Childrens Toyshop
Welcome to The Childrens Toyshop, here you will find all the latest and traditional toys in our toyshop. You can search and locate the best selling Toys Games & Puzzles to purchase online and have delivered to the door. We have a large selection of Video Games with reviews.
Back to Home Page > Go back a page
Video Games : The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar (PC DVD)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Rating: 
- Masterpiece
LOTR Online is the first MMORG that hasn't constantly reminded me of the fact that I'm playing an MMORG: neither the monotonous gameplay or sub-par grahics found in other games of this genre are present here, mainly owing to the fact that Turbine have taken great pains to ensure that all the side quests provide an interesting and often involving sidestory to the main one. At times I've even forgetten I'm playing on-line at all, a sure sign in my eyes that this is a great game in its own right; not just because it's massively multiplayer. As you level you are also constantly aquiring new traits and titles, either gained from exploring certain areas of the map or killing a cetain number of mobs etc, all of which relieve the grind.
The in-game enviroments are by far the most detailed and realistic I've yet to encouter in an MMORG, and if your current system isn't up to running it on high settings I'd strongly urge you to upgrade it. My machine is well over a year old and can still run it on very high settings with, for the most part, silky smooth framerates. DirectX 10 is also well worth it with this game imo.
To enjoy LOTR Online to its fullest, however, the most important thing to do is take your time; this game isn't about getting to maximum level and aquiring the best possibly items in order to PVP. It's about exploration and discovery, just like any good RPG. Also, after playing such titles as 'WOW' I'd gotten used to simply accepting a quest after giving its description only a cursorary glance. If you do this with LOTR Online you'll really miss out on a lot.
Rating: - If you're looking for one mmorpg to rule them all, this is it!
After playing WoW for far too long I decided to try something I was likely to enjoy. LOTRO was the answer. It's fun, in-depth and the scenery is jaw-dropping (when you get to Weathertop you'll know what I mean).
From the very beginning you feel like there is a deep background to everything in the game.
You can take any of the classic rpg roles (tank, nuker etc.) and make them your own with the traits system.
Housing is fun and a great addition to the game.
Crafting is not as tedious as you'd think since you can become an master in some things pretty quickly (I was a grand master farmer at level 16)- you also have 3 gathering/crafting specialties which keep it nice and varied (plus you don't spend half your time and money in an auction house looking for materials like in other mmorpg's).
Everyone is lovely and wants to have a Lord of the Rings experience rather than powering up the levels so they can then insult people who are new to the game because they have nothing better to do.
With the Mines of Moria coming soon it's worth getting this game now (august 08) so you don't get left behind once there are more expansions, although mines of moria will be introducing 2 new character classes so it shouldn't be too much hard work to start off from scratch.
If you were thinking of giving up WoW for this game, do it. You won't regret it, you have my word on that.
Rating: - Travel to Middle Earth, Live the Story
MMOs are a strange bunch, they have their fair share of -ve's and +ve's from rubbish graphics to lame repetitive "Is this it until Level xx" kind quests, which gets them more critisism by the fact that you end up playing it to justify your £10 a month. I have played every P2P (Pay 2 Play) MMO on the market, so I have a little experience in this. Now its not my intension to slate WoW, because WoW in itself is a good gameplay experience, if a little dated graphically and repetitive quest wise, but the RAID and PVP portions are solid. Conan, unfortunately, has been let down by non excistent tech and community support and dev. Laziness to even acknowledge the community excists, so MMO players are crying out for something new.
Although Lord of the Rings Online (Lotro) is not new, it has had its fair share of criticism, from being boring and too drawn out to being PC spec heavy, however, I have to say that these days, Lotro is incredible. Every 2 -3 months we get FREE massive contents updates in the form of "Books", such as believe in or not, entire New continents(Not the usual MMO update), plus New weapons, armour, skills, quests, bug fixes, graphic engine updates and streamlines, instances and raids, and a huge storyline arc in the "books", and has also improved since the addition of more solo support.
As of the date of this review, We've just been given Book 14 today, which amongst the usual stuff has a huge new continent. Now I am like most people, very cinical when comes to giving away money to MMOs, but Codemasters and Turbine have done incredibly well with this, the developers keep us posted and are active weekly on the forms, listening to us, answering questions and even, if its possible, adding things into the "Book" updates we ask for.
What makes an MMO though is the Player community and I have to admit, they are awesome, ranging from about 20+ but mainly are 30+, very helpful and respectful, they "ask" you for help, to join their group or even duel and no one takes offense if you say no. Dont get me wrong, we do get idiots, which MMO doesn't right, but on the whole 99.9% are really great and whats better than running through a lush green field or under the canopies of Chetwood, fighting for the fellowship of the ring with your group (kinship). Its amazingly atmospheric.
PVP comes in the form of "monster play". When you reach level 10, you can combat PVP on the Entmoors, which is similar idea to WoW's Battlegrounds. You can play an ORC, Uriki or one of Saurons forces and fight on the side of Saruman, but Ive never much looked into this as there is so much to do in PvE, but Ive heard its great fun. Monster Play was Lotros bad weak point, but rom what ive been hearing from serious PVPers, its been fixed to amazing proportions.
