Battle for Middle-earth II takes the eponymous PC game and shows EA hard at work not only building a franchise, but mining the console market, the Xbox 360 market specifically, for potential gold. Unless you've been sharing a cave with Golem for the past few years, real-time strategies on consoles have unquestionably failed. Ninety-nine percent of the console RTS titles thrown onto consoles were badly ported PC games, titles that occasionally tried to generate a new way of handling console controls but didn't work, and those that simply didn't cut the mustard. This game handles console controls differently and it's mainly why the game works so well. Working with Louis Castle from Westwood fame and a slew of expert RTS developers from its Los Angeles office, EA thought about and constructed a control scheme built to play intuitively and smartly from a console player's perspective. The controls aren't perfect and they're by no means the equivalent to the quick, precision controls of the PC's mouse and keyboard duo, but they do in fact work. I'll even go so far as to say they work better than any other console RTS -- period.
The control scheme is primarily based on the Xbox 360's triggers, with minimal usage of face buttons and bumpers. By pulling and holding a trigger, a sleek HUD appears on the lower left-hand side of the screen in the form of a Palantir. Naturally, during the final battle versus Sauron and Sauramon using the Palatir was an unwise thing to do, but here it serves as a symbol, an icon, from which to do your business, untainted by Sauron's flaming eye. With it open, you can command a bookmarking section and access builders, heroes, and the powers menu. The on-field command system is sleek looking and relatively efficient. You can command single units, the full army, and unit types such as all archers or all cavalry. Or you can split them into teams and bookmark them, and using a central cursor, move across the entire map with relative ease. You can control the whole army by double tapping the A button, or you can control just the units on screen by using the left trigger and double tapping on a nearby unit. The good thing about the controls is that they're built for console players. They feel like they should. Nearly every action is one to three steps away, with face buttons and even bumper buttons coming into play with relative ease. EA's sharp innovation and risk pays off, for the most part. These controls don't feel forced or half-assed, and you'll pick up the whole thing in a matter of five or 10 minutes.
The controls' weaknesses come into play when you directly compare the game to the PC version or any PC RTS for that matter. Even without comparing them to the PC, the console controls drill down beyond the surface level of the 360 controls to a deeper level, but they taper off when it gets down to the finest layers of micromanagement. The PC's controls are really brilliant; they're still far superior to the Xbox 360's controls. With the PC you can quickly group any type of unit, speedily execute moves, and handle an entire map with ease. Where you'll find the Xbox 360 version breaking down is in micro-managing units at the finest level of control. The Xbox 360 game can do such tasks, and while the smartly designed preview system works on a number of levels, it just doesn't re-create the level of precision control that the mouse and keyboard provides with the required speed of the PC. If you've never played an RTS before, then you might be wowed. If you're familiar with PC RTS titles, you're not likely to convert.
Still, having a passable knowledge of PC RTS games, I'm impressed with how much fun I've had playing Battle for Middle-earth II. After having put in numerous hours in all the modes -- the good and evil campaigns and the multiplayer modes -- my abilities with the 360 controller have improved over time. On the 360, the cursor, which is anchored at the center of the screen at all times, enables you to skip across the map and deliver a sense of command over vast areas. Flashpoints indicate areas of conflict and highlighted spots indicate objective points. The mini-map attached to the Palantir offers a cone of vision indicated by a V to orient your direction. Unfortunately, you can't use the map to small place units like on the PC, which is a small bummer. The game offers easy, medium, and hard difficulty levels before each mission, and you can save anywhere in the level, with up to about 15 save spots -- which is a standard touch on the PC and one we're grateful to have on the 360. One little issue, however, is that you have to beat an entire campaign before being permitted to replay an individual level.
The biggest difference between playing a PC RTS and the Xbox 360 version is the way in which you execute strategies. Because of the control layout, you're less likely to break units into groups and attack from various fronts or to issue multiple groups to simultaneously attack with much meticulousness. The control scheme lends itself to less refined management. Instead, you're more likely to find yourself engaged in wars of attrition: Massive battles based on huge numbers that require less strategy and more brute strength. Thus the full essence of the original game is partially hindered on the very lowest field -- by no means ruining the game, but certainly hampering it. Essentially, EA has innovated an RTS control scheme that works better than anyone has done on the consoles, and for that we're grateful, happy, and prepped to put in many more hours of play. But there is still work to be done. Hopefully, EA LA will take on these issues in future RTS console titles.
