The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-Earth Comments by Rob Fahey

\o/

I am a little bit shocked. I bought this, and found it so lacking in everything but presentation that I brought it back the very next morning. A 3/10, judging by the 3 hours or so I tried it.

Surprised by an 8!

The average on gamerankings is 8.

I wonder how many people stayed until late hours in the night to get this baby out?

So the ability to kill Legolas repeatedly isn't a good thing then? :)

Given Rob's irrational hatred of Generals (on politcal grounds as far as I can make out) I'd say his 8 is on solid ground. He's not easily pleased, so bear that in mind before the tired old score questioning gets wheeled out for the 212th time this year.

So it's not allowed to disagree with a review anymore? I am genuinely surprised as I thought this game lacks everything that usually makes RTS games fun, its game mechanics seemed to me like they were from 1997, and I usually agree with Shinji's reviews of RTS games almost all of the time.

Guess what, I completely agree, Fruit_Salad. And this is why there is a comments section here, to discuss the game and/or review, no? Which I did. I didn't say Rob was wrong, I said the game is, imo, crap, and that is surprises me Rob didn't think the same, especially as I usually share his views on RTS games.

Hmmm, i'm still not so sure about this. I'd been looking forward to it, but it seems a little basic after W40K-DoW. The units all look pretty similar and do not have the personality of those from DoW. Once it gets going on a big MP map it's fun mind you.

Incidentally, I thought Generals was great! A real sense of scale and destruction allied with it's amazingly funny political incorrectness worked for me.

"Preserving Freedom..." - Top stuff! :)

/hands Lou his anti-stress pills.

I don't think anyone tried to stop you from expresing your opinion, mate.

As for myself, I usually disagree with Rob's opinions on RTS games, so I'm not surprised at all that he likes Battle for Middle Earth, although I don't.

Well its on my Christmas list so I hope I find it to be an 8!

As a recent purchaser of Rome:TW I am deeply in love (or should that be deeply addicted to) RTS at the moment so the chance to do some of the same in the LOTR world should be good.

As a new RTSer, rather than an experienced campaigner the fact that LOTRBFME (this is getting ridiculous!) is perhaps 'light' compared to some of the genre may not bother me as much as it might others, as i've little to compare it to.

/hands Lou his anti-stress pills.

Heh, cheers. :-) Sorry, don't know what's wrong, but wherever I turn my head today, someone or something annoys me. ;-)

Not to mention that you can only build on pre-defined structures, and that the unit variation and tech-tree for each faction is very humble. Whoever is buying this instead of the excellent Rise of Nations, or Rome, is making a big mistake. In my humble opinion. :-D

Can't be worse than Third Age... that sucked.

/sticks to Rome Total War

PC Gamer really didn't like it... Some major holes in game design so we're told...

Ahhh, BfME... you had such potential...

People should just stop making RTSs after Rome.
Seriously, stop. There's no point. You've lost, Creative Assembly has won. :)

Huzzah!

Got this as an Xmas pressie. I'm so glad it's not $hite.

/hugs LOTR pillow, drinks from LOTR mug.

The Third Age, was so blatantly ripped off from Final Fantasy X that you half expected Auron to pop up at any minute

That would have sold me the game.

I'm just waiting for The Boromir Chronicles: The Massacre at Gondor Bay. ;)

Oh yes... just you wait...

Those were anime fangirls then Shinji?

"Financial Analyst" my arse!

I guess I can see why some people don't like this. I honestly came to it with pretty low expectations - I hated Generals (partially because it was so repulsively juvenile in its handling of its subject matter, mostly because it was a shit RTS game regardless of political leanings), and I'm not the world's biggest fan of the whole licensed game concept.

Thing is, I played it loads, and enjoyed it a lot. It does plenty of stuff right, and is great fun to play - sure, it's not got the depth of something like Rome, but it's not aiming for that marker, and bear in mind that for a lot of people Rome was TOO involved (myself included - I love the game, but it requires waaaay too much commitment for me to be able to play it much).

Without the LOTR license it would probably be a six, maybe a seven. Solid, fun, but unremarkable. Judicious use of the license really elevates it though - for a fan of the books or movies, running around fighting battles in Tolkien's universe is a big draw, and this game executes that concept perfectly.

