The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Since the conclusion of the magnificant Lord of the rings film trilogy, those of us who are fans of this fictional world have to turn to whatever sources we can to enjoy it.Well, there's the books and movies of course, but we do crave other things, such as high quality video games.EA, who has had a stellar record with creating great video games based on this universe, now brings us thier latest adventure, (takes deep breath) The lord of the rings:The battle for middle earth II expansion pack:The rise of the witch king (whew!).

Rather then replaying the classic adventure from the books, EA takes us way back in time for this expansion back, back to the time period just after Sauron was defeated by the last alliance.His most trusted servant, the witch king, has managed to flee destruction and now hides in the North of Middle earth, with only his trusty horse (who is never given a name), his big sword, and his small, three pronged scepter.Now dark lord-less, the Witch king does what any most trusted servant of evil would do...build up his own kingdom!And so, for the next 500 years (not really mentioned in game), everyone's favorite nazgul will attempt to destroy the kingdom of Arnor in the north and claim it for his own.

With the stage set, the game begins.You control the Witch king, his various allies, and the new game faction, Agmar.Your goal is to conquer the kingdom of Arnor by any means necessary, including standing on graves, gathering crystals, and destroying magical eleven trees, among other things.Oh yes, you'll be doing a lot of fighting.Because TLOTRTBFME2EPTROTWK takes place approximatly one thousand sixty years or so before Sauron began rebuilding Barad-dur, the player gets a nice backstory on some of the history of middle earth, including finding out what what the witch king was doing before the events in the films, what happend in the collapse of Arnor, and learn the backstory behind Glorfindel's famous line, "Do not pursue him! He will not return to these lands. Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall."The new faction of Agmar is introduced, which is a big mix of foot troops, mounted troops, and the new class of sorcerers (but from my experience, they are pretty much useless).In addition, we get to see some famous locations in thier heyday, such as the Barrow downs (before they were corrupted and had nasty wraith things), and we even get to see Aman-sul before it was turned into rubble.

Furthermore, this expansion pack features a respectable amount of new content.We have the new faction, Agmar, a new campaign, a revised war of the ring mode, and an updated create a hero mode.

But with all this new content...just exactly how fun is the game?

While the previous two games in the battle for middle earth franchise have been fun with a respectable level of challenge, the new campaign in TLOTRTBFME2EPTROTWK is without a doubt, the hardest yet in the series.The difficulty level here is high, so high that, with the exception of the first and last missions, it's pretty much gauranteed that you're going to have to re-try each mission at least once.On some, five or six times.For me, this is the biggest flaw of TLOTRTBFME2EPTROTWK.It's just way too hard.I played through the campgain on easy difficulty, and on some of the later missions I was having my rear end kicked and punched non-stop.Several times my teeth were gritting and grinding against each other in frustration.And at one mission (the second Barrow downs), at one point I was howling and screaming like a banshee in sheer frustration and anger (on the fifth retry no less).Why?Very commonnly, you're going up against very well armed and armored troops during the missions.And not only are they fully upgraded, they frequently outnumber you, sometimes coming out of nowhere on the maps, overwhelming you and making you re-play the mission all over again.Why did it take the witch king 500 years to conquer Arnor?I think it was because he kept pressing the "Restart mission" button over and over again.And keep in mind that I was playing the game on easy.I triple dog dare anyone to play this game on hard difficulty.If you manage to keep from smashing your moniter and taking a sledgehammer to the CD, then you have the nerves of a god.

The best way I can sum up my feelings about the new campaign is that it feels more like a chore to play it, rather then an experience to be enjoyed.Rather then looking forward to each new mission, I found myself slightly dreading each one, only to find my fears confirmed as I was faced with seemenly impossible mission objectives, overwhelming numbers of vastly superior troops, or moments of "How the hell am I going to do that?!"By the time the climactic siege of the campaign comes by (which took me an hour and twenty two minutes to complete) , I was more burned out then anything else, and simply wanted to get it over with so I could see how the game ended.Rather then the exciting siege of Dol Guldor, or the battle of the black gates from the previous two games, the end of TLOTRTBFME2EPTROTWK is a slight burnout.The final mission, which I won't reveal here, does bring back some of the simple enjoyment of the previous two games, but overall, the new campaign is, for me, too hard, too irritating and most of all, just not very fun.That's not to say however, that it isn't all bad.The first Barrow Downs mission is an absoloutly chaotic "King of the hill" mission that, while hard, is exciting to watch as you desperatly try to keep control of a hill while being assaulted again and again.

