Lord of the Rings: War in the North Collector's Edition

If you liked the original hack and slash games you will like this new title. The graphics aren't amazing but the game play makes up for it.

This title is not your typical LOTR game you are but one of many stories not told in the books or movies you and your two companions are out to make life a pain for Voldermort LOL joke, for the big firey eye of Mordor trying to slow down the hords of Orcs and trolls so Frodo can get his butt to Mt Doom. So you get to kill a few things along the way and have to face a few foes that will make life a pain for you.

Game Play:
Much like many of the other LOTR games, Third person view in a party of 3 (Elf – Mage, Dwarf – Warrior, Human – Ranger). Its not open world and is quest driven, as in you start the game you get a quest/side quests and then you go to an area to complete the quest, only ever going backwards to hand in the odd side quest.

Combat:
Button mashy but in saying that you do have skills and a ranged attack so you can mix things up a little.

Leveling:
Kill anything that moves more or less. Defeating an enemy will gain you EXP how you do it will determin the amount, so a normal kill may only give you say 5exp whereas a finisher may give you 120exp. As you level you are given stat points that you can use to boost your stats (DAAH!). Stats are the usual HP, MP, STR and Dex. So no need to worrie about builds, just go with what feels right like you wouldn't need MP for a warrior. Also you get 1 skill point to add to a skill tree, some skills may need 2 points to unlock the next teir.

Weapons:
There are two types, Main Hand and Off Hand for the most part the off hand is the ranged weapon and this all depends on who you choose as your chara. So, Elf – Staffs, Dwarf – Axes, Crossbow, Human – Swords, Bow

Armor:
The armor is much like the weapons and are chara based to some extent so like the weapons some armor can only be used by a spicific chara but not to worrie if you pick up something you can't use just give it to one of the others in the party or hold onto it and sell it.

Mobs:
Like any of the other LOTR games you have Goblins and Orcs but there are many other mobs in this title; Giants, Trolls them goblins with TNT straped to their backs who will head for you by the way and a few more that I'll leave for you to discover. But thats not all, there are also NPC Mobs that will aide you like the coolest of them all the giant eagles.

So all in all well worth adding to the collection. Fun times will be had only thing that let it down for me like the other LOTR games was it not being open world but still a cool game to play.

Awesome collectors edition. This game looks great so make sure you keep an eye out for the game play footage coming out closer to release