills and develop your character wisely.

Great game imo.
 
Dwarf with a 2 handed club pwns all! At least up to the orc/dwarf mine. Why can't I find a nice 2 handed axe tho? A Dwarf NEEDS a large 2 handed axe.
 
Big problem. Just encountered a game-breaker. Apparently the game decided not to save my dad's progress from the last time we played. Well, it saved some of it, but not the end of it where we progressed to chapter 2. So now when I try to load our saved game, the game says saving is disabled for player 2 because he is further back in the story than player 1.

So, I figured, okay, no big deal, we'll just load his saved game and catch him up to chapter 2. I tried 5 separate times to load his game in single player mode and the game froze each of those 5 times. Great.

So we lost hours of gameplay. The only option is to start a new game. Unbelievable. I knew that weird save system would cause us problems. I read people having this same issue with the game in 2 player co-op mode. So now I don't even want to play the damn thing.

Shame, it was really a fun game. Oh well. I guess I'll let it cool down and we'll start a new game tomorrow or something. Unbelievable though. Why couldn't they just add a normal save system?
 
That's pretty strange stuff Fnord, I never had any of that in over 50 hours of play time. Maybe its the version you are playing. I have the Steam US version and I never was spawned into different areas. Maybe it needs a patch.
As for the instant voice, it didn't bother me as most people didn't seem to have a microphone. This is a feature that I am seeing more and more. Dead Island has it and after playing it over 60 hrs during the holidays I can say it works flawlessly.
I use Mumble for just about everything else but like I said, just didn't have a problem except my brother-in-law did lots of complaining about me munching on peanuts.

Played it through Steam, so it should have had the latest patch. And this was 3 days ago, so I would imagine that no other patches have been released since.
And when using voice-com in games, I want to be able to have control over what people hear. When the telephone rings, I take a bite out of something or sip my tea, I don't want the whole world to know (and I don't want to hear that from other people either, in particular not strangers, but in this case I just played the game with a real world friend). Also, as it only activates when you speak loud enough, sometimes the voice would cut mid sentence or the person would only hear the second part of what the person said.

The game got me in a bad mood. It was such a shoddy product filled with problems that should not be there (how hard can it be to let people turn off voice com!?). Combined with the lackluster combat and technical issues we experienced, i can't recommend it to anyone.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Sounds like a completely different experience from my own. While I'm not blown away by the gameplay, it certainly isn't due to any technical problems or bugs. The game has been rock solid for me in that aspect.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,017
Location
Florida, US
I passed on the game when it was released. To many negative reviews from friends and internet reviews. If the game is cheap now I may give it a try on the pc of course.
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
36,073
Location
Spudlandia
I tried playing it last week with friends and had very similar problems to Fnord. I crashed repeatedly and when the game was working for a longer stretch, it would freeze and stutter. The folks I was playing with didn't report similar problems, which bothered me all the more. Particularly since one of these friends has a near identical system to me. :p

It left me with a very bad impression.
 
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
837
I did pay full price and felt it was worth every penny.

It is a pretty tough game, although I didn't have any trouble with the battle you mentioned I have read on the internet that many people do.

A couple tips, the game is set up for multiple play through so you wont be able to fully develop your character in 1 play through. So don't spread your points out as you wont be able to do enough damage if you do and the game will be much harder.

For instance I played the ranger and didn't put any points in ranged and focused mainly on evasion and melee and still didn't max out either.

I highly recommend evasion so you can go into stealth mode and revive your companions without getting hit. Otherwise if you get hit it stops you from reviving them. Also it give you a very nice sneak attack damage bonus which can take down many enemies in 1 hit or severely weaken them.

Blocking is a must and you will block in 360 degree radius so its effective against multiple enemies, beware bigger foe will hit right through your block. also the roll is you friend and you can roll through enemies which is a huge help. Hit enemy roll through them hit them in the back when they turn around do it again. That's the best way I found to take down bosses.

If you are not playing the mage you can call her to defend you and she will come over and cast her healing shield which will heal you and block all projectiles. If you don't call her she will still cast it but never seems to be at the appropriate time. You can also tell AI controlled players to attack specific enemies. I played pc version so not sure how its handled on xbox but it's essential if you want to use her healing abilities.

