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Will not run

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 19 / 32
Date: March 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Bought two copies for two different computers. We get a game.dat error on both of them. Have appropriate drivers and everything that is needed. Check out the EAForum and see how many others have had this problem. Save your money until they get this problem fixed.

unbelievable!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 26
Date: March 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is the first day the game is available, and already there are problems! There's a patch waiting for you to download because the game doesn't load properly for many of us without the "proper" video card(?) EA does mention BFME II doesn't work with NVIDIA GeForce 4, but apparently that card is NOT the only one! I too am getting the game.dat error message and booted off. The patch did NOT fix the problem for me. The game still doesn't work. EA also says you must turn off your antivirus and firewall programs in order to run the game. I don't know about you, but being on cable, I don't do ANYTHING without those two running. Why EA thought it would be alright to demand we make our computers targets if we play BFME II I haven't a clue...but they did. So far I'd have to say this game is a disaster! IF you have NVIDIA GeForce 7, the manual says you should enjoy the graphics. I guess for the rest of us, we'll never know!!! I changed my graphics card from the Intel one that came with the computer to a NVIDIA 5200 I've had for over a year and it will run, but locks up after about an hour. Good luck!!! Actually, the manual does offer a suggestion. We're supposed to open the task manager and stop everything except explorer.exe and taskmgr.exe and any system/local service/network service processes. Okay, so the developers knew there was a problem, but thought just turning EVERYTHING OFF would do the trick. Amazing. For more fun, go to EA's website and look at the number of folks complaining about this!!!

Really Great RTS conversion of the Lord of the Rings

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 12
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm surprised that the only two reviews for this game rip it. This is a really great game. First I'll give you my specs. I'm running it on a custom built pc but its nothing fancy:

Athlon 2800 xp
1 gig of ram
ATI Radeon 9600XT

The game would not run initally when I installed it. Which worried and still bothers me. It obviously shows that they didn't test it well because I have seen that I'm not the only one who has had problems. After I patched it the game ran and I started my first skirmish to get a good feel for the game before I started the campaigns. The game ran ok but a little slow on 1024 x 768 with the detail level set at high. It wasn't really choppy but the units seemed to move in slow motion. So I decided to bump my detail level down to medium and the game runs good. I've never played the first version of the game but I have played a ton of RTS titles.(all the command and conquer titles, all the warcraft games, Age of empires 1,2,3, age of mythology, empire earth, warhammer 40k, Rise of nations, etc... So I know my way around an RTS. I really enjoyed some of the small touches with this game. Such as haveing a percentage meter for my farms because they need a large amount of land in order to produce crops so you can't just pile a bunch of them next to each other and I liked being about to build walls for my fortress and adding defenses. After playing a few matches I'll have to say that its a really fun game. The graphics are good and I love the animations. I liked the build your own hero feature but it really lacks in options. I couldn't believe how few options you have to customize your hero! Overall this game is a good game and worth purchasing. Especially if you like lord of the rings or you like building a base and defending it. Some RTS's focus on attacking and although this game isn't lacking in offensive power it really does shine in giving you defensive options which I find is one of my favorite parts of RTS games. I like building a base and trying to make it as inpenetrable as possible. Some games give you one turret or tower type to protect your base. This game allows you to build walls and then add in trebucets, arrow towers, different gates, and special creatures that will help to protect your base. You really care about your base after you're finished and can enjoy what you've built. I really liked this game and will continue to play it for a while, at least until elder scrolls oblivion comes out and I get addicted to that.

You need a good set of gears to enjoy the game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My pc:
CPU = P4 3.2MHz
RAM = 1 GB. Upgraded to 3GB.
Graphic Card = ATI XT800
Sound Card = X-Fi

I set the resolution to 1320x1024 with High quality in all the video setting which is same as BFME1. However, the frame rate suffers, below 30fps, when the command points are > 600( a lot of units you can command as well as the opposition usually) and the battles are hitting up(calvary, infantry, monsters, flying dragon, spell casting, etc. all moving and fighting about the same time but in different battle grounds). In addition, the EAX enabled sound makes the game play really immersive. The voices are not too annoy like others but stressful(inform me what enemy is attacking, approaching, etc). The background musics are similar to its predecessor and nicer.

Updated:
I have spent many hrs playing the game and realized that the amount of system RAM is important in both performance and reliability. Initially, my pc had 1GB. The game stalled for a few seconds whenever battle hitting up and even crashed sometime. So I upgraded to 3GB. Then all the problems has disappeared ever since. However, the game never stalled again but it became slow motion whenever I switched my camera to a new battle ground which had been never shown before, such as attacking my enemy base first time.

ea has done it again

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 16
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

dude this game is friggin sweet. graphics are beter than the first and the storyline of playing the battle in the north rocks! I also like the create-a-hero mode i have a level 10 battle troll and a 10 human paladin, also a level 10 elven archer/warrior. it rocks. the war of the ring mode is also awesome.

bottom line, BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!!! thanks ea for doin it again

Lord of the rings battle for middle earth 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 13
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

it was the best game i've played on pc

A true real-time strategy game.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 181 / 189
Date: March 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

(I deduct one "overall" star because the game's launch had a lot of multiplayer tournament problems. Those appear to have been resolved in the recent v1.02 patch which you will download automatically the first time you sign on.)

Gameplay:
BFME2 is what I would call a "true real-time strategy game". In most RTS games (e.g. Starcraft, Age of Empires) you are really playing a "real-time tactical game". You must focus a lot of effort on directing your troops at a micromanagement level, telling them who, exactly, they are supposed to shoot at, one guy at a time.

