Sutter
17-03-2006, 03:59 PM
For those that don't know, Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth 2 is a Real-time-strategy game form Electronic Arts
I am a big fan of the original Battle for Middle-Earth. I still play it online, regularly getting my arse handed to me by 14 year old German kids. The attracting point s of BFME are in it realistic unit interactions, the point capturing play that lends itself to greater strategy, and of course, the Tolkian/Jacksonian imagery and graphics.
I rented the sequel recently, and I’m rather glad I did for I now defiantly won’t be buying it. Interviews and teasers on the internet set the game up to be a grand improvement on the original, with three new races, new buildings, walls for (almost) all, new heroes and even a hero creator. How could it go wrong?
Well, in a lot of ways.
Online, in the original, many players fight it out on maps call “Ring warzz” or “Giant battle V6 pimped” etc. These are, in essence, a playpen were you get boundless cash and control points and throw huge armies at each other, tactics be damned. This gets boring, it’s for the 14 years old to play. It seems however that Electronic Arts have noted to popularity of such maps and re-designed the fighting system around it. Gone are the capture points and your army is larger (in the sense of more little troops on screen).
You can now build anywhere on the map, not only at the specified points like the earlier game. So, control over certain areas of the map is no longer a part of play. It’s a back and forth “take your troops to the enemy base” deal.
One of the great points of the original was the buildings leveling up. The more you used it, the better the building got (faster production, better troops etc). This has been removed. You now have to buy the building upgrade. It would have been nice to have the option of either, but this is irritating.
Heroes are plentiful, and they level up a lot faster than they did before too, making leveling a hero feel worthless.
And the graphics, oh, the shame. I’m not complaining about a lack of pretty lights and shading here, it’s the feel of the game, that you’re playing in the world shown in the movies.
Here’s the colour schemes form the two games:
Original = earth tones with dashes of colour here and there to highlight player ownership and magic.
Sequel = melted crayon set.
The units look comical and silly, some look rather serious and tough, but they’ve been pulled straight form the original. They all now animate exactly the same at the same time and look ridiculous.
The “crunch” factor is gone too. When the units clashed in the original, the animation, collision detection and sound worked together to produce a certain nasty realism in the fighting. Witness the troll smack a bunch of soldiers with a tree, hear the “thump” and see them fly. It was simple. It worked well. Where did it go? My units’ hit animation and the death of the enimy soldiers seemed not to be connected in anyway, further reducing any connection I felt with the game.
The hero maker might make up for some of these faults, yeah? Nope, sorry. As bland and boring as the rest of the game, where you dress up a virtual doll in armor (which yes, does look cool) and assign it powers from a list. The list is about 15 choices long, and most of them suck. You MUST fill up the new hero with a certain amount of low level powers before enhancing the ones he already has, forcing you to make heroes with fairly spread out abilities. Bland, bland, bland.
Good points?
They majority of the game is rather pretty, especially the menus.
Building walls is fun.
To sum up: BFME2 feels and plays like a cheap copy of Warcraft 2. I shit you not.
PS: Gothmog isn't in it, and you can't make him with the hero maker. Poo!
I am a big fan of the original Battle for Middle-Earth. I still play it online, regularly getting my arse handed to me by 14 year old German kids. The attracting point s of BFME are in it realistic unit interactions, the point capturing play that lends itself to greater strategy, and of course, the Tolkian/Jacksonian imagery and graphics.
I rented the sequel recently, and I’m rather glad I did for I now defiantly won’t be buying it. Interviews and teasers on the internet set the game up to be a grand improvement on the original, with three new races, new buildings, walls for (almost) all, new heroes and even a hero creator. How could it go wrong?
Well, in a lot of ways.
Online, in the original, many players fight it out on maps call “Ring warzz” or “Giant battle V6 pimped” etc. These are, in essence, a playpen were you get boundless cash and control points and throw huge armies at each other, tactics be damned. This gets boring, it’s for the 14 years old to play. It seems however that Electronic Arts have noted to popularity of such maps and re-designed the fighting system around it. Gone are the capture points and your army is larger (in the sense of more little troops on screen).
You can now build anywhere on the map, not only at the specified points like the earlier game. So, control over certain areas of the map is no longer a part of play. It’s a back and forth “take your troops to the enemy base” deal.
One of the great points of the original was the buildings leveling up. The more you used it, the better the building got (faster production, better troops etc). This has been removed. You now have to buy the building upgrade. It would have been nice to have the option of either, but this is irritating.
Heroes are plentiful, and they level up a lot faster than they did before too, making leveling a hero feel worthless.
And the graphics, oh, the shame. I’m not complaining about a lack of pretty lights and shading here, it’s the feel of the game, that you’re playing in the world shown in the movies.
Here’s the colour schemes form the two games:
Original = earth tones with dashes of colour here and there to highlight player ownership and magic.
Sequel = melted crayon set.
The units look comical and silly, some look rather serious and tough, but they’ve been pulled straight form the original. They all now animate exactly the same at the same time and look ridiculous.
The “crunch” factor is gone too. When the units clashed in the original, the animation, collision detection and sound worked together to produce a certain nasty realism in the fighting. Witness the troll smack a bunch of soldiers with a tree, hear the “thump” and see them fly. It was simple. It worked well. Where did it go? My units’ hit animation and the death of the enimy soldiers seemed not to be connected in anyway, further reducing any connection I felt with the game.
The hero maker might make up for some of these faults, yeah? Nope, sorry. As bland and boring as the rest of the game, where you dress up a virtual doll in armor (which yes, does look cool) and assign it powers from a list. The list is about 15 choices long, and most of them suck. You MUST fill up the new hero with a certain amount of low level powers before enhancing the ones he already has, forcing you to make heroes with fairly spread out abilities. Bland, bland, bland.
Good points?
They majority of the game is rather pretty, especially the menus.
Building walls is fun.
To sum up: BFME2 feels and plays like a cheap copy of Warcraft 2. I shit you not.
PS: Gothmog isn't in it, and you can't make him with the hero maker. Poo!