A huge game for a huge series, it offers hours of immersive gameplay. A game you'll be proud to have in your collection.
Spanning the entire saga of Peter Jackson’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy, BFME lets you relive the epic series your way by playing through its two huge campaigns. Add to this beautiful graphics and great sound effect, and you’ve got yourself a complete package. Though the skirmishes are planned along typical RTS guidelines, this game has tons of innovative additions which really enhance gameplay.
At the heart of the game is the living world map; a living, breathing, 3-D rendition of Middle-earth as prominently figured in both the books, and the movies. The map is divided into more than 30 different provinces. Each province will provide certain bonuses to your force, be it military bonuses, resource bonuses, and the like. As you can select which province you want to fight next in, this feature acts as an overarching turn-based strategy campaign cleverly stitched with the normal RTS campaigns. The living world map has been masterfully designed and you can appreciate the little details such as smoke rising from Mount Doom, eagles flying over the landscape, and the like.
From the living world map you will be selecting an army, and as it’s adjacent provinces are highlighted, decide where to take the battle next. On selecting a province you are taken to the RTS part of the game where you must build your forces and eradicate the enemy from the area. Once the objectives are complete, you’re taken back to the living world map and the whole process is repeated till you reach the final battle. This is pretty much the basic strategic outline of the game.
The great part here is that the game doesn’t rush you into the final battle. You can choose to head on to the final battle right after it is unlocked, or choose to mop-up the rest of the provinces and get your forces to full potential before the final battle. The latter is admittedly very time consuming, but it helps strengthen up your forces before the finale. This will really pay off in the end and make the final battle a lot easier to win. The reason I say “strengthen your forces”, is because of the concept of veterancy. The brilliant feature which EA has given -via the living world map- is continuity between missions. If you build an army in one province, it will not vanish at the end of the mission, as is the case in most games. Instead, it will continue onward with you into the next province. This is a big incentive to preserve your forces. It also makes you spend time developing your army into well-balanced, well-oiled machinery. You will find that being dependant on only a few particular units will not get you far in the campaigns. You will need to fully utilize all the features available to you.
There is a lot of strategic planning involved here. Different provinces will require you to use your army in many different ways. While you may be able to wipe out enemies in one province with just cavalry, you may find yourself in sore need of archers in the next one. So with a few hits and trials, you will find that as you progress further and further into the campaign, your army is acquiring a well diversified structure.
Veterancy also allows you to increase the experience levels of both regular units and hero units. This becomes very important as the game progresses, as the higher experienced and more powerful units can be the difference between victory and defeat. Every hero has certain powers and abilities associated with him/her and as the experience level rises, more powers and better abilities are unlocked.
There are certain missions in the game where you are required to complete tasks without building. Here you will be controlling a handful of units guided by heroes or only a group of heroes, whose survival till the end of the mission is very essential. These are some of the most annoying missions of the game as you need to constantly keep a look-out at the heroes’ health. If a hero dies, the mission is restarted.
That is one the troubles associated with heroes. In the heat of battle, with a huge variety of units on both sides, it becomes nearly impossible to keep track of your heroes. As a result you are not always able to utilize them to their full potential. If you take lower level heroes head-on into the opposing army, chances are that won’t be able to rescue them in time. But, you can’t keep them safely in the back either, as it is essential that you level-up your heroes as soon as possible. A high-level hero such as Gandalf has amazing powers which can deal huge blows to the enemy forces. These high-level heroes can, at the end, be the difference between victory and defeat.
Fortunately EA has provided a neat little feature for efficiently tracking heroes. The lower edge of your screen displays all your heroes of a particular mission with their health bars. Clicking on the icon of a hero will take you directly to him. So even if this feature is a bit distracting, it is quite handy as you can quickly get your heroes to retreat and save them from an untimely death. You can also summon your fallen heroes from a citadel, which is the central building of any camp. But, this is very expensive and takes a lot of time. This is another example of how the game encourages you to preserve your units. The interface menu is usually the most distracting feature in an RTS game. As it displays tons of stuff such as the variety of units a building can produce, health of units, number of units selected, and so on and so forth, it is inevitable that you will concentrate more on the menu than the actual battlefield. The fact that it occupies a major chunk of the lower half of your screen, means that you see lesser and lesser of the battle going on. This is where EA has gone one-up on other RTS games. The menu has been done away with and in its place has been placed a palantir on the lower-left corner of the screen.
