Guardians of Middle-Earth Review

MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) games really don't like new guys. You will be constantly humbled during your pursuit for victory, by top level players: you will die, you will kill and you will die some more. It's a rite of passage of sorts, and soon categorizes the Hobbits from the Black Riders. Sauron's boot may as well be a hat, for the amount of time it will spend on your head but if you persevere, like a ring-obsessed Gollum, eventually you can scream "you shall not pass!"

It starts off relatively simple; you have three lanes and the objective is to destroy the main base of the opposing team, smashing any towers that bar your path. Your main base spawns soldiers, who act as fodder and distraction for the five-strong team of guardians (human players) allowing you to attack the towers barring the lanes. It usually starts with good and evil colliding in the centre of the map, locked into a deadly game of tug-of-war. When your guardian dies, you have to wait for a while before respawning, giving the enemy a window and time to wait for reinforcements to push the assault.

Sound simple, right? Well it is, at first. Until you start to think about individual character classes and character specific skills. You unlock the various, licensed characters, by purchasing them with the spoils of battle, or (cough) the spoils of your wallet. First you have Tacticians, who buff and debuff allies and enemies respectively, whilst using their skills to distract enemies. Enchanters are damaging magic users like Gandalf, who use spells to smash swathes of enemies. Defenders are debuffing masters, who use their cunning to keep the enemy back. Strikers are the "rogue" class, who use guile and stealth to gain bonuses or to attack from range, like Legolas. The warrior class does what it says on the tin, it hits things, really hard.

Each character has four main abilities, which are upgradable when you gain levels. On top of these standard abilities you also unlock commands, which are powerful abilities that, unlike the main skills, share the same cooldown period. On top of this, you can take a selection of potions into battle and also equip attribute-boosting belts. Every character has a set of challenges to complete; each one giving you bonus experience upon completion. Once you gain enough experience you level up, and gaining a set amount of levels allows you to upgrade your fortifications in battle.

Each tower has four possible upgrades: the Quickfire Tower spits out death faster than the standard one, the Splitshot Tower fires out dual projectiles, the Seigestone Tower throws a spread shot that decimates an area and the Healing Tower heals nearby units. The Healing Tower is great for falling back on, when you're pushing the fight and you need a quick refill after vanquishing the opposing team's guardians. The projectile towers specialise in killing clustered enemies, or focusing on nearby targets and you often change their functionality on the fly.

When a guardian is preceded by allied soldiers, the towers won't attack the player until the soldiers are all annihilated. It's a good job then, that you can upgrade your barracks too: elite soldiers are a basic upgrade over the standard grunt, mounted units cause greater damage to foot-soldiers and can charge through groups of them, you can turn the barracks into a stronghold which spawns soldiers proficient at destroying structures and at the pinnacle of barracks upgrades comes in the form of a blacksmiths, which upgrades ranged AND melee units.

Inside of the battles, there are also shrines that you can gain control of. These provide health regeneration for your allies, and must be defended from enemies who seek the same benefits. There are also glowing flowers dotted around the battlefield, which also regenerate health, but only when you're within proximity. Tucked in the corners of the map, there are often AI controlled creatures who are passive, until provoked. If you attack and kill these creatures you can net yourself some bonus experience.

Aesthetically, the game is pleasing enough for a digital title and it stays faithful to the license. The characters look just like the ones you know and love from the films, but beyond cosmetics and the characters spouting dialogue from the films, it has nothing to do with the universe. Sure, the characters have skill-sets that you would expect them to have, but it's just a deep, strategy game with fancy clothing. What I'm trying to get at is: don't buy it just because you're a fan of the source material.

The game is quite a beast indeed – when it works, that is. In its current state, it verges on unplayable. Lag is commonplace (on the PS3 version at least) and in a game where timing your moves to cause maximum carnage is crucial, it can be very frustrating. That is if you have the patience to get into a game. Lobbies are five minute waits and it's very rare that many human controlled player are participating in each match. Another thing that is a regular, unwanted occurrence, is getting booted from a game halfway through (or, soul-destroyingly, seconds from victory) and losing all your accumulated progress from the battle.

I fully expect these issues to be fixed in time, after all, the game has only been out just short of a month. It's just a shame so many games are released in such a bad state, as it can sour the experience. The concept of a good game is here, and I'm sure once it's fixed it will be a blast, especially with friends. The game as it is currently though, is a frustrating, laggy mess. If you're a fan of MOBA games, you should definitely pick it up, but just wait for Monolith's inevitable patch.