Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II

Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II is a lightning-quick sequel that improves upon its predecessor in a surprisingly profound manner.

Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II is a surprisingly complete embellishment on its predecessor, combining tried-and-true RTS elements with an audio/visual package dancing on the precipice of the cutting edge. Technically, this game is leagues beyond even its most recent peers, like Star Wars: Empire at War, and will likely appease even gamers who aren't familiar with the franchise... if there exists such a creature.

The War Rages On
Despite a relatively short development period that ushered Battle II onto shelves just over a year after its predecessor, this game improves upon the original in several fundamental ways. Most importantly, it allows you to build your fortresses and buildings anywhere on the map, rather than pre-set building zones, opening your strategy up and allowing for a lot more variation in gameplay. Also, EA has secured the license to J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, which has allowed them to include new playable factions that expand the conflict beyond the film trilogy. Battle II ups the ante from three to six playable races--the original's Gondor and Rohan factions have combined into The Men of the West, and they, along with Isengard and Mordor, join the three new factions: Elves, Dwarves and Goblins and Monsters, which include many great creatures like The Hobbit's spiders of Mirkwood.

Players start with a Fortress, which can build heroes, expand with defensive or research nodes, and upgrade until they're fearsome on their own. Your faction can place resource buildings which draw gold from large perimeters around them. This forces you to place them far apart, so you must be prepared to defend them. Both buildings and units can upgrade, and hero units offer various passive and offensive bonuses that become more powerful with experience. You can even create your own hero in an MMO-type fashion, and the game will track their statistics across your skirmish and multiplayer games. Battalion sizes have been increased, to the point where endgames often feature a really impressive number of creatures battling in a cataclysmic fashion that is truly worthy of the franchise... but not quite to the army sizes seen in the movies just yet.


The graphics capture the dark, moody look of the second two films.

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