The Best Movie Licenced Game of All Time

I am a big fan of the Lord of the Rings books and movies. While the movies leave out a lot that is in the books (they had to unless they wanted to make it a TV series instead of three movies), they capture the magic and themes well. In some ways, the Battle for Middle Earth games delve into the books even more than the movies did. You get to see areas of Middle Earth and characters that were not in the films. On top of that, you get to command the characters to conquer the land. Pretty cool.

The first Battle for Middle Earth game was good, but you were restricted as to where you could build barracks, towers etc. In BFME II, you can build almost anywhere you want (except in deep water, mountain peaks etc). One of the clever aspects of this is that when you build farms, where you place them affects how well they grow crops which is a nice touch of realism as some ground is more fertile than others.

The graphics in BFME II are also better than in the first game. If your computer can hack it, turn all the settings all the way up. The result is a living map that looks like an aerial shot right out of the movies. Even with the settings turned down a bit for smoother frame rates, it still looks better than most RTS games out there. I turn off shadows and turn water effects down to low while ramping up everything else. The map still looks nice without dynamic shadows and the water on low is better than the default water in most older games. The animations of the units are well done so it's worth it to turn up the animations to the highest setting.

The look of the map, buildings, units etc and the music is straight out of the movies. Even the units that didn't show in the movies (such as Tom Bombadil who kicks serious orc *** when you get him)match well with the rest of it. Many of the actors including Hugo Weaving (Elrond), Sean Astin (Samwise Gamgee), Billy Boyd (Meriadoc Brandybuck), Dominic Monaghan (Perigrin Took), Christopher Lee (Sauraman), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli), Andy Serkis (Smegol/Golum) and Elija Wood (Frodo) lent their voices to the command affirmations (such as "We guard the White Tower") and the voice acting is pretty good for an RTS. There is repetition but there is also enough variation in what they say that it doesn't get too annoying after awhile. Some games have a unit say the same thing every time you click on him to the point that you want to turn the voice volume off. The voices are actually very helpful in this game as they also warn you when your buildings or people are being attacked. Very handy when you are intent on one part of the map and the enemy attacks you on another part. The game uses in-game graphics for all the cut scenes so you never feel yanked out of the world of the game. I don't like it when games use better graphics or live action for cut scenes than they do for the action. It makes the graphics of the action you play look worse.

The camera controls are well done. You use the number pad to rotate the camera around and zoom in and out so you can see everything very well. You can also left click on the map to move the camera. The controls are not too tough to get used to unlike some games such as the Total War series.

The action on the map stays interesting too as it's not just about tracking down your enemy's base and blowing it up. You can also take control of NPC buildings and get them to give you troops too. Some buildings along the shore will even give you boats so you can sail around instead of having to hoof it all the time. Some boats will even carry troops and others will fire arrows. If you play the bad guys, you can even get flying dragons at one of the higher levels. You also get to take out dens of gobblins, trolls, dragons etc. that are not controlled by the enemy. The more buildings you capture and the more monsters you kill, the more experience your units build up and the more points you get that can be used to get more spells. Take as many buildings and monsters as you can before you go after the enemy base so your guys are strong enough to take it out. If the enemy takes a building, you can take it back again.

One of the only gripes I have about this game is that you can't execute more advanced tactics like pincer moves, sniping, box-ins etc. very easily. To even try these, you have to set your units' attitudes to 'stand ground' and then really direct them around so they don't just rush headlong into the enemy as soon as they spot them.

One of the best strategies is to make lots of ranged units like archers as soon as the game lets you and to ramp up their abilities as much as possible. Then use them to take out the ranged units of your enemy. Protect your ranged units with as many foot soldiers as you can afford or they'll get wiped out by the enemy calvary. Make a few calvary of your own but save them for rushing and crushing poorly armoured enemy units and goblins. When you reach your command limit, spend the rest of your money on defensive towers which you need to place next to every farm you have. Farms are your main money makers so build lots of them and you'll always have gold to build stuff with. Also, building a market will help especially on maps with few places to build farms.

One of the best things about this game is that you are rewarded for your actions by not only moving up the tech tree but also by being able to summon the main heroes of the movies like Gandalf, Aragon, Frodo etc. as well as getting access to special magic powers that you yourself wield such as healing units, summoning ents, rallying the troops etc.

Each unit and hero has additional abilities that you can buy or unlock as you go along. For example, the archers who are pretty effective from long range, become even more so when you add the fiery arrows ability. Gandalf has several spells you can have him cast including the blast of light from his staff like in the movies. You want to use the magic spells with a measure of strategy though as they take a bit to recharge once you use them. You can also upgrade your buildings so the make better units and so some of them can defend themselves better. The higher level farms can even shoot arrows if you protect them long enough for them to level up.

Battle for Middle Earth II is very accessible RTS game that isn't hard to learn how to play the basics of quickly yet it is deep enough that you find yourself learning new tricks and strategies as you play along. It is also quite customizable. If you play the skirmishes, you can adjust how tough your opponents are, how many sides are playing (you can even have AI sides that will fight each other which is one good way to learn more strategy; and even have some of the AI sides be on your side which makes for a faster game), which maps you play on, etc. In the settings you can even turn up the command limit so you can command even bigger armies. If you do this though, take the games advice and turn down your graphics settings first. A map with hundreds of little guys running around and all the graphics turned all the way up takes a really powerful PC to pull off.

You can play online with other real people too. If they are good at strategy and know the game well, its pretty tough. If they are just starting and haven't played other RTS's as much as you you'll eat them up. If you think you're good, you can even enter tournaments and find out.

There is also a "Risk" style board game version built in where you have a map of all of Middle Earth and you move your armies around the map, build fortresses, take over towns and try to keep the AI or multiplayer guys from destroying what you built while you try to destroy them. It's pretty hard unless you play a lot of strategy board games. When a fight happens, you can either let the AI auto resolve it, or you can go to manual and it will open up a map kind of like in the regular game where you command the units and try to win the battle.

With the graphics turned down to the defaults and the shadows and water effects turned off the game will run smooth on computers that just barely meet the system requirements.

You need at least a Pentium 4 processor and a 7000 series Geforce video card (or equivalent)to play the game. To really get the most out of it, I'd play it on a Core2 Duo Processor and a 8000 series card.