End of the day - I had fun. Thus the game is good :)

visitor - What you mean is that the reviewer came back and defended his review rather than saying "oh sorry, damn, you're right, how could I have been so stupid!?"

I loved the films and thought Generals was actually pretty good. I was holding back until I read this review though. Unfortunately, Mrs Xmas had to go shopping the other day so I added it on my list without seeing it. Looks like I won't be taking back on the 27th now. I don't mind the odd light strategy. More chance of me completing it.

An 8 is somewhat generous in my opinion, a solid 6 or a a lucky 7 perhaps.

Rather than an RTS this should be described as 'RTS-Lite'.

* Inability to assign a squad/hero to more than one group.
* No hotkey to select a specific hero.
* You can't sub-select in mixed squads to activate upgrades/powers (as in WC3 'tabbing')
* Enemy AI is set to 'spam units only' I've yet to see some real cunning tactics.
* You can't reconfigure keys in the setup.
* No key to reset the camera view.

It's good but in an 'average good' way. EA have applied plenty of gloss but the underlying mechanics are somewhat lacking.

@jumpdeveraux

Sounds like every game EA has developed in the last 5 years.

Last truly good EA game I remember playing, was on the MegaDrive.

I have had the game for a week and I'm loving it...

8!!! Ive found this to be very average so far. I suppose 8 is okay IF youre a huge LOTR fan though. Its just very average compared to Dawn of War which has raised the bar for squad based RTS games or comapared to Rome Total War which has a proper campaign map and bigger battles. Despite this I am enjoying it though, but if it didnt have the LOTR element it would be a 5/10 tops and I would have stopped playing after about 10 minutes.

Id say 5 or 6 out 10 depening how much you like RTS games then an extra 1 or 2 depending how much you like LOTR.

For what it's worth, I don't think that the EG staff is agressive in defending the reviews. I always found it nice that they bother to offer further explanations and apologies for obvious mistakes (wrong developer name and stuff like that).

I still think that Generals is a great multiplayer game and a great game overall, in spite of the rather bland single-player campaign. And I still think that Battle for Middle Earth sucks and reviewers everywhere know it, but are afraid to say it out loud, because they fear the fanboys.

There's a big difference betwen defending your opinion and being arrogant. I've spent a long time carefully explaining my point of view and have never been accused of arrogance. If anything, in the face of often intolerant baiting I stay pretty calm. We're all entitled to our opinion, and our regular readers usually know exactly where we're coming from. It's the occasional readers that are used to much higher scores that we get the most flames from, but, well, bleh.

In this case, I was just explaining that Rob's usually a stern critic of games, and if he thinks it's worthy of an 8, I'm liable to take that as a good indicator. If you disagree, fine.

yeah guys.. this game cannot touch Rome, but the 8 is quite fair. It is a basic RTS in many ways but I guess the reason it is pretty good (just as W40K was) is because you can jump into the world of Middle Earth. Fight in Moria. Attack Gondor.. etc.
W40K was also nothing new... but it had SPACE MARINES!

If you want a killer RTS.. get Rome, but if you want to dive into LotRs, this game is pretty ok. 8/10? Yes.

I'd never compare it to Rome, which is a bit a different beast anyhow. But it's fair to compare it to Warcraft, AoE, RoN, etc., and it falls incredibly short in this respect. Take away the LotR shine, and there is a game left that is way below average, in my opinion. But go see for yourselves, fools, just don't come back crying that it's crap. ;-)

Jeez people, lighten up! I'm sorry, but it's Christmas and there are far more important things to do than squabble about the score of a computer game on a website.

darn it, i was gonna get this, but im not gonna bother now...

excellent review, but as its an RTS "lite" im gonna pass on it.

/loves Eurogamer for a few reasons, very good reviews not based on free-lunches, ability to debate reviews after, and above all, from the same town as me... Brighton for the win.

:D

personally...allthough after r:tw it is a bit 'lite'...its enjoyable. Im not normally a fan of RTS, normally get 'owned' by the AI, but this is set at a quite refreshingly easy pace, is well presented, and is great for those who normally stay away from this genre.

