The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II

[TrongaMonga]

Anyone who played the first game should be astonished with this one. It's so god damn better than its prequel, in my humble opinion.

If you did play the first one, you remember that the races were Gondor, Rohan, Mordor and Isengard. Each with its respective heroes.

Now you've got the Elves, Men, Dwarves, Mordor, Isengard and the Goblins. Six races with all kinds of different units, too.

Altough the game is pretty simple, you need to build up resource structures (no need to conquer slots now, you can build crap anywhere you want), and then you need to build an army and upgrade it (swordsmen, pikemen, cavalry and archers, each beating the one following them in that list, and siege weapons and heroes, as well as powers), the whole mystic of the Lord of the Rings makes this a very nice game, specially if you played the first one (to see how much it has improved). The campaign shows what was not shown in the first game (where you played the Lord of the Rings books vision of the War of the Ring, the South War). This game shows the northern version of the War of the Ring. You can either start as the Elves and ally with the Dwarves to defeat the Goblins and Isengard, or you can help the Goblins destroying the ancient dwarven fortress of Erebor, and finally gain dominion over Middle Earth with the fall of Rivendell.

However, what I find the most interesting in this game is the awesome power the One Ring can offer. Yes, you have it. Or better, you have to find it. Gollum is all over the map (in skirmish, not in campaign), stealthed, and all you do is to keep an eye, or better, an ear, on him. If you happen to even ear him breathing (it's easy to recognize ), the first thing you should do is the send your fastest unit to kill him (he can only be seen if you're near to him. Really near to him), take the ring, and take it back to your fortress. That way, and with the aid of 10,000 resoruces (shitload of resources), you can either summon Lord Sauron if you're one of the bad guys (15k HP, twice as much as a fortress, his normal attack does splash damage - called meta, there - and can kill a building with one hit, and he also has some meteor kind of spell, lots of fire damage. His only problem is that he's slower than Bush's brain, and if he dies you lose the ring to the enemy, unless you are able to get it first), or you can summon Lady Galadriel if you're the good guys. She's only got 5k HP, but she's damn fast, and she also has meta damage. Not as strong, though. However, she can summon an excelent tornado, that you can control and move around the enemy's army. No one can withstand that twister.

Then you should try the War of the Ring. Pick a race, and fight for the dominion of Middle Earth, alone or with allys, in a strategic map of Middle Earth. That is, you conquer territories by advancing into them, and battling if an enemy also moves into your territory, or if you try to conquer them. You can build armys and raise farms. Something like the Total War series.

[Wing Zero]

how are the ships of umber?

any way is the gfx 823218903 better?

[Jimbo]

I was gonna dl this... i ended up dling elder scrolls oblivion

[TrongaMonga]

Originally Posted by Wing Zero

how are the ships of umber?

any way is the gfx 823218903 better?

The graphics are exactly the same.

[Jiggy]

I thought it was pretty good. Haven't had much time to play it, as I got oblivion too.

[TrongaMonga]

Here's a screenshot I took in the last level of the War of the Rings campaign, playing as the elves.

[Wing Zero]

who are the ppl left of the eagle?

[Jiggy]

Some king dude, legolas, and his 2 idle workers/builders.

[TrongaMonga]

From right to left: King Thandruil (Legolas' father), Legolas, two idle workers. At the other side, Haldir, Glorfindel, Arwën and Elrond.