The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II
Developer(s) EA Los Angeles
Publisher(s) EA Games
Engine Sage
Latest version 1.06
Release date(s) March 2, 2006 (28 February)
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single player, Multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: Teen (T)
Platform(s) Windows, Xbox 360
Media CD, DVD
System requirements 1.6 GHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 6.0GB Hard disk space, 64MB GPU (GeForce3 or greater)
Input Keyboard and mouse (PC) or gamepad (Xbox 360)

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (BFME II) is a real-time strategy computer game published by Electronic Arts, based upon the fantasy book The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien and its live-action film trilogy adaptation, directed by Peter Jackson and released by New Line Cinema. It is a sequel to The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, from the same company. The game was released on March 2, 2006. A special collector's DVD edition is also available, containing additional promotional material, maps, units, and unit skins. The game has also spawned an expansion pack called The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch-king.

Contents

[edit] Story setting

Unlike its predecessor, the game is set mainly in the northern regions of Middle-earth, and focuses on the war there. Factions include the Elves, Dwarves, Men of the West (Gondor and Rohan combined) and the Goblins, along with Mordor and Isengard. For the Good campaign, the story starts in Rivendell where the Goblins from the Misty Mountains are poised to attack, while the Fellowship of the Ring journey south. For the Evil campaign, it begins with the siege of Lórien from Mordor's stronghold of Dol Guldur.

The story highlights some of the lesser-known events of the book — as EA had acquired a license from Tolkien Enterprises as well as one for the movies, they used the battles in the north as the focal point, which are only briefly hinted at in the Extended Edition of The Return of the King DVD, and noted in the Appendices in the novels: in the books it is explained that while the front of the war that the Fellowship characters are experiencing (and which is directly shown by the movies) is the primary one, it is in fact a war fought on many fronts across Middle-earth. However, the game and its version of the war in the north should not be seen an accurate record of what Tolkien actually wrote, since many liberties have been taken (see below).

[edit] Gameplay

To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this section may require cleanup because it is in list format.
You can help by converting this section to prose. Editing help is available.
This section has been tagged since March 2007.
Glorfindel.
Glorfindel.

BFME II differs remarkably from BFME in many ways:

  • Citadel has been replaced by a more defensive fortress.
  • Resource accumulation has been tweaked. Like other structures, resource collectors can be placed anywhere, however they are surrounded by a circle. If this circle overlaps mountains, water, structures, or circles from other resource collectors, the efficiency of the resource collector will be reduced. The efficiency of a collector is shown when placing the structure.
  • Naval battles are possible
  • Battalions are now much larger. Previously, were either 5 or 10 units to one horde. Now, most are 15 units, while really low end units (orcs, goblins) have 20, and the better units (Mirkwood archers, all cavalry) have 10 units. Note: In the update 1.06, many battalion sizes changed, most notably the standard archer battalion went from 15 to 12.
  • Buildings are not expanding to higher levels simply by usage anymore (except for resource collecting buildings). They are upgraded manually now.
  • The single player game consists of more varied objectives with long-term consequences than the "search and destroy" scenarios which dominated the first game.
  • Additionally, the method of building bases on predetermined plots has been replaced with the traditional real-time strategy building style which features a fort operating as a base hub.
  • The command point system has also been modified, which is dependent on the number of resource buildings (farms, mallorn trees, mine shafts, furnaces, tunnels, slaughterhouses).
  • There are missions or portions of missions inside buildings in the single-player campaign.
  • The player is able to build sections of walls from "wall hubs" which expand in non-linear directions and attach the wall to impassable terrain, such as mountains.
  • There are new powers such as the "Watcher in the Water", "Flood" and "Tom Bombadil", and new defensive upgrades such as boiling oil, flaming arrows, trebuchets and catapults, including bonus-giving monuments.
  • The new Goblin and Corsair units can climb walls.
  • There are improved graphic effects like spreading fire and light reflection.
  • The player can flank the enemy to receive an attack advantage.
  • In multiplayer, the player is able to customize his or her own hero from scratch, giving him/her their own unique appearance, skills, and abilities.
  • EA has included the original characters Gorkil the Goblin King and Drogoth the Dragon Lord, as well as Tolkien's own Glorfindel and Glóin and other units based on his writings.
  • Initially a feature for the first part, it is now possible to get the powerful "Ring-Heroes" Galadriel or Sauron, if the "One Ring" is found on the map (carried by Gollum) and taken to the fortress.
  • Walls can no longer have troops sitting on top of them (the custom built walls are very thin), only towers and catapalts can be built to fire at enemies, while major strongholds like Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep have walls with troops on

[edit] Game locations

BFME2 has over forty different locations in Skirmish mode, including:

[edit] Collector's Edition

Besides the normal edition of Battle for Middle-earth II, Electronic Arts released a Collector's Edition of the game exclusively for the PC-version. [1] This edition has five additional maps (including Weathertop and Argonath), new monster skins and models, slightly changed special effects and in multiplayer games the "Create-A-Hero" gets a star on top to identify Collector’s Edition gamers during on-line play or Skirmish. It also contains a bonus DVD with e.g. Making-Of Videos, an Artwork-Viewer, the game music or the complete ingame videos.

People however, found the slogan advertising the Collector’s Edition, "Control the Dragon", somewhat misleading, because it implied only Collector’s Edition owners could control the in-game Dragon. But in reality, the Collector’s Edition owners only gained several more skins and a different model for the Dragon. Many people though, did not make a giant issue out of this controversy, seeing as in some countries the Collector’s Edition shipped for the same price as the normal game edition and the Collector’s Edition was regarded as a good buy.

