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Haha, too bad you guys haven't played this game yet...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: August 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

BUT I HAVE!!! I was at Comic-Con 2k4 (San Diego, CA) last month and I got a chance to play the alpha version of Battle for Middle Earth!!! Suffice to say, the alpha version was enough to give this game 5 stars.

The game is beatiful, from the "living world" map of Middle Earth where you select your campaign, to the siege ladders flying up the walls to Helm's Deep. The circle interface is interesting, where you click on a build site and a ring of icons pops up, enabling you to select a building quickly.

The graphics are amazing for this game, as many have seen from the trailers and downloads. Watching a Nazgul rider swoop down and smash Gondor catapults and hurl pesky Gondorian archers will easily distract you from the economic portions of gameplay. No wonder EA tried to make as much of the screen show the fun battles and less of the old boring micromanagement interface.

Besides the fun and amazing units, the buildings are just as much fun! At slaughterhouses, you watch an orc lug hunks of meat (quickly) out of a now dead cow. At your orc-making buildings, you select whether you want archers or footsoldiers, then watch the free orcs walk right out of the big spawning pit.

At the siege of Osgiliath, one of the two playable levels, my trolls kicked away Gondorian footmen and my orc footsoldiers swarmed over knights and archers. Annoying defensive towers were quickly dispatched by masses of catapults and flaming stones.

At Helms Deep, I watched my troops get slowly beat down by masses upon masses of Uruk-Hai. It was a relief when the timer got to 0:00 and Gandalf charged in and turned the tides.

Despite all the "goodness" of this game, I did have a few gripes about it. Firstly, you aren't told the HP of your orcs, probably because your supply of orcs never drops below 400 or 500. Secondly, the unit management interface is very difficult to use becuase right clicking on enemy soldiers will not cause your men to attack right away. Thirdly, the unit emotion block was not installed yet, but I did hear Gondorian footmen jeering at my catapults (big mistake). Fourthly, I couldn't really utilize the "living world" innovation where trolls pick up trees and more. Lastly, having so many troops makes it pretty difficult to pull off massive troop advancements. In the siege of Osgiliath, when I tried slam 700 orcs and trolls past the main bridge, they got bogged down and could barely move. I later figured out, that I had to utilize all three bridges (which were heavily guarded by pesky little archers) to pull off the big "push."

Despite the big hunk of grumbles about the game, I'm sure much of it will be fixed for the delivery package. I pre-ordered this game as soon as I got back home from the exceptionally crowded Comic-Con (good thing it was Friday and not Saturday, or I'd never have been able to play this game :D). I can't wait for November 15th, but I did wait out my hour to sit like a mindless comp zombie in front of a computer (I was planted there for over two and a half hours so the booth runner guy asked if I would stop playin' so others could have a chance :). I was nice about it and he gave me a really tight BFME T-shirt with a nice picture of a troll carrying a tree on the front and the game logo on the back).

Great Game , Not Disapointing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: August 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I usally have trouble finding video & pc games but this game was just a no-brainer( maybe thats because I'm a LOTR junkie).
Anyway,This is a marvolous game, A true pefection by EA.

Overall Gamplay: At the beginning of a new campaign you are givin the choice of playing with the forces of good or evil,Good being the armies of Rohan & Gondor thus evil being the armies of Isengard & Mordor.There are two different kinds of battles:Major battles and Ancillary battles.Major battles such as Helms Deep, Minas Tirith and Isengard.Ancillary battles are just battles For territories such as Emyn Arnen or Mirkwood.In gameplay there are four different building sites Settlements, Outposts ,Camps and Castles.You can build farms, barracks,Orc pits,furnaces ect.Obviously not all this free you need resoures. Produce resoures with farms,blacksmiths,citadels,slauter houses,furnaces ect.You also play not only with soldiers and horseman orcs and warg riders but Giant Eagles,Ents The Oathbreakers the Balrog and more.Sound and graphics are wonderful.But there are always downfalls, the game takes ALOT!!!!!!!! of memory.And one thing that disapointed me was that there was a limit to how many troops you can train called your Command limit.Plus the opposing side really Doesn't really have much sense of stategy well it is okay but it could be better.One thing that impressed me was that your units always take the shortest way somwhere Well I hope this review was helpful.

An Excellent RTS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: August 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

BFME is a very engaging and addictive real time strategy game; its campaign is very true to the movies,(the map is a beautiful work of art) and the multiplayer matches are extremely fun and challenging and add replayability (did I spell that right?) to the mix. While the campaign isn't nearly as long or dynamic as the incredible Rome: Total War (best game ever!), it is only second to RTW. The campaign features A TON of missions and is varied for the most part, allowing you to either save Middle Earth or conquer it, although some of the skirmish levels can get just a bit repetative. There are parts where video clips from the movies play in the "palantir" map during the campaign, which adds to the atmosphere. The audio quality is crisp and the effects well done (the EA audio team deserved the award they got). The moving score from all three of Peter Jackson's masterpiece films is present is present along with a few extra music pieces thrown in there. One of the things I enjoy most about the game are the emotions of the units; this feature really adds a human element to the game. Ignore the stupid self-proclaimed "hardcore" RTS players out there who say that this game lacks strategy and unit variety, because it doesn't. It has plenty of strategic options and choices and you'll find out if you play it. As for lack of unit variety, that isn't EA's fault, they only had the rights to the elements found in the movies. If you are still hesitant about whether to add this quality title to your library, you might as well wait for BFME II.

