Nerds and fanboys, that’s me, can rejoice after much hype and
waiting for the War in the North. I have seen this title over the last two
years at E3 and surprisingly my anticipation has grown over the years as at
first I thought it was a movie game, but oh no it is not. In fact, you take on
the role of one of three heroes that were part of the War in the North that was
lightly touched in the movies. In this title you will see some familiar faces
and places along with new heroes and locales to take you on a new journey as
opposed to the previous entries. This is an action RPG that is brought to you
by the developers od Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, so you can be sure to expect
character customization, skill trees, and orcs, but along with that you get a
strong three player coop and when not playing coop you can change your
character in between levels. So get ready to choose from Eradan the ranger,
Andriel the Elf, or Farin the Dwarf as we depart on this review.
I was a little hesitant at first about this title as I love action
RPG games, but not a big fan of licensed titles, but what I got after powering
up and playing through for a few days on both the single player and online
coop, it was not what I expected, but more what I was hoping for. The combat is
great, not overly fast, but not so slow that it leaves you vulnerable in
between blows, and is graphic as this is a Mature rated game. Each character
plays very differently from the next with their own perks and skill trees, but
what is nice, is that experience gained with one character carries over to the
next if you choose to change you character in between missions. The story and
graphics are strong and while it does tie into some parts of the movie and
books, it does not lean too heavily on them. The coop is where I think I had
the most fun, as you can play with up to two other players online, the
matchmaking is fast, and though some may not like this, but there can only be
one of each player as your team follows the story and must provide support in
order to survive rather than running into battle axes flailing.
Here comes the obligatory camera bashing, as when you rotate the
camera, it moves at a slow pace for a second and then increases speed making it
very easy to over correct and proving that the battle is not only with Sauron.
The AI of other characters is somewhat lacking from what I experience as I
noticed I was doing most of the battling and they typically provided the role
of healer and reviver every time I went down and while you can command them to
defend or attack, the best resolution for this matter is to play the game as it
was made to be played, online coop. Lastly, for as detailed and visceral the
gameplay and graphics were, the menu system was rather bland and dated, which
doesn’t take away from the gameplay but you will be spending a large amount of
time in your inventory and menus when leveling or optimizing your equipment
load out.
All in all, I was
pleasantly surprised with War in the North. The graphics, story, and coop was
incredibly strong, even though the Great Eagle, Beleram didn’t seem to fit very
well, but was a nice perk to call death from the sky when things got hairy.
There is also a lot of replay value as I found characters interacted
differently in levels making me want to go back and play again with another
hero to see what I missed the first time, and the coop gameplay is exactly what
I wanted in an action RPG, even if it was rather linear.
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