Review: Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth

[schild]

One review to rule them all.

(This review, by the way, was sent in by Jpark)

Edit: Proper credit and all that.

[Samwise]

You know you're a Tolkien fanboi if the mispelling of "Uruk-Hai" as "Ureki" makes you gnash your teeth.   

[Hoax]

People still make RTS?

Unless it comes with downloadable units that are released as time goes on and a storyline campaign that is fought online I can't be bothered...  *sigh*  I miss TA, stupid cavedog I hope they burn in the hells of poverty for making TA:kingdoms...

[Kageru]

Very unpleasant game, like so much "merchandising". Too much time spent on flashy graphics, which is trying to emulate the movie, and far too little on gameplay. For example the very first mission is moving the fellowship through moria. It looks great, but it's completely linear and your units are so powerful there's no real danger of losing. This includes Gandalfs battle with the Balrog where, through the complex tactics of engaging auto-attack and clicking on the specials as they refresh you can't lose. At which point gandalf runs off to catch up with the fellowship.. could have sworn it worked somewhat differently in the book.

The RTS component is a modern style "hyperactive" one and is as shallow as a puddle. The map determines where you can build (makes it easier to generate nice graphics), there's a small selection of what you can build, and the vast majority of the time is spent running troops all over the map. Several buildings generate infinite resources, which are ruthlessly merged into a single count, and many increase your speed of army production so you never have to wait before hurling another army into the field. Admittedly it was very nice playing mordor and the hobbits, who are like bargain basement hero's, would repeatedly do solo assaults on my besieging army and go down in a hail of sharp pointy death but even that got tedious fast.