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$9.99 - The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2
Product DescriptionLord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II gives you a chance to experience all that Middle-Earth was meant to be. Delve deeper than ever before into the fictional world of Tolkien, as you wage war in the North. Assume command of the most storied civilizations in all of Middle-earth history, the Elven and Dwarven armies -- or if you prefer, fight on the side of Evil to aid Sauron in his conquest. Fight with or against heroes and creatures that have never been seen in The Lord of the Rings films! Control battles with all-new enemy AI, melee combat, and unprecedented tactical fidelity Build anywhere brings creativity and strategy to base building and battlefield dominance Control the entire war with a high level Risk style meta-game Larger-than-life naval battles
Most Recent Customer ReviewsDate : 2009-05-21
Summary : in a word - disappointing
Well this game has pretty good multi-play and that is about the end of the PROS. The CONS are many so far as I have seen. First the price I see on Amazon says like $93.61 or something and I'm scratching my head like is this is Martian Kronars or Dollars? Did I fall asleep like Rip Van Winkle and wake up and my currency has been devalued to pennies for each dollar or what is up with that?!
More CONS include AI levels are missing and how they impact your solo play. If you choose EASY the computer plays like he is simpleminded and almost never attacks and simple sits in his own camp waiting for you to attack him when you are ready. If you choose Medium, you'd better be a mean fighting expert because he will rush you with sets of troops getting progressively harder with each wave until he breaks your camp down. From what I can see there needed to be about two more levels like Easy+ just like Easy but not a COMPLETE stoop. There also needs to be a Not quite Medium level where the computer sends waves of troops to attack but takes a breather every now and then to let you rebuild from the onslaught.
Other Cons include the view is pretty well zoomed in by default and you CAN ZOOM in MORE if you want your nose pressed against the Towers and walls to work on that crosseyed thing BUT sadly there is no option to ZOOM further OUT to see the whole camp. Instead you are left resorting to people yelling "They're attacking the camp!" and a tiny golden ping on the minimap to hint at what you wish you could have seen if ONLY you could have zoomed out and not been quite as Surprised as the guy who was yelling for help "They're attacking the camp!" "They're attacking the camp!" becomes a common thing if you are playing medium.
More CONS is custom maps. Found one of several custom map sites like http://bfme2.heavengames.com/ but sadly nobody on this site seems to be able to stop boasting about their custom map long enough to explain exactly where do WE PUT these downloaded maps to ACTUALLY use them so we can know for ourselves how awesome and brilliant you were...
All in all a good game if you are interested in just playing the campaign through once and finding someone human to play a few rounds against multiplay via Hamachi or something. Skirmish is toast with the lack of AI levels 1 too easy 2 too tough (difficulty 1.4 and 1.6 would have been a huge plus but no luck) Maybe they could use the windfall from their $93.61 to see it in their massive budget to slap a few useful AI levels into this game. Nah - never gonna happen.
Play-testing people. You know QA!? It's all about spending the few weeks actually letting actual gamers play with your software before trying to SELL it.
Date : 2009-04-29
Summary : great!
when i first got this game 2 years ago, it was [...]$ now it is an average of [...]$! now that shows how great the game is! the only thing is that if you have a problem TS sucks! but the game is awsome! i highly recomend this game! it is #3 on my top RTS games my #1 is C&C 3 #2 DoW2 then this game! i absautly love it (im 13) but i have incounterd 25 year olds playing online!
Date : 2009-04-17
Summary : A slightly more fleshed-out version of the original
I'm writing this review from the point of view of a casual gamer who only plays against the computer; I like being able to quit a game whenever I feel like it. So, obviously, I'll only be commenting on the single-player modes.
The campaign modes of the game features nothing from the movies proper, instead focusing on the "War in the North" - the Goblins versus the Elves and Dwarves. The campaign is comparatively short, featuring only about 1/3 of the missions of the original BFME, presented in a fixed order. However, the locales and actual missions are varied and well-designed, avoiding the monotony that was 75% of the BFME I campaigns (a.k.a. destroy the enemy base, which was always located directly opposite you on the map, and maybe fulfill the ridiculously easy secondary objective).
As you can tell from the campaigns, three new factions are introduced - Goblins (roughly equivalent to the spam-happy Mordor from BFME I - units that are weak but cheap with a few random heavy hitters), Dwarves (incredibly strong and ponderously slow, very good on the defensive), and Elves (think Gondor from BFME I and soup it up, making them stronger and faster but are slightly weaker defensively as a trade off). Gondor and Rohan have been combined into the "Men of the West" faction, combining the best of both worlds, and Mordor has been made slightly more robust, including adding a few more heroes, but have lost the free orcs. Isengard, with the exception of adding new heroes, is pretty much identical.
My favorite addition to the game is the "War of the Ring" mode, which takes the campaign mode from BFME I and turns it into a Risk type of game, with territories able to be reconquered, garrisoned, built up and more. This adds a great level of strategy and fun to the game, and any battles can be auto-resolved or fought out in real-time. My only complaints about this mode are that the AI tends to be too agressive, leaving their territories undefended, and that the players only can have three armies that invade other territories (they led by pre-selected heroes you have at the beginning of the game; later heroes you build can't lead armies).
The create-a-hero feature is a cool concept, but I would have liked to see more options - each character can only have certain skills depending on their class (wizard, orc, et cetera), which is fine, but we only get 12 or so to choose from. Appearance options are even worse, with only a sparse variety - you can't even change hair color. And every hero costs 2000 resources, no matter how powerful or useless they are. (This was apparently fixed in the now-difficult-to-find expansion pack, "Rise of the Witch King")
Also, a lot of the little annoying things from BFME I have been fixed. Unit-producing buildings now can be upgraded by purchasing an upgrade, cutting out the rank-based-on-production system that never worked because the command point limit was so low - another issue that has been resolved in BFME II, with a base CP limit of 1000 that is adjustable (it also is realistic - player start a game with 100 CPs and, as they build up their infrastructure, get more). Resource gathering is now based on territory and buildings can be built anywhere, which makes the game more realistic - factions now battle it out for the entire map instead of trying to control one of several arbitrarily-chosen "expansion points." There is also a new difficulty for the AI - "Brutal" - for those of us who found the "Hard" opponents somewhat lacking.
All in all, this is a very worthwhile game that is both deeper than BFME I (thereby pleasing the BFME and other RTS veterans) while still being fairly easy to pick up (meaning the rookies will enjoy it). It's quality and fun, but has enough frustrations and shortcomings to land it squarely in 4-star territory.
Date : 2009-03-05
Summary : Satisfied Customer
The game was shipped and recieved much earlier than I expected, so I was very pleased. The disc came exactly as it was described to me, so there were no unexpected problems. I am a satisfied customer.
Date : 2009-02-25
Summary : Lord of the rings Battle for middle earth 2
This a great game. You can play it for hours. Lots of battles for sure to play
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