When Guardians of Middle-earth was released last year, it aimed to take the traditionally PC-centric MOBA genre to consoles, and despite some technical difficulties, it did so fairly successfully. Now, developers Monolith and Zombie Studios are looking to bring the Lord of the Rings themed game back to its roots: the mouse and keyboard.
Now, GOME was simplified a bit when it came over to the controller set, and for good reason. Skills have larger areas of effect to allow for easier control with a twin-stick setup, the traditional in-game item shop was removed in favor of a loadout system, and a match timer was added to shorten games. The result is a much more accessible experience than its MOBA ilk like League of Legends or Dota 2, both of which have been dominating the PC scene for some time.
The core gameplay from the console release hasn’t changed too much. You still have 36 Guardians to choose from (all the DLC packs are included with the PC edition), many of which were either in the Lord of the Rings trilogy or have since been seen in The Hobbit. Legolas is still there, as are Bilbo and Sauron himself. It’s still got two main maps in 1-lane and 3-lane arenas. Hell, it even supports Steam Big Picture mode and controllers, just in case you really dug playing that way.
But that doesn’t mean GOME has made its way to Steam entirely unchanged. The biggest addition is the inclusion of exclusive alternate skins for each of the 36 Guardians, all of which can be purchased by way of the in-game store.
The character skins join the three map skins available as DLC for the original version of the game, which change the look of the map to The Shire, Goblin-town, or Mirkwood.
Survival mode, a wave-based game where teams of five do their best to try and survive the onslaught of wolves, goblins, and other Lord of the Rings creatures as they stream towards the team, also makes an appearance. First introduced as DLC for the console versions, Survival is a fun little distraction from the more serious modes, but it’s hard to imagine it being anything more than that.
While technical issues were prevalent in the console versions of Guardians of Middle-earth, the PC edition seems to have solved several of those problems. My online demo experienced very little lag, and I wasn’t dropped from a match a single time. That would have been somewhat unheard of when the console review was written, so it was a welcome change of pace.
Part of that comes with the help of Guardians of Middle-earth’s full Steamworks integration. With the help of Valve’s servers and software, the developer has smoothed out the matchmaking process, as well as added leaderboard support.
It remains to be seen if Guardians of Middle-earth will catch on in the PC gaming world, but Zombie and Monolith have put together an excellent port of their solid MOBA, with a slew of technical upgrades. With its stylish looks and accessible gameplay, GOME could find its spot in the PC MOBA world. At the very least, it would certainly win any acronym contest.
Taylor Cocke is a Bay Area based freelance games writer. Listen to him spout about bands you don't care about by following Taylor on Twitter @taylorcocke.
Source : ign[dot]com
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