One of the most difficult things for a game to do is base itself off of a movie. Well Battle for Middle Earth is basing itself of one of the best film series in history, so expectations were set high. The storyline of the game is directly based off the storyline from the film and books, so you will be replaying most of the events that you have seen and read about.
You begin your adventure in Moria where your control Legolas, Gandalf, Aragorn, the Hobbits, Gimli and Boromir. The action in the start of the game although interesting can best be described as dull. Later on the game unravels itself and becomes much more fun. An RPG aspect is introduced into the special characters that you control and you can level them up and add new abilities. Later on, the special characters become less important and the RTS side of the game takes over. You gather your resources, build armies and assault fortresses.
The battles in the game are well done and well animated. The pop cap is a little low for really huge battles but the action more then makes up for it. The graphics also add to the game greatly, they give off a good LOTR feel and are very well polished. Although the battles are well done the AI in some cases isn’t. The biggest problem that has been noticed is that idling enemy soldiers will not move if they are being shot by arrows. Sometime you can take out an entire squad just because they are chillin next to your fortress. The game overall gives off a vibe that is more for the causal gamer because of the lack of building options and overall units. Other then that the game looks good is fun to play.
Score (Out Of 10): 7.6