With the campaign out of the way, what else does TLOTRTBFME2EPTROTWK offer?Skirmish and multiplayer return, but since I cannot play online, I can only comment on skirmish.For this mode we get several new maps, including ones that were previously only avaliable on the collectors edition of the battle for middle earth two, such as the argonath, amon sul, a perfectly balanced snow map to see who truly is the better duelist, and even the paths of the dead.

All the factions in the game, with the exception of Agmar, get various tweaks and upgardes.Men for example, get rohan spearmen and mounted knights.Elves get noldorin warriors (the elven warriors seen at the last alliance), Dwarves get prince Bard of Dale as a new hero, so on and so forth.New berserker units are introduced in this expansion, who are basically very powerful units that can cause a lot of destruction to anything or anyone they come across.In a nice touch however, each faction can have only a few of these units on the field at any given time to help balance things out, so that Isengard can't overrun the field with an army of uruk-hai death bringers (who are armed with gigantic swords).My favorite tweaking is with mordor (who now gets Gothmag the orc as a hero), where instead of individual nazgul, you now get to control eight of them as a single unit, meaning that there are eight black horsies and thier riders galloping across the field (but I do wonder why you recruit the fearsome nine from the seige works?That doesn't make much sense).Tolkien fans will also appreciate how one of the nine is now named as Kham?l.

War of the ring, a risk/boardgame style strategy game, gets various tweaks and upgrades too.more territories have been added, meaning that players can finally cover all of middle earth for the first time (with the exception of the mysterious, cloud covered lands to the very far north and east, of which we know nothing).Buildings, units, and heroes no longer take a few turns to complete, all being finished in one turn, which is a very nice touch.In addition, units can move across two friendly territories in one turn (which, according to the game, allows you to re-create Theoden's frantic charge towards Minas Tirith!), but in a minor gripe, create-a-hero's cannot move as normal hero units, which is odd considering that they are, you know, supposed to be heroes.They have to be attatched to other heroes in order to invade new territories, which is a gripe, as I'd like to see my hero forging out on his own, rather then tagging along with other heroes.As a final note, the AI has gotten tweaked as well, meaning that they will retreat when they cannot win a battle (which saves a LOT of time during turns), and you can, at last, keep all the units trained during the battles, and they no longer vanish when you return to the world map.Overall, War of the ring is now definitly nicer with these upgrades.

So what about the final feature, create a hero?Sadly, this is a bit of a dissapointment.Players are supposed to be given even more freedom in creating thier hereos then ever before, but that is only true to a very slight degree.You still get the same default, non-changable voices as before, you can't alter faces, and there is only one real new category (a new type of troll), but because I don't care for trolls, that does not affect me.You do get a few new items and pieces of clothing, but it's usually only two things per category.For example, the man of the west gets two new helmets, two new shoulder pads, a new outfit (chain-mail), and a few arm and leg pads, but that's it.No new swords, no new shields.Wizards get two new staffs (Gandalf the white and Saruman's), a face with a very long beard, and that's pretty much it.This pattern is repeated for all the other hero categories.You get one or two new additions in some of the apperance categories, but that's it.While I do appreciate the ability to create a digital version of myself, the possibilities here just seem, in concept, limitless.Why not add capes?Capes make people look even more bad-a**.Why not add outfits from the common soliders from each faction?Why not add...Read more›

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King

Product Description:
Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King expands the universe Tolkiem created. This expansion pack to the fan favorite game series lets you command the rise of evil in Middle-earth while experiencing the epic battles that took place before the films. Become the leader of an evil faction and lead an invasion of the peaceful kingdom of Arnor, home of Aragorn's ancestors. To fully experience the evil side of Middle-earth, gamers can now play as the all new Angmar faction in skirmish, multiplayer, and War of the Ring modes.

Want to read more honest consumer review about The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle Earth II: Rise of the Witch King now ?