The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth

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Ok, this game is one of my faves. It is really fun and I like how you don't have to do all of the work. (i.e, having to walk around, etc) I like the style of it and how you can hide in your castle while the other team butchers themselves, while forming a massive army. Of course, if you are playing a medium or hard computer opponent, you can't really do that tactic because they'll end up recruiting an oliphaunt to destroy your castle.
I found the different maps (on skirmish mode) to be fun to pick from. There are several in which you can build your castle in a cove or cranny surrounded by mountains, (for those who like to be quiet and stealthy) or you can (if you like this kkind of warfare and you are foolhardy) put your base in the center of the map(stirring attention from your enemies). The graphics are great (you can adjust them on the settings if your computer will run with them) and there are several animals that, with good aim on the trebuchet, you can obliterate with the bombardment feature. The trees and ground are all unique and there are ruins your solders can hide in on some locations.
The campaign mode I cannot rant on about because I haven't finished either good or bad, (not that the game is hard, but that I don't really consider myself a "gamer") but from what I've seen (about seven levels on both), it's pretty cool.
Overall, this game is awesome and I highly recommend it to all. It isn't really violent,(the solders fall over when they die...that's all you see)and so it's okay (in my point of view) for kids that aren't really a teen (just no first graders, etc.).

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Arived fast and in perfect condition. Runs on vista. Old game with dated graphics but still a lot of fun, dont regret buying

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Excellent on all counts -- shipping and game quality. I was hooked and loved it. I strongly recommend this game which I feel is better than part 2.

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Overall, this is a decent RTS. The battles can be small skirmishes or epic scenes. I especially like the cavalry's ability to charge through enemies and trample foot soldiers. While playing through the story line I noticed that if it feels like you are losing, just keep with it and you might just pull out a victory.

The fans of the original story will enjoy fighting some of those battles that are only mentioned throughout the books. Hero's are also a big part of the game. Gandalf is one of my favorites. Also, the elves can kick butt as well.

So, RTS fans...I recommend this game and I plan on picking up the second one unless anyone can tell me otherwise.

Semper Fi

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[...]

Lord of the Rings was a great choice for an action game; in spite the unsuccessful attempts to make an action game out of this franchise, I still felt an RTS was an unusual choice for this series; perhaps this is because of my relative inexperience in RTS; Age of Empires is the only RTS game I played.

This game follows the entire story of The Lord of the Rings, not just one part. It does take liberties with the story, for example, Boromir can live through the entire campaign and even fight in Mordor depending on how you play the game. That is not necessarily a bad thing, its a lot of fun to have all your main characters fight in the ultimate battle. It is a huge game in terms of longevity and scales of battle with beautiful graphics and two long campaigns - good and evil. I felt it captured the epic sense of scale as the movies did.

You change history as either the forces of good or the forces of evil. The gameplay is a combination of turn-based campaign and real-time strategy missions. It allows you to pick your fights in the order you chose, to a certain extent. The player can control forces of good or evil and march across the Middle-Earth conquering maps along the way.

Each province has different bonus resources; one map might give you power points which can be used to power up the abilities and another might give you command points. The 3D map of Middle-Earth is very well rendered, it looks beautiful with Nazgûl flying over Mordor and such.


One feature that almost compels you to conserve your troops is that they are persistent throughout the campaign, i.e the troops you have at the end of one mission will be carried over to the next one. At times, you get to call in your allies; its a great feeling to see a huge bunch of troops coming to your rescue in missions like Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith. Preserving your troops also means that your heroes can level up, which is very crucial for victory.

I got the feeling that the some hero units are a little redundant - for example, I never used the hobbits in battle, unless I had to. I would always send them to one corner of the map and have Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Faramir, Boromir do the fighting for me. Having said that, I am glad that there are as many hero units as there are.

Graphics and sound are top notch, although I missed the support for widescreen monitors. Its not a huge hindrance, but I would have liked to have it given that I have a 24 inch screen running at 1920x1200. Instead I have to run the game at 1600x1200, so the image appears a little stretched. Voice acting and sound effects are great. I believe that Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee reprised their roles. The soundtrack of the movie makes the experience so much better.

This is a fantastic game, and it somehow seems overlooked. RTS fans should definitely play this. The good campaign itself lasts over 25 hours and that's only half the game. I definitely recommend this great game.

This review refers to only the good campaign; I never played the evil campaign.

+ Long campaign
+ Lots of hero units
+ Soundtrack
+ Voice acting
+ Combination of RTS and Turn Based gameplay
+ Huge battles (Helm's Deep!)
+ Graphics

- Lack of widescreen support

Verdict: Must play