I didn't play The Battle for Middle Earth 1 as, at the time, it just sounded like any other RTS but with the downside of being a licensed game and so having a tendency to be shite.
Still, I've had a play of the The Battle for Middle Earth 2 beta/trial courtesy of Fileplanet.
I guess this is a beta not a demo because the game hasn't been released yet. Still, that doesn't stop other people describing their product as a demo (R6: Lockdown, SW: Empire at War, etc).
The beta/demo includes two tutorial missions and online play. There's no free-form single player included, which I found disappointing. You also appear to have register just about everywhere in order to be able to see just this. Still, on to the game...
As far as I can tell, there are four main interesting facets to Middle Earth 2:
Taking those in turn:
Building Fortresses & Bases
It seems clear that building your base is going to be a hugely important part of this game. Building things up and blasting them down features heavily in the tutorials. Unlike, say, Age of Empires where one can build pretty much anywhere, base structures often start from central buildings. By this I mean that if you want to build a wall you need to connect the wall to your fortress building, or to other walls. This constrains your building a little, but I found it to provide a helpful structure to construction.
Barracks and such can be built anywhere sensible. Same for farms, which define how many troops you can have in play at one time. Another interesting facet is the idea that a farm covers a certain area, but you can place it in a small lot -- a smaller farm is less efficient, but can still be built.
Walls can be enhanced to have trebuchet or arrow towers or gates. Barracks seem to come with their own (fixed) defenders on parapets.
There just seems to be one build resource, rather than a division into food, wood, gold, etc. This leaves you to concentrate on what you'd like to build not where your resources are coming from. I think this is an effort to push the game towards battles and fortresses rather than resource management, and I appreciate that reduction in management.
Hero Design & Development
This isn't provided to you in the tutorials, though I think you might be able to try this out online. Essentially, you can design your own Aragorn or Gimili or Nazgul or Uruk-hai or whatever to lead your forces and gain strength through battles. It's a nice, personalising touch to try to attach you to your forces, to care when they're dying. I'm keen to see this in action, though I suspect it is more limited than I might like.
Battle Formations
In the olden days of RTS, you built troops one at once and sent them off as a mish-mash gaggle of bodies, hoping that there were enough of them to complete their job. As RTS's have developed, building groups of units seems to have become popular and, all in all, I prefer this squad-building approach. Middle Earth 2 seems to take this in stride and allows you produce blocks of 20/30 men at once so even a single unit is a force to be reckoned with. Then you gather these units together to form battle ranks. This is where, as an RTS, Middle Earth 2 feels closer to the Total War series than Age of Empires or Starcraft -- troops hold ranks, fight as a group, and units form into battle lines really easily.
The implementation is more forgiving than Total War, clearly designed to be a little more accessible. Still, I appreciated the fact that I could put a unit into the fray and not expect them all to be dead in the next ten seconds, and that they'd hold ranks and (generally) prevent the position being overrun.
I think this might lead to a more tug-of-war game than many RTS display. Gradual advances rather than smashing overruns and a tendency for a somewhat superior force to annihilate. I think this may benefit smaller forces and weaker players as they may be able to rely on a smaller number of units holding out, even if they're not really pushing forward. In team games this could be crucial for team survival.
Strategy Map
I'm not clear whether the strategic game is available in multiplayer. I suspect it isn't. However, as a single player tool a strategic game can give the tactical engagements meaning by linking them together -- outcomes from this one affect later ones. Total War carries this concept off pretty well. I haven't seen the Middle Earth 2 implementation, yet, but I'm glad it has been included.
Other Thoughts
I was forced down to middling settings on my AMD 3200+ CPU, 1.75GB RAM, 6800 GT. The framerate in serious battles with pretty water and damage effects from catapults, etc, etc, dropped off pretty radically. I hope this can be improved.
The voiceover for the tutorials sounds like the guy who played Eomer in the films. Unfortunately, you're leading Gondorian troops at the time, and Eomer is one of the Rohirrim... little bit of a mistake there.
Probably only one for purists to worry about, though.
There's some pretty serious product activation going on to make this one work. I suspect that buying one copy for you and your household isn't going to cut it for this game. That's a shame and I think it will put some people off buying it (who wants to pay twice for the same game?!)
Summary
I like this one and, of the demos I've played recently, this one has felt the most attractive to me. I appreciate the fortress building concept and I'm looking forward to messing about with the strategy game. I think this could also be a laugh as a "good versus evil" multiplayer, even cooperatively (though I'm not clear at the moment if cooperative play is supported).
Certainly, she's pretty and if you've got a decent machine she'll probably look gorgeous and do good sized Lord of the Rings themed battles.