One of the great things that sets Lotro apart from other MMOs is the Deed system, basically, you get extra skills and points for playing the game, such as extra skill points for grinding on a particular type of mob or mobs, new skills for finishing all the quests in a certain area, staying alive for so many levels and loads more to find out, theres just so much to do and see.
The quests are varied enough, but some early quests do suffer from the "fetch and carry" or "kill so many of X" type, but they are just to get you started into the story, and yes there is a story, albeit a big one with 100's of side quests, skills and areas to go to, but its there. And the greatest of all is, last time I checked, Codemasters were running the game for £5 a month.
Lotro is a great game in every respect, Codemasters should be praised for what they've done for it in such a short space of time. If you want something New, exciting, Dx10 graphically beautiful and steeped in lore. LotrO is a great choice.
Rating:
- Great Graphics Bad Gameplay
I purchased the game based on what people had said about the game and tehy were all good, so installed the game downloaded a 700mb patch, I patched the game and was hoping to play the game but no the game then decided io had not patched enough and made me download another 20000 files! No matter so i finally get into the game and my first thoughts were "What the hell! I walk like a puppet and feel like a puppet" the game feels like it doesnt want you to play without punishing you for trying. The quests are like any MMORPG samey things like kill this or get that, and the class names!!! "burgular" its basically a rogue but a really bad one half of the spells you want to do you can because you need a combo point and neeed to be behind the enemy which is impossible! So my advice is jnot to buy it as it is a waste of money. Or if you like to play lame boring ass games go ahead.
Rating:
- Pretty good game but horrible graphic stutter
This game reminds me of the ancient Asheron's Call. That too was a pretty good game marred by the fact that it was constantly loading in graphics and therefore 'stuttering' all of the time. This does not make for a smooth game experience. Not only this but due to the way the detailed textures are applied, the world around you is constantly 'changing.' What I mean by this is that when you walk towards a tree or something the tree will physically change as you get closer to it because of each layer of detailed textures that are being applied. This means that objects within the game are always 'jumping' from one look to another. This is very off-putting and just reminds you that you are playing a game rather than exploring a world.
Now my PC is very powerful: Geforce 8800, 2GB RAM, 6600 duel CPU and can handle anything I throw at it including Crysis and Bioshock so I know it's nothing to do with my machine. Anyway, I did visit various forums to find if I could solve all of the graphic problems but I found that they seem to be pretty much par for the course.
So, if you think you can put up with the troubles I have talked of then you will enjoy this game because it is good fun. Personally, after playing other smooth MMORGS, I simply could not put up with this.
- MasterpieceLOTR Online is the first MMORG that hasn't constantly reminded me of the fact that I'm playing an MMORG: neither the monotonous gameplay or sub-par grahics found in other games of this genre are present here, mainly owing to the fact that Turbine have taken great pains to ensure that all the side quests provide an interesting and often involving sidestory to the main one. At times I've even forgetten I'm playing on-line at all, a sure sign in my eyes that this is a great game in its own right; not just because it's massively multiplayer. As you level you are also constantly aquiring new traits and titles, either gained from exploring certain areas of the map or killing a cetain number of mobs etc, all of which relieve the grind.
The in-game enviroments are by far the most detailed and realistic I've yet to encouter in an MMORG, and if your current system isn't up to running it on high settings I'd strongly urge you to upgrade it. My machine is well over a year old and can still run it on very high settings with, for the most part, silky smooth framerates. DirectX 10 is also well worth it with this game imo.
To enjoy LOTR Online to its fullest, however, the most important thing to do is take your time; this game isn't about getting to maximum level and aquiring the best possibly items in order to PVP. It's about exploration and discovery, just like any good RPG. Also, after playing such titles as 'WOW' I'd gotten used to simply accepting a quest after giving its description only a cursorary glance. If you do this with LOTR Online you'll really miss out on a lot.
Rating:
- If you're looking for one mmorpg to rule them all, this is it!After playing WoW for far too long I decided to try something I was likely to enjoy. LOTRO was the answer. It's fun, in-depth and the scenery is jaw-dropping (when you get to Weathertop you'll know what I mean).
From the very beginning you feel like there is a deep background to everything in the game.
You can take any of the classic rpg roles (tank, nuker etc.) and make them your own with the traits system.
Housing is fun and a great addition to the game.
Crafting is not as tedious as you'd think since you can become an master in some things pretty quickly (I was a grand master farmer at level 16)- you also have 3 gathering/crafting specialties which keep it nice and varied (plus you don't spend half your time and money in an auction house looking for materials like in other mmorpg's).
Everyone is lovely and wants to have a Lord of the Rings experience rather than powering up the levels so they can then insult people who are new to the game because they have nothing better to do.
With the Mines of Moria coming soon it's worth getting this game now (august 08) so you don't get left behind once there are more expansions, although mines of moria will be introducing 2 new character classes so it shouldn't be too much hard work to start off from scratch.
