Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II (PC DVD)

With all new content from J.R.R. Tolkien's original fiction, delve deeper than ever before and engage in new battles that go beyond the award-winning movie trilogy. Wage war in the North and assume command of the most storied civilizations in all of Middle-earth history the Elven and Dwarven armies or fight on the side of Evil with heroes and creatures that have never been seen in The Lord of the Rings films. Defend or overtake never before seen lands such as Dol Guldur, The Misty Mountains, and Mirkwood as you unleash powerful new weapons and abilities - summon dragons, cause volcanoes to erupt, or bring down a cataclysmic lightning strike.

But beware, with greater power comes greater adversity. Your enemies, commanded by a powerful new AI system, possess a greater tactical edge and more powerful spells. Will your armies have the fortitude to persevere?

• New races, places, heroes, and battles from books & films
• Command all the races of Middle-earth with 3 all new factions including Elves, Dwarves, and Goblins
• Win the war in the North single-player campaign with all-new story that takes you to places and battles of Middle-earth previously unseen
• Build your own landmark castle with fully customizable and upgradeable fortresses and walls
• Create your own hero with all new customized RTS units that are your avatars in-game
• Control battles with all-new enemy AI, melee combat, and flanking, adding unprecedented tactical fidelity
• Master next-gen unit control with smart formations, battle lines, and planning mode
• "Build anywhere" brings creativity and strategy to base building and battlefield dominance
• Control the entire war with a high level "Risk" style meta-game on the Living World Map with all new strategic AI
• Extend your battlefield with larger than life navy battles at sea

As such, if you don't get to indulge in on-line gaming, don't touch with a bargepole - you won't get the same joy out of it - the campaign length is woefully short, and with the exception of the last level, woefully easy.

But what do you get: Firstly, they've sorted out the unit access thing - you now have access to all 4 unit types off the bat. You no longer need to build units to upgrade your buildings, you pay for the upgrade which normally gives a faster build speed and upgrades. So - hurrah for sorting that out - previously Gondor infantry died before Warg riders... Now you can have Tower Guards at the same time!

Next - they've merged the Gondor/Rohan factions to be a hell of a lot more balanced. There's the new factions - Elves, Dwarves and Goblins. Goblins are very much attack orientated, Dwarves are the ultimate in turtling forces but with some very nasty attack options. I've not played with elves in skirmish yet, but lets see....

They've expanded the unit cap to 1000, and made hero's count as part of that. So, you can have all of the 9 ringwraiths, or ooodles of orcs. They have also fixed the options so now you can have ringwraiths on horseback or on fell beasts.

Finally, there's the war of the rings game and hero creation. Hero creation can create combat monsters who can topple Sauron - also known as sick. The war of the rings game has yet to impress me.

Overall - if you fancy it for the online gaming, get it. If you want something new in the way of RTS, or you don't do a lot of online gaming- just leave well alone. Its an improvement on the previous, but its hardly excellent.


Not bad . . . Not Bad at all   September 11, 2006
Morbid Matt (Shropshire, UK)
38 out of 42 found this review helpful

So, i loaded this game up - started it, thought aha! plenty of graphics options, so i customised it, tweaked it some more ( i like the get the balance just right, acceptable FPS v Graphics, yes, slightly nerdy but hey, i play computer games .. . ) and played a skirmish, then another, and another, marvelled at how the witch king gracefully tore through battalions at a time, how my Half Trolls tore through cavalry of the rohirrim, how drogoth effortlessly torched entire bases, and most of all, how Souron effortlessly destroyed an entire army. All this power, so little time. And here comes my one main complaint really, the AI is really very pants. Pants. Paaaaaants. Just to emphasise it some more - PAAAAANTS! Once you've played it a few times you've played it all. Don't get me wrong, its still a lot of fun, i mean a lot of fun, but it could do with tweaking somewhat, to make it less brain dead.

My other couple of complaints - Walls. Walls did not crumble when an uruk hai poked them with his eyebrow tweasers, did they? Well, in this game, walls serve only one purpose - to slow the enemy down so you can move troops to counter the attack.

Another is skinning, some of the skins have not been updated since BFME I, and although they still look good, they could have been polished that little be extra in my opinion, although, i am not a programmer nor a skinner, and this may be a highly arrogant point of view.

My last is realism - when could 1 battalion run through another without being hurt in some way - i.e. a battalion of pikemen are run at my swordsmen, my reaction would be to form a phalanx.

That said, BFME II is a fantastic game - dispite my griping - perfectly capturing the LOTR's Battle Universe, and, while it cannot compete on the scale of something like the Total War series for numbers of units, it is certainly a game worth playing. It is imaginative, creative and a thouroughly enjoyable experience - I reccomend getting this game.

Just some things to note - space requirements - over 5 gig, it also requires a decent graphics card, a fair amount of RAM and a good processor to run well. Although it has done fairly well on my old AGP graphics card, i would like to experience the game at its best.