WEll for those thinking about buying this game let me tell you what you are going to expect.
Some of the Best RTS graphics (screenshots don't do this game justice, only seeing the animations can you understand)
All the sound and most of voices from the movies (some are done with doubles but most is ripped right off the movies)
A good solid presentation
What you won't get are
A good well balanced multiplayer tournement like game
A Rome Total War type game
One thing that needs to be mentioned is the graphics, the unids are just oozing with personality and have different attack animations (sorta like Warhammer 40,000). The sound is also just as impressive with classic movie music that changes due to your situation (for instance when a siege happens the music gets more tense). The unit responces are also just as cool, most games when you click on a unit or in battle they will just say the same old things. They do that here but its more dependent on what you are doing for instance if you order your soldiers to go back to base they will say "We're going home, yay!!!" and if you enter enemy territory they say "Careful i fear the enemy has already taken hold of this area". The heroes are really fun and the units react to them with cheers when they see them (nothing like having a town be sieged and Gandolf comes in and starts knocking down trolls and all the soldiers start to cheer). Another cool thing is when you have legolas and Gimli with you they will start playing the counting game when in heavy combat (Gimili will start counting off orcs he slain and so will legolas).
The game is very fun but lacks the depth for a serious RTS player. Skirmish starts off with a base and you can only build structures on certain command areas in the map, there are no peasents and no traditional resorce gathering. Instead you build farms or slaughterhouses for resorces. Now this does add some customization since a good building strategy is key, should you build barracks or just build more farms for more money howevery you only have 5 slots in your base. Luckily you can find outpost on the maps and other farm areas and these become battlefields since everyone is striving for resorces. However in this RTS even if you have a huge lead in resorces the other side can still stand a chance due to heroes or a better use of his units (Gandolf in the right hands can wipe out whole armies by himself). It replicates the movies very well especially in sieges when the losing side seems hopeless and some how a hero shows up and turns the tide (you will constantly have a ROTK moment when your Gondor and the enemy is inside you're walls and you summon the Rohirim and the army of the dead and it wipes out hundreds of units).
Units are produced in battalions so you can't select individual soldiers (which is a good thing) and they can go up in experience (once reaching Rank2 they get a banner and can auto heal). You also have to puchase upgrades for your battalions independently (no upgrading better swords for all the units, you have to click on each unit and upgrade it there once you have the tech from the blacksmith). The buildings go up in EXP as well the more you use them which puts alot of focus on building big armies right from the start so that the building can upgrade itself and so you can upgrade the army on the field. A well equiped army is worth 2 or 3 of just the normal rank version. The whole game is tailored to aggression since your heroes can't get stronger without fighting and you can't gain anymore magic points to research new spells without killing things. If however you want to turtle in you can still do that easily especially with Gondor. There are also neutral structures in the game that if you destroy you get more gold (like troll caves and such), its sorta like Warcraft3.
One thing that will strike you right off the bat is that the game boost a much better interface then most RTS games. I usually found i was always looking at the bottom of my screen and not at the battles or I was spending too much time building an army or an econemy then i would fight a battle. Here there are no numbers like this unit does 34 damage and has 29 defence, you don't see any of that. The bottom screen is uncluttered and only has quickkeys to heroes. The mini map shows only units and essential terrian features (making it easy to find your units as well as building plots). It just feels very streamlined and easy to use, and the battles themselves are a delight to watch. In this game if you don't micromanage your battles you are at a complete disadvantage, there are mainly tactical solutions. You can combine 2 battalions into one battalion like an archer and a soldier class, so the soldiers will protcet the archers. The disadvantage is you can no longer select formations (which basically just act as tradeoffs, like -25% speed but you get +60% armor) and you can't seperate the 2 battalions (so they are stuck together... which means you can't deselect the soldiers so you can charge the enemy).
The game right now has some balance issues which will either get fixed with a patch or by a user made patch. Heroes like Gandolf, though expensive are very brutal and cave trolls can slauter 20 soldiers if you have no archers or spearmen. Cavalry can wipe out 80 to 100 foot soldiers easily. Men fall like flies in this and if you don't adapt by either pumping out more units or using your spells and formations you are going down quick. Some things do bug me and the first is weapon upgrades make your units glow (really stupid looking, they shoulda just gave them new skins... i mean alot of the units have different skins on them to diversify the army so why not just give them cooler looking swords or just a small icon over their heads). The heroes and units in the single player game are all proptionate to eachother but in multiplayer games the heroes are slightly bigger then normal sodliers (why i can still tell them apart when they are the same size... at least give me an option to turn that off). The game is all about the movie, so even though theres loads of crap from the book they could have added, they didn't.
The bottem line about this game is if you are a LOTR fan then you must buy this at sometime in your life. If you aren't a LOTR fan then this game will offer you some fun espeically if you like seeing units get slaughted by the hundreds. If you are an RTS fan, this does offer some inovation but its a patch or an expansion away from being something amazing.
