by John G - July 31, 2005

The Lord of the Rings movie based games seem to be slowly leaking into all the different types of genres, first The Third Age, and RPG, and now The Battle for Middle Earth, the newest game made by EA based on the trilogy, a real time strategy game. Battle for Middle Earth is an interesting game with a long campaign, a choice of the four main nations, and multiplayer. Does Battle for Middle Earth become one of the better strategy games of the year, or does it fall short?

Courage is the best defense you have now.

Like most other real time strategy games, it isn�t just a campaign, there is also a one player skirmish mode, where the player can pick which map, how many opponents, and what their difficulty and group they are. For the maps, there is a wide variety for the skirmish mode, and each map has an ideal amount of players listed next to the name, although you do not have to play with that exact number. It also tells you what the starting position is, outpost, camp, or castle. They are mainly the same thing, except castles have a big wall around it (if you�re a human group), and castles also have more build spots.

The different nations are the ones mostly seen during the war of the ring, which are Gondor, Mordor, Isengard, and Rohan. Each one has different strengths and weaknesses, and different strategies to win the game. Gondor is a defensive nation, their castles have long stone walls (and yes, units can be put onto certain types of walls). They also get trebuchets, seen in Return of the King. These can be bought and placed right onto the wall, or bought separately at a workshop so they can be moved along the ground. Rohan�s castle and camps have wooden walls, and they aren�t as defensive as Gondor. Rohan as you would image, rely a lot on the power of their Rohirrim cavalry, which can be produced at stables, along with Rohirrim mounted archers. Rohan also gets a mass of hero units, which can be bought at the main citadels. Rohan�s hero units include: Theoden, Eomer, Eowyn, Merry, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn. Wait, Aragorn? Isn�t he the future king of Gondor? I thought the same thing, but he is with Rohan for balancing purposes. Gondor does get Gandalf, the killing machine, along with Boromir, Faramir, and you can�t forget Pippin either. One weakness of Rohan is their infantry, which are mere peasants that you train at farms. As for Gondor, they get Knights at their stable, along with archers, rangers, soldiers, and tower guards, their best type of infantry.

Mordor and Isengard do not get walls at their castles, but they don�t really need them. The game sort of stacks quality to the humans, and quantity to the bad guys, who have double the command point limit that the human groups do. Command points are Battle for Middle Earth�s term for population limit. Instead of individual units, there are battalions, consisting between one and ten, depending which type of unit. Each unit battalion costs a certain number of command points. If the unit is really good, or there is a lot of them, the command point cost will be higher. Example: Mumakil (the elephants) come in groups of one, and cost thirty command points, while normal gondor soldiers come in fives, and cost ten command points each. Mordor is sort of tailored to create a horde of men, and attack, especially since their basic infantry unit, the orc, has no resource cost, it is completely free to make. Mordor also gets the mountain troll, drummer troll, Mumakil, siege weapons, and two types of Haradrim warriors (the evil humans). Isengard on the other hand gets their Uruk-hai mostly, with some siege weapons and wargs scattered in also. The wargs come in fives, and don�t cost that much, making them a deadly group if needed. The heroes for Mordor are Gollum (who is kind of useless), two regular nazgul, and the Witch King himself. These three ringwraiths all ride on their creatures seen in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Isengard only gets two heroes, Saruan himself, and Lurtz, the Uruk-hai leader.

The skirmish maps are places in order from ones preferring two players, all the way up to the ones that prefer eight, but the maps are not limited to have that exact amount. The maps are varied, and allow for some fun playing. Although the down side is, there is no playable Minas Tirith or Helms Deep skirmish map that comes with the game. But there is an Osgiliath map, a few maps based in Rohan, and many more maps. Selecting a difficulty level for each computer opponent is also interesting. There are three levels, easy army, medium army, and hard army. Easy army uses the nations basic units, and does some attacking. The medium army steps it up a bit, and the hard army AI builds the nations heroes, their best units and upgrades, and also tries to expand aggressively.

