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Plain textThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth
- Introduction
- The Interface
- Bases and Build Plots
- Unit Battalions and Grouping
- The Emotion System
- The Game Engine
- The Powers
- Experience
- The Factions
- The Single Player Experience
- The Multiplayer Experience
- Conclusion
- Useful Links
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth
By Tiber Septim
The war rages in the south. Hordes of orcs pour across the land, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The nine have risen once more. Led by the witch king of Angmar, they descend upon the enemies of the dark lord with a terrible resolve. Their goal: to claim the one ring, whatever the cost.
Yet there is still hope.
Being based upon a movie is usually the kiss of death for a game. The fact that said movie itself is based around one of the most well known books of all time increases the problem tenfold. Somehow, against all odds, The Battle for Middle Earth (BFME) manages to deliver.
The developers of BFME, Electronic Arts Los Angeles (EA LA), have completely reinvented the real-time strategy genre with BFME to create a truly ‘refreshing’ RTS.
To achieve this, EA LA has changed the rules when it comes to ‘traditional’ RTS design.
The most noticeable changes are:
- A redesigned interface
- Fixed build plots
- Unit battalions and grouping
- Unit ‘emotions’
Read on for a more in-depth look at these new features and more.
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The Interface
Instead of the conventional ‘control bar’ located at the bottom of the screen, EA LA has designed what it calls a ‘context sensitive’ interface. No longer will you have to jump to the bottom of the screen every few seconds. The idea is simple: you will only see ‘buttons’ if you click on something. These ‘buttons’ are dependent on the building in question.
For example, clicking on the Barracks will display two buttons around the building: one to create a soldier battalion and one to create a tower guard battalion. Alternatively, clicking on the gate will only display one button, ’open/close’. However, this will change if the gate is damaged. In that case you will see an additional ‘repair’ button.
Thankfully, EA LA has not gone overboard. You will still see the familiar minimap in the lower left side of the screen. To neaten things up a bit, the minimap is accompanied by all the important information, such as the resource meters and menu buttons.
Attached to the right hand side is a smaller window called the ‘palantir’.
This window displays an image of the unit or building currently selected and fills its six surrounding buttons with context sensitive options. These buttons can be anything from which units to create, to unit formations, to hero abilities.
Above The In-Game Interface
Climbing up the top left of the screen you will find icons for each of the powers you have obtained. Along the bottom of the screen is a similar icon for each of your active heroes.
By reducing the complexity and size of the interface, BFME achieves not only aesthetic advantages, such as more screen space for battles, but also makes everything that little bit faster. In the more hectic battles this slight boost in speed can mean life or death for your loyal followers.
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Bases and Build Plots
Another major change within the game is the way buildings work. Instead of being allowed to build anywhere as per normal, you are now only allowed to build within pre-determined bases. There are four sizes of bases within the game. In order of smallest to largest they are:
- Settlements: A single build plot with the option to build only a resource collector.
- Outposts: A Citadel with three build plots. No walls or gates.
- Camps: A Citadel with six build plots. Weak walls and sentry towers. No walls for Mordor or Isengard.
- Castles: A Citadel with nine build plots for Gondor, seven for Rohan and eight for both Isengard and Mordor. Strong walls and plots for battle towers and other exterior defenses. No walls for Mordor or Isengard.
Within each base is a limited number of build plots. The decision that you face is whether to use a plot for resource acquisition or for unit creation.
In order to survive you will need to keep a careful balance. Having too few resource acquisition buildings will result in a limited army and defenses. Having too few unit production buildings will also result in a limited army. This is due to the fact that each building can only train one battalion at a time. For example, your enemy may be producing three or four battalions to every one you produce. This is because they have more buildings to do so.
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Unit Battalions and Grouping
In an attempt to recreate the epic scale seen in both the movies and books EA LA has designed a system where, instead of creating a single unit, you create a battalion of units. The size of these battalions varies depending on the faction you are playing. For Gondor and Rohan there are five units per battalion. For Isengard and Mordor there are ten units per ‘horde’.
In addition to increasing the scale of the game, this also means that units generally have longer life spans. This is due to the fact that once a battalion reaches level two it gains a ‘banner carrier’. The banner carrier confers the ‘self healing’ bonus to its assigned battalion and will also resurrect fallen units over time until the battalion reaches full capacity.