Using texts beyond the Lord of the Rings trilogy, EA has dipped into less familiar territory with BfMe2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy occurred mainly in the South of Middle-earth, starting from the Shire and moving to Rivendell, Rohan and Gondor. Thus in the movies, we witnessed the war of the South, comprising the men of Gondor and Rohan, the Fellowship, and elves pitted against Orcs, Urukai and trolls (for the most part). According to Tolkien's massive libraries, Sauron's war also was waged in the North. The single-player campaigns -- both good and evil -- dips into this other war, comprising primarily of elves and dwarves fighting goblins and trolls (for the most part). The story isn't terribly deep, but it's nonetheless interesting. Each side consists of eight increasingly difficult missions, each with primary levels required to beat/complete it, and secondary objectives, required to earn Achievements. The elves are quick and can grow incredibly powerful, their archers becoming vastly superior to enemy units. The dwarves are slow but sturdy and resilient, their contraptions and power best used by destroying structures with catapults and upgrading their axe throwers.
Depending on the mission, whether it's Erebor, Mirkwood, Rivendell, Celduin, or The Shire, you might find it's possible to capture neutral units, such as Wargs, Hobbits, or Spiderlings, with which to fight by your side. The good campaign makes you feel cheerful and good inside while playing; the dwarves are like the gnomes in Warcraft, and their peculiarities, strange constructions and tough spirit will make you laugh. The evil campaign is all about pure lust and wanton destruction. You get to wipe out the annoying little hobbits, crush the snobby elves, and grind the stubborn dwarves into sausage. This is a game indirectly based on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, freely moving from before and during the war, so you'll play as very few of the fellowship characters. It's a little more obscure than that, a little more dedicated to fans and Tolkien lovers who want to explore beyond the trilogy. So depending on how you look at it, the character range in the single-player campaigns can be a little disappointing -- mostly in the Good campaign. You'll either play as an elf or a dwarf. Men, such as the Dunedain or the Men of Dale, occasionally play secondary, indirect roles. But you do get to play as Ents, which totally rock, even if they're incredibly slow. (An army of Ents is a fierce group to lay eyes upon.) The evil campaign has a richer variety of characters too, including the Goblin King, ring wraiths, and the brutal spider Shelob among others. They're super nasty fun.
The core game itself is almost exactly the same as the PC version, with new additions to the multiplayer modes and added Achievements. The training mission is well worth playing, and once past it, I recommend starting with the Good campaign. Several levels will throw surprises your way. Just when you think a level is done, a surprise character -- SPOILER ALERT -- such a WormTongue will appear and challenge you. Or a Watcher or a Wyrm will appear out of nowhere and give you one last big fight. To counter these instances, special powers and Heroes create a nice level of depth to alter the balance of many fights. The game doesn't enable all of the powers or heroes right away, so you can't instantly command Eagles, heal buildings, or control three heroes simultaneously. But by beating up on enemies, you earn points later distributed from a tree of powers. In the good campaign, choices include calling on a gay (in the old sense of the word) yet devastatingly powerful Tom Bombadil, instantly heal a group, or build a defense tower out of thin air. On the evil side, you can taint the land, call up a brutal Wyrm or instantly generate a Watcher just to make things really harsh for your opponents.
I found that building constructs was entertaining, but that's just an inherently fun part of any RTS. In BfMe2, EA LA has made adding new battlements to your fortress creative. For instance, you can build casks of oil for dumping on nearby enemies, add fireball towers, recruit eagles or build cages holding massive trolls who hurl rocks at nearby enemies. All warrior buildings are upgradeable to three or four levels. Perhaps one of the more creative additions is the wall-building feature. By adding a hub to your castle, you can build walls around your camp. Click on the hub and pull the cursor away to see a translucent preview of the wall appear. Walls can extend as far as the terrain or your budget permits. While I dig the addition, there are a few downsides to wall building. If a wall is destroyed or partially destroyed, you cannot rebuild that section up again; this makes for some really messy and low budget construction design. Walls cost a fair bit, and they're relatively slow to build, too.
