Most real-time strategy games set in a fantasy world owe most of their inspiration to the works of JRR Tolkein.  Orcs, elves, dwarves, and men fighting wars of survival using steel and magic are straight out of The Lord of the Rings.  This makes the fact that there has been no real-time strategy game set in the rich universe of The Lord of the Rings even more amazing.  This huge oversight in the world of gaming is finally about to be rectified, though, with the release of The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring (WotR).  Soon you will be to play as the forces of good or evil and command orcs, elves, and the Riders of Rohan into glorious battle.  In fact, we already have.  We were lucky enough to receive a pre-release build of the game and were able to get a first hand look at the results of the long awaited marriage of real-time strategy gaming and the works of Tolkein.

Battle in the ruins.

WotR features two playable sides, good and evil.  On the side of good you have rangers, Riders of Rohan, dwarf axemen, and elf archers, to name a few.  Fighting for Sauron on the side of evil you have all your various nasty creatures of the night including orcs and trolls.  The game has a campaign for each side that includes a mix of original missions and battles from the books.  For example, the good campaign begins with an original adventure in which Gimli must destroy an advanced orc camp but also includes a battle that puts you in command of the forces at Helms Deep.   The game's campaigns are not strictly linear, allowing you to choose from a couple of different missions at various points in the campaign.  The missions feature pre and post mission in-engine cutscenes that place the battles within the context of the overall saga as related by the books.  The game also includes a series of tutorial missions to help acclimate you with the game and its controls.  Veteran strategy gamers can skip the first couple of tutorials and still be able to figure out how to build, move, and attack in the game.  However, even these veterans would be wise to run through the remaining tutorials as they cover the game's more unique aspects including fate points and places of power.

Fate points are earned by defeating enemy forces, completing a level's optional quests, or capturing and holding certain places of power.  These points can then be spent to cast spells, and the more points you have to spend, the more powerful the spells you can cast.  Basic spells will give you the power to create a magical totem to absorb hits taken by your units for a short period of time, heal a group of units, or create a bog to slow your enemies.  Save your points and you'll be able to cast increasingly more powerful spells such as summoning a balrog to smite the opposition.  Fate points also have another important use - summoning heroes.

Heroes are powerful units in the game that have a high number of hit points and that can make use of special abilities.  The heroes on both sides of the war will be recognizable to fans of the book as you'll have the opportunity to command the likes of Frodo, Aragorn, Gollum, and Saruman.  Each hero comes with a set of three special powers unique to that hero; the first one is free and the others must be purchased for additional fate points.  Frodo and Gollum can act as stealth units, Gandalf can stun enemies with a blinding light, and Saruman can convert enemy units to his side, to name a few of the powers.

2 - Places of Power »