The idea behind grouping battalions is for specific unit types to complement each other. For example, you may link an archer battalion with a soldier battalion. Doing so will make the soldiers group up around the archers and protect them while the archers fire away. Alternatively you may link a battalion of pike men with soldiers. The pikes will shut down a cavalry charge while the soldiers mop up the remains.
You may only link two battalions and they must be different types. Once linked you may not unlink them.
Above An Archer and Soldier battalion grouped.
A useful feature, but not very necessary. It merely helps manage large groups of units while avoiding confusion.
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The Emotion System
A nice idea, but wasn’t very well implemented. In short, if your soldiers come face to face with an attack troll they will cower and retreat. Alternatively, if you successfully destroy an enemy unit or building, your units will cheer and raise their weapons into the air.
Above Unit emotions can range from idle, to excited, to frightened.
In theory it sounds great. In practice it is merely an animation that doesn’t affect gameplay at all. In the end it makes your units seem a little more ‘lifelike’, adding to the immersiveness of the game to create a richer, more vivid experience.
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The Game Engine
The Graphics
The Battle for Middle Earth was built using an updated version of the Command & Conquer: Generals engine. It included new shader effects for water and armor as well as a nice bloom effect for the white stone of Gondor’s walls.
Animations are smooth and natural-looking and the textures are crisp and detailed, even when zoomed in on the larger units, such as the Mumakil. The special effects are a view to behold; see below for a screenshot of Gandalf using his 'Word of Power' ability.
Top Mumakil can flatten your enemies by simply stepping on them.
Above Gandalf can be a formidable foe.
The Sound
Enthralling is the only word that comes to mind. From the heavy beating of the Troll drums during battles, to the soft Elven themes that play during times of peace, to the thundering of the horses hooves as a squad of Rohirrim race across the land. The music just fits and brings the whole game world to life increasing the already incredible immersiveness, drawing you into the world of Tolkein.
Even the voiceovers are perfect and were recorded by the actors themselves. The only downside is that they can get rather repetitive, as each unit only seems to have 3-5 lines of dialogue.
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The Powers
The Powers system can be described as an "Oh yeah? Well take that!" kind of system. No matter how badly you are being beaten, you can always retaliate to some extent.
Each faction has a group of powers that you must purchase in a certain order. You don’t have to purchase every power, but you must purchase the weaker ones before you have access to some of the showstoppers such as the Army of the Dead or the Balrog.
To purchase these powers you need a certain number of power points. To gain these you must either kill enemy units or have your enemy kill your units. Either way, you will gain a small amount of power for each bit of damage inflicted. Over time this accumulates to allow you to purchase the greater powers.
Experience
As in Command and Conquer: Generals, your units will increase in veterancy as they participate in battles. The maximum possible rank attainable is level ten. When your battalion reaches level two, they will gain a ‘banner carrier’. This essentially means that the group can now self heal and replace lost units over time. Each level increase after that means a simple boost to stats such as hit points and attack strength.
Top A soldier battalion at level one.
Above A soldier battalion at level two.
It isn’t just the units that gain experience though. Buildings can now increase in rank too. Each building starts at level one and can increase up to level three over time. For resource buildings, this confers faster production of resources. You want to keep your higher-level buildings alive, as they are more useful. For production buildings, it confers faster production of units. As with the resource buildings, you need to keep the higher rank buildings alive. Without them you will quickly fall behind.
Select buildings also gain a ranged attack when they reach their highest level. Though not extremely powerful it is useful, as a last line of defense.
Above Evoloution of a Farm.
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The Factions
There are four playable factions: Gondor, Rohan, Mordor and Isengard.
Each faction has its strengths and weaknesses. Gondor favors defenses by utilizing thick walls and towers to defend themselves, whilst using heavy-hitters on the battlefield. Gondor also have access to one of the most powerful heroes in the game: Gandalf. This mighty hero is capable of annihilating entire armies on his own.
Rohan have slightly weaker defenses but focus more on speed rather than strength. By using raiding parties consisting of Rohirrim and horse archers, Rohan can rush in to do quick damage then pull back to recuperate before attacking again. Rohan also gain access to the best siege units in the game: the Ents. These walking behemoths are capable of wiping out buildings and clusters of enemies in seconds. Just make sure you keep them away from fire arrows.
Mordor may not have walls but they do get Orcs for free. Mordor also have access to some of the most powerful units seen in the game, such as the Nazgul, Mumakil and Trolls. The general idea with Mordor is to cover the map with free Orcs while you build up the heavy-hitters.
