Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar review

World of Warcraft has been hugely successful, both critically and financially, but its fantasy realm is based upon little more than a few real-time strategy games.

So Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar looks to have a significant advantage, with the expansive works of JRR Tolkien to call on for inspiration.

You select a character from familiar races such as humans, elves, dwarves and hobbits. There's a range of seven-character classes, including minstrel and burglar. You then venture out into the world to help the weak, fight monsters and villains, and roughly follow in the footsteps of the books' heroes.

The developer has used the same quest-based gameplay as in World of Warcraft, but shoe-horned in all the events and geography of Middle-Earth, which is rather like squeezing a fat hobbit into a tight jerkin. It's not long before you realise what a truly astounding feat has been achieved. They've re-created the whole of Middle-Earth, from Ted Sandyman's mill up to the Eye of Sauron.

The depth of detail is absolutely charming. Wandering The Shire is a delight, as you see locations and characters familiar from the films and books at every turn. The quests there are as laid-back as the place, involving delivering pies or keeping pests down. Later areas are darker and less friendly, giving the world an expansive feel.

The game is also tightly plotted. As you move up the levels, it lures you out of your safe area with a set of quests that run parallel to the stories from the books, but make you feel important to the larger picture. So when you arrive in the town of Bree, Frodo and friends have just left it; and you've got to deal with the problems the Nazgul have created, plus sort out the human brigands that have been assisting them. Like in the books, the quest plots aren't simplistic: the heroes don't always win and the villains rarely get their come-uppance immediately.

There's a devilishly pleasing reward when your character reaches level 10. At this point, you gain a monster character, such as a giant spider or orc-reaver. You can use this to battle higher-level human characters. The combat works well, in monster mode or otherwise, and is very similar to that of World of Warcraft but with less emphasis on magical abilities. The team-play is well thought through, too.

If you don't know Tolkien's creation, you're not going to be as excited walking around it as a fan would be. However, given the coherent world, excellent combat, friendly atmosphere and the fact that it's almost completely bug-free at launch, we can whole-heartedly recommend this as the best of the current online role-playing games.