When you see the yellow arrow over an enemies head for a critical be sure to hit them quickly as that will kill them out right 99% of the time and give a cool kill animation as a bonus. If you don't get them before the arrow goes away they will be able to take several hits again.

Use shield bash to break there block otherwise that can block all damage.

It was actually a much deeper combat system than I thought it would be. You definitely can't just go in swinging and expect to survive you need to use all your skills and develop your character wisely.

Great game imo.

Thanks for the tips. Especially that bit about critical striking when the arrow appears above their head. That has made a huge difference in our game. We're able to kill enemies much quicker that way.

My dad and I restarted our game and it seems a lot easier now. We know how to roll, how to avoid getting surrounded, how to take out enemies at range, etc. It has gotten a lot easier. We are back at the boss we struggled with though so we'll see how that goes. It seems we got really lucky to kill him the first time, so hopefully it will be easier this time.

Game is great though. I agree about the combat system being deep, there are quite a few different things you can pull off in combat. Character development is fun and new abilities are very useful. I just got the evasion skill and that seems like it will come in very handy when I need to revive someone. Thanks for that tip too.

Also, the party member AI has been excellent in this second play-through. The mage has pulled off some moves that quite frankly amazed me. For example, I had to run ahead of the team to take out a mounted crossbow. I was using the crossbow and she ran up behind me and cast her aura that blocked enemy arrows so I could freely use the crossbow. It was a move I would have expected from a human partner, not the AI. That happened multiple times too and she always seems to cast that spell when it's needed. Very cool.

Also a tip for anyone playing, always use the mage's healing bubble to heal up in. Save your potions. We've found it's much better to retreat to the bubble when we're in trouble and pull out our ranged weapons and let the enemies come to us. It's saved us a lot of potions and money and we are barely dying now. The AI companion has been invaluable for us so far.

All in all, this game rocks. I'm very glad we picked it up.
 
Uggghhhh, I'm currently stuck on keeping the two trolls away from the inner door. I just cannot keep them both away. Gonna leave the game alone for a few days and then try again. Loving the story and the choices I have to make.
 
Thanks for the tips. Especially that bit about critical striking when the arrow appears above their head. That has made a huge difference in our game. We're able to kill enemies much quicker that way.

My dad and I restarted our game and it seems a lot easier now. We know how to roll, how to avoid getting surrounded, how to take out enemies at range, etc. It has gotten a lot easier. We are back at the boss we struggled with though so we'll see how that goes. It seems we got really lucky to kill him the first time, so hopefully it will be easier this time.

Game is great though. I agree about the combat system being deep, there are quite a few different things you can pull off in combat. Character development is fun and new abilities are very useful. I just got the evasion skill and that seems like it will come in very handy when I need to revive someone. Thanks for that tip too.

Also, the party member AI has been excellent in this second play-through. The mage has pulled off some moves that quite frankly amazed me. For example, I had to run ahead of the team to take out a mounted crossbow. I was using the crossbow and she ran up behind me and cast her aura that blocked enemy arrows so I could freely use the crossbow. It was a move I would have expected from a human partner, not the AI. That happened multiple times too and she always seems to cast that spell when it's needed. Very cool.

Also a tip for anyone playing, always use the mage's healing bubble to heal up in. Save your potions. We've found it's much better to retreat to the bubble when we're in trouble and pull out our ranged weapons and let the enemies come to us. It's saved us a lot of potions and money and we are barely dying now. The AI companion has been invaluable for us so far.

All in all, this game rocks. I'm very glad we picked it up.

Glad to hear your enjoying it, hopefully you won't run in to any more bugs. I would hate to see you have to quit for technical reasons. Especially on a console that's inexcusable. With everyone having identical software and hardware games should be rock solid.

As for the mage. I didn't have good luck with her, Although I was playing solo and I think she spent a lot of time looking after the dwarf who kept charging in to certain death.:)

Anyways enjoy it gets even better towards the end. IMO.
 
Uggghhhh, I'm currently stuck on keeping the two trolls away from the inner door. I just cannot keep them both away. Gonna leave the game alone for a few days and then try again. Loving the story and the choices I have to make.