What the heck: where'd this come from

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 13
Date: December 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

A best buy.
This game is amazing, I was getting bored with the whole Age of Mythology and Age of Empires. then BOOM this is the best game I played in my entire life. The graphics are revolutionary, the gameplay doesn't really get old. Overall two thumbs way, way, way, way, way up.

Graphics:*****
Gameplay:*****
Replay Value:******
Overall (a lot of stars)

~Mastercard~

Dell PC:$499
LOTR Battle for Middle Earth:$39.99 (only at amazon.com)
Killing My Friends in Multiplayer Mode Over and Over: Priceless

Wonderful enactment of not only the movie, but the books

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: December 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'm not much of a gamer. The sum total of my PC gaming experience is Diablo, Diablo II, South Park, and Lords of the Realm II. In other words, I'm hardly an expert on RTS games, as Lords of the Realm II is Romper's Room compared to this.

If not for my interest in the world of Tolkien, and the terrific reviews this game received (other games based on the movies or books received less than favorable reviews), I probably would never have played a RTS game. My brain, wired as it is, simply doesn't manage a million things at once very well. When I tell my archers to shoot at something, and then swing over to another part of the battle to manage my knights or guards, I expect them to move into position and shoot. Well, silly me, I need to move them into position so that they can shoot - sometimes. Most often they move themselves into position, so I haven't quite figured that out yet.

Anyway, this game exceeded my expectations. The graphics are extraordinary, the images straight out of the movie, and the background music a welcome accompaniment to those who enjoyed it in the films (I did).

This game blends an interesting amount of RPG and RTS together - the RTS being much more predominant, but the fact that there are a few RPG quests thrown in makes for an interesting break in the action, and more than a dose of reality, for the story isn't simply the story of a few battles.

One reviewer said that Gandalf seemed ridiculously powerful in this game, and I have to disagree. Pardon the history lesson: Gandalf and Sauron are both part of the same order, they are Maia. Sauron fell from grace in an age long past, and Gandalf was sent by those higher than he and Sauron to help the people of Middle Earth in their fight against Sauron. For those who don't know this, Saruman was of this order as well, but his lust for power, and the unfortunate placement of one of the Palantir in Isengard "turned him", so to speak. Given that Gandalf and Sauron are relative equals, Gandalf is most certainly not overly powerful here. OK, perhaps it might take more than a shaft of light from his staff to conquer a Nazgul, but as he was "uncloaked", and is now fully revealed on Middle Earth (picture an angel tossing aside a disguise) it's not too far from the truth. Or the truth as Tolkien would know it.

I *immensely* enjoyed using Gandalf's "Istari Light" (kind of a weak name for that power, but an acceptable one) on the Nazgul. In fact, the main reason I lost Minas Tirith the first time around was that I was having too much fun riding Gandalf out to pick off the Nazgul, and chuckling when their steeds tried to pick him and throw him around like they did other knights.

My only complaint is what I consider rather poor documentation. As noted, I'm hardly an experienced gamer, but Lords of the Realm II, which was so much easier, had more than four times the amount of documentation, and suggestions on actions. I was absolutely lost, even after reading the manual, on several points, as I just didn't understand what each thing meant to me. There are also some inconsistencies in the manual (for example, leaving out Gondor's "Keep" structure) that were taken care of on EA's website. Still, even on their website, more information would have been nice. For experienced gamers, this probably wasn't a problem. For me, a first time RTS gamer, it was a bit difficult to puzzle my way around it.

Great real time play

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: January 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you are not a real picky gamer, and don't mind the story line being bent a little here and there, this is a fantastic game. While the interface may not be everything that hard core gamers love, and some of the resource development (especially for the good guys) is overly simplified, this is the perfect game if you have little time to master gaming subtlety and just want to have fun. The graphics are phenomenal, the array of creatures entertaining and fun, the story..why the story is the best ever written. What else could you want?
The only downside I've found is that once you group different types of units together, you don't seem to be able to ungroup them. A trivial item IMHO.
This game is fast paced, lots of fun, and a great escape.

