The Battle for Middle-earth II received generally favorable reviews from video game critics. Reviews praised the game's integration of the Lord of the Rings universe into a real-time strategy title, while criticism targeted the game's unbalanced multiplayer mode. The Battle for Middle-earth II received numerous awards, including the Editors' Choice Award from IGN. At the end of March 2006, The Battle for Middle-earth II reached fourth in a list of the month's best-selling PC games. A Windows expansion pack for the game was released in November 2006, called The Rise of the Witch-king, which features a new faction known as Angmar, new units, and several gameplay improvements. The official game servers were shut down for Windows in 2010 and Xbox 360 in 2011, however Windows users may still play online using unofficial game servers.
It was given generally favorable reviews, receiving an aggregated score of 84% at Metacritic for its Windows version.[21] Praise focused on its successful integration of the Lord of the Rings franchise with the real-time strategy genre, while criticism targeted the game's unbalanced multiplayer mode. The Battle for Middle-earth II was given the Editor's Choice Award from IGN.[3] At the end of its debut month of March 2006, The Battle for Middle-earth II reached fourth in a list of the month's best-selling PC games, while the Collector's Edition peaked at eighth place.[35] In the second month after the game's release, The Battle for Middle-earth II was the 12th best-selling PC game, despite a 10% slump in overall game sales for that month.[36] The game's computer version received a "Silver" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),[37] indicating sales of at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom.[38]
Despite positive reactions, reviewers brought up several issues with the game. The British video game publication PC Gamer UK was unhappy with the game, claiming that Electronic Arts chose to release a formulaic game because it was a safer choice than taking The Battle for Middle-earth II in another direction.[27] PC Zone agreed with this view, claiming that although the game looked impressive, it took a by-the-numbers approach towards the real-time strategy genre in a "mindless sort of way", concluding that "in no way is it anywhere near the game we hoped for."[29] The game's multiplayer portion disappointed GameSpy, which found it too unbalanced compared to the heroes, whom they considered to be too strong.[9] Eurogamer considered the game to be of average quality, noting that there were no truly redeeming qualities.[23]
As of 30/04/2018, Tunngle was shut down. New regulations emerged regarding user data protection and Tunngle did not have the means necessary to update their system to meet those new regulations. As a result, Tunngle is no longer a usable source to play multiplayer Edain.
To switch back to Rise of the Witch-king, simply repeat steps 9-12 but instead select the lotrbfme2ep1.exe file located in C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Lord of the Rings, The Rise of the Witch-king.
Why the nostalgic hyperbole? Because I just found out about a fan project to remake EA's Battle For Middle-Earth in Unreal Engine 4. The plan is for the initial release to be multiplayer only, with the addition of "destructible landscape and surroundings" plus "sophisticated physics". The plan will not work, because EA have lawyers and they aren't afraid to use them. But a boy can dream.
Seeing those units again has flung my memory floodgates wide open. I played and enjoyed the campaigns in both games, but I mainly remember me and my friend being ensnared in evening after evening of multiplayer dueling. We dabbled with the multiplayer in the first game, but it was its sequel that got us hooked. He embraced the power of Men early on, picking that faction exclusively while I cycled between Elves, Dwarves and Goblins.
In the early part of battle, you need to get your economy going as quickly as possible. This is doubly true in multiplayer matches, since everyone starts off on the same footing. In the campaigns, because forces carry over, you may not have to blitz for the economy at the start of the later missions. However, under most circumstances, the first things you should build are farms or slaughterhouses, depending on your alignment.
Of course, when you talk about real-time strategy, you have to talk about multiplayer, which is one of the most popular aspects of these games. It's one thing to crush the computer in single-player, but it's far more satisfying (and challenging) to go online and battle friends and strangers. EA hasn't neglected multiplayer in the Xbox 360 version of the game, especially since Xbox Live offers a much stronger foundation for multiplayer gameplay than anything found on the PC. To test this out, we battled some of the design team recently to see how the multiplayer game plays.
The Battle for Middle-earth II will ship with a fairly large multiplayer suite. All six of the game's factions are available, of course, and there are a considerable number of maps. However, where the Xbox 360 version really impresses is in the number of multiplayer modes. There are five in the game (compared to just two in the PC game), and they're geared to provide different gameplay experiences as well as multiplayer matches that can be finished in as little as 10 to 15 minutes. First, there's versus mode, which is equivalent to the traditional skirmish mode. Everyone starts on the map with a small base and must crush everyone else to be the last man standing. You'll do this by building up a huge economy and an equally huge army with which you'll wipe out all the other units.
Then there's the capture-and-hold mode, which is somewhat similar to capture the flag, except that it features five capture points on the map, rather than one. The goal is to capture and hold as many points as possible in order to accumulate the most overall capture time. So, essentially capture and hold is the real-time strategy equivalent to the territories multiplayer mode in Halo 2. You'll have to decide how to divide your forces so you can capture and defend enough capture points on the map to win. You can expect yet another seesaw ride as players desperately attack and counterattack for these points.
However, perhaps the biggest difference between the Xbox 360 version and the PC version is voice. Very few PC gamers use headsets in real-time strategy games, but voice chat is a foundation of Xbox Live, which means that with the Xbox 360 version you can chat at length with your fellow players. It also means you can easily form alliances of convenience if some other player is threatening to win the match, or you can dish out some trash talk if your dragon just crushed someone's army. If you're a PC real-time strategy fan, multiplayer tends to be a fairly dry affair, as you have to use text chat to communicate. Having voice makes the experience much more personable.
While all this still won't make a difference to diehard real-time strategy fans on the PC, there's definitely promise for real-time strategy on the console. The fact remains that there just aren't any kind of real-time strategy experiences to be found on the Xbox 360, let alone Xbox Live. The Battle for Middle-earth II may fill this niche quite nicely, and it will offer a multiplayer experience that's vastly different from the many first-person shooters and sports games that are currently popular on Xbox Live.
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