For those not averse with the lord of the rings, the palantir is basically a seeing-stone which allows the user to see different parts of middle-earth. It performs the same duties in the game as well. The palantir does the job of a regular menu without taking up a lot of apace. It displays the map in the centre and if you select a building or unit, it will display the powers and features of the building/unit as a normal menu would. You can also access other menus such as the options menu from the palantir. So the palantir combines all the normal menus into a neat little package and gives you a much wider field of battle to concentrate on. The central button of the palantir houses the special powers menu; the Evenstar for the side of good and the One Ring for the disciples of evil. All powers cost points which can be gathered from capturing certain provinces as well as from battles. The powers range from basic defensive ones such as healing, to major offensive ones such as summoning a Balrog to the battlefield. The proper use of these powers can easily turn the battle in your favour.
The impact of these powers is more pronounce in the single-player because of the relatively average AI. In battle, using all your powers at once will wipe out the enemy and give you control of the location. You can then play the waiting game and concentrate on holding the location while your powers recharge. The AI will continue to send small forces to get back the location and in the process lose some of its best units. Not only does this weaken the enemy’s strength but also gives your forces valuable experience points. This of course does not happen in the multiplayer, for which you’ll have to rely more on stealth and proper timing. We’ll talk of that a bit later.
Here are a total of four factions in the game, divided into two groups of two each. On the side of good are the forces of Gondor and Rohan, while those of Isengard and Mordor constitute the evil side. Every faction has its own unique units, but there are a few similarities among factions of the same side. An example being cavalry for the side of good. Though it is called Rohirrim for Rohan and Knights for Gondor, similarities in powers and abilities can be noticed. But, there are enough differences to keep you interested. The game has stayed true to the movies by not introducing any new units for the sides. Thankfully the lore of Middle-Earth is vast enough to provide each faction a good variety of unique units.
Most units come in battalions. This makes it easier to control large armies on the battlefield. This was another effort on the part of EA to rival the size and scope of the battles in the movies. However, this is one area where they could not really deliver. Though the battles are bigger than a lot of RTS games, they are still not as big as those of the movies. There are still only a limited number of units you can have at any given time. You can also combine two different battalions into one. For example, you can combine a cavalry battalion with an archer battalion. When this combines battalion heads into battle, the cavalry provides the necessary cover to your archers to wipe out the enemy. A lot of other combinations are also possible which allow for some good experimentation. You cannot however break such a combination. A combination once formed will stay combined for the rest of your campaign.
EA has also introduced the concept of unit emotions. If you have ever played an RTS game before, you might have noticed that units mostly remain motionless before and after battles. They stand still like statues. In this game however, units show a little bit of emotion. If, for example, a troll is brought near an infantry battalion, you’ll notice that the soldiers will appear frightened and move a few paces backward. When the battle is won, they will cheer and raise their weapons as a sign of victory. This is however only an external feature and does not affect the overall gameplay. If you command units to fight, they will fight till the end and not retreat till commanded. So you rare still the overlord, and need not worry that your units will turn and flee. The game also sports a new base-building technique. Instead of the classic build-anywhere format, EA has put in the concept of plots. As the name suggests, plots are locations to build your structures. All structures must be built on plots in a one-structure-per-plot format. There are a set number of bases and outposts which can be built on the map. Each base has a citadel as the central building with a limited number of plots around it. The main bases such as castles also have fortifications in addition to a larger number of plots. There are also a few single plots strewn about the map, but you can only build resource buildings such as farms and lumber-mills on them. As the number of bases and outposts are limited, you must try and capture them as soon as possible. So you need to send out some troops as soon as you start the game, to explore the territory and on starting construction of an outpost, post some soldiers there for its protection. The control of these outposts is very vital for your army.
