Character Creation Review: Lord of the Rings: The War in the North

The recent Lord of the Rings: The War in the North is the latest in a long line of cooperative "dungeon crawl" games I've played. For those not familiar with the genre, it includes standouts like Champions of Norrath and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes, middle-of-the-road efforts like the recent Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale, and absolute wastes of space like Arkadian Warriors. It also includes more PC-centric (and well-regarded) efforts such as the Diablo series and Torchlight.

War in the North falls towards the good side of that spectrum, but a few small issues (and one large one) hold it back from true greatness. Still, it can be a very entertaining game, and it makes a number of terrific improvements to the normal dungeon crawl formula.

One of the biggest things War in the North does well is providing an absolute emphasis on cooperation. Almost nothing gets in the way of a cooperative attitude here. For instance, a common problem I encountered in D&D: Heroes was that other players might race in and grab the loot from a chest when you'd opened it, or just otherwise cause unequal loot distribution. War in the North resolves this by displaying loot for each player on their screen only, and by providing loot for each player from every single chest or container--everyone gets to take stuff from every chest, and any coins or other items that drop on the ground drop in triplicate, one for each player. Now, there are differences in the items each player receives, and sometimes someone will get something that's clearly better, but that's just random drops for you. This same system is of course used for quest rewards, though that was already fairly common in these sorts of games--still, it's good to know that everyone gets something from every quest, too.

Gameplay-wise, co-op is also nicely emphasized. Each character has the ability to find certain secrets in a level that can give everyone some equipment (excepting the ranger, whose ranger marks only give him loot, though this is sometimes gear for the other characters). The loremaster can also make special potions that she can give to the others to aid them quite significantly. And then there's the combat--and there will be a lot of it. The classes work very nicely together, with each having abilities that clearly aid the others, as well as a fairly well-defined (but customizable) choice of roles. Players will find quite creative ways to help each other using their abilities (we've found the ranger comes in handy for reviving players since he can use his "evasion" ability to make enemies ignore him for a little while), and it's generally just a joy to fight alongside others. Of course, this emphasis on co-op comes at a price: like with most dungeon crawlers not specifically designed for single-player, playing alone is not going to be a lot of fun. War in the North comes off better than most since it still gives you some AI companions who turn out moderately capable, but they can't be commanded much at all and there's just no replacement for having other actual players you can coordinate with.

The issues...well, most aren't serious. There are minor quirks about the menus--it would be nice if they had included some auto-sorting features to, for instance, automatically put the items you have equipped at the front of each section, or sort items by type, as inventory management can be a bit of a pain. It would also be nice if there were a way (on consoles--this may be present on PC, but I can't verify that) to hotkey the special potions the loremaster makes instead of having to pop into the menus--a dangerous idea in battle--to use them. The combat can be a bit repetitive, as while new challenges are sometimes introduced in new areas, the individual areas are quite lengthy and many battles boil down to the same overall pattern (though if you don't expect some repetitive play from a dungeon crawler you're not being too realistic). And it's apparently rather easy to accidentally screw up on selecting save files for single-console co-op, resulting in story progress only being saved for one of the two players (though thankfully character improvements are always saved regardless). Finally...since they were creating an independent loot system anyway, it would have been nice if they just went ahead and ensured that all gear that showed up for a character was something that character could use (particularly in shops!).

The biggest letdown about War in the North is the fact that it only allows three players. As it happens, one of my friends moved to New York shortly before we started play, so this wasn't as huge an issue as it might have been, but four players has been the standard for cooperative dungeon crawlers for years, and it's puzzling that Snowblind (who made earlier four-player games such as Champions of Norrath) decided to lower that number by one. The lowered player limit may make War in the North unsuitable for some groups--if you tend to have three friends over, well, you'll have to make one sit out to play this game, which doesn't make for a thrilling evening. If you only tend to have two friends come by, though, it's a good game to have. Just bear in mind that another change from Snowblind's earlier efforts is that you can't do three-player single-console co-op. Owing I suspect to the view change (War in the North uses a behind-the-back view rather than the more traditional overhead), this game allows a maximum of two players on a single console, forcing the third to use another copy of the game and another console. Fortunately, you can play with two players on one console while still using system link or X-Box Live, which means you don't have to buy three discs.