[edit] Xbox 360 Version

The console version is different from the PC version. The changes are following:

  • Four new multiplayer-modes: "Capture and Hold", "King of the Hill", "Resource Race" and "Hero vs. Hero"
  • A new Interface and gamepad-optimized controls
  • No "Create-A-Hero"-mode. (Instead: Unlockable heroes.)
  • No "War-Of-The-Ring"-mode
  • Multiplayer is limited to 4 players.
  • Reduced commandpoint limit
  • Improved visual effects, such as animations and unit decals, but heavy slowdowns while playing.

[edit] Commentary

Some liberties are being taken with Tolkien's works for the sake of gameplay (and fidelity to the Jackson films). For example:

  • In Tolkien's works the events of the war in the North were very different. Rivendell was not attacked outright after the Second Age (though had Sauron been victorious it would no doubt have been, despite the magical protection it enjoyed from the rivers) and there was practically no activity West of the Misty Mountains (apart from the Battle of Bywater). Tolkien wrote of attacks on Dale and Erebor by an army sent out from Mordor and 3 major assaults on Lórien by forces from both Dol Guldur and Moria. While Sauron himself had abandoned Dol Guldur it remained a stronghold for his forces.
  • Orcs and goblins were not distinct races, as the game (and films) would have one believe. "Orc" and "goblin" are just different but generally interchangeable terms for the same creatures — even the Uruk-hai are referred to as goblins at some points. Their usage generally depends on who is describing them; Bilbo, a simple hobbit, calls them goblins in his diary, while Elrond, a great Half-elven lord, calls them Orcs. In the Jackson films, "goblins" seem to refer to the smaller mountain versions of Orcs, as seen in Moria. In fairness, both The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring and the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game also confuse the two. Fans of the films typically use the term to refer to Moria Orcs. See here for more details.
  • Shelob (and by inference, the Spiders of Mirkwood) would not have sided with Orcs. She often captured and ate them (like one Ufthak) when they ventured into her lair, as found in The Return of the King. Subsequently, Tolkien wrote nothing about Goblins riding giant spiders.
  • The game features the Rangers of the North, who did not appear in the films except for Aragorn himself. However, it distinguishes them from the Rangers of Ithilien ("Gondor Rangers") by calling them "Dúnedain Rangers". This is somewhat misleading, however, as they are both directly linked to the Númenórean people by blood and history, and thus both are Dúnedain.
  • While Glorfindel is featured, he has white hair. Actually, he is supposed to be blond; his name, from the start (c. 1917, when his character first appears in writings), meant "golden-haired". Also Glóin has different hair colour as described in the book; he is described as an old dwarf with white hair, but in the game he has red hair.
  • Among other things, Tolkien never wrote about "Gorkil" or "Drogoth". However, the last two are arguably based upon the Great Goblin and Tolkien's canonical dragons such as Glaurung, Ancalagon and Smaug; EA cannot use them for copyright reasons. Neither did he write about Arwen actually fighting, though she probably could and would have, when the need arose; see here for details. She also makes an appearance at Dol Guldur, the final mission for the good campaign; this conflicts with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as there she is apparently dying because she had chosen a mortal life for Aragorn and "as Sauron's power grows her strength wanes" so she would not have made it to Dol Guldur. (This was an invention of the scriptwriters).
  • The Isengard faction has the hero units Saruman and Sharku. While in the films Sharku is a Warg-riding Orc, in the books he and Saruman are the same person. Sharku and Sharkey are names referring to Saruman in the original The Return of the King. After his staff is broken, he escapes from Isengard and takes over the Shire, but is defeated by a hobbit uprising led by Merry and friends. This subplot was almost entirely cut in the Jackson films, only being alluded to in Galadriel's mirror.
  • Tolkien never used the Old English spelling "wyrm"; he did use the modernized spelling "worm" ("wyrm" being an archaic term for dragon).

Nevertheless, the game also makes use of more of Tolkien's writings.

  • Esgaroth or Lake-town is prominently featured in The Hobbit.
  • Thorin and Company pass through the High Pass in The Hobbit, where they are captured by goblins while sheltering in a cave.
  • The mountain giants also appear in The Hobbit, though they are little more than a nuisance for Thorin and Company, and appear nowhere else.
  • Tom Bombadil appears in the game, who also did not get an appearance in the Jackson films. However, readers may find him out of place in a war game, given his nature in the books (even though while plowing through units he sings merrily and skips, and his only special move is a sonic wave, which is itself far from the book); also, his concept art features him with a white beard, whereas Tolkien quite clearly described him as old yet brown-haired.

[edit] Cameos

Other than the heroes of the book and the films, four characters from the role-playing game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (also published by EA) also appear in the game:

They do not play a part in the campaign, since they were following the Fellowship, but can be found in skirmishes.

[edit] The Rise of the Witch-king

Main article: The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II - The Rise of the Witch-king

This game has an expansion set called The Rise of the Witch-king. It features a new faction Angmar, new units for the other factions, and general gameplay improvements.

[edit] See Also

[edit] External links

[edit] Modding links

[edit] Community links


War in Middle-earth •War of the Ring •The Battle for Middle-earth • The Battle for Middle-earth II •The Rise of the Witch-king
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/h/e/The_Lord_of_the_Rings%7E_The_Battle_for_Middle-earth_II_9625.html"
In other languages