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Great Singleplayer, Lackluster Multiplayer / Replayability

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: September 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you're looking at this game for the single player campaign, you won't be disappointed. It's fun and pretty lengthy. The graphics and the combat are all superb, as is the storyline and voice acting, much of which is done by the actors from the movies.

However, this game has two faults:

1) Replayability. There really isn't any. It's a shame because with the "Risk-style" overhead map of middle earth, they could have turned this into some sort of large scale strategy wargame without much more effort. Instead, it's a fairly linear game and once you've played it through once there's not much point in playing it through again. So the campaign is long and fun but replayability is low.

2) Multiplayer isn't that great. I'll go into some depth on this:

Multiplayer will seem fun at first. It's well balanced, there's a great variety of maps and it seems like there's a lot of strategies to try out. I have two different accounts both ranked in the 200's (out of 60,000+) so I've played and won a lot of games and feel confident in saying that balance is good.

The problem is twofold:
a) There are very few strategies that work. In a Gondor vs Gondor game, for example, there is only 1 strategy that will work. Any deviation from this strategy will result in a loss. You make horses, you get Gandalf the White, you get horseshields, you blow open his gate, game over. There's really no room for creativity. It's not like Gondor infantry or archers could be used as an alternate strategy: they are all easily squished by cavalry so with no good counters, you're absolutely forced to follow this one attack plan.

b) The winning strategies have almost nothing to do with winning massive battles and everything to do with the timing of heroes and upgrades. Heroes and upgrades are so incredibly powerful that they become vastly more important than smart troop manipulation. Multiplayer is about 95% "build order" and 5% "combat". If you do not have the proper build order, you will not win, regardless of how good you think you are at handling your troops and, as per section A, there are very few build order options, oft times there is only 1. It really takes the fun out of the game for me because I wanted big battles. You get big battles in singleplayer but in multiplayer, you're forced to avoid them.

So it's a fun game, I don't entirely regret my purchase but this really isn't a long term game. The fun for me in taking an RTS online is to try and pioneer new strategies or try something different than the mainstream strats. That doesn't work in BFME. The strats that work are well known and well documented, you can read about them online and making the high ranks is just a matter of having the patience to repeat the same moves over and over.

It isn't just a game, it's a revolution!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 17
Date: August 21, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I'd like to start off by saying that from all of the videos displayed on EA's homesite, this game is more than a game. (This review is being written before the games release date.)
Anybody a rts fan? You'll love the battle for middle earth. Anybody a Lord of the Rings fan? You'll love the battle for middle earth. Anybody just want a half decent game that'll keep you busy for hours? You'll be overwhelmed by the battle for middle earth. Tired of constantly building up resources and tired of the population limit? This game is capable of having hundreds of thousands of units on a map at once, as long as there's enough room. You're also launched into the full scale battles and shouldn't have to build up bases. The interface is totally new, with preset locations for your buildings. They have also inserted something called Unit and Building veterancy. As you use your troops and buildings more they get stronger, faster and braver. Equipped with the powerful sage engine, unit emotion, veterancy, no population limit, incredibly realistic troops/buildings...to say that this game is a must get is an insult. To say that this game is the best game ever made is an insult, this game is setting a standard for all future rts games, this game is so radical, so original, that I already pre ordered it just after the first video!

Kind of a Let Down

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: January 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If your a fan of the LOTR series than this game is for you. All you more hardcore RTS players might want to spend your fifty bucks elseware. Fun factor I gave this game 3 stars. Keep in mind my judgement is a little bias, I am a fan of LOTR. The campaign is a blast whether you are evil or good. Besides the campaign I dont really see what else this game has going for it. Boring and uncreative formations tend to not serve purposes sometimes. All units evil or good have a generic formation that either raises their attack or defense. And no the formations do not even look good. Half the time you cant even tell if they are in a formation or not. The biggest problem for the more seasoned RTS players out there would be that advanced controls are non exsistant in this game. Many times you may find your units chasing enemy units half way across the map bc there is no hold position command. Or other times you might find your units getting torn apart by archers but all your units do is just sit there and do nothing. The units seem to not auto attack buildings and sometimes even enemy troops. I marched all my troops into an enemy base and the majority just stood there getting rocked by the towers. Its really annoying to have to manually guide each unit to attack when you have 20 other things going on at once. An interesting feature in the game, you can combine archers with other units. When I first did this I was like ok cool my infantry will shield my archers while they fire...to my suprise as soon as I combined the unit the archers no longer fired their bows but engaged in hand to hand combat whenever I ordered them to attack. Little problems like that can be found throughout this game. Whats the purpose of combining the archers with infantry if the archers just become a less effective weaker infantry. When I got this game I was expecting units to have massive amounts of men in them like in RTW. Again to my dismay many units comprise of only 6-8 men, some even fewer. Dont worry though you still can get some massive battles going, nothing like RTW though. All in all a fun game for about a week definately not worth the fifty or forty bucks you are gonna pay for it. My Number 1 problem with the game, No Advanced Controls!

