{"id":327,"date":"2006-03-27T16:38:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-27T20:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=327"},"modified":"2006-08-18T12:40:07","modified_gmt":"2006-08-18T16:40:07","slug":"battle-for-middle-earth-2-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2006\/03\/27\/battle-for-middle-earth-2-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle for Middle Earth 2 rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or so says my review at Strategy Zone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is no perfect game, and Battle for Middle Earth II is no exception. But it is one of the best real time strategy games I’ve ever played.<\/p>\n

In the end, it boils down to elegance. Battle for Middle Earth II has six races, each with completely unique units. There are two alignments with different power trees. And each race has unique heroes (except for the good and evil super-heroes). All of this could get confusing.<\/p>\n

Somehow it doesn’t. The units mostly fit a rock\/scissors\/paper setup, but this is blown apart by the addition of trolls, heroes and the occasional flying beastie. The counters are usually pretty obvious in any case. After all, only archers can hit the airborne enemies, and heroes usually fit a couple of templates.<\/p>\n

And even if you don’t precisely know which counter to use, it probably doesn’t affect your enjoyment because the game is glorious in so many ways. Heroes can take stands against hordes of enemies. Fellbeasts and dragons swoop to attack and then must reorient for their next pass. Tom Bombadil sings and dances your enemies to death.<\/p>\n

BfME2, like its predecessor, is more for fans of the movie than fans of the book. There really isn’t enough random Middle Earth lore for your typical Tolkien geek. Things are meant to look good and brave (or evil and devious), so the game is solid evidence that good art design and colorful graphics can affect gameplay. Whatever “immersion” is, the clean look of Battle for Middle Earth II contributes to it.<\/p>\n

Now, this is an Electronic Arts game and it is fashionable in some circles to hate Electronic Arts. But they gave me The Sims. And now this. So as far as I am concerned, all is forgiven.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Or so says my review at Strategy Zone. There is no perfect game, and Battle for Middle Earth II is no exception. But it is one of the best real time strategy games I’ve ever played. In the end, it boils down to elegance. Battle for Middle Earth II has six races, each with completely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-5h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}