As for 'reviewers not defended', being a site i have browsed (allthough not commented on much) since around 2000...maybes even earlier. I have found that the reviewers are normally spot on and therefore dont have to backup their reviews. At the end of the day, an opinions an opinion :)

Not that impressed. They could have had even more sides in the game or as a possibility for expansions. Easterlings, Southrons and why not the elven army led by Celeborn*?

*which defended Lorien - a great battle that should have been in the rather tame extended version of ROTK

Anyway, GOD JUL! :D

"darn it, i was gonna get this, but im not gonna bother now...
excellent review, but as its an RTS "lite" im gonna pass on it. "

What were you originally expecting from an EA produced movie license then?

pass what?

Go? and dont recieve 200 pounds?

hehe :)

Visitor hit the mark the first time. This is also why I don't bother with EG text reviews. I just come here to read the general comments of users about games I'm interested in. But even so you got to be careful with all the ass-kissers.

Really, the worst part has got to be the kiss ass remarks when someone actually disagrees with a review. It's like EG has their normal, working staff and then there's a myriad of minions just hanging around to tap on their backs or praise them on cue.

Think about it, it's quite ridiculous sometimes.

Either that, or shock horror - there might be people here who actually agree with a bunch of the stuff we write. I know it's a difficult concept!

Shockingly I bought Tales of Symphonia based on shinji's review and OMG I actually agree with pretty much most of it :O

/can't be arsed with other examples because shinji summed it up perfectly

Apparently people aren't allowed to have opinions any more....

Er... We're sucking up to developers? I've never even met the people who developed this game. All I know is that some of them worked on Generals, (a game which we made no bones about calling a pile of crap). If we were going to start sucking up to EA /as a whole/, do you think we'd have given GoldenEye Rogue Agent its richly deserved 2/10?

I liked this game. I accept that it is flawed and that many people, especially more hardcore strategy game fans (for all that I play these games a lot, I do not consider myself a hardcore fan of the genre by any means) will not get along with it. However, I found it a lot of fun, an excellent use of the license, and a pretty damn good way to spend a fair number of hours. I couldn't care less if it was developed by the Pope, the Dali Lama and the Queen of England in a secret development studio funded by the Illuminati and a race of giant space lizards; I reviewed a game and liked it.

If you feel that that somehow devalues our reviews as a whole... Well, you're entitled to your opinion. I just can't give it much weight when it boils down to "I disagree with this reviewer THEREFORE he must not be being honest."

What is it about this review that seems to be bringing in the 'Lets criticise Eurogamer' crowd?

You don't like what the review says? Go find one that tells you what you want to hear.

Some people...

Been playing this a lot over xmas and it really does get very dull and repetitive after a bit. Think Ill stick to the Extended Editions Boxed set for further LOTR fixes.

Jethco, i have no idea how to do this either. in fact its got to the point where i dont know when im gonna got any more than 200 command points in skirmish at all! does anyone know when the command points in the skirmish and the LAN games increase? i know this game wasn't to be the same scale as Rome (as most of you have put) but only 200 command points in a skirmish! it gets even worse when theres more than 2 teams, say 8 then all you get is 80 command points! if thats not false advertisement from TV and the internet wat is it? (also, whilst I have started) notice that in the siege missions, the cut scenes just before the start of the mission shows hundreds if not thousands guarding the castle, and then the game starts with around 30 troops guarding the castle, its stupid. and thats the bit that EA advertised on TV and the internet, the cut scenes.
generals was ok and nothing special, BFME is slightly better but far from classic. my only wish is that westwood in 'red alert 3' just use 'red alert 2' with improved graphics (3D obviously) and alot of various units/buildings, and no restrictions on building areas oh and the greater use of the player having to be strategic would be nice too.
i feel im getting off topic, but EA are stepping in the wrong direction in RTS games.

This game is the biggest load of PISH ever! 8 my testicles. Theres almost to stategy .. and you just build and send and build and send.. thankgod I got vouchers for Virgin and wasted someones else cash instead of my own.

I find the game badly balanced too. Fucking EA crap. I should have known.