Lord Of The Rings: Middle-Earth II PC Game - Review of LOTR: Middle-Earth II
Continuing on With the Review (4 out of 5)
Ok, the single player modes in this new release are set one each for good or evil. This is the worst part of the game. They are basically the same old strategy missions that you probably went through more times than you want to count. There are no real new quests or challenges here, and it doesn’t look like the developers really cared about this at all when they were creating the game. And, they even took out some of the normal “building” modes so that those who like single player areas can build their own scenarios. So, for this part of the game itself, I would give it a complete “F”. They really should have put more time into the single player modes for those people who prefer these, or those who just want a good break every now and then.
One of the main differences in the single player areas is the difference in where on the map you can, or can’t, build. For example, in the first part of this pc game, you could only build those buildings on a few areas of the map, which really made the base problems go away in other strategy games. And, it made you spread out instead of centralizing your forces so that you could actually seize some of the buildings that were remote. Now, this new edition doesn’t make you spread out, and you can concentrate all of your forces in one area if you want. So, by doing the game this way, you can build up a massive base and then defend it. Once you are big enough, you can send out armies to destroy other areas.
But, overall, the single player part is really generic. While it is saved a bit by the Tolkien lore, it lacks terribly. This area of the game drags my score on it down extremely, as I feel that it should have been done better for everyone who enjoys the LOTR games and lore. So for those who don’t really care much about the single player parts, then this area of the game won’t really affect you.
Once you start to get into the “War of the Ring” mode, the game gets really good. Basically, this mode is like the real-time strategy battles but they are in a massively overarching campaign that is bigger and deeper than the smaller mode in the original Battle for Middle-Earth. There are several different scenarios that players can choose from here in the War of the Ring area, but the goal is pretty much the same - try to lead your side to victory. You do this by conquering Middle-Earth, one part at a time, and you can actually re-create the whole epic scale of the war, from one side or the other (good or bad), while the computer controls the other side. But, you can also set it up where the Humans and Elves battle, the goblins and Mordor battle, or any combination to suit your fancy!
In the next part of this in-depth review, we will go through some of the other areas of the game that could have used a bit more planning or design.
This post is part of the series: LOTR: Battle For Middle-Earth II Review
This is an in-depth, four part review that will take those who love the Lord of the Rings games through the latest release from Electronic Arts and show you the good and the bad.