"Good, But Not Groundbreaking"

The Lord of the Rings scene has blown up in the past 4 years with the release of the brilliant movies made by Peter Jackson. With the movies spawned video game galore where EA has provided some memorable titles. LotR: Battle for Middle Earth has taken a different path than the games set before it, and it is probably the kind of game that everyone has been waiting for. An RTS game with Lord of the Rings in it. I can feel my mouth watering just thinking about it. After a delay by EA, Battle for Middle Earth has been released, giving gamers a very good, but not wonderful, RTS game.

I'm going to assume that you, as the reader, know the story of the Lord of the Rings. That being said, you have a choice in the legions you control in this game. Gondor and Rohan are the forces of light, and Isengard and Mordor are the dark forces in this game. Each side has there differences, like in the movies. Gondor controls stronger ground forces and archers, Rohan is home to the best cavalry in the game, Isengard presents a strong force of orcs and uruk-kai , and mordor presents overwhelming numbers with some very interesting units. These armies are playable in the skirmish mode and you can choose from a variety of maps in skirmish mode.

Also in this game is a Campaign mode. This is where you choose to fight as the good guys (like the fellowship, Eomer's Rohhirim, ect.) OR, you can try and take over Middle Earth as the bad guys (such as the armies of Saurman and Sauron) The campaign mode brings you through a series of battles (resembling the movies almost exactly) in which you try and defeat the other side, becoming ruler of Middle Earth. The campaign mode is very intriguing, but it is not as good as it may sound. Personally, I feel way too restricted in what I'm allowed to do when it comes to battles and when I have to do things. Example: as the forces of light, you must do battles that EA has planned for you to do. You have to fight as the Fellowship here, then turn your attention to Eomer, and back to the fellowship. Also you have to fight battles such as Helm's Deep, and Minas Tirith when they tell you to. The battles are fun and all but the feeling of restriction is something I didn't like too much. The campaign is good, but the attention it holds could have, and should have been much better.

Now down to the actual battles that you partake in. The battles you get into feel very much like those of Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and StarCraft. But, EA has thrown in some twists to make this game try and standout against the other titles mentioned. First is the menu bar on the bottom of the screen. It is no longer a bar telling you what unit you have selected. Instead, they have replaced it with a more room friendly circle of sorts telling you certain things about your buildings and units and giving you options such as formations, upgrades, ect.. Next, units are not able to be selected individually. This game has a unit tied to a battalion of the same units. The battalions range from 5-10 units, depending what faction you are. Now for base building and resource gathering; base building is a lot more simplified. How it is done is that you have a camp, outpost, or castle. Around these encampments are little circles, a spot designated for building that you can build. No longer do you have free roam of the map to build where you want. Again, this feels too restrictive as base strategy is basically eliminated with this feature. Resource gathering has been simplified, and the micro managing like in Age of Empires is gone. You build farms and blacksmiths that add to a resource supply. The single resource supply runs everything, such as what you build with, what you build units with, and upgrades. Now, this is both good and bad, depending on what you like. Personally, I find this more to my liking rather than Age of Empires resource gathering. Now you can concentrate more on the fighting aspect of the game, rather than worry about your economy every 3 seconds. For more hardcore gamers, this might be a bit of a turnoff.

New things also included are heroes. Almost all your favorite heroes are in the game and give your armies special bonuses. They can affect the moral of your armies and give them special armor and/or attacking bonuses. Heroes also have spells they can cast to make a devastating blow to an enemy army Also, heroes and units can improve their rank with experience which makes them stronger and tougher than they were before. Buildings can also do this. After, say a barracks, has created many battalions, the buildings upgrade themselves to make a more powerful unit, such as a rank 2 soldier. This helps improve strength to your army. Also, certain units can only be created with upgraded buildings, which can prove to be critical to the success of your army. This is a nice new addition to the RTS genre, and will make you think about defending these building more than you normally would.

Ah, now to the game play of BFME. This is the most important part of the game, and it pretty much comes through. The fighting and graphics look great, as long as your computer specs are pretty much up to date. Something else that is different in BFME is a sort of point system. You gather points by killing enemy forces and you can use these points to get spells like summoning units to help your cause, or to get upgrades for units, or to get a terrain change so that your army fights better. This was very clever and really adds something never seen before, making the game extremely fun to play. However, there are drawbacks in this game. My biggest gripe with this game is the very unpopular population limit. Remember the days when you could only make so many units because technology was holding you back? Well those days are pretty much over when games have started using many more units in their battles, making the game feel like an epic battle. Well this game has a population limit and it just doesn't seem to be high enough to give this game an epic feeling at all. Lord of the Rings is all about the massive battles between orc and men and this game falls short of a Lord of the Rings feeling. I hear there is a mod out there to raise the pop limit, but I question how the game would run with the mod enabled. That's really my only gripe against this game. The AI, while it could have been batter, isn't too bad. Unit response is good overall, though there are some screw-ups here and there.

Overall, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth is a good RTS, but there is just too much in this game holding the gamer back to make this game outstanding. I'd recommend it, the multiplayer that this game brings is pretty cool and adds to the replay ability of the game.

Score: 8.2/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/11/05