The Lord Of The Rings The Battle for Middle-earth II [PC]

Although the overall story doesn't deliver on its task of tying everything together, individual mission design can be quite good. There's an amazing scenario during the evil campaign where you must attack the Shire and destroy those damn hobbits. It's great fun burning everything to the ground, and things take a very unique turn when the forces of Isengard arrive and want to claim the Shire as their own. At that point, it's evil vs. evil, with both sides determined to show the other who's the most vile of them all.

The gameplay itself is largely unchanged from what we saw in the original. The battles can be quite massive, with hundreds of units hacking and stabbing each other on screen. It's not overly complex nor does it require much strategic thought, but it can be lot of fun to play. That is, when you're not pounding your fist in rage over the game's warts.

Both unit AI and pathfinding can be extremely troublesome, particularly when it comes to game's naval battles. Not only is your navy incompetent, they also seem unable to avoid friendly fire. For example, when one of your Elven Storm Ships creates a whirlpool in an effort to destroy the enemy's fleet, your other ships will actually sail directly into the whirlpool. (I guess they didn't have anyone on watch.) And the problems extend to your land-based forces as well. I can't count the number of times I saw my boys come under enemy fire and not respond. Instead, they'd just stand there and let themselves get whittled away to nothing. You can change their stance in the interface, but something as simple as defending themselves should be handled automatically. It all gets extremely frustrating after awhile.

One of the truly interesting aspects of the game is "War of the Ring" mode. Similar to the campaign from the original game, you play this mode from a top-down, Risk-style map. As you conquer a territory, you can recruit soldiers from that area or construct one of four buildings. When it comes time to wage war, you can either let the game auto-resolve the conflict, or you can play it out in real-time.

There are four gameplay modes to choose from and my favorite was "Stronghold," where you must seize and hold the major cities or fortresses in Middle-earth, including Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith, Isengard, and Rivendell. It was fun revisiting the classic battles from the first game, but War of the Ring isn't as robust as it should be. The enemy rarely posed much of a threat to me (a problem that pervades the entire single-player experience), and I was hardly ever forced to go on the defensive. There's no question that War of the Ring adds more meat to the bone, but I can see its fun being exhausted after a week or so. It simply lacks the necessary depth.