Hardest battle in the game IMO, due to the time limit thing. Obviously you just need to focus all your damage on the trolls. Don't forget you can tell your allies to attack them as well by targeting the trolls like your going to shoot them with arrows and then pressing the button. Not sure which button though as I changed mine to g. You should just be able to look in the controls.

I played with the ranger and found that area very hard. if your not already playing with the dwarf you could switch to him I believe he inflicts much more damage.

If all else fails, I believe by that point in the game you should have opened up some arena type areas where you can go to get some levels, cash and better loot. Not sure what they are like as I didn't go to them. I believe it's just a waves of enemies type thing.

Good luck, that's a tough battle.
 
I have a question about the dragon.

I didn't pursue the options of trying to make him mad in order to fight him. Can you fight the dragon? I'm curious and if so how bad is the fight?
 
I have a question about the dragon.

I didn't pursue the options of trying to make him mad in order to fight him. Can you fight the dragon? I'm curious and if so how bad is the fight?

No you can't but certain choices can lead you to a loot drop.
 
Thanks.

The lack of multiple saves is both good and bad.

Good in that your choices have consequences and bad that you can't go back to explore other possibilities. I would have liked to explore all conversation possibilities with the dragon for sure.
 
Well, my dad and I restarted and we got even further this time, all the way to Rivendell. We saved using the technique explained by someone online who got the co-op saving to work properly, and what do you know. The game screwed up our saves again. Says my dad is behind in the story so saving will be disabled. Unbelievable.

This time we are officially done with the game. We're not going to keep playing just to have this glitch happen every time we try to save our game. It was a good game but the co-op saving is broken. Damn shame. If only they would have implemented a normal save function these problems would have been averted.

So I do not recommend this game to anyone who wants to play split-screen co-op. The saving is simply broken.
 
Well, my dad and I restarted and we got even further this time, all the way to Rivendell. We saved using the technique explained by someone online who got the co-op saving to work properly, and what do you know. The game screwed up our saves again. Says my dad is behind in the story so saving will be disabled. Unbelievable.

This time we are officially done with the game. We're not going to keep playing just to have this glitch happen every time we try to save our game. It was a good game but the co-op saving is broken. Damn shame. If only they would have implemented a normal save function these problems would have been averted.

So I do not recommend this game to anyone who wants to play split-screen co-op. The saving is simply broken.

That is a shame, me and my 2 sons have logged 25 hrs of co-op on pc with zero problems, you would think it would be more stable on Xbox not less.
 
Yeah, I should note that my problems are on the Xbox 360 console, not the PC.

Just curious, how do you go about saving your progress on the PC? On the 360 we had to do the merchant trick, which is basically this - transport to the nearest town, take turns visiting the merchant so the auto-save kicks in, then letting player 2 quit the game. Also tried player 1 quitting the game but the glitch happened with each try.

It really is a shame because we were loving the game. On to Dungeon Siege 3 I suppose, but I heard that game has some co-op issues as well. Maybe just going back to Sacred 2 which has been rock solid for us.
 
So I do not recommend this game to anyone who wants to play split-screen co-op. The saving is simply broken.

It can be just as broken on the PC, though it is not quite as bad there. The game refused to recognize that I was at the same point in the story as my friend after the first crash, but all that it disabled was achievements (for me), and as my friend would be the host (better computer) we would still be able to keep on playing, so it was no biggy. Still, had it happened to him, it would have meant replaying parts of the game.
 
Joined
Jun 2, 2011
Messages
1,756
Location
Stockholm, Sweden
Yeah, I should note that my problems are on the Xbox 360 console, not the PC.

Just curious, how do you go about saving your progress on the PC? On the 360 we had to do the merchant trick, which is basically this - transport to the nearest town, take turns visiting the merchant so the auto-save kicks in, then letting player 2 quit the game. Also tried player 1 quitting the game but the glitch happened with each try.

It really is a shame because we were loving the game. On to Dungeon Siege 3 I suppose, but I heard that game has some co-op issues as well. Maybe just going back to Sacred 2 which has been rock solid for us.

Come to think of it I never did save the game in co-op or single player. Always just played until an auto save and then quit. Not sure if that's why I never had any problems or not.

My son hosted the game because he plays way more co-op and multi player than I do. Which was a little annoying because that gave him control of dialog options. Not sure if they saved manually or not.
 
Back
Top Bottom