Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth II is the first Xbox 360 Real-Time Strategy game; a genre not often seen on consoles at all. Developers tend to stay away from making a RTS game for a console, all odds are against you. Therefore, it is very easy for a game like this to fail quickly. Luckily, BFME II does a pretty good job at carrying that RTS feel from the PC space to the consoles; a large portion of that is due to the controller. The Xbox 360 controller is definitely responsive and comfortable enough to mimic a mouse on a console, and this is probably the largest step needed in order to achieve a working console RTS game.
Battle for Middle-Earth II has a great presentation; every aspect of the game’s design looks to be straight out of the Lord of the Rings movies or books. You feel like you’re in the J.R.R. Tolkien universe as soon as you launch the game and it maintains that level of immersion throughout. Unlike the first title in this series, which was only out for PC, the sequel now contains both movie characters, as well as never before seen book material.
You’ll also quickly notice how complex and big the game is; you have tonnes of races to choose from, a both Good and Evil single-player campaign, a skirmish mode, and an online mode to boot. The amount of choices and strategies this game provides is quite immense; yet you never really feel overwhelmed, but rather glad to have a slew of choices on how best to attack your enemy.
Battle for Middle-Earth II is your standard RTS game; you collect resources, construct buildings, for a number of purposes, and eventually build up your army which you use to defend your base or attack your enemy’s. You will find a variation of buildings that will make up your base, but in the center of it all is your fortress. Your army is lead by Heroes, or famous characters from the trilogy; if they fall they can be regenerated in the fortress. Heroes generally have special abilities and have an affect on the troops that surround them.
Battle for Middle-Earth II also lets you buy special powers by collecting power points. Most of these special powers can be used to summon some sort of offensive or defensive asset; they come in handy when you are in battle and need that extra push or advantage over your enemy.
When you’re not fighting on the ground, you can also be in smaller battles that may occur in the sea or in the air. You have the ability to build a port and be able to produce transport ships or battle ships. As the Good forces you will be able to summon the Eagles to fight for you from the air, or the Nazgul for the Evil forces.
Although the game is running off a fairly old engine, it still maintains a pretty sharp look. The surroundings all look great and life-like, and the water looks superb. The characters are still a bit blocky, especially when you zoom in on the action, but from the standard, far away view, the game looks great.
The menus, which are built around a living map of the Middle-Earth, look incredible and the cinematics are a spectacular mix of artwork and in-game footage. The only real problem is the frame rate instability; usually around large numbers of characters and in specific levels, the frame rate can really dip and slow-down the action.
With the license from New Line, the developers were lucky enough to use the voice work from a lot of the actors that participated in the Lord of the Rings films. The game itself is narrated by Hugo Weaving, who played Elrond in the movie. Many of the sounds that were heard in the movies are also present in the game. Everything else that was later added is done very well and provides great ambience in the game. When a big battle rages on you hear various swords, spears, and arrows clashing with each other and it works really well.