Visually, BfMe2 is a solid looking title. EA says that the game supports the highest resolution from the PC build, a claim that, if true, doesn't actually translate into a game that looks like the highest resolution on the PC. On the contrary, you'll see low resolution environment textures, sketchy, pixilated shadows, and you'll encounter gnarly, jarring, dumbfounding framerate drops. Even in the very first level of the boxed copy you'll see empty sections that chug and display slowdown that sinks well below 30 FPS. Even the cutscenes display sharp jolts of surprising slowdown. To be fair, all RTS games have slowdown. The biggest battles usually display hundreds of units firing at each other, flames alighting, explosions going off, dozens of death animations, and AI all working furiously at the same time. And in the later levels of BfMe2, you'll get truly massive battles with what looks like hundreds of units engaging in all-out warfare. But where the early levels consistently switch from a high of 30 FPS to lows of 25 FPS, the later levels deal out slowdown that actually prevents you from clicking on or controlling anything for a few seconds. It's rough. In the last two levels of the good and evil campaigns the framerate takes a serious beating.
On the positive side, EA LA has created lush environments, great character designs, and superb animations. The standing animations of each individual character are fun to watch. Whether it's a troll scratching or fighting another, elves twirling their swords, or goblins hunched and loping around, the animations are great. The characters in motion are just as fantastic, as are the animations of characters on or around structures -- the evil campaign is especially good at showing these off (watch Goblin caves or spider lairs, for instance). Also, the transformation of in-game cutscenes into John Howe's hand-drawn sketches is artfully handled, giving a feel of the more imaginary book drawings.
The game sounds spectacular, too. The score from the movies is intricately connected to the cutscenes and the battles themselves. The themes of good and evil are either gloriously treacherous or handsomely bold. Either way, they're superbly captured with high quality Dolby Digital sound. The sound effects are brought home with especial care, too. The goblins are creepy and monkey-like in their howling, screeching rally cries. The elves and dwarves cheer with real emotion and joy when they win a battle, and Hugo Weaving's narration provides that perfect connection to the movies for a feel of real authenticity.
The multiplayer games share the same strengths and weaknesses of the single-player games, only you get to play with actual people. They're tougher, more engaging and far less predictable thanks to the human element. Each of the game modes -- Versus, King of the Hill, Capture and Hold, Resource Race and Hero Versus Hero -- is a variation on the basic theme of versus mode, with some interesting results. We played all of our MP games on Partnernet and they ran pretty well: Not too much slowdown, good control response, and our good times weren't interrupted. No crashes either. Given EA's relatively intermittent servers, it's likely you'll encounter some technical issues, but considering the total number of players for any game is only four, it's less likely to happen. What I like about this game online is the ability to create healthy custom matches from all of the modes, plus the addition of save spots for friends -- which is a crucial detail.
Versus is basically skirmish, the heart of the PC online game that the majority of people will play most often. King of the Hill is great fun, and it's pretty self-explanatory. Capture and Hold is perhaps even more challenging, especially if you set the hold time for, say, six minutes or more. The key to all these games is to quickly build up units to maximum capacity and to use tactics to weaken or devastate your opponents from building up their units. Heroes from the single-player campaign are unlocked by completing all of the primary and secondary objectives and are then useable in the multiplayer games. Heroes make a huge difference between winning and losing online. EA built into its replay value the necessity to play deeply through both the Good and Evil campaigns -- getting all of the secondary objectives -- to unlock heroes. I might add that in the later levels not all of the secondary objectives are shown, so you will want to save regularly. For instance -- SPOILER ALERT -- when you play as Shelob in Mirkwood Road, by corralling the belligerent independent spiderling horde, you will complete a hidden objective. Anyway, the range of Heroes is vast and interesting, and totally worth unlocking. I was less enamored by the Resource Race and Hero Vs. Hero maps, which didn't deliver the same rigorous enchantment that the others did.
Verdict
Lord of the Rings fans should get ready for some real hard-core and obscure Tolkien characters and battles in this videogame interpretation of the battle for Middle-earth. The bitter war was also fought in the North, and this is its tale, replete with the newer Goblin King, Gloin (father or Gimli), King Dain of Erebor, Grima Wormtongue, Shelob, Ents, Oliphants, and the Mouth of Sauron. True, the story is rather slim, but it's still good fun to see it enacted with such style.
While the console controls aren't perfect and by no means as good as those on the PC, they're good -- good enough to make a real-time strategy feel fun, fluid, and competent on Xbox 360. The game is deep with 16 single-player missions, and a hefty set of maps in five Xbox Live multiplayer modes should give it online legs. Like I've been saying all along, this is the sleeper hit of the summer on Xbox 360.
