This game is very well done and true to the LOTR saga. It is not a step-by-step repetition of the story, of course, but overall you get the feel. However, in the end it is just another RTS.

An interesting feature is that you keep your army from battle to battle. If you take good care of it, you can have a respectable force formed by hardy veterans with all the upgrades available.

At first I didn't like the lack of variety of troops for each faction, but later I realized that it is true to the saga. Why are there no dwarves for instance, only Gimli? I asked. Well, in the book/movie Gimli was the only dwarf involved in the War of the Ring. In the game Rohan is mostly about cavalry (riders). Well that is because in LOTR Rohan is practically riders and nothing else!

A great game that follows Lord of the Rings trilogy almost perfectly. Kids who have read the books or seen the movies will especially enjoy this game.

This game is probably the coolest game ever made.(ok so its a little drastic),BUT! The game is awesome. There are a variety of soildiers and other things the graphics arnt all dat great but you will never notice. when you make soildiers, they will hv command pts. they coul;dve let you command more troops but its ok.The hero attack are so funny watching the enemys flying all over the place. overall this game is awesome. Hope this was a help to u!

This game is a very fun real time strategy game based off the LOTR movies. The battles are fun, challenging, and accurate representations of how I imagined them from the books and films. As a fan of both real time strategy games and a huge LOTR fan I really enjoyed the game.

This is the best computer game I have ever played.
Pros:graphics are good,you get lots of heroes on good story,on skirmish you can build huge army's,you can get lots of awesome powers.
Bads:people are slow,Mordor has no castle,it takes a while to load sometimes,it's hard to get points like to summon the Barlog or Army of the dead.Over all it's a awesome game and its worth every penny.Hope this helped you.

I thought it was a fun game, though I was expecting a non-Warcraft format. I like the freedom of being able to build where I want. I guess it adds an extra aspect of play. Also, I was not impressed with the difficult setting. My first time playing I beat two hard computer players.

this game is really great. the graphics are good (though it can take forever to load if you put on high detail), the units and heroes are good to, although you can't play as sauron,which really sucks and the nazgul and witch-king could use more powers, and rohan has to many heros and not enuph units but aside from that its real good. the living world mapis very lifelike, and skirmish mode is fun,you can mess around with your enemy or just go in and kill all. the campaign isnt bad,though your a bit outnumbered at the black gate unless you summon the army of the dead. and it takes a while to get the balrog and he only stays for like 2 minutes.but everything else is good, and you should really try this game out. hope this reveiw helped!

The graphics are amazing The effects that come with the graphics. It's very intense, yet with strategy. It's playable for a long time. It has a relatividly good AI. There are a few bugs, but most of them are fixed with the patches.


For better gameplay, download the Elvenstar mod when purchased. This makes the game bigger, and adds better graphics.

When my husband got this for Christmas last year I didn't think I'd be into it. I've never played an RTS game but I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. After I watched him play it for a little while I started my own game. I got so engrossed in this game. I loved the strategy and the different challenges. As you go further into the game it gets a little more difficult and you gain more powers to use and your Heroes gain higher levels and powers. This game really sucked me in and I even finished it before my husband did.

Battle for middle-earth is an awsome RTS! It requires more strategy than most other rts games on the market, requiring you to build your structures on special plots that must first be captured. Squads are used instead of single units (except in a few larger or more powerful cases) and this creates a much grander scale for the game. The graphics are not the best, but the gameplay far outways this. The races of middle earth are sepperated into; Rohan, Gondor, Isengard, & Mordor (or, as in the campaigns; good & evil). Definitaley one of the best games on the market!

A truly a remarkable game. The voice acting, game play, graphics, I give 5 stars on all. Once I started I couldn't stop playing. I felt like watching and playing the movie at the same time. Truly an amazing game. Must have for any RPG and Tolkien's fans out there.

My son loves this game and it's a nice way to introduce him to online playing. Have had to reboot before he plays or sometimes he locks up.