Now that the settings are in, it�s time for the actual gameplay. So I clicked start, and waited a fairly long amount of time, which might just be my slightly outdated computer, and then finally the game started. Right away I noticed little logos on the ground, and saw that I could only put buildings on these spots. Being use to the games where you can build individual units and buildings wherever you wanted, this seemed a little dull to me, until I realized it worked really well. The nations symbol can be seen on the ground (or on the wall), and you can click the symbol, and some options come up, and you pick which building you want to go there, and it gets built over time. These spots are generally surrounding the citadel in the castle or outpost. This may seem to restrict the game, but it really does not. The player must choose which buildings they are going to put where, due to the limited space. Expansion areas also come into play in the strategy of the game. There are neutral outposts, settlements, or maybe even castles found on the map, that must be claimed before built on (meaning send units to stand next to it). Then you pay to build, depending on what type of area it is. Little settlements can only be turned into a single farm or lumber area, but this does bring in more income. Outposts cost more money, but have three building spots around it, where you choose whatever you want to build. These spots can also get you closer to your enemy, for launching attacks, or defending.

One of the best parts involving buildings and units is the experience system. Your battalions, heroes, and even buildings, can gain rank. This is done different ways depending on which. Heroes and battalions usually gain rank/level by killing enemies. There is a little bar on the bottom, where you see how close they are to improving their rank, when you click on the battalion. Buildings improve rank by doing whatever the building does. Producing soldiers at a barrack moves the bar up a little, then it moves up again as you keep producing more soldiers there. For example, the Gondor barrack produces the normal soldier at rank one. After producing four battalions of gondor soldiers a voice calls out, �We�ve improved the barracks!� I go back, and see that the Tower Guard unit is available now, which is the best for that building. Heroes and units rank between one and ten. This is seen much during the campaign also, involving the fellowship. There is also a banner carrier upgrade that send a battalion to rank two, when it is used.

The resources in Battle for Middle Earth are simplified compared to some other types of real time strategy games. There is some resource collecting, but it is very basic. For humans, they get most of their resources from farms, which produce food. There is also a blacksmith type place that can offer iron as a resource. For the orcs, there is a slaughterhouse for food, and a timber area for wood, and also a furnace for iron. But instead of separate categories for each resource, they go into one big pile, which is used to buy units and buildings.

Heroes are obviously much more expensive than most units, because they are much better, and have special abilities. These abilities all depend on which hero it is, and what their rank is, higher meaning they can get better things. Faramir for example, one of Gondors heroes, has an ability called �Knight�, where he can mount and dismount a horse (which also changes his armor and damage), and it requires a rank of four. If he is a four or higher, it will be available. There are some more interesting abilities with other heroes, like Gandalf, who can kill quite a few enemies with some of his magic spells. The nazgul get a screech ability, which frightens foes that are below them. The more powerful things are called�well�powers. These can be gained by using points. Once you have enough to get one, it will show up as an icon on the side of the screen, and can be used. Once used it can be used again, but only when the timer has run down. The same power can�t be used over and over in a short amount of time. For the good side there is a heal power, a summon Rohan allies power, and summon elven allies, and a few others. These summoned allies can be a help, but have limited time to be on the map before they are gone again. For the bad side, there is an eye of Sauron power, which can look through the fog on the map, and a summon Balrog power, which is much harder to get.

Now for the campaign, which has many hours of gameplay by itself. Firstly, there are two types of campaigns, the good side, and the evil side. The good side starts the fellowship out in Moria. The fellowship parts can be really fun, and a change of pace, because the don�t require much buildings and resource gathering, because they can usually clean up the enemies themselves, except for later levels. In Moria, you move the fellowship around, and they will encounter some goblins, and they will be dispatched semi-easily. There are also some trolls mixed in there as well. The big part is when Gandalf has to fight the balrog by himself, which requires him to use his spells to defeat the fiery creature. Then the fellowship moves on to defend Lothlorien, help Frodo at Amon Hen, and so on. While that is going on, Eomer and his group are clearing our Isengard forces from Rohan, requiring the player to build a camp, and then search and destroy. The next mission is picked from a well laid-out map of Middle Earth, where you can pick which province to defend from Saruman, or move the fellowship to their next spot. The evil campaign starts out at Orthanc, Sarumans tower, and the orc laborers are tearing down all the trees for resources, and you must defend the tower from a few suprises. Then the evil campaign continues onward from there.
 

Such nice scenery, now I must destroy it.

