My Lord of The Ring: BFME II review

[fascist]

Lord of The Rings: BFME II for Xbox 360

The usual thought of a RTS on a console will turn someone away from a game at the thought of it, but with EA bringing Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 to the Xbox 360, things might change in the future for this generation of consoles. The controls in BFME2 marked a new beginning in which we could actually enjoy a game without the hassle of controls on previous console RTS games.

Gameplay - 6.5

EA did not take the extra step in gameplay and they left the game without any real feeling to it. Although I went in not expecting much or really anything at all from an EA RTS game I was still let down. There is a horrible experience for Single Player along with a mediocre multiplayer that has its own problems. There are two campaigns one for good and another for evil each having a rather boring story-line and something I'm not even going to bother to try and pay close attention to. The players are not that well balanced (yes I know some have to be stronger than others but how could two giants last that long against that many people?). I attacked 2 giants with 4 groups of fighters, 2 groups of archers, and 4 heros yet it took over 2 minutes to bring the damn things down, someone please tell me this isn't what in your minds is fun... Sitting there watching as 2 giants take on a whole army and yet they do not die for the longest time. The multiplayer achievements seem as if they were made to just fill up some points. For example "lose 10 times in a row," when I first looked at that I was like what the hell, achievements are supposed to be something you shoot for not something you get for doing nothing in a game. The only real place this game seems to shine is the controls. Someone finally was able to make a RTS game playable on a console. Although the controls can still be perfected it is still a breathe of fresh air for me personally.

Graphics - 7

Another poor job by EA in the graphics department. The game looks worse than it does on the pc even though the graphics can easily be achieved on the 360 (I have no clue how they screwed that up). The shadows are pixelated and then there is the horrible lag. What were they thinking releasing a game in that shape? 10 seconds after starting up my first match on the game its starts to bog down, with it periodically stopping and slowing down until you get passed the point of being ****ed and end up shutting off the 360. There is absolutely nothing that shows any considerable graphical detail in this game at all.

Sound - 7

The sound is not really anything to special although it gets the job done. The sayings are repetitive and after the first five minutes begin to become boring. They could of at least put in some detail into the sounds instead of the usual "swords for (yea whatever the rest is)," every time you select someone on the elves. A giant worm didn't even make a rumble when it popped up through the ground... Wait never-mind it was totally silent. Why cant they just get something as simple as sound effects right in this game.

Value - 7.5

Although personally I will not find myself coming back to this game time and time and again to play in a multiplayer match or go and redo the single player campaign, I could see it being that game that you sometimes play to just have a little fun with a friend. Other than that there isn't much else to do once you beat the campaign and play a little bit of multiplayer online.

Overall - 7

Originally written for onthexbox.com - by me

oops I kind of messed up the title... I forgot the s

[Iguana]

You attacked 2 giants with 4 heroes and still took 2 minutes to bring them down?? :/

Although it isn't perfect, I really enjoyed BFME II, and disagree with some parts of your review. For example, yes, the story lines aren't captivating, but they certainly aren't boring either... perhaps you should have bothered to pay some attention to it... I mean if you didn't care for it much, and didn't pay attention to it, how can you say it's boring?

The sound is not really anything to special although it gets the job done. The sayings are repetitive and after the first five minutes begin to become boring. They could of at least put in some detail into the sounds instead of the usual "swords for (yea whatever the rest is)," every time you select someone on the elves. A giant worm didn't even make a rumble when it popped up through the ground... Wait never-mind it was totally silent. Why cant they just get something as simple as sound effects right in this game.

Come on man... it's an RTS game... ofcourse the soldiers repeat what they say. :)

Check out some of the other RTS games, clicking on batallions, or groups or soldiers, or sending them to attack somewhere almost always yields the same old sounds. :/

Also, perhaps you turned down some your sound settings, but the Wyrms, and Watchers definetly make a sound... I distinctly remember hearing the rubble when the ground moves, which sometimes allows me to move my troops away in time. :)

Another poor job by EA in the graphics department. The game looks worse than it does on the pc even though the graphics can easily be achieved on the 360 (I have no clue how they screwed that up). The shadows are pixelated and then there is the horrible lag. What were they thinking releasing a game in that shape? 10 seconds after starting up my first match on the game its starts to bog down, with it periodically stopping and slowing down until you get passed the point of being ****ed and end up shutting off the 360. There is absolutely nothing that shows any considerable graphical detail in this game at all.

Agreed, 100%. The graphics are garbage, and the pixelated shadows look God-awful. Also, in the very first copy of the game I bought, it was slow as molasses, but EBGames took my copy back, and gave me another one, which didn't have the same problems as it's predecessor.

However, unless you're looking at something like Warhammer 40k or something... which RTS games are very impressive when it comes to graphics anyway? :p

Other than that there isn't much else to do once you beat the campaign and play a little bit of multiplayer online.

Lol, for that matter, what else is there to do in ANY game? Play multiplayer, play singleplayer. ;)

With 2 campaigns, three difficulties, a skirmish mode, and a heroes mode, perhaps you should give this game another chance. I feel you review is flawed, and premature, unless you have played all the modes, and didn't find those enjoyable either. :)

[fascist]

Hey I played Red alert 2 the day before it. And it looked better than this game :p.

[Matrix XII]

It's cool you wrote the review, but I do disagree with some parts of it as well, I would have given the game at least an 8.0

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

i agree with you, but also disagree. The game did over come a lot of obstricles for a PC based version game, i think they did a good job on the controls for the Xbox 360. There is a lot of lag i noticed, but i still enjoy playing it from time to time, even though i beat both good and bad in a little under a week. This game really hurts my eyes

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I have had BFME II in my possession for last 5 days from GameFly. I tired a few times before today, but demos got in the way, so 5 days later I finally got around to checking the game out earlier today. Right away the fact I had a new game I had not yet played for 5 days tells me I was not all the excited about this game, and it appears I had good reason to feel this way...

I think I had the same issue magik had, either that, or the game is supposed to slow down to a crawl whenever a small amount of action starts to happen.

Whatever the case may be, it was more or less unplayable in this state to me, which is quite weird because the demo ran great, I am guessing because it was because the demo ran off the HD, but I played the game through the first mission and proceeded to eject it.

It is already in the mailbox waiting for the mailman to pick it up later on today, so hopefully I get Dead Rising by this Saturday.