This will be a scanty review but I wish to comment on something that is most important, at least to me. Yes, this game does a lot of things right...great graphics, sound and music, playability, etc. But realize that the game is of the real-time strategy genre--where you have to collect resources and build things which make other things. Once you build those things (fighting units), you have to send them off to demolish what the computer player (or human player) has created. So, it's definitely a game where logistics come into play and you are required to point and click constantly. So, make sure you like that kind of game. If you do, and you like the LOTR theme, you will like this game. One thing I don't like though--it's completely unrealistic and annoying, is how catapults are way to powerful in this game. The computer will build lots of them, and I mean almost total catapult armies and things will get difficult for you. In this game catapults move fairly fast and can receive more damage than they should, so you will discover that destroying catapult factories is your best bet. In my opinion, the catapult imbalance somewhat ruins the game.

This is one game I don't mind playing with my boy for hours. He is so into it and it is great for concentration and multitask skills. We both love it. I would have rated 5 stars overall, if it didn't sometimes get 'stuck' after many uses.
Great price!

LOTR
Read other reviews for detail. My thoughts:
- Fighting gets redundent after a while but the key battle are fun and true to the movie.
- Leveling up adds a layer of attention that makes the game more interesting
- Good sound and music
Nice game that I am still playing.

Now the multi player may seem like the only fun, but that is not true. the campaighn kepps you on your toes, especially when you control minas tirith the forces of mordor unlesh an attack so powerful, it is all you can do to keep the city standing! however, how the heck do you play the sucking level in mordor?!?!?!?!?!?!?! any way, the levels are fun, and the game itself rules. well? are you just going to sit there reading my review? go buy the game!

This game is a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, but it can get really old really fast. The coolest part for me was the campaign, You get to play as either good or evil. on good you get two cities to play as: gondor or rohan, and on evil you get Isengard and Mordor. The game gets a bit boring if you play the same thing too much (as in, you just have to destroy all the enemy forces) It's way more fun when you have to conquer places in the movie like: Edoras or Gondor Or Fangorn. Each side you play as in the game has a strong side and a weak side, for good th strong side is Rohan and the wek side is Gondor, for evil the strong side is Isengard and the weak side is mordor. The game has music from the film too. I would recommend this game for people who love warcraft or age of empires.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth is a wonderful game. In the campaign mode, take control of the armies of Rohan and Gondor and drive back the Dark Lord's armies, or command the armies of Isengard and Mordor to destroy the mighty fortresses of osgiliath and Minas Tirith! Take control of a variety of units, including Rangers, Rohirrim, Fountain Guards, Easterlings, Mumakil, Uruk-hai Crossbowmen, and even mountain trolls and ents! Call forth amazing heroes to aid your forces, including Faramir, Boromir, Saruman, Lurtz, Aragorn, Merry, Gandalf, and even the Witch king! You can also fight against any faction as any faction on almost any map in the skirmish mode. This leads to some interesting battles, such as Nazgul vs. Nazgul or Gandalf vs. Gandalf!

Or you could download patch 1.03 and join BFME's huge mutiplayer community. Fight against your friends, save the replays, and learn from your mistakes. Good luck and have fun!

This game is just amazing. Yes, there are 4 load disks, but it is more than worth it. The graphics are one of the best parts of the game. Not only does this game require skill, but also strategy, courage, detertermination, and also the ability to make and fortify your own keep. It is just exhilirating.

Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth is a great game. Battle on familiar landscapes such as Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Helm's Deep, and more! Command troops ranging from Gondor knights to Mumukil, and hero units from Aragorn to Saruman.
In this game, there are two types of gameplay: Campaign and Skirmish. Skirmish is just a short battle pitting two teams against each other. Campaign is more interesting, you can play the Good Campaign and the Evil Campaign. In the Good Campaign, you start off in Moria with the entire Fellowship at your command and as you progress you will fight in famous battles like Helm's Deep where you will defend the fortress from Saruman.
And in the Evil Campaign you start in Isengard with Saruman and an army of Orcs at you disposal and as you progress you will fight your way from sacking a Rohan village to destroying Minas Tirith itself.
When you start a battle, whether it be campaign or skirmish, you will have a camp or castle where you can build your army to march on your enemies. If you build a military building, then it will upgrade, but only if you have recruited the sufficient amount of soldiers from it.
During a battle there are objectives and bonus objectives. The bonus objectives aren't really that important but they get you extra points.
So if you like real-time battles where you command troops from Lord of the Rings where you can be good or evil, hop on the back of the nearest Nazgul and get this game!

