The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

Then it was off to Minas Morgul, the home of the Witch King, for a spot of Capture the Ring. This is a capture-the-flag mode with the One Ring, but, as Frodo found out, carrying it makes you a bit slow and effeminate, and the gold band (extra-large backpack-sized) slows down the bearer as they make for base and a point. We went on to do a similar round in Mount Doom, as you do, but one rather oiled, overseas developer knew exactly where to go, the spoilsport, so we lost a lot, although the mini-map and on-screen pointers would have been helpful if we hadn't been so cack-footed.

The other round was the outrageous Hero Team Deathmatch, where you're no ordinary rank-and-file fighter but one of five stars of the jumbled tale. On the evil side there's the Witch King, the Mouth of Sauron, Wormtongue, Saruman and Lurtz (the Uruk-hai who kills Boromir), then for good there's Gandalf, Aragorn, Agent Smith, Éowyn and Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean. The first team to 50 points wins, and our encounter outside The Black Gate was almost neck and neck, although good ultimately prevailed. There's regular Team Deathmatch, too, but why you would want that over Heroes is beyond our comprehension.

It's also worth pointing out that the Ring Bearer mode once talked about has disappeared, at least as far as we could see or were told. This would have put Frodo, adorned with Sting blade and invisibility ring, against a pack of Ringwraiths, who fight amongst themselves to return the ring to their master. Frodo could become invisible, but doing so would mark his location on the mini-map. If this was still in the game, anyway.

And 'talked about back at announcement' brings us to our main concern: we first heard about Conquest back in May, just seven months ago, and yet the game is ready for launch next month, and this is the first time anyone's been allowed to play it. Developer Pandemic has a decorated history, what with Battlefront and Mercenaries, so why not shout about Conquest?

Maybe it's because technologically Conquest appears dated. The visuals are messy and drab, and it's actually quite hard to tell the evil side apart, which is rescued only by the protruding gut of the chunky Orc Mage, or the weapons each class carries. And this is all but final code. Perhaps Pandemic has been chopping detail in favour of epic battles, but there's nothing of the sort in multiplayer. The crowds we did see, as background for the single-player tutorial, looked as if they could have been whipped out of a racing game stadium.

We're also curious as to why the single-player game wasn't on show. It's a hefty bulk of the concept, with key battles from the books, and campaigns as first good and then evil. We could have been wowed by Gandalf tackling a Balrog, or the scope of Helm's Deep, Pelennor Fields, or the Evil forces sacking The Shire. And, lest we forget, these are co-operative missions for two people, so we could have tag-teamed our way through the likes of Mines of Moria.

It's hard not to conclude that Pandemic has re-clothed Battlefront II in Tolkein's wardrobe because EA wants to do something with the Lord of the Rings licence, and sadly none of the developers were around to answer our questions about that, which slightly frustrating, because Conquest may be silly, but licensed games sometimes hit their peak when the IP goes native. Instead, we'll have to wait until mid-January to find out whether Conquest manages this trick, or whether it belongs in the graveyard slot to which EA's schedulers seem to have quietly and perhaps tellingly confined it.