Isengard seem to be a mixture of the strength of Gondor and the sheer numbers of Mordor. Like Mordor, Isengard have no walls and only small sentry towers. However, their Uruk-hai is comparable to the elite Gondor infantry, they can move very fast and come in large numbers. In terms of heroes, Isengard is a little under-whelming, having only two to choose from. One upside to Isengard is that they are useful against any enemy faction. Their infantry are stronger than Mordor’s, their wargs make short work of the Rohirrim and Gondors walls stand no chance against their siege ladders and mines.
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The Single Player Experience
The Campaign
Whilst the ‘Living World Map’ is quite pretty and a refreshing way of following a campaign, it really has no meat to it like the Total War series does.
You have very little control of how things turn out. Every mission is essentially the same - ‘reclaim the region, protect the people, survive for x minutes’. In the end, it all translates to ‘kill the enemy’.
The only real innovation here is that each region you claim grants a certain unique bonus that is used in the real time battles. These bonuses range from a multiplier to your resource income, population limit bonuses or additional power points to spend.
Above The Living World Map
Skirmishes
Unfortunately not much can be said for the skirmish battles either, as the AI is quite one-dimensional.
The Easy setting is far too easy. The AI will never use siege weapons against you, effectively meaning your base can never be destroyed. Medium is just that. They will use siege weapons but they are still a pushover, even for newer players. Yet the Hard setting can be too hard. The AI must be cheating here because there can be no way they gather armies as quickly as they do. You will be hard-pressed fending one off while you are trying to set up your economy and defenses.
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The Multiplayer Experience
This is where the game really shines. By taking out the dubious AI and giving you an unpredictable human opponent to play, the various aspects of this engine come into play brilliantly. Who can claim that destroying your friend’s army in a matter of seconds with the Army of the Dead power isn’t fun?
Online
Even though this game has been around for a while and even has a sequel, there are still some devout followers that seem to like the game a lot more than its successor. So don’t worry about there not being enough people to play online, as there are still plenty of players, ranging from skilled veterans of the genre to newcomers, who are just learning the ins and outs of RTS games.
There are multiple servers online at any one time. Try using a service such as Gamespy to help find other online players. Many different servers such as Gamereplays keep track of stats and have leader boards and places to either join a clan or create one of your own.
LAN (Local Area Network)
Just as fun as Online but a bit more personal. If you don’t like to be thrown out into the big wide world of online gaming then firing up the network and having a game with a friend or two is incredibly entertaining. As the largest map supports up to eight players, it can be quite interesting watching eight Gandalf’s running around the map trying to kill each other.
Another nice addition is that the multiplayer profile you create within the game will keep track of various stats such as your current win streak, number of games lost or won, etc.
Above The Player Profile
Each time you win a game, either in single player against the AI or in multiplayer, you will gain points, which increase your ranking with each faction you use. Once you have gained enough points in each faction, your ranking will increase from level one (Peasant/Scum), right through to the highest level ten (King/Dark Lord).
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Conclusion
When it all comes together, this game is a very refreshing innovation in a sea of bog-standard RTS games. After a while, it can be repetitive, but multiplayer is where the game really excels. You will find yourself simply enjoying watching as your Gandalf kills a couple hundred orcs in a single move or as your Attack Troll bashes its way though a battalion of cavalry. The idea is fresh, the engine is pretty and the music is highly enjoyable. This one of those ‘instant classic’ games that you love no matter how many minor flaws it has.
Highs: Innovative, Excellent multiplayer, Immersiveness.
Lows: Command point limit too small, AI too predictable.
Overall: Pick up and play, Just plain enjoyable.
Score: 3.5/5
Play it if you liked: Command and Conquer: Generals, War of the Ring.
Minimum System Specs:
CPU: 1.3GHz
RAM: 256Mb
CD/DVD: 8x or faster
GPU: 32Mb DirectX 9.0b compatible (Nvidia Geforce 2 GTS/ ATI Radeon 7500 or greater)
HDD: 4Gb free space
Recommended System Specs:
CPU: 2.3GHz
RAM: 512Mb
CD/DVD: 8x or faster
GPU: 128Mb DirectX 9.0c compatible (Nvidia Geforce 6 series/ ATI Radeon 9 series or greater)
HDD: 4Gb free space
Useful Links:
###BFME official Page###
http://www.ea.com/official/lordofthe...home.jsp?ncc=1
###Gamereplays.org Portal###
http://www.gamereplays.org/bfme/portal.htm
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