Still, I've had a play of the The Battle for Middle Earth 2 beta/trial courtesy of Fileplanet.
I guess this is a beta not a demo because the game hasn't been released yet. Still, that doesn't stop other people describing their product as a demo (R6: Lockdown, SW: Empire at War, etc).
The beta/demo includes two tutorial missions and online play. There's no free-form single player included, which I found disappointing. You also appear to have register just about everywhere in order to be able to see just this. Still, on to the game...
As far as I can tell, there are four main interesting facets to Middle Earth 2:
- Building fortresses & bases
- Hero design and development
- Battle formations & stances that seem intuitive
- Risk-style strategy game to link the tactical games together
Taking those in turn:
Building Fortresses & Bases
It seems clear that building your base is going to be a hugely important part of this game. Building things up and blasting them down features heavily in the tutorials. Unlike, say, Age of Empires where one can build pretty much anywhere, base structures often start from central buildings. By this I mean that if you want to build a wall you need to connect the wall to your fortress building, or to other walls. This constrains your building a little, but I found it to provide a helpful structure to construction.
Barracks and such can be built anywhere sensible. Same for farms, which define how many troops you can have in play at one time. Another interesting facet is the idea that a farm covers a certain area, but you can place it in a small lot -- a smaller farm is less efficient, but can still be built.
Walls can be enhanced to have trebuchet or arrow towers or gates. Barracks seem to come with their own (fixed) defenders on parapets.
There just seems to be one build resource, rather than a division into food, wood, gold, etc. This leaves you to concentrate on what you'd like to build not where your resources are coming from. I think this is an effort to push the game towards battles and fortresses rather than resource management, and I appreciate that reduction in management.
Hero Design & Development
This isn't provided to you in the tutorials, though I think you might be able to try this out online. Essentially, you can design your own Aragorn or Gimili or Nazgul or Uruk-hai or whatever to lead your forces and gain strength through battles. It's a nice, personalising touch to try to attach you to your forces, to care when they're dying. I'm keen to see this in action, though I suspect it is more limited than I might like.
Battle Formations
In the olden days of RTS, you built troops one at once and sent them off as a mish-mash gaggle of bodies, hoping that there were enough of them to complete their job. As RTS's have developed, building groups of units seems to have become popular and, all in all, I prefer this squad-building approach. Middle Earth 2 seems to take this in stride and allows you produce blocks of 20/30 men at once so even a single unit is a force to be reckoned with. Then you gather these units together to form battle ranks. This is where, as an RTS, Middle Earth 2 feels closer to the Total War series than Age of Empires or Starcraft -- troops hold ranks, fight as a group, and units form into battle lines really easily.
The implementation is more forgiving than Total War, clearly designed to be a little more accessible. Still, I appreciated the fact that I could put a unit into the fray and not expect them all to be dead in the next ten seconds, and that they'd hold ranks and (generally) prevent the position being overrun.
I think this might lead to a more tug-of-war game than many RTS display. Gradual advances rather than smashing overruns and a tendency for a somewhat superior force to annihilate. I think this may benefit smaller forces and weaker players as they may be able to rely on a smaller number of units holding out, even if they're not really pushing forward. In team games this could be crucial for team survival.
Strategy Map
I'm not clear whether the strategic game is available in multiplayer. I suspect it isn't. However, as a single player tool a strategic game can give the tactical engagements meaning by linking them together -- outcomes from this one affect later ones. Total War carries this concept off pretty well. I haven't seen the Middle Earth 2 implementation, yet, but I'm glad it has been included.
Other Thoughts
I was forced down to middling settings on my AMD 3200+ CPU, 1.75GB RAM, 6800 GT. The framerate in serious battles with pretty water and damage effects from catapults, etc, etc, dropped off pretty radically. I hope this can be improved.
The voiceover for the tutorials sounds like the guy who played Eomer in the films. Unfortunately, you're leading Gondorian troops at the time, and Eomer is one of the Rohirrim... little bit of a mistake there.
Probably only one for purists to worry about, though.There's some pretty serious product activation going on to make this one work. I suspect that buying one copy for you and your household isn't going to cut it for this game. That's a shame and I think it will put some people off buying it (who wants to pay twice for the same game?!)
Summary
I like this one and, of the demos I've played recently, this one has felt the most attractive to me. I appreciate the fortress building concept and I'm looking forward to messing about with the strategy game. I think this could also be a laugh as a "good versus evil" multiplayer, even cooperatively (though I'm not clear at the moment if cooperative play is supported).
Certainly, she's pretty and if you've got a decent machine she'll probably look gorgeous and do good sized Lord of the Rings themed battles.
