The sacking of The Shire, the final stage in Lord of the Rings: Conquest’s campaign, provides one of videogaming’s most distressing scenes. In a wicked reversal of the storyline originally laid down by Tolkien, Sauron, the Dark Lord himself, arrives at Bag End cottage with a Balrog on a leash. Amongst the vegetable patches the hobbits run to and fro in the frantic, fearful pandemonium of an unexpected attack. In their fat, stubby little hands they hold nothing to protect themselves save kitchen knives and sapling bows.

Ten, twenty, thirty fall, arrows sticking from their childlike faces like cocktail sticks from tomatoes. We burn their homes with flaming arrows, setting fire to the bushy heads of the Ent tree people who are working to protect their friends and allies. It’s no use: we overwhelm them; we massacre them. These well-kept flowerbeds offer no stronghold and this midget race is no soldier stock. It is genocide, and I’m the one pulling the trigger. Kill 300 in one go, asks Pandemic: achievement unlocked.

Lord of the Rings: Conquest enjoys all of the benefits of being related to a proven Hollywood blockbuster – the recognizable cast, characters and clips, the familiar mythology and the evocative soundtrack – but, as the movie’s already been out for eight years, it has been free to develop at its own pace and in its own directions. Indeed, half of the game is fantasy fantasy: a reimagining of how the story might have progressed had Frodo failed to destroy the infamous ring. This kind of creative freedom with an established mythology is both unusual and welcome, but the sadly the execution of the underlying game fail to match the narrative inventiveness and quality.

You can read the rest over at Eurogamer here.