"The Best Lord of the Rings game ever"

Battle for Middle-Earth, developed by EALA, the same guys who made Command & Conquer: Generals, is the absolutely best LOTR game to date. No other game has captured the same feeling as this game do. With the help of Howard Shore`s wonderful Music, many of the original voice actors(Like Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and even Andy Serkis!), enormous battles that takes place in locations from the movies and a very good worldmap, this game is crowned the next king of Middle-Earth.

Story
The Story should be known for about 99% of the population, so I will try to make it very short. Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit, once found the One Ring on his journey in "The Hobbit". Unaware of its rather sinister plan, he took it home. Several Years later, during Bilbo`s Farewell Party, he gives the One Ring to Gandalf, which after discovering its purpose, forces Frodo to run away with it so that it wont be found. The story for the game starts in Rivendell, just after Frodo have decided to bring the One Ring to Mount Doom. Your mission, if you play on the good side, is to both destroy Mordor`s and Isengards Forces in Middle Earth and to ensure that Frodo gets to Mount Doom Safely.
Story: 10/10

Graphics
The first thing to notice, is that this game uses a slightly upgraded Generals Engine. It is updated with much better detail on the units, thats the biggest difference. Where the units in Generals looked very ugly in close up(Especially Infantry), the units in Middle-Earth looks beautiful, and they boost some pretty nice animations. You can see Legolas pick up an arrow from behind his back and fire his bow, and it looks really cool. The engine is also updated to manage tons of units at the same time, all of them nicely animated and in action. Some of the levels really show off this, like Helm`s Deep, and the result is just impressive. More to that on the gameplay section.

The Menu System looks beautiful too, with a orchestrated score by Howard Shore, a zoom up on one of the Towers, complete with an animated Sauron`s eye.

There isnt much to complain about here. While the graphics isnt jawbreaking, it is pretty good. The graphics never ruin the feeling of being in Middle-Earth, it just enhances it with amazing animations, locations and a beautiful looking World Map.
Graphics: 9/10

Sound
I was very pleasantly surprised by this game. Many games often use a licensed song or manage to get one or perhaps two original voice actors, but Battle for Middle-Earth has almost all of Howard Shore`s music from the three movies, and as mentioned before, it has many, many of the original voice actors. From the top of my head, Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Saruman, Gimli and Gollum has their original voice actors. There were a few more that I just cant remember right now, but look up the Credits list, and you`ll find out. It is disappointing that they could not get Viggo Mortensen for Aragorn and Orlando Bloom for Legolas, but while the replacement for Aragorn is a bit odd and weak, the one for Legolas does a very fine job sounding like Orlando.

The other units like Infantry and beasts sounds perfectly. The Rohirrim Horseriders shout "ROHIRRIM!" when clicking on them, and the Rohan Peasants sounds like a group of normally helpless people who have been forced to fight. Its very convincing actually. They all sound different, the voices fit the types of units very well, and it enhances the mood.
Sound: 9/10

Gameplay
Battle for Middle-Earth is a highly polished RTS(Real Time Strategy) game, and while the basics for building a base, unit management and resources is a bit different than other games, its still a very typical, but good RTS. Its quite easy to learn, and it doesnt take long before you are used to both the slick interface, and the general feel of the game.

When you start the game, you can choose to play either Single Player, or Multiplayer. Single Player will let you play Campaign or Skirmish, and Multi Player doesnt need much description, as it will let you play against others over the Internet or LAN. The Single Player Campaign is absolutely the most interesting though, due to the fantastic Campaign. Once you choose Campaign, you can choose Good or Evil, where Good will let you control Rohan and Gondor(Two sides) trying to destroy Sauron and Saruman`s forces, and helping Frodo on his way to destroy the One Ring, while Evil will let you control Saruman in his quest to take over Middle-Earth and spread Darkness over the land.
The Good Campaign sticks pretty close to the movies, and takes a few liberties, while the Evil Campaign is more of a "What if" scenario, and turns a few events around.

When you choose a side, you are greeted to the magnificent World Map. The Map is divided up in scenarios, each zone having a battle or a Challenge, and a reward. When you complete the scenario, you get the reward, which is either Command, Power or Resources. Command increases the amount of units you can have, Power gives you points to spend in a skill tree with Special Powers and Resources increases the efficiency of gaining resources.

You usually have a few different scenarios to choose between, and when choosing a scenario, you enter the Battlefield, and the gameplay starts. Usually your object is to set up a Base and then destroy all the opposite`s forces, but sometimes its a little more varied, and some scenarioszones are directly from the movie, like Helm`s Deep for instance, one of the best maps and battles in the game.

You choose a scenario from the World Map that gives you 2 Power and 20 Command. You enter the battle, and then you usually build a base. Unlike other RTS games, base building in Middle-Earth is kinda strange. Scattered on the map are build points, and when your units get close to the build points, options of what you can build comes up. Some build points only lets you build farms(That gives you resources automatically and never runs dry), some lets you build outposts and some lets you build bases. When you activate buildpoints and build an Outpost for example, you get a town center, with more buildpoints around it, where you can build other buildings like Barracks, Archery Range and so on. It might sound a bit complicated, but it doesnt take many minutes to understand it, and its quite fun to fight against other players for more buildpoints.

You can also build heroes, and those are directly from the Movie, including Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, the Hobbits and so on. Each of them have special powers that they gain when they gain levels, and their levels are kept after each battle in the campaign, so in the end, your heroes will most likely be max level and very powerful. They are in addition very fun to control, and their powers are impressive. Aragorn has among things, a war cry that fears the opponent, something that is very helpful at several occasions. He can also summon the Army of the Dead and heal other heroes. Gandalf, on the other hand, can mount his horse, use powerful magic to blast away foes and more. I will leave his last attack for you to discover, but when I saw it, I nearly last my breath.

There are a few problems with the gameplay however. At the end of the game, you are often forced to go through very many similar scenarios of "Destroy all forces", so it becomes a little tedious when neither the scenario or the environment is anything special. This is a minor problem though, but a little more variation wouldnt hurt. There are some nasty crash bugs appearing, but they are rare, and only occurred twice for me during a whole playthrough of the Good Campaign. The AI, both on your friendly units and enemies, can be a little frustrating, much because of pathing, but its nothing major.

Also included, is a World Editor, and if you have used the Generals Editor, you will be able to start making maps right away. Its the exactly same editor, but its slightly upgraded, and once you get the hang of it, its quite easy and fun to make good maps.
Gameplay: 9/10

Conclusion
Battle for Middle-Earth is a definite buy for any Lord of the Rings fan that are looking for the best game based on the Movies. The Presentation and Quality of the product is top notch, and the campaign is almost worth the price alone. A few bugs and small issues prevents this game from getting top score, but still, there is no doubt that this is a perfect way to use a license and to make a very good game of it.
Total Score: 9/10: A highly polished, fantastic RTS game that would make Tolkien proud.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/04