The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II

"Amazing Game"

This is the first console RTS game that brings it all into one package. Intuitive controls that don't take long to master, a great single player player experience which includes both evil and good campaigns and a skirmish option. In each campaign you tackle eight missions apiece, from destroying the Shire in the evil campaign to securing the misty mountains in the good, it's a wonderful and challenging experience. The skirmish mode enables players to play against 3 optional CPU players. This mode is great for beginners who want to learn the best strategy for online play. You can learn various strategies with nothing to lose and decide which race is best for you.

The races in this game are: Isengard, Men Of The West, Modor, Elves, Goblins, and the Dwarves. Each race has it's own abilities and strengths. The strength of Isengard are it's warg riders and pikemen, where as the Goblins strengths are their fast cheap units, and monsters. Each race has it's own play style, and you will need to learn their strategies and strengths in oder to beat your opponets.

The online play features five game modes. Versus, King Of The Hill, Capture And Hold, Resource Race, and Hero VS. Hero. You can have up to four people playing in one game in ranked and unranked matches. I highly recommend playing unranked matches if you're a beginner as ranked proves somewhat challenging. My only complaint is not being able to invite your friends into ranked games.

The controls are very intuitive. The main button is 'A' and you use the bumpers and triggers to do various commands such as attacking and commanding your troops. The learning curve for most will be 10-30 minutes. After about an hour of play you get the feel for the game, it plays just as well as a PC RTS by making use of the 360 game pad appropriately.

Overall if RTS games are your forte, check out the Demo currently available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. I highly recommend this game to anyone looking to pass away countless hours in both online and single player.

****/***** 4/5 stars.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/16/06