The graphics in Battle for Middle Earth aren�t eye opening, but they do a good job of depicting certain regions within Middle Earth. The maps have some good detail, and units too. Detail settings can be changed in the options screen. There is a really low, low, medium, high, and really high setting, plus a custom setting where you can pick things out, if you need to. Higher end PC�s can run it well with no problem, my computer isn�t that great and it could handle at least the medium setting. Even on a low setting, the graphics were good, considering it is a real time strategy game, where little units fight on a little map.

Animations are well done in Battle for Middle Earth. There is a lot of detail and accuracy put into some of them. Whether it is a mountain troll ripping a tree out of the ground to use as a weapon, or the witch king swooping down and dropping a Gondor defender from a hundred feet in the air. There�s also the balrog running around with his fire sword, and the Gondor trebuchets launching rubble, there seems to be good effort put in. The maps and buildings look good, especially some of the ones found in the campaign section. I�ve seen some complain about the graphics, but I find nothing horrible about them.

Go back to the abyss!

The music in Battle for Middle Earth is top quality, because it is pretty much the same music seen in parts of the films, which is a good thing. The music plays in the background as you try and take over the map, and gives the game a good Lord of the Rings environment. There is also an option in the options menu that allows for high quality audio, although it might slow performance.

All the units have their own comments and voices, although it seems that they couldn�t get some of the actors to do the voicing for some of the hero characters, like the Rohan trio, and a few others. The actor of Gandalf, who seems to do some sort of narration for all the Lord of the Rings games, does the voicing for his character again, along with some narration in other parts. The sound effects are good, pretty much the ones in the movie, but that is a good thing also. From the fearful shouts of �Nazgul!� to the cries of the trolls and elephants, it�s all here.
 

Will Rohan's army come?

Like mentioned before, there is a multiplayer mode, which is pretty standard now for these types of games. Up to eight players can battle online, choosing one of the four sides they want to be on, the map, and then you�re off to fight. I didn�t have time to try the multiplayer more extensively, but it was interesting. Another thing, that also goes for skirmish mode, is that one Gondor player can fight another Gondor player, and one Mordor player can fight another one, there is no restriction based on the nation, which is good.

Some other miscellaneous things are the world builder that comes with Battle for Middle Earth. I only tried a little bit of this, but from first glance it looked a bit confusing. But player made maps can be found or made, and there is a special category in skirmish mode and multiplayer for these player maps. There is also some other interesting player made content that can be found. There is also a tutorial on the main screen that can help new players, although I didn�t need it when I started, and I managed fairly well.
 

You fool, no man can kill me!

The replay value for Battle for Middle Earth is fucking awesome. If you get done with one of the campaign modes, you can go on to the other sides (evil or good), or even replay the one you just did, the game has fun campaigns. And obviously there is the skirmish mode, which gave me three days straight of entertainment (and counting), and then there is the multiplayer, talked about before.

Another thing is the emotion of the units. Units can display different emotions depending on the situation. If there are some Gondor soldiers around, and a Nazgul comes flying in, or a Balrog walks over, they will throw their shields up and shake in fear. But on the other side, if they clear all the enemies in an area, or a hero comes alongt that is on their side, they will cheer and celebrate. On the map, different neutral parties can be found, what type and where depends on the map. There are goblin lairs, troll caves, and warg lairs, all of which are considered monsters, and will attack anyone that gets too close, even the evil groups. Treasures can also be found on the map, which add to your money total.

One of my biggest gripes about Battle for Middle Earth is the command points. The system itself works pretty well, it�s just that the limit itself seems a bit small. You build a few battalions, look at the limit, and you see you�re almost at the limit already. This does force the player to make some decisions, but it should have been a little larger of a limit. But the good news is there is an edit out that let�s you raise it, as long as you do it properly.

Didn

Battle for Middle Earth has some strong points, and some weak points. Some weak points are that the unit variety could have been upped a little. They just fucking suck at times! I don�t know if an expansion for this game is in the works, but they probably would have enough to make one. Another weak spot is the previously mentioned command limit, which can be edited though. It would also be good for you to have seen the movies before playing. The balance between the four nations is praised by some, and hated by others. From personal experience there might be a some small problems, but it didn�t hinder gameplay for me yet, maybe it won�t at all. Some strong points are the animations, rank system, audio, heroes, and both the campaign and skirmish modes. Overall, Battle for Middle Earth is a success in my book, it is a strategic experience, that is fitted for Lord of the Rings. Any real time strategy player that loves Lord of the Rings should pick it up, or any Lord of the Rings fan in general.