The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II
July 13,2006 - The Lord of the Rings franchise has been very popular for several decades. The books written by J.R.R. Tolkein are widely considered to be some of the best ever published. That being said, in 2001, visionary director Peter Jackson released a trilogy of movies spanning three years that each grossed just about more than any movie ever made. The trilogy in total was not only just commercially successful but also managed to win sixteen Academy Awards in total, and eleven alone for the third, tying it for the most of any movie yet released. The games that came out afterwards, on the other hand, never quite met the same success that the book or the movies did. 

There were a few hits, namely The Battle for Middle-Earth, and, well, the sequel that came out on the computer, but otherwise, not much else. We at IGO really enjoyed the two previous games in The Battle for Middle-Earth very much so, but like most people, were incredibly skeptical about it going to a video game console and straying away from the mouse and keyboard. Luckily enough for you console fans; they did a fantastic job translating an already very well-made computer game.

The Battle for Middle-Earth II on the Xbox 360 is one hell of a game. It does everything the PC version does exactly how you’d want it done on a controller. Never before this has the real-time strategy game been done so fluidly on a console in the history of gaming. BFMEII is based on not just the movies but also on the books, so all of the stuff that was missing from the movies—Tom Bombadil, for example—is in the game. Electronic Arts has a license for both the books and the movies.

The single player mode offers two separate campaigns, a good and evil one. Each side has a total of eight missions that span over the northern area of Middle-Earth as Frodo was taking the ring to cast it into the fires. Beyond that you also have the ability to skirmish on any map, and also have access to all of the maps from the original Battle for Middle-Earth that came out in 2004 for the PC. These maps were included for the dynamic campaign which was removed from the Xbox 360 version, for some reason or another.

Each side, good or evil, has three different factions for you to choose from. They are all pretty straight forward factions that you should be familiar with if you’ve read the books or seen the movies. On the good side you have the men of the west, the dwarves, and the elves. Each of these is pretty beneficial for its own reasons. Like the men of the West combine a lot of the abilities that dwarves—the strongest battlers—and the elves—the best archers—have for a well-rounded faction. The evil side has Sauron’s army which is led by the Nazgul, the warriors of Isengard which is led by Saruman, and a troll and goblin faction that is your stereotypical fantasy enemy group. It’s really fun when you can manage to gather up huge troops on either side and fight them. For any fan of the Lord of the Rings universe, it’s incredibly satisfying.

One of the cool aspects of BFMEII is the hero system, which is much like WarCraft III. You can choose heroes like Boromir or someone from the universe to act as your savior of sorts, and he is ultra powerful, has cool powers, and is harder to kill off than most of the other units in the game. On the evil side, you’ll be able to summon monsters like Balrog and other incredibly awesome ones. If you’ve played the PC one you’d probably be a little confused how it would all work on a console, considering the amount of clicking you’d do for most of that stuff. Like a mouse, your analog sticks work quite well. You’ll move around with each stick, the left one does the vertical and horizontal scrolling and your right analog stick controls the pitch. With your triggers you’ll be able to manipulate things like menu screens that would otherwise be very confusing if they didn’t streamline it as well as they had.

The actual battles and base building aspect of BFMEII really doesn’t stray too far away from the mold in terms of gameplay. It’s still relying on you to build up a sturdy fortress in skirmishes or battles so you can fortify things like your barracks or ways for you to gain resources. As you do that, you build up your army and essentially prepare for battle. Now think of that in any other strategy game you’ve played before. It’s pretty cool, right? Now picture it as you are standing on top of Helm Deep preparing to fight off the Isengard troops sent by Saruman. Thanks to the ability to use the old maps, you can.

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