The Lord of the Rings The Battle for Middle-Earth 2
Posted July 27, 2006
Developers who create real time strategies for consoles are generally quite brave as very few have even made the leap from appealing PCs gamers to the couch gamer. Blizzard tried it on the N64 with a version of Starcraft which under whelmed the majority, and EA is taking the plunge now with their second RTS based on the Lord of the Rings franchise with LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2. The title initially launched on PCs and was greeted with a warm reception, and for the transition to the console world, they spent a large amount of time working on the controls to make it right. But, did they succeed?
Gameplay:
The biggest reason that RTS usually fail on consoles boils down to a simple fact; the controls are horrid. RTS fans know that a big reason they tend to stick to PCs for these games is the fact that hotkeys are essential to grouping units, as is the accuracy of a mouse allowing individual control of an army down to the pixel. On consoles, control options are limited and as a result controls either become over simplified (like the extremely fun RTSish Pikmin on the Gamecube) or far too complex to actually make the game fun. EA thankfully does the genre justice here and may just bring on the age of console RTS.
Not without some minor flaws though, the controls generally are first-rate with some minor frustration when dealing with micro-managing units before marching them into battle. Selecting units is quite simple using combinations of the A button and triggers to select all units or groups of units. But it's the precision where things fail a bit; as selecting a hero unit in the middle of a massive battle becomes an exercise in irritation. Thankfully however, a great addition is here putting some important items and actions into an easy to access location.
When you press and hold the left trigger, the map (Palantir) in the lower left corner of your screen expands with opens for the selected unit or structure, as well as some convenient options for selecting your builders or heroes. This helps with the difficulty in finding these lone units among the massive armies that you inevitably create to take down hoards of Orcs or Dwarves.
But the biggest question is how does controlling the game without a keyboard and mouse feel? After a little bit of a learning curve, I was very comfortable taking on the legions of the good-doers as the evil faction. Sure there were some stumbles along the way, but by the time I finished the tutorials and the first campaign level, I was more than ready to hop online and take on a human opponent.
The modes of play are a campaign mode which lets you side with either the evil or the good team, in a move which actually adds frustration as you play; more on this in a bit. A skirmish option is also here allowing you to take on the CPU in modes similar to online. This is a great way to hone the skills needed to take on RTS fanatics. And finally, taking the game on to Xbox Live is where the real fun comes into play. A few modes of play and a large number of maps are included to help keep things fresh whenever you play. Aside from a basic versus mode, other modes like King of the Hill, Capture and Hold, Hero vs. Hero and a Resource Race are here as well.
Hero mode pits your small group of heroes against other player's heroes in a fight till the death. In this mode, players who work their way through the single player campaigns will gain an advantage as completing bonus objectives there unlocks additional heroes for use in multiplayer. Resource Race is a simple race to collect a set amount of resources before your enemy either destroys your base, or collects the funds first. The other modes are typical of other genres of games and really don't need much explanation; but I will add that when you get a four player KoH match going, it can be a hectic and exciting time. As mentioned, the multiplayer really shines in the fun department.
The campaign mode suffers from trying to generalize too much with regards to the factions you are playing. As the evil group (the mode I played), you change "races" far too often, which never allows you to get a good feel for the flow of a unit or how to best utilize them in battle. Just as you get used to thrashing the pitiful Hobbits with a Mountain Troll you switch to a faction which doesn't have them and you need to take control of other units which operate in a slightly different fashion. The campaigns themselves are quite fun to play, with multiple goals per level as primary objectives with some other slightly hidden bonus objectives thrown in to unlock achievements and heroes.
But with all the good things I have to say about the controls and the fun of this game, there is one gaping hole which detracts from it quite heavily; a stuttering frame rate. Whenever large groups of armies are marching around the map some slowdown can occur; but meet these groups with other factions and you are in for a slow, choppy mess which eventually fixes itself, but is completely unavoidable and does impact the playability. It would be one thing if it only happens offline, but online modes suffer from some slowdown as well making matches a little frustrating at times. Hopefully the developers are still working on addressing this and we'll see a patch somewhere in the very near future to address this.
Graphics:
For the most part, the graphics are quite sharp in this title. The camera allows some good zooming in of the action which shows some great animations and detail on the characters, especially when you zoom down to check in on the Balrog and Nazgul. The one flaw with the camera is the limited height that you can zoom out to, which makes finding armies sometimes a little difficult as you zoom around the playfield.
The other enormous flaw in the graphics is the shadows of the characters that are projected onto the maps. A blocky mess would better describe how the shadows look. This was actually the first thing I noticed in the game when I started the first tutorial and it irked me the entire time. I'd actually rather have seen no shadows at all than the pixilated disarray that we have here.
Another issue that would really impact the player who doesn't have the luxury of a large screen TV is the tiny font used for the text in the game. Even on a 42-inch TV it was small and blurry, and obviously left in there from the PC roots the game has.
Audio:
The audio is BFME2 shines quite nicely if you are a fan of the epic songs from the films, because they are easily recognized here. While sometimes the sweeping melodies don't seem to fit into the action that is taking place, they do fit very well with the theme of the game. Even the voice work is very fitting with the title, and by voices I'm also including various grunts, yelps and cries of pain. I had no issue with anything in the audio department.
Conclusion:
EA definitely got the console RTS ball moving the right direction with BFME2. The time they spent reworking the controls to the Xbox 360 controller really brought this genre a leap ahead. The short learning curve also makes it easier to get into, and people who are experienced with RTS will have a painless time adapting to the controls; purists however will never be pleased.