If you were thinking of giving up WoW for this game, do it. You won't regret it, you have my word on that.
Rating:
- Travel to Middle Earth, Live the StoryMMOs are a strange bunch, they have their fair share of -ve's and +ve's from rubbish graphics to lame repetitive "Is this it until Level xx" kind quests, which gets them more critisism by the fact that you end up playing it to justify your £10 a month. I have played every P2P (Pay 2 Play) MMO on the market, so I have a little experience in this. Now its not my intension to slate WoW, because WoW in itself is a good gameplay experience, if a little dated graphically and repetitive quest wise, but the RAID and PVP portions are solid. Conan, unfortunately, has been let down by non excistent tech and community support and dev. Laziness to even acknowledge the community excists, so MMO players are crying out for something new.
Although Lord of the Rings Online (Lotro) is not new, it has had its fair share of criticism, from being boring and too drawn out to being PC spec heavy, however, I have to say that these days, Lotro is incredible. Every 2 -3 months we get FREE massive contents updates in the form of "Books", such as believe in or not, entire New continents(Not the usual MMO update), plus New weapons, armour, skills, quests, bug fixes, graphic engine updates and streamlines, instances and raids, and a huge storyline arc in the "books", and has also improved since the addition of more solo support.
As of the date of this review, We've just been given Book 14 today, which amongst the usual stuff has a huge new continent. Now I am like most people, very cinical when comes to giving away money to MMOs, but Codemasters and Turbine have done incredibly well with this, the developers keep us posted and are active weekly on the forms, listening to us, answering questions and even, if its possible, adding things into the "Book" updates we ask for.
What makes an MMO though is the Player community and I have to admit, they are awesome, ranging from about 20+ but mainly are 30+, very helpful and respectful, they "ask" you for help, to join their group or even duel and no one takes offense if you say no. Dont get me wrong, we do get idiots, which MMO doesn't right, but on the whole 99.9% are really great and whats better than running through a lush green field or under the canopies of Chetwood, fighting for the fellowship of the ring with your group (kinship). Its amazingly atmospheric.
PVP comes in the form of "monster play". When you reach level 10, you can combat PVP on the Entmoors, which is similar idea to WoW's Battlegrounds. You can play an ORC, Uriki or one of Saurons forces and fight on the side of Saruman, but Ive never much looked into this as there is so much to do in PvE, but Ive heard its great fun. Monster Play was Lotros bad weak point, but rom what ive been hearing from serious PVPers, its been fixed to amazing proportions.
One of the great things that sets Lotro apart from other MMOs is the Deed system, basically, you get extra skills and points for playing the game, such as extra skill points for grinding on a particular type of mob or mobs, new skills for finishing all the quests in a certain area, staying alive for so many levels and loads more to find out, theres just so much to do and see.
The quests are varied enough, but some early quests do suffer from the "fetch and carry" or "kill so many of X" type, but they are just to get you started into the story, and yes there is a story, albeit a big one with 100's of side quests, skills and areas to go to, but its there. And the greatest of all is, last time I checked, Codemasters were running the game for £5 a month.
Lotro is a great game in every respect, Codemasters should be praised for what they've done for it in such a short space of time. If you want something New, exciting, Dx10 graphically beautiful and steeped in lore. LotrO is a great choice.
Rating:
- Great Graphics Bad GameplayI purchased the game based on what people had said about the game and tehy were all good, so installed the game downloaded a 700mb patch, I patched the game and was hoping to play the game but no the game then decided io had not patched enough and made me download another 20000 files! No matter so i finally get into the game and my first thoughts were "What the hell! I walk like a puppet and feel like a puppet" the game feels like it doesnt want you to play without punishing you for trying. The quests are like any MMORPG samey things like kill this or get that, and the class names!!! "burgular" its basically a rogue but a really bad one half of the spells you want to do you can because you need a combo point and neeed to be behind the enemy which is impossible! So my advice is jnot to buy it as it is a waste of money. Or if you like to play lame boring ass games go ahead.
Rating:
- Pretty good game but horrible graphic stutterThis game reminds me of the ancient Asheron's Call. That too was a pretty good game marred by the fact that it was constantly loading in graphics and therefore 'stuttering' all of the time. This does not make for a smooth game experience. Not only this but due to the way the detailed textures are applied, the world around you is constantly 'changing.' What I mean by this is that when you walk towards a tree or something the tree will physically change as you get closer to it because of each layer of detailed textures that are being applied. This means that objects within the game are always 'jumping' from one look to another. This is very off-putting and just reminds you that you are playing a game rather than exploring a world.
Now my PC is very powerful: Geforce 8800, 2GB RAM, 6600 duel CPU and can handle anything I throw at it including Crysis and Bioshock so I know it's nothing to do with my machine. Anyway, I did visit various forums to find if I could solve all of the graphic problems but I found that they seem to be pretty much par for the course.
So, if you think you can put up with the troubles I have talked of then you will enjoy this game because it is good fun. Personally, after playing other smooth MMORGS, I simply could not put up with this.