The BFME series has simplified this by creating "batallions". Instead of building archers 1 at a time, you'll build them 15 at a time and they come out as an organized batallion. You cannot tell your 15 archers to focus fire on 1 enemy unit, you can only tell them to fire on another batallion. The details of how they direct their fire is up to them. The time you aren't spending directing fire can now be spent on executing a bigger plan.

Consequently, BFME2 is one of the very few RTS games that rewards multi-pronged attacks and flanking. Units get a flanking bonus for attacking enemies from behind and the fact that you don't need to babysit every single fight means you can leave one battle to go start up a second front somewhere else and not worry so much about the fight you aren't watching.

BFME2 also introduces a new resource model which greatly rewards map ownership. Rather than fighting over piles of resources and ignoring the other 90% of the map like most RTS games, BFME2 has resource collection spread across the entire map. The more you control, the more money you get. Factions have been completely re-balanced to accomodate this -- in BFME1, the human teams could not match Mordor in an open land war but in BFME2, they can. They need to, if they want any money!

Singleplayer:
BFME2 covers portions of the war that were not covered by the movies. The first mission of the Good Campaign has you fighting off Goblins around Rivendell, for example.

Single player has 4 options:
- Skirmish, the usual you-vs-computer battle mode.
- Good Campaign.
- Evil Campaign.
- War of the Ring. This is a new and improved version of the "living world map" they had in the first game. They fleshed it out and now it's more like a free-form game of LOTR Risk. You and the other players start off in various sections of middle earth and conquer the map any way you choose. Battles can be resolved RTS style or automatically (Civilization style) and this mode also has multiplayer support (one War of the Ring game could take a very long time if you resolve every battle in RTS mode!)

Playable sides:
- Dwarves. Dwarven units tend to be slow but tough. They aren't big on cavalry but their infantry is very good. They gather resources with mines and they can also use these mines for travelling -- enter one mine and pop out at any other mine, anywhere on the map! This gives dwarves a good ability to hold ground once they've taken it.

- Goblins. Similar to dwarves in that they can build mines and use them for travel. Goblins are a "spamarific" species, though, with a lot of large batallions of inexpensive but brittle troops. They do, however, have some very, very fast units and are excellent for hit-and-runs.

- Mordor. Not entirely unlike the Mordor from BFME1, but minus the free troops. Mordor has poor defenses and plays best as a very aggressive team. As Mordor, you need to push your opponet early and keep pushing while you upgrade to better units and work on more resources. Mordor lacks the mobility of the goblins and dwarves and lacks the speed of the elves but they do have a great ability to flood the map with orcs.

- Isengard. Similar to the Isengard from the first game, you rely more on strong infantry with strong upgrades. Similar to Mordor, this is a good team for someone who likes to take a strong offensive. Warg Riders give Isengard some good cavalry but it's usually the Uruks that form the real destructive force of any army.

- Elves. Elves are fast on their feet with especially good archers. They can be played offensively or defensively with pretty good effectiveness. Try to use your fast feet to keep the enemy pinned in while you build up for the kill, or play defensive and work on leveling up some of your powerful archer heroes.

- Men of the West. This team is basically Gondor + Rohan from the original game. Human infantry is pretty strong, especially in shield-wall mode and they can do a good job of soaking up damage while your archers do the real hurting. Humans also have pretty much the best cavalry in the game, making them quite lethal at either hit-and-runs, or for backing up a strong infantry army.

Other new stuff:
This game adds "stances" and some new unit powers. Stances allow all units in the game to decide if they want extra damage at the expense of lower armor, or higher armor at the expense of lower damage, or a balance. Human Swordsmen in the defensive stance with shield wall activated are extremely tough. If an enemy is banging on your buildings and ignoring your units, set your units to aggressive stance and teach them a lesson.

Conclusion:
All of this adds up to become what is, I suggest, possibly the best RTS game ever made and I've played a lot of them.

Terrible Experience

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 24
Date: March 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game for the sole purpose of playing online. Too bad the online portion of the game doesn't work. (The fact that a patch is ALREADY available just reeks of the fact that they rushed this out without proper testing.)
So heres my story. I logged on no problem. I tried to host a game. The game locked up my system. Now I can't log on at all. I recieve the message "Can not complete transaction in the current service state." This has got to be the most cryptic error message since Windows 95. Having no clue what the message means I attempt to call technical support. Good luck there. First off the menu system makes you listen to SEVEN options for the game Battlefield 2 before you can access an option for ANY other game. I guess battlefield 2 is even less ready for release than this one was. After finding the right option, I was subjected to what HAS to be the most obnioxious wait music of all time for SEVEN minutes before a recoreded voice told me my wait would be TWENTY-FIVE more minutes.
Maybe their online support would be better right? Wrong. After filling out a lengthy report of my problem, the website told me I was not able to submit it because java scripting was not enabled on my browser. The only problem is that it IS allowed. Good job all around EA. I will NEVER buy from them again.

Outstanding recreation of middle earth battles

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: March 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The developers did a great job of recreating the atmosphere and essence of Middle Earth battles. My sons and I all enjoy the game immensely. I dumped Age of Empires III for this.

Very detailed, Lots of hours to play!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: March 11, 2006
Author: Amazon User

If you love to play strategy games that have quality and content then you will love this as much as i do. I am just a little bit dissapointed because personally i found it too easy for a very advanced strategy game player, even in difficult mode. (since Warcraft I and Conmand and Conquer 1 i have played all strategy games that exist!!)So, even if your are Battle Realms generation or Rome Total War this game is not very hard.
Another point that has me hooked is that due to the new "War of the Ring" Risk type game i have more reason to come back and play, even if it is easy for me.
AS far as the online matters are conserned, i do not tend to play online so i do not know if those issues exist (or not) in my disk of the game.

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