Hat and beard choice is limited, but you'll probably want to go for black anyway - I hear it's quite hip in the dark times.) he boats, the boats. (You can even create your own hero, for fully-customised multiplayer ponciness. Of course, you can play as any of these factions, each one with its own heroes and mega-units. You even get to decide their starting positions across the map. This larger skirmish-style option allow you to drop different factions in, and to play as either men, goblins, dwarves, elves, Isenguard or Mordor itself. When these two campaigns have sundered the continent this way and that, you can try the many skirmish options, or the rather more formidable War Of The Ring mode, which, like Empire At War's Galactic Conquest, gives you scope to take things to the tactical map and fight the war in a fresh and organic manner. Just don't cackle along with the Goblin King and no one will ever suspect how much you are enjoying murdering the Elves. The Evil campaign is particularly invigorating, with betrayal and sieges and the rather startling experience of sacking the Shire and watching the Green Dragon Inn burn before your pixel-glazed eyes. Not to worry, because those of us who like a bit of the build 'n' bash are lavishly catered for. Those searching for innovation amongst the Misty Mountains of contemporary strategy won't find it here. It's all dressed up in Tolkien's finest, yes, but nevertheless The Same As It's Ever Been. This is base building, unit pumping, resource sucking like it was in Old Grandpa Pentium's day. And I mean vintage: they feel fine on the palette, but damn, are these are old formulae. Artistically delivered and wrapped in a fine sheen of spidery background detail, these campaigns are vintage RTS, which all fit over the classic mould like spiky goblin-forged gauntlets.
The two solo campaigns (one for the good folk and one for the forces of evil) are each eight interesting scenarios in length. At this point in the game I can pretty much 'muhahaha' until I'm sick. Rather than being a limp film-license, it is a vibrant, colourful exploration of the terrain (PC games are all about good terrain) - it's an exploration that delivers pleasing alternative Middle Earths to us for pillage and plunder, or for pious defence. What appears from its deep dark pocketses are spiders and goblins riding giant scorpions, orc chiefs leading hordes of their lurching brethren, tentacle monsters summoned from below, blazing balrogs, shiny heroes clad in mithril and light, and even some plump little Hobbits. After seeing how weakly Empire At War delivered its now-familiar subject matter, it's gratifying to see an RTS that openly revels in itself.īattle For Middle Earth 2 takes the Tolkien universe and shakes it roughly by the trousers, just to see what shiny things fall out which might be of use. It's a nice big cave troll of an RTS: never too fast or clever, but awesome when beating drums or upgraded with armour.
While never genuinely challenging or surprising, BFME2 does deal its blows with feeling. As the game of the film it has considerable inherited potential to work with, and while it might only have waded through the shallow edge of the genepool in its first iteration, it is now completely submerged - and growing stronger like an orc gestating in verdant sludge. This latest real-time enactment of the Middle Earth conflict is a healthy improvement on its predecessor.
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