Epic battles of all three rings
Games publisher Electronic Arts has again mined the movie tie-in market to come up with another winner, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth.
Consistent with the style and story of Kiwi film director Peter Jackson's popular movie trilogy, Battle for Middle-earth is a real-time strategy game that provides more than 25 missions based on all three films.
Players get to control all the legendary heroes, massive armies and epic campaigns of Middle-earth.
In single-player campaign mode, a player chooses to lead either the forces of good or evil presented in four unique groups - from the Riders of Rohan to the forces of Sauron. Each group has its own playing style, resource management and base-building techniques.
Game play of the good side starts in Moria, while the evil side begins with Saruman at Isengard.
The game mechanism is simple, so a player need not bother with the tutorial. Its interface encourages a player to focus on what is on the screen, instead of searching the bottom bar for functions as experienced with other games. Command of strategic territories takes place across a highly detailed, three-dimensional map of Middle-earth, which is divided into more than 30 provinces. Each province has its special property.
Some provinces, for example, award a player with extra command points to lead more troops into battle.
Armies come to life as they express emotion - from anger to fear to triumph -when reacting to events and their surroundings.
A player can also challenge fellow 'rulers' online in massive multiplayer battles. The multiplayer option is designed for up to eight players.
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth
Specifications
Price: $270 on CD, $300 on DVD.
