War in Middle Earth (1988 video game)

War in Middle Earth

Box art
Developer(s) Melbourne House
Publisher(s) Melbourne House
Designer(s) Mike Singleton[1], Alan Clark, Robert Clandy[2]
Platform(s) MS-DOS, C64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS
Release date(s)
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single-player
Media/distribution Floppy disk(s)
Cassette

War in Middle Earth is a real-time strategy game released for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST in 1988 by Australian company Melbourne House.

The game combined both large scale army unit level and small scale character level. All the action happened simultaneously in game world and places could be seen from the map or at the ground level. Individual characters could also be seen in larger battles (in which they either survived or died — Gandalf alone could easily defeat a hundred orcs). If the battle is quite small (less than 100 units approximately) it can be watched on ground level. Otherwise it will be only displayed numerically. On ground level characters could acquire objects and talk with computer controlled friendly characters (such as Radagast or Tom Bombadil).

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1989 in Dragon #147 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.[3] Computer Gaming World gave the game a mixed review, noting that, although it faithfully recreates the events of the books, genuine strategy is lacking and the game plays very similarly on subsequent playthroughs.[4]

References

  1. ^ IMDB Game Page
  2. ^ Moby Games Game Page (DOS Version)
  3. ^ Lesser, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk (July 1989). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (147): 76–83. 
  4. ^ Lombardi, Chris (May 1989), "Mordor, They Rode!", Computer Gaming World: 10–11 

External links