Before I get to the character customization bit, I do have to briefly mention the elephant in the room--War in the North's treatment of Tolkien lore. It's...a bit fast and loose. While it is somewhat understandable that they made certain changes for gameplay purposes, diehard Tolkien fans are going to find a number of details--not least the fact that magic use is quite a bit quicker, more commonly powerful, and more widespread than in most of Tolkien's work save possibly the Silmarillion--anywhere from laughable to actively irritating. As a diehard Tolkien fan myself, I can assure you that there are things about this game that will just make you shake your head. That said, the plot is decent, the characters feel pretty legitimate, and the dialog in particular is written in a style that is very, very Tolkien. There's an odd mix of respect for Tolkien and changes (of debatable necessity) to Tolkien here, and I'm not sure how well it works. Tolkien really isn't "standard fantasy" despite setting the standard for fantasy in many ways, and I prefer games to respect that a little more than was done here.

But at least if they had to make a magic-user character who wasn't actually one of the wizards, they made that character the elf. That doesn't quite make it work (at least not with the amount of open, powerful magic she uses--frankly, she outdoes Gandalf's in most of his portrayals), but it gets closer to "exaggeration for gameplay" than "absolutely making things up."

So, on to the real focus of this blog! Yes, there's actually quite a bit of character customization in this game, which shouldn't surprise anyone who has played a dungeon crawler before. What surprised me is that there actually are appearance options--given that the three player characters in this game actually had names and everything, I was all ready for set, single appearances. There aren't many appearance options, but you get some: about 5-7 choices for faces, hair, eye colors, hair colors, and (for the guys) beards. Unfortunately (if a bit understandably given the amount of voice acting in the game), you don't get to choose gender for the characters--you're stuck with a male human and dwarf and a female elf (admittedly--and I actually had forgotten this--dwarf women are generally heavily protected by the dwarves and it's pretty thematic that one wouldn't be allowed to be an adventurer, but there's always interesting stories to be had in a character who goes against customs). Still, there's a decent amount of variety here, and there's only one kind of odd misstep--if you're playing with AI players, they'll use the default appearance. There's no way to set their appearances and make it stick--the moment you switch them to AI they revert to default (more on that later).

On ability customization, you get a pretty huge amount of options. Much like Borderlands, War in the North uses a three-tree approach to skills and requires a certain number of skill points to be spent per line before it opens the next line in that tree. Unlike Borderlands, though, here you have the ability to unlock quite an assembly of different special triggered abilities in addition to various passive traits or modifications to abilities. The different trees are nicely thematically set up and define three different roles in general: for instance, the ranger has his Stealth, his Melee, and his Ranged abilities. Focusing on one tree or distributing skill points amongst them are both valid options. If there's one misstep here, it's that the middle tree requires three skill points to be spent per line to open the next one, and for the Ranger (due to the fact that the center skill only has two levels) that means that you'll have to spend at least one point per line on a dual-wield skill or two-handed skill even if you prefer using a sword and shield instead (which is actually otherwise a quite viable style for the ranger).

Equipment is wonderfully varied and customizable as well. Not only do you get the usual vast assembly of dungeon crawler gear to sift through, but you also get Elf-Stones to fit into slots in the gear and add special effects or bonuses. Furthermore, quest rewards will sometimes give you a choice of powerful gear, or even a massive upgrade to the existing item of your choice. As you might expect, this game revels in numbers and statistics, even to the point of setting up bonuses for wearing multiple items of particular sets...it can be a bit confusing at times, but you actually don't need to pay that much attention to it--just pick things with some higher ratings and a few good bonuses and you'll be fine. It's just that you can be even better if you do pay attention to sets and all that jazz. One minor quirk for the cutscenes: the weapons the characters wield during them will always be of the default type rather than whatever you've got them wielding, which can be a little jarring.

One important note on ability and equipment as well: just as for appearance, the AI versions of the characters use their own ability choices and their own gear (though you can hand them gear you'd like them to use, but they'll switch on their own and often quite quickly, so you're better off generally just saving it to sell). If you've been playing as one and then switch to another, expect to see your new AI companion use his/her own ability set instead of yours. It's nice to not have to micromanage, but it would be equally nice to have an option to micromanage if you wanted.

Overall, War in the North provides an entertaining cooperative dungeon crawl experience. It's quite lengthy, action-packed, and generally easy to get into. If you have one or two co-op buddies and you're looking for a fun game to blaze through, it holds up pretty well against the greats of yesteryear in this genre, and you should enjoy it. If you're looking to go it alone...well...just as with the aforementioned greats of yesteryear, I pretty strongly recommend you seek out at least one companion for this adventure or it won't be nearly as much fun. Despite my misgivings as to its handling of Tolkien lore, War in the North provides a good, long, cooperative experience with an impressive array of ability/equipment customization options and at least a token nod to appearance customization. It's an easy recommendation.