My fav. game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I love this game! The graphics are amazing, even if u choose the lowest setting [if u have a bad computer, beware, the ultra-high graphics setting will blow it 2 bits]. U can be 1 of 4 civilizations. These civs. include Rohan, Gondor, Mordor, and Isengard. 1 of my favorite things about this game is that the cavalry can trample, which is awesome for u but will seriously tick ur enemies off. Units in this game are trained in battalions. 5 people per battalion for good [with the exception of ents, heroes, siege machines, and other freakishly strong soldiers]. There r ten soldiers per battalion for evil [with the exception of trolls, mumakil, berserkers, easterlings, and haradrim]. There is also vetrency for buildings. This means that if u train 4 to 5 battalions with 1 building it will advance 1 rank. With a rank 2/3 building u can train more kinds of soldiers and faster. Finally, a game where u dont have 2 hit a soldier 500 times to kill him. [...]

Pulverise the nasty little hobitses my precious !!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: December 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought two copies the moment it came out in stores. Been having lotsa fun with it eversince. Gotta love Gandalf's awesome powers and also the absolutely fiersome Balrog. My most favorite units so far are to use a group of Rohhirim Riders being led by Eomer (Very good offensive group) to charge at orcs and run em over :-). I also liked stomping the nasty little hobitses into the ground with my trolls and mummakils :-) Don't worry they always come back. I have two high end systems exceeding min systems requirements for this game. Yet I can only run at medium graphics level to have a good frame rate during large battles. I can pump it up to high graphic levels for smaller mission and have no problems. Helm's Deep was awesome and the rohirrim coming to the rescue felt just like the movie. All in all this is an awesome game that has exceeded my expectations for a combination of RTS and LOTR. People can say that this is lacking here or that has changed there but the bottom line is for my $38 (yup i got it for $38 x 2 games cause of some incovenience caused by the store I bought it at) it is a great game for me and a great gift for my brother so we can play over our high speed home LAN. Get it if u have a fast system and u will have a great time if u like LOTR.

An excellent effort

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 9
Date: November 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

One of those games where you can tell nothing was rushed. Every aspect was well thought out. Excellent sound, graphics, and many options for replayability. Well worth the money. EA delivers big time!!!!

Crazy awesome!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First of all this game is not like any of the Total war games. It's a bazillion times better. Personally I didn't like the Total War games. They had bad graphics and did not appeal to me. This game has great graphics even on very low setting. Here's the other great thing about this game... In ordinary RTS games you get a bunch of men til' the population cap is reached then randomly terrorize people. This game is different and better. Order an Ent to pick up a rock and throw it... or grab a chunk out of a building and throw it at your enemy to in the end have them smashed into the ground... order your Fell Beast to pick up a soldier with his feet and throw him across the field. Get your cave troll to pick up a tree and smack soldiers sending them flying and screaming! This game is realistic and AWESOME. If your reading this your wasting valuable time. Time you could be using to run over to gamestop or order it off of amazon right now!!!!

Amazing simply amazing

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is by far the greatest rts game i ever played (Infact its the greatest game i ever played) Ea has done a great job with this the graphics are great the music is mostly from the movies and the units look perfect this game evan has some of the actual voices for the heros like Aragorn and Legolas but sometimes you can tell its not the real voices. Now the campaign has two sides evil and good the evil will start you out at isengard trying to get 100 urk-hai(a special breed of orc sauromon bred)and the good starts you out in moria the neat thing about the campaighn is that you get to pick which levels you would like to do but some like helms deep your forced to do so each level will give you a reward once beaton like +50 command points or a power point so you have to make stragtitic choices depending what you need most like more command points for a bigger army or power points so you can summon the balrog or ary of the dead thier is also skirmish and multiplayer modes as well. Now the review that said you cant make that many guys well i have found my self easily making over 100 guys in a skirmish and thats alot compared to other rts. Also ive heard thier is no strategy in this game ha thiers pleanty of strategy in this game trust me and the review that said its for the kids "which really is a pathetic review" what do you mean? This game kills That stupid Rome game and some warhammer game. So if you like lotr or rts games this is for you if you like rts games and lotr like me YOU HAVE TO GET THIS!!!!!!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR GO BUY IT HURRY HURRY.

This one goes to eleven

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow. As a fan of the Empire Earth-type game experience, I had high hopes for this LoTR version, and it delivered big time. Functionally, the game runs smooth and the blend of music and action is fantastic. Unlike competitive products, the conquest mode is fairly challenging. I was worried that it would be a limited product, like the LoTR mod for Age of Mythology, but its just an entirely new and better version of this style game -- and with all of your favorite characters (good or evil). My kids have been glued to their computer ever since this thing left its wrapper - a huge hit in our household, much to the frustration of my wife. Thank goodness school started back up.

can't belive it ! its better than command and conquer!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: January 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

C and C was my favourite game for its sheer brilliantness, I liked red alert 2 then generals which I spend far too much time on. Played dawn of war looked ok but gameplay was a bit c ra p.
Lord of the rings excells in every aspect especially gamplay, I don't know why one of these reviews says there is no gameplay they are very very wrong!! single player is better than c and c also very enjoyable, skirmish mode is great too.
My advise buy it you will not be disappointed !!!

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