With the exception of special structures such as wells and heroic statues, buildings also gain experience levels. Higher level buildings gain the ability to produce special units and research higher upgrades. Buildings gain experience through their usage. Resource buildings level-up with time as they produce more resources, while the military buildings will gain levels by producing units. If a building is destroyed it loses its experience points and special abilities, and a new building built in its place will not get them. A higher level building is very valuable and as a result frequently targeted by your enemies. You will, as a result, have to keep it safe and must decide which building to build inside fortifications and which outside. Buildings are not taken into the next mission like normal units, so the base will need to be built again if you’re starting a new mission.
Resource gathering has also been given a new shape. There are various building for resource production such as farms and blacksmiths for the side of good, and lumber mills, furnaces and slaughter houses for the side of evil. With the exception of lumber mills, no resource building requires you to produce special units to gather resources. EA has also done away with the concept of multiple resource types. Instead, all the resources are clubbed as one universal resource and are added to the pool. This has really helped reduce micromanagement of bases as is generally associated with an RTS game. Citadels will also periodically add a small amount of resource to your stockpile. Resources can sometimes also be gathered by killing enemies and certain provinces give you the added bonus of a resource multiplayer if you control them.
Resource buildings also gain experience levels and having more than one building of the same type will grant you certain added bonuses. Multiple farms, for example, will reduce the cost of infantry. Farms also produce peasants, a small group of workers which can repair your fortifications if needed, though admittedly they are more of a trouble than use. Furnaces and blacksmiths also allow research of upgrades fro your army such as shields and armor, when they reach a certain experience level. Higher level buildings also produce resources at a faster rate.
The mainstay of the game is of course the multiplayer. Due to the huge amount of technical gameplay involved, the multiplayer really provides the thrills and chills of a classic RTS game. There are two modes in the multiplayer. One is the custom generated 1vs1 and 2vs2 game, and the other is the self-initiated skirmish. EA has done a great job in the custom player by adding the match-making feature which put you up against opponents with ranks close to your own. This works in two ways – newer players can settle down by challenging someone like themselves while the experienced players can challenge the more efficient players such as themselves and improve their gameplay. You can turn off this feature if you want. The other mode lets you initiate your own games and include up to 8 players in a team or a free-for-all format. Matches are played on the game’s skirmish maps as well as some player-generated ones.
The maps of Battle for Middle-earth are a great example of the game’s superior graphics. Every single player map has been carefully designed and is unique. You will never be playing on randomly generated fields, but always on the fields and terrains as described in the books and shown in the movies. So every map requires thorough exploration to find the location of outposts and neutral creature lairs.
Talking of the game’s graphics, let me just say hat the game looks beautiful. There is an amazing assortment of graphical effects and imagery which really give you the feel of Middle-earth. It is obvious that the developers have paid great attention to every aspect of the game. Maps, as noted above, have been splendidly done and you can spot minor details such as ridges in mountains. There is blurring in case of an explosion, gates tremble when hit by rams, the ground literally shakes when mumakil pass over it, ripples can be observed in flowing rivers. The cutscenes have been beautifully made and are a pleasure to watch.
Every unit has been brilliantly designed and the hero units bear striking resemblances to their movie counterparts. The huge battles of the game have a distinct feel abut them. The way horses trample foot soldiers, how Gandalf blasts away enemies, the way the Balrog walks, all look as realistic as possible. It can be awe-inspiring to watch whole battalions trampled by the mumakil, or huge chunks of building being torn away by the swooping eagles.
The sound effects are nearly as good as the graphical effects. The voice-acting has been brilliantly done. With actors like Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood and many more reprising their roles from the movies, this comes as no big surprise. EA also managed to get good substitutes for actors such as Orlando Bloom. And Howard Shore’s epic music makes this Lord of the Rings experience nearly perfect. EA’s own battle music perfectly fits in with Shore’s original composition. Battle sounds such as swords clashing against swords, pikes hitting shields, galloping of horses, are all first-rate.
The Lord of the Rings is a huge series. Not only have the books been worldwide bestsellers, the movies have also been tremendous hits. It is only fitting that the series deserves a game which matches this caliber. The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth fits perfectly into this role. With tons of brilliant innovative concepts as mentioned above and a base of superior graphic and sound effects, this game is not only the best LotR game of its time, but also an equally great RTS game. You will be proud to have it in your collection.