If it wasn't for the few graphical issues this title quite easily would have received a grade of highly recommended, and in fact should these issues be addressed in a patch in the near future I'd consider revising the review. But the slowdown really blemishes the title and as a result I can only recommend this to gamers, like myself, have been itching to play RTS but would rather sit at their couch rather than at a desk char.
Gameplay:
The biggest reason that RTS usually fail on consoles boils down to a simple fact; the controls are horrid. RTS fans know that a big reason they tend to stick to PCs for these games is the fact that hotkeys are essential to grouping units, as is the accuracy of a mouse allowing individual control of an army down to the pixel. On consoles, control options are limited and as a result controls either become over simplified (like the extremely fun RTSish Pikmin on the Gamecube) or far too complex to actually make the game fun. EA thankfully does the genre justice here and may just bring on the age of console RTS.
Not without some minor flaws though, the controls generally are first-rate with some minor frustration when dealing with micro-managing units before marching them into battle. Selecting units is quite simple using combinations of the A button and triggers to select all units or groups of units. But it's the precision where things fail a bit; as selecting a hero unit in the middle of a massive battle becomes an exercise in irritation. Thankfully however, a great addition is here putting some important items and actions into an easy to access location.
When you press and hold the left trigger, the map (Palantir) in the lower left corner of your screen expands with opens for the selected unit or structure, as well as some convenient options for selecting your builders or heroes. This helps with the difficulty in finding these lone units among the massive armies that you inevitably create to take down hoards of Orcs or Dwarves.
But the biggest question is how does controlling the game without a keyboard and mouse feel? After a little bit of a learning curve, I was very comfortable taking on the legions of the good-doers as the evil faction. Sure there were some stumbles along the way, but by the time I finished the tutorials and the first campaign level, I was more than ready to hop online and take on a human opponent.
The modes of play are a campaign mode which lets you side with either the evil or the good team, in a move which actually adds frustration as you play; more on this in a bit. A skirmish option is also here allowing you to take on the CPU in modes similar to online. This is a great way to hone the skills needed to take on RTS fanatics. And finally, taking the game on to Xbox Live is where the real fun comes into play. A few modes of play and a large number of maps are included to help keep things fresh whenever you play. Aside from a basic versus mode, other modes like King of the Hill, Capture and Hold, Hero vs. Hero and a Resource Race are here as well.
Hero mode pits your small group of heroes against other player's heroes in a fight till the death. In this mode, players who work their way through the single player campaigns will gain an advantage as completing bonus objectives there unlocks additional heroes for use in multiplayer. Resource Race is a simple race to collect a set amount of resources before your enemy either destroys your base, or collects the funds first. The other modes are typical of other genres of games and really don't need much explanation; but I will add that when you get a four player KoH match going, it can be a hectic and exciting time. As mentioned, the multiplayer really shines in the fun department.
The campaign mode suffers from trying to generalize too much with regards to the factions you are playing. As the evil group (the mode I played), you change "races" far too often, which never allows you to get a good feel for the flow of a unit or how to best utilize them in battle. Just as you get used to thrashing the pitiful Hobbits with a Mountain Troll you switch to a faction which doesn't have them and you need to take control of other units which operate in a slightly different fashion. The campaigns themselves are quite fun to play, with multiple goals per level as primary objectives with some other slightly hidden bonus objectives thrown in to unlock achievements and heroes.
But with all the good things I have to say about the controls and the fun of this game, there is one gaping hole which detracts from it quite heavily; a stuttering frame rate. Whenever large groups of armies are marching around the map some slowdown can occur; but meet these groups with other factions and you are in for a slow, choppy mess which eventually fixes itself, but is completely unavoidable and does impact the playability. It would be one thing if it only happens offline, but online modes suffer from some slowdown as well making matches a little frustrating at times. Hopefully the developers are still working on addressing this and we'll see a patch somewhere in the very near future to address this.
Graphics:
For the most part, the graphics are quite sharp in this title. The camera allows some good zooming in of the action which shows some great animations and detail on the characters, especially when you zoom down to check in on the Balrog and Nazgul. The one flaw with the camera is the limited height that you can zoom out to, which makes finding armies sometimes a little difficult as you zoom around the playfield.
The other enormous flaw in the graphics is the shadows of the characters that are projected onto the maps. A blocky mess would better describe how the shadows look. This was actually the first thing I noticed in the game when I started the first tutorial and it irked me the entire time. I'd actually rather have seen no shadows at all than the pixilated disarray that we have here.
Another issue that would really impact the player who doesn't have the luxury of a large screen TV is the tiny font used for the text in the game. Even on a 42-inch TV it was small and blurry, and obviously left in there from the PC roots the game has.
Audio:
The audio is BFME2 shines quite nicely if you are a fan of the epic songs from the films, because they are easily recognized here. While sometimes the sweeping melodies don't seem to fit into the action that is taking place, they do fit very well with the theme of the game. Even the voice work is very fitting with the title, and by voices I'm also including various grunts, yelps and cries of pain. I had no issue with anything in the audio department.
Conclusion:
EA definitely got the console RTS ball moving the right direction with BFME2. The time they spent reworking the controls to the Xbox 360 controller really brought this genre a leap ahead. The short learning curve also makes it easier to get into, and people who are experienced with RTS will have a painless time adapting to the controls; purists however will never be pleased.
If it wasn't for the few graphical issues this title quite easily would have received a grade of highly recommended, and in fact should these issues be addressed in a patch in the near future I'd consider revising the review. But the slowdown really blemishes the title and as a result I can only recommend this to gamers, like myself, have been itching to play RTS but would rather sit at their couch rather than at a desk char.