Almost Perfect.. But Not Quite

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: October 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is probably the best of the Lord of the Rings series so far.
It has many selections on what to do, including missions for Evil or Good (your choice) and a normal game if you don't want to use the storyline.
Most make you finish everything, so you must fight for you life.
This game is very complete with the storyline and has a couple additional enemies, which is great.
You need to think hard and play hard to beat this game.
It is great for RTS beginners too. Compared to games like Warcraft, this comes easy.
The problems I have are that you can only have at max 300 soldiers (which is enough considering you must control them), but in the movies, there were 10,000 and 300 is nothing compared to that.
Also, some missions require you to live for a certain amount of time, which is far too easy.
The game may seem too short once you finish one whole storyline (6-8 hours), but just use the other side (Good or Evil) and you will have a harder time because of adjusting and completely new strategies, which is nice.
This game is very fun and I recommend it to anyone.

However, the complaints I made may be solved in the newest game:

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth 2

If you are a hardcore Lord of the Rings, pick up this game and don't miss out. The newest game will come out later, so have your fun with this classic!

Hope this helps. =D

Several copies have flaw on disk 2

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 13 / 18
Date: December 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The game might be great, but my copy had a CRC error on PC CD version, disc#2. Now I found out that dozens are reporting exactly the same error all over the world: file big_movie_with_alpha.vp6 cannot be copied. I tried 2 different machines and 3 different CD-Rom drives (one of them external) and the same problem. It seems to me that there was a big flaw at the disc production line. Yet, I'm quite dissapointed at EA game support, they just tell everybody to shut down background process and IF trouble persist, ship the discs back for a replacement. So, be aware to spend a little bit more for discs replacement in case you become the lucky owner of a deffective copy of the game (even with warranty you have to pay the first shipment), and if you are an overseas customer it might cost near as much as you paid for the game itself.

All I Had Hoped For: Cinematic Battles and...tons of fun!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: December 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I purchased The Lord of The Rings, That Battle For Middle-earth PC and the Prima Official Game Guide this week. The game is everything I had hoped it would be: Challenging, Beautiful, Epic, and just plain fun. If you are huge Real Time Strategy (RTS) fan, the game may not strike a tune with you. Why? The game mechanics are pretty much what you'd expect from any Warcraft inspired RTS: Build Base, Harvest Resources, Build Units, Invade...wash and repeat. But, if you are a Lord of the Rings fan, like I am, you'll love the cinematic battles, dazzling special effects, and "just one more battle" late night gaming sessions!

That being said, the Prima Game Guide is equally impressive. Though not as thick and heavy as the Prima Guide for the Sims2, the Battle For Middle-earth Game Guide is still suprising well done. Each page is in full color, printed on glossy paper, and full of insider tips, unit details, and battle walk-throughs. A fold out map of Middle-earth, also in full color printed on card-stock paper, is included, but, sadly, the map is only sparsely labled and pretty generic. This Prima Game Guide trumps the last one I purchased, the Rome Total War Prima Game Guide, which was printed on cheap paper and entirely in black and white.

In conclusion, I strongly recommend both The Battle For Middle-earth, the PC game, and the Prima Game Guide. Enjoy!

Pretty good overall

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: December 24, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First, I'm 39, and not a kid. I've played other RTS games and the turn based games as well (Civ3, etc).
I was not originally going to get this game because I have been burned by the other LOTR titles which were aimed at arcade kids.
I was also worried that the RTS element would be too technical. RTS games have become so micromanagement hevay that they are no fun (except Age of Mythology).
You've seen the other reviews - this is not the typical RTS game with the tremendous amount of micromanagement and maintenance. You don't have to "harvest" trees or spice or whatever (although the goblins seem to be harvesting trees for the lumber yards in the graphics). I actually prefer it this way.
The game is mostly battles. To get an idea of the feel for the game and if it is for you, go to the game website, click on videos and watch Inside the Battle Volume 8. This pits two of the game designers against each other and shows the features. This won me over to get the game. The character animation is great. The Riders of Rohan run over troops and they go flying. The trolls, Ents, Army of the Dead, and Nazgul are very cool with very impressive animations and characteristics.
The campaign is kind of mixed. True, Gandalf and Boromir don't die in the campaign. They and the rest are like RPG heroes, that gain levels. Helm's Deep gave me a handful of troops, all of the heroes (including Eowyn), and five minutes until the Uru-Kai attacked in waves. Maybe I am a wuss but I was overwhelmed and all of my heroes died.
Making formations of different types of troops is essential and I didn't find that out until I watched one of the videos on the website. You can associate swordsmen with archers so that the archers have some defense.
Overall summary-
Pros -
I love the movies and I liked this game.
Good melding of movie voices, videos, characters.
Well thought out types of character attacks.
Great animations of Gandalf, Ents, Trolls.
Easy to get into.
Nice integrated interface.
Cons-
Some of the cut scenes don't have the greatest graphics (Merry and Pippin).
No significant harvesting takes some getting used to.
You can't build everywhere, only predefined spots.
Game character animations are high detail. World is not very high detail, and always seemed zoomed in.
Battle of Helms Deep taxed my system.
Population cap. I'm just now learning how to get around this.
No deep tech tree.

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