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The Battle for Middle-earth II-The Rise of the Witch-King (hx) 09:53 PM CET - Feb,17 2007
The Lord of the Rings - The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the
Witch-King is an expansion pack to their J.R.R. Tolkien based fantasy RTS game
(it seems to be one of the longest ever official titles for a game). As the
title suggests, The Rise of the Witch-king, allows players to explore the evil
side of Middle-earth. The centerpiece of The Rise of the Witch-king is the new
Angmar faction. This is a creative interpretation of the country to the
northeast of the Shire created by the Witch-king some 2,000 years before Frodo's
adventure. Angmar's purpose was the destruction of Arnor, the great kingdom of
the Dunédain, Aragorn's people.
The game's single-player campaign, which runs around eight missions, begins
about 1000 years after the Battle of the Last-Alliance and spans about 500
years. During that time period, the Witch-king gathered a massive army and
destroyed one of the greatest kingdoms of Men, the kingdom of Arnor and
ancestors of Aragorn. In the missions, you will be responsible for build up the
Witch-king's army and carrying out the systematic destruction of Arnor. You will
be taken to locations that were never before visualized by the films such as
Carn Dum and the Barrow Downs. It's a remarkably different perspective on the
events of The Lord of The Rings and will be appreciated by both Tolkien fanatics
and those whose sole exposure to Middle-earth was through the Peter Jackson
movies.
The campaign, at least on normal difficulty, can be quite hard in
places, and you might be surprised to find yourself repeating a few of the
missions. Overall, it is an adequate diversion, which will take about 5-6 hours
to complete. Once the campaign is over, solo players can also enjoy a
much-improved War of the Ring mode. This turn-based tactical game of territorial
conquest was introduced in the original product.
The single-player skirmish mode lets you pit all the factions against each
other, and you can play with up to seven other AI factions. Multiplayer, well,
that's where it gets interesting. It supports online skirmish for eight,
and that's certainly where the bulk of the action will be found. As before, you
can face challenging campaign missions, with modes such as Competition, Control
Point, King of the Hill, and Hold Out.
Let's outline some of the new stuff:
Angmar faction and heroes - The game adds a new faction in Angmar
with five heroes (the Witch-king, Rogash - Troll of the North, Morgomir,
Karsh and Hwalder), eight base units and six summoned units, seven
structures, four fortress expansions, six fortress upgrades, five wall
upgrades and nine spells that are associated with Angmar. The new Angmar
faction details the fall of Men after the One True Ring was originally lost.
This splinter group of humans falls prey to Sauron's influence, enlisting
wolves, trolls, slavers, and evil sorcerers to their cause. To its credit,
this faction isn't just a reworked version of the Men of the West. They're a
totally unique addition, especially in terms of gameplay. Angmar is a
troll-heavy faction, so instead of horse cavalry, you get to stampede the
enemy with formations of trolls. To fully experience the evil side of
Middle-earth, gamers can now play as the Angmar faction in skirmish,
multiplayer, and War of the Ring modes.
New Hero classs - The game has a new hero class - the Olog-hai.
These are trolls, and EA has introduced a new variable hero cost, which
essentially means that customization will cost the gamer a lot.
New units - Some excellent new units, including Snow Trolls that
hammer through enemy ranks like legions of charging cavalry, coupled with an
array of imaginative new Heroes provide plenty of variety. Other interesting
units include the Thrall Master, who can summon an army type (orcs,
spearmen, dire wolf riders) in an instant, making them extremely versatile.
The sorcerers are interesting too, but fragile and require some close
micromanagement.
New structures - The map has been redesigned for more accuracy
including a bunch of new territories, regions (Gondor, Mordor, Rhun) that
grant bonuses when all territories included are captured, heroes can move
across two spaces of allied territory each turn, buildings produce resources
which rules unit production, and historical scenarios with set sides and
locations. Finally, units created in the real-time portion of the game carry
over to the strategic map. Armies can move up to two spaces at a time across
friendly territories that make the pacing much better. It's still got one
or two pacing issues, like having to rebuild a base in a territory when it's
re-invaded, but the War of the Ring mode is much more playable than before.
Upgraded "War of the Ring" Mode - Now offers upgraded army
persistence, a new siege dynamic on the Living World Map, and unified
territories that serve as major control points.
Improved Create-a-Hero system - Instead of a flat fee for custom
heroes, you can create heroes with different numbers of powers. The
more powers, the more expensive the hero will be in-game. A new hero type,
the Troll class, has been added as well with a different power tree. Troll
class grants you more creative freedom for your heroes in addition to new
weapons and armor that will allow you to have even more choices in
customizing your favorite heroes. More visual options are available, but not
so many that players will notice a huge change. Truthfully, the new
power-purchasing system should have been added with a patch, so that people
with the original game could receive this fix. In any event, the new system
here is much welcomed and makes player-made heroes more balanced and
interesting.
Overall, for those of you who were fans of the original from a single player
aspect, Rise of the Witch King doesn't really add that much more such it should
grab your attention. On other side, this expansion pack increases the longevity
of the original and more importantly improves on it, to make the whole
experience of Tolkien's world feel even more complete. The strongest point is
still multiplayer, with a huge online mapping and modding community meaning that
there won't be a shortage of new battlefields to fight on and new ways of
playing anytime soon. So, is it worthy of your purchase? If you are a hardcore
fan then go ahead and get it :-)
snd: 4/5 - great voice work for the new units, no real new music that plays during the game gfx: 4/5 -
no real difference from its predecessor, surprisingly boring trolls, Arnor faction in the campaign is little more than a re-skinned Men of the West faction playability: 4/5 -
huge battles, a short campaign, new Angmar faction, new units, great improvements to Create-a-Hero system, upgraded "War of the Ring" Mode
genre: real-time strategy platform: PC-DVD release: November 2006 developer:EA Los Angeles publisher:EA