"If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you'll probalby love it"

Lord of the Rings: the Battle for Middle Earth

Introduction: The Battle for Middle Earth is a basic real Time Strategy game, which takes place in the world of the movie/book Trilogy: The lord of the Rings. Those books take place in a world very similar to our own medieval age, so the units will be armed with bows, swords and spears. This game was developed by EA Games, and it is available on DVD or CD, and there seems to be no difference in quality between those two. It has three Game-modes; Single Player Campaign, Skirmish and Online or LAN multi-player.

Gameplay, 9/10: The gameplay is fairly simple, very entertaining, and a lot like Age of Empires, or Command & Conquer. You use resources to build units, and your objectives are to kill all enemies. There are four different Races that you can use, Rohan, Gondor, Isengard and Mordor. You can also train a few heroes, and upgrade units. The story of the Campaign is very much like the story of the books, but you can change the story on a few occasions (for example: A main character dies in the books, but you can keep him alive).

Graphics 8/10: The graphics are very good, but you need a very good computer to be able to play it at the highest settings. I myself do not have one, but a friend of mine has a supercomputer, and the graphics on that PC looked awesome. On a PC with the minimum requirements it still looks very nice. And graphics aren't that important in a game like this anyway, in my opinion. The character movement looks a bit odd sometimes, but all the other animations are done very well and add to the feeling of participating in the movie.

Sound, 10/10: Wow, just wow. This is, without a doubt, the best part of the game. Especially the music is very good. It has been taken directly from the movie soundtrack. Although the game randomly plays a track from the music, it always fits in with what you're doing at the moment. I can just pause the game and listen to the music for hours. The actual sound itself is very well done, and it makes the game much more enjoyable. One downside: whenever you give an order to a group of soldiers, those characters usually say something. And those replies can get a bit repetitive after a while. But since the actors from the movies do the voice casting, I have no problems with that.

Replay Value, 9/10: This is a large game, it doesn't take 3.5 gigabytes of space for no reason. It has 2 very long campaigns, skirmish mode with up to 7 computer-controlled enemies, and an online multi-player mode. So, if you like this type of games, and Lord of the Rings, I think it'll take you around 6 months before it might get boring.

Final Recommendation, Rent or Buy: Buy, definitely. It's a good game. The only problem is that is expensive. But, if you have money enough, and a good PC, then I would certainly recommend buying it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/16/04