Some of the Best RTS graphics (screenshots don't do this game justice, only seeing the animations can you understand)
All the sound and most of voices from the movies (some are done with doubles but most is ripped right off the movies)
A good solid presentation
What you won't get are
A good well balanced multiplayer tournement like game
A Rome Total War type game
One thing that needs to be mentioned is the graphics, the unids are just oozing with personality and have different attack animations (sorta like Warhammer 40,000). The sound is also just as impressive with classic movie music that changes due to your situation (for instance when a siege happens the music gets more tense). The unit responces are also just as cool, most games when you click on a unit or in battle they will just say the same old things. They do that here but its more dependent on what you are doing for instance if you order your soldiers to go back to base they will say "We're going home, yay!!!" and if you enter enemy territory they say "Careful i fear the enemy has already taken hold of this area". The heroes are really fun and the units react to them with cheers when they see them (nothing like having a town be sieged and Gandolf comes in and starts knocking down trolls and all the soldiers start to cheer). Another cool thing is when you have legolas and Gimli with you they will start playing the counting game when in heavy combat (Gimili will start counting off orcs he slain and so will legolas).
The game is very fun but lacks the depth for a serious RTS player. Skirmish starts off with a base and you can only build structures on certain command areas in the map, there are no peasents and no traditional resorce gathering. Instead you build farms or slaughterhouses for resorces. Now this does add some customization since a good building strategy is key, should you build barracks or just build more farms for more money howevery you only have 5 slots in your base. Luckily you can find outpost on the maps and other farm areas and these become battlefields since everyone is striving for resorces. However in this RTS even if you have a huge lead in resorces the other side can still stand a chance due to heroes or a better use of his units (Gandolf in the right hands can wipe out whole armies by himself). It replicates the movies very well especially in sieges when the losing side seems hopeless and some how a hero shows up and turns the tide (you will constantly have a ROTK moment when your Gondor and the enemy is inside you're walls and you summon the Rohirim and the army of the dead and it wipes out hundreds of units).
Units are produced in battalions so you can't select individual soldiers (which is a good thing) and they can go up in experience (once reaching Rank2 they get a banner and can auto heal). You also have to puchase upgrades for your battalions independently (no upgrading better swords for all the units, you have to click on each unit and upgrade it there once you have the tech from the blacksmith). The buildings go up in EXP as well the more you use them which puts alot of focus on building big armies right from the start so that the building can upgrade itself and so you can upgrade the army on the field. A well equiped army is worth 2 or 3 of just the normal rank version. The whole game is tailored to aggression since your heroes can't get stronger without fighting and you can't gain anymore magic points to research new spells without killing things. If however you want to turtle in you can still do that easily especially with Gondor. There are also neutral structures in the game that if you destroy you get more gold (like troll caves and such), its sorta like Warcraft3.
One thing that will strike you right off the bat is that the game boost a much better interface then most RTS games. I usually found i was always looking at the bottom of my screen and not at the battles or I was spending too much time building an army or an econemy then i would fight a battle. Here there are no numbers like this unit does 34 damage and has 29 defence, you don't see any of that. The bottom screen is uncluttered and only has quickkeys to heroes. The mini map shows only units and essential terrian features (making it easy to find your units as well as building plots). It just feels very streamlined and easy to use, and the battles themselves are a delight to watch. In this game if you don't micromanage your battles you are at a complete disadvantage, there are mainly tactical solutions. You can combine 2 battalions into one battalion like an archer and a soldier class, so the soldiers will protcet the archers. The disadvantage is you can no longer select formations (which basically just act as tradeoffs, like -25% speed but you get +60% armor) and you can't seperate the 2 battalions (so they are stuck together... which means you can't deselect the soldiers so you can charge the enemy).
The game right now has some balance issues which will either get fixed with a patch or by a user made patch. Heroes like Gandolf, though expensive are very brutal and cave trolls can slauter 20 soldiers if you have no archers or spearmen. Cavalry can wipe out 80 to 100 foot soldiers easily. Men fall like flies in this and if you don't adapt by either pumping out more units or using your spells and formations you are going down quick. Some things do bug me and the first is weapon upgrades make your units glow (really stupid looking, they shoulda just gave them new skins... i mean alot of the units have different skins on them to diversify the army so why not just give them cooler looking swords or just a small icon over their heads). The heroes and units in the single player game are all proptionate to eachother but in multiplayer games the heroes are slightly bigger then normal sodliers (why i can still tell them apart when they are the same size... at least give me an option to turn that off). The game is all about the movie, so even though theres loads of crap from the book they could have added, they didn't.
The bottem line about this game is if you are a LOTR fan then you must buy this at sometime in your life. If you aren't a LOTR fan then this game will offer you some fun espeically if you like seeing units get slaughted by the hundreds. If you are an RTS fan, this does offer some inovation but its a patch or an expansion away from being something amazing.
Time is but a window
Death is but a doorway
He'll be back
Death is but a doorway
He'll be back