A Pinch of Nostalgia: About War of the Ring
War of the Ring, one of the licensed games based on the Tolkien Universe and unfortunately little known...
Nowadays, it is almost impossible to find games that can replace 'old school' rts games, let's get to know War of the Ring, one of these old school rts games that you may have never played or even heard of...
War of the Ring is a 2003 rts game based on the books, not the Lord of the Rings movies. It is more similar to Warcraft in terms of gameplay. In other words, it is far from a large-scale war game with features such as having two types of collectible resources, having abilities that can be used not only on heroes but also on some units, and being able to create a smaller army compared to other rts, it is a chess-like game that is far from a large-scale war game, obliges to use the units in the necessary way at the required time, gives more importance to speed and intelligence, and does not forgive absent-mindedness.
Food and iron can be gathered by building a windmill (unique to the Good Faction) or a slaughterhouse (unique to the Evil Faction) at water wells and sending workers to build them, while iron can be obtained by sending workers directly to the iron deposit. However, in order to get more yield from the iron deposit, a foundry needs to be built on top of it. This simple economic system takes about two minutes in the game.
The combat system is based on rock-paper-scissors logic. The sword beats the arrow, the arrow beats the hammer (units using heavy weapons), and the hammer beats the sword. Heroes are superior to all of them. Of course, when attack, armor and hit points come into play, things fall into place a bit more. In other words, just because the Goblin Spearman, the weakest unit of the villains, has an arrow attack type, it doesn't mean that he can beat the Dwarf Shieldbreaker (hammer attack type).
The game has two Campaigns. In Campaigns, we usually take part in the side stories of the Wars of the Ring rather than the main events. We chase the orcs in the Grey Mountains with Gimli and his soldiers; we try to catch Gollum with Legolas and his archers and track him to Dol'Guldur; we drive the orcs out of Lorien with the Fellowship of the Ring; we gather Rohirrim with Erkenbrand and Gandalf; we defend Osgiliath with Boromir and Faramir... Or we cross Anorien with Grishnákh; we want to prevent Gondor from coming to help by preventing the burning of the Mark Towers in Rohan's lands; we create the first Uruk-hai with Saruman; we convince the mountain trolls to join Sauron with the Nazguls nicely(! As far as I can remember, the only campaign where we are in a major event is the Defense of Helm's Deep in the Good guys' chapter.
There are buildings where we can research various upgrades to strengthen or grant abilities to units. Thanks to these upgrades, Orc Archers can shoot flaming arrows, Elven Archers can become invisible, Lightbringer Elves can burn their enemies with the Light of Aman, Haradrim can poison their opponents...
In addition, we collect what we call Fate Points by fighting and use them to produce Heroes or to cast various spells from the Fate Points list. The spells that require the most Fate Points are Seven Points, which can be used to summon Ent for the Good and Balrog for the Bad. Another thing I like is the units you can only have in Campaigns; Boromir, Faramir, Rohan Archer, Elf Warden, whose stamina, fighting style and voice (both English and Turkish dubs) are legendary. If you don't fall in love with an Elf Warden who says "Hail Elf-friend!", your heart is made of the evil stones of Utumno.
Finally, let's talk about the best parts of the game: the soundtrack and the dubbing! The music composed by Chance Thomas and Lennie Moore reflects the spirit of the Middle-earth universe very well. While Howard Shore's compositions make the universe more realistic in our minds, Thomas and Moore's compositions make the same universe fairy tale-like in a wonderful way. Some of the music from War of the Ring can also be heard in The Lord of the Rings Online. As for the dubbing, the unit voices are very cool and successful. Also, for a game that came out in 2003, we have to say this: War of the Ring is a game with a complete Turkish language package, not just the interface and text. This means that the units are dubbed in Turkish and this version is as good as the English one.
Although War of the Ring, which covers a large part of my childhood, pales in comparison to today's games, I would ask those who still play games like Warcraft The Frozen Throne to give this game a chance. Experiencing Middle-earth not only as Peter Jackson presented it, but also with different interpretations will improve your perspective on Legendarium.
