|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Platform: Xbox 360
|
Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II
Hands-On
Although I was heavily addicted to both the WarCraft and Command & Conquer real-time strategy games in the 90s, I slowly weaned off of RTS PC games as the genre became less prevalent in gaming. However, just recently I rediscovered my love for the RTS thanks to EA’s PC title Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. As a mostly hardcore console gamer nowadays, it had been a while since I enjoyed PC gaming as much as I did when I played Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. Soon, the game will be coming to the Xbox 360, and I was able to get some time playing it at E3 2006.
A lot of gamers may be reluctant to give a RTS on a console a chance, as most PC RTS titles don’t make a smooth transition, without a keyboard and mouse, to a console. And I myself was just as skeptical. But EA has done a great job of converting the solid PC control of Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II to the Xbox 360’s controller. In fact, smooth Xbox 360 control using a controller versus a mouse and keyboard was one of the most crucial aspects that EA’s development team concentrated on while designing the game totally separate from the team that created the PC rendition. |
|
|
It will take time to adjust to playing a RTS using the Xbox 360 controller for most gamers. But as I witnessed at E3 2006, after delving into a gaming session and scaling up and over the learning curve for both the controls and console-specific user interface, it will become second nature.
Selecting your armies, building, gathering resources, and waging and handling battles is all done with a few clicks of the Xbox 360 controller. EA really put in the effort to make sure that they adapted a seamless and easy-to-learn control schematic. I’ll admit that I still found this game much more easy to |
Advertisement
|
|
|
manipulate on the PC, but in the heat of battle after getting comfortable with the controls on the Xbox 360, you won’t notice that you’re using a controller to play rather than a mouse and keyboard. And that’s all a credit to Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II’s Xbox 360 development team.
The game obviously is a sequel (it does have that Roman numeral II for a reason, after all) but with a twist. While the first title was based on Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy, EA secured the rights of not only the movie, but all of Tolkien’s books as well for Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II. Which means that each and every character, entity and locale down to the smallest hobbit hole in Tolkien’s fantastical Middle-earth realm can be used in the game. Story-wise, the game revolves around the war for the North. There are six factions you can choose from to fight the Northern War: elves, goblins, dwarves, Mordor, Isengard, and the Men of the West.
Besides the control setup, there are a few differences in the Xbox 360 version of the game from its PC counterpart. The usual RTS gameplay that every game in the genre utilizes of course is at the heart of the game (build armies, gather resources, constructing buildings and weapons, and defend against or attack the opposition).
Nothing really surprising there. But there will be a few new features, particularly involving the game’s playability over Xbox Live. There are exclusive multiplayer games in the Xbox 360 version for up to four players, including King of the Hill, Capture and Hold, Resource Race and Hero versus Hero. Xbox Live gameplay also uses the Xbox 360 headset with voice-over-IP support. There are also new Xbox Live achievements (38 of them) to accomplish and distinct heroes to unlock.
You can’t create your own heroes as in the PC version, but there are customizable fortresses. One big subtraction for the PC (thankfully) is the elimination of the rather awful War of the Rings hexed-based game mode.
Visually, the game won’t ever let anybody forget the gorgeous graphics of Xbox 360 titles such as Project Gotham 3 or Dead or Alive 4, but it does a competent job conveying an attractive Tolkien’s Middle Earth, both on land and on sea, which comes alive in colorful glory.
While it has a battle on its hands to convert console gamers into RTS players, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth II has some advantages going for it: the Tolkien license, well-thought-out console controls, solid RTS gameplay, and most important, Xbox Live support. Not even Sauron’s mightiest orcish army may be able to stand in the game’s path of selling success when it arrives in July.
Lee Cieniawa (May 27, 2006) |
||
|
|
||