The Battle for middle earth game (BFME) is by far, hands down, the very best LOTR game ever made. The graphics are beautiful and the characters are the best. I do not own the game, but I play it ALL the time. Any time I get the chance, I play, research strategies, and I foud some fun codes. A code to unlock sauron as a character is MASTEROFTHERING, you can type this anytime, and a way to exceed the command point limit is you type in james, and a way to get 1000 resources anytime is to type in MORIAMITHRIL and , I haven't tried it yet but I think a way to unlock Darth Vader and some storm trooper is to push controll alt and the letter s at the same time. I hope you enjoy this game as much as I do. I totally recomend this game to everyone, especially LOTR fans

Be aware that this game has higher than usual system requirements, which are not described on this site, the official EA site or on the packaging. According to EA Games, you must have the following hardware and software to run the game:

Windows XP (32 bit version) with Administrator rights.
1.7 GHz or faster processor.
512 MB or more RAM.
Supported 128 MB video card with the newest manufacturer drivers.
CD Version, 8x or faster CD/DVD drive.
DVD version, 8x or faster DVD drive.
2.3 GB free hard disk space plus space for the Windows swap file and save data.

I found this out the hard way. Despite the fact that I couldn't find the system requirements listed anywhere, I bought the game assuming it would work on Windows 2000 (as described on this web page) with the equipment and software that I have. All the other recently released games I've purchased work fine. The game installed properly but crashed when I tried to play it, and the patch wouldn't work, so I contacted customer support. The only tech support EA offers is e-mail based, so it can be very time consuming and quite frustrating, since the customer service representatives don't seem to know very much and just quote from a manual. After weeks of updating drivers, deleting registry files and installing/uninstalling the game about 20 times, the tech support people finally announced that my computer does not meet system requirements, which they provided (see above). The game might be good, but make sure it will run on your computer BEFORE you buy it, or you'll be out the cost of the game plus S&H, because Amazon won't take it back.

We read the description...read the reviews...made certain that we were using the correct platform....and...WON'T work on Windows 98! The description says that it does. WRONG!! I'm hoping to get my money back and am very disappointed. Please correct this before someone else has this happen to them.

this game is a very intuitive game (literaly). Every five minutes you are controling some explosion or conflict. if you want to stop reading goahead and miss the evaluation

eccelent.
*all sides have their own ways to strategise
*the units will obey but may retor. units have lots of emotes
*if your hero dies he will be ressurectes for 1/3 the original price.
*there are destructive powerful units for each side: Rohan; ents Gondor; mobile and imoble catapults Isenguard; trols Mordor; immoble Catapults, Mumakil (giant elephants with spiked tusks) and trolls

not so excelent.
*limeted number of troops



the heros are: Rohan; Aragorn Gimli Legolas Eomer Eyown Merry and Theoden Gondor Pippen Faramir Boromir and Gandalf Isenguard; Sauruman Lurtz and Wormtounge Mordor; Gothmog and the 9 on fell beasts.

overall well done EA for making us "chalenge everything" with this game

Lots of excitement for hours of fun. MY son won't get off the computer!

this game is very well put toghether i would recommend battle for middle earth to anyone who plays strategy games.Thumbs up!

The only problem with this game is that my husband and son are now completely addicted. :-D

I got this game hopeing it would be deep and stack up to a game like ROME:Total War... but to my surprise I was greatly disappointed. This LOTR game is nothing innovative, it looks nice but is your basic clone strategy game. If you are looking for a deep strategy game this isn't it... if you are a huge LOTR fan, enjoy. I have been playing games since I was 3 so I've had about 16 years of experience... if you haven't been bored to death by basic strategy games you might like this, just hope the sequel will be alot better! If you aren't a big strategy player or want something alot deeper and not so "dumbed down"... you'll be bored of this game in less than a week.

I am the purchaser's son (26 year's old).

My little brother requested this game. Ever since I began playing it, I am intrigued by the complex plot (beyond that of the movie). I am also very impressed by the very ingenious special powers and various controls over the game that players can have (ie healing, planting forests, controlling ents, controlling attack type, gandalf's special power's, eomer's resource stealing, etc).

