First cab off the review rank for 2009 isn't necessarily the best way to start the year, but Lord of the Rings fans might want to pay attention. Especially if you've been waiting to see what would come of Pandemic and EA's Lord of the Rings Conquest.

What we have here is something that probably sounded pretty good on paper, but unfortunately falls absolutely short of any desired goals through sloppy design and a seemingly rushed development period. Unfortunately, it seems as though the licensed-games-are-crapola moniker lives on in glory here.

Hit this link for our full review, and this one for our Lord of the Rings Conquest game page.

Good review, unfortunately I have to agree.

I was excited by this game, my brothers and I had always said when we were playing Battle for Middle Earth 'Man, it'd be awesome to have a game where you can play as an individual soldier'. We thought this would be it.
But, like you, we found it a fair bit underdone and really just a button-masher.

All that said though, I have played through the 'Good' campaign twice in co-op mode and had a bit of fun.
I don't think it has much replayability though.

There's so much game wise they could do with the LOTR franchise, I was disappointed by Conquest simply because it doesn't add to the formula that Battlefront started. I'd like a deep engrossing SP RPG.