Excellent game- both my son and husband love it and are enjoying playing it all the time. Recieved it in excellent condition and within a few weeks from the time of placing the order. Highly reccomend this one!

Battle for Middle-Earth is a fun game, nearly everything I thought it would be. Not exacly the high king of games, but still pretty cool. I liked the fact that in this game, the different armies you can control have different units or creatures you can create. In other games I have, the armies are exactly the same, just different colors. My favorite army is Isengard, because I can control Uruk-Hai.I also like to use
calvary and large creatures because they can go straight through
nearly anything else.I the only things I don't like about the game doesn't have much to do with the actual game, just that the graphic chip on my computer doesn't work too well.

Up-front: this game is not ground-breaking or earth-shattering in how it plays or what kind of game it is. The genre of Real-Time strategy is well-established. The game honestly doesn't offer anything new or unheard of; but the game does have some strong points, it does do some things right and refreshing:

Graphics & Sound:
- The visuals in this game, with the right PC hardware, are fabulous. The terrain, the buildings, and the units are done very well. Zoom in with the mouse wheel and take a close look: there is very intricate details on everything. Nice touch. The animations for battle are great - sometimes it's amusing just to watch orcs get trampled by the Riders of Rohan!
- the soundtrack is great. If you liked the music in the movies then you won't be disappointed: there are some differences but they are subtle. The voice-overs are great and the sound effects are very well done. If you play this game a lot it will get repetitive - as with any game.

Gameplay:
- There is a decent campaign that spans, in a roundabout way, the basic story of the movie. The campaign offers a few choices but it is ultimately linear (the final outcome is one-way). You can choose good or evil to start but the path to victory is more or less set in stone. Depending on your skill this game can be very challenging or disappointingly easy. If you excel at RTS games in general then this game will be very easy for you.
- the skirmish (free battle) mode is fun. After the umpteenth skirmish it can get a bit tiring - there is a multiplayer matching service included with the game so you can test your skills online if desired. There weren't many options for customizing or configuring the game for skirmish mode.
- The best part of the game for me was using the heroes. There are many heroes from the movies in this game and each of them has unique powers and abilities. The heroes are the key to the game and can turn the tide of battles single-handedly. The visuals, sound, and abilities of the heroes were very well-done.

Performance:
- This game is a resource hog. You should have plenty of hard disk space, free system memory, and a really good graphics card if you want to enjoy the visual details. Turning up visual settings will radically reduce performance. The sheer number of armies on the screen hits the system hard - if you have a mainstream PC be prepared for some serious lag / slowdowns in big battles.
- Even with a high-end rig I found this game to be sluggish. It was certainly good enough to play without issues but not as fast and responsive as, for instance, Rise of Nations. Make sure your computer exceeds the minimum requirements by a comfortable margin or be prepared for slow performance and/or reduced graphics and sound quality.

Overall this game is a fun time but it is nothing new. The battles can get boring and the Lord of the Rings theme, though one of my favorites, doesn't make the game unstoppable. There aren't a lot of options for army types, gameplay modes, etc...
If you can find this at a decent price it's worth the fun it will bring.

2 Stars for the game itself, 1 for the Lord of the Rings thematic elements, and 1 for the excellent adaption of Heroes in the gameplay.

This is the BEST strategy game in a loooong time!! I'm 11, so I am really a game freak who's played a lot of bad games-I know a good game when I play one. This game is very addicting.The thing I like about it is that once you start a battle, you can get right into the action. It took me 1-2 days to get all of the controls and key shortcuts memorized so be patient. Personally, I strongly recommend you keep the detail on very low, the game has a vast world and a lot of different fields. Definitely a 5 out of 5 MASTERPIECE! Also, last time I checked, I saw the price on the game go down **Hint Hint, opportunity!!**

This is actually a easy game for people who are good at playing STG. Even though, you still can enjoy the storyline of The Lord of the Rings at lot. So, no matter you are new or expert of STG, you all will like this game.

This is a great RTS game, but I bought it for 39.99 and the next week it went down to 19.99. Oh well, should have waited, but still a great game.