It’s important that you know what your strengths are in life. It’s all well and good having ‘a go’ in an area in which you’re unfamiliar and dabbling in pools that are beyond you is a great way to improve yourself, but needlessly treading on the toes of others is, in many ways, simply foolish if you are aiming to compete in a way that you, well, just can’t compete in. The best that can be said for you in these instances is that you’re brave. Something likely to be followed swiftly by another saying: ‘or very stupid’. In any case, bravery is overrated.

Battle For Middle-Earth II is a particularly brave game. Obviously not for any outstandingly valiant reason, but for what it’s attempting to achieve. The RTS genre resides on PC, not on the console. The reasons for this are varied but it’s possible to gather up all these reasons and merge them into one – and that's that RTSs simply work a whole lot better on the PC. The general environment while gaming on a PC lends itself to the genre. With your face merely inches from the screen it’s easy to be immersed in the ‘world’ that you’re in control of. The control is absolute. The keyboard/mouse combo ensures this. Complex situations and riotous battle zones can be manipulated quickly and efficiently while you glide your cursor around the screen and create groups, waypoints and various other shortcuts using various hotkeys. ‘Ideal’ is the word that best suits. Combine this perfection with the epic Lord Of The Rings setting and it’s no surprise that the first title did so well back in 2004.

Now, two years later, the second title is upon us, but it’s also on the 360 – hence its relevance in this particular publication – which will immediately split the gaming community into two. Mixed feelings certainly aren’t uncommon when games famed for appearing on a certain platform start drifting towards former enemy formats. The optimists are fond of the sharing and the opportunities offered, while the rest appear disgruntled at the fact that focus is now being split – a fear of buttering too thinly, if you will. Well, that doesn’t matter, it’s here – whether it’s considered a good idea or bad – and us 360 owners now have the chance to see exactly what PC owners have been making such a fuss about.

Those who were into the movies could end up disappointed however. It’s been a fair number of years since the films were raking in the cash at the cinemas and it seems that the many games that have been launched since then – including the first in this series, of course – have milked the stories and battle contained within the films dry, to the point where they appear withered and drained, in fact. Fortunately, as most of us know, there was an awful lot more to Middle-Earth than was actually revealed in the trilogy, and a plethora of other books have been waiting to be exploited once the collection of the ‘easy money’ had come to an end, and this is where this second instalment is taking its plot from. Basically, you may not know what’s going on as well as you thought and therefore a read of the instruction booklet – or a couple of books - may well be in order. Everyone hates it, but it’s just necessary sometimes...

We are now in the north of Middle- Earth. Frodo and the other halflings are all messing about smoking, drinking and dancing in a ridiculous manner, utterly unaware that they are soon to embark on the lengthiest journey ever watched. Everyone else though, totally at war. Which is good for an RTS game. No war = rubbish RTS game. Classic Pythagoras. Everyone is involved this time though, so the armies you get to choose from are as varied as you would hope. There were only four available armies in the first title, if our memories serve us correctly, and although it was a fine game, we remember feeling a little let down by the lack of options in this area. To find that this has been addressed for the sequel was a good first sign. Alongside the humans, Riders Of Rohan-types, forces of Mordor, and Isangard, you now have the choice of elves, dwarves and goblins. Although, ultimately, these armies fall into one of the two different campaigns – good or evil – the mix of attributes is welcome. The goblin army relies upon its fast creature creation and large numbers to overwhelm opponents, the elves are superb ranged attackers and the dwarves specialise in heavy machinery. It’s just nice to have the choice really.

When it comes to gameplay, balance is absolutely superb – a good sign for the multiplayer skirmishes that are soon to be taking Live by storm – and a finer RTS is not to be found. Visually and audibly the title delivers, but there are a few minor flaws that really shouldn’t be here.

The first title introduced us to a new way of building. Rather than a slapdash ‘build whatever you want wherever you want within reason’ approach à la Command And Conquer, set spaces were available to be built upon and further building opportunities would have to be hunted down and claimed. It was an ingenious way of keeping gameplay interesting and ensuring players had to spread their forces and engage in tactical battles rather than indulging in the cheapness that many titles in the genre allow. For some reason, this feature has disappeared and we have been forced to revert to the old ways of constructing. It’s now possible to design your base as you like, which while it gives you more opportunity to customise, allows you to simply ‘turtle’ until you have sufficient upgrades and forces and then send out a mammoth force to smash your opponent. Although this won’t work against human players, the AI the game has been blessed with hasn’t figured it out yet, and so the single-player experience seems a little shallow. Sure, most RTS games have had the same fault, but they had found a way around it, so why go back?

And so, we end in the same way this all started – with bravery. Remember we said the game was brave? Well sending a title such as this into battle without a mouse is essentially throwing it to the lions. An RTS game NEEDS a mouse. We mentioned before that the genre suited the PC because of the level of control that’s available. The 360 doesn’t have this control and suffers greatly because of it. Entire hour-long battles can be lost due to you not being able to select a group in time. Watching six armourplated trolls stroll towards your base is intimidating enough, but when you then have to flounder around for 30 seconds while you attempt to gather enough of a force to combat them, it’s just plain ridiculous. These things can knock down your entire base defence in 30 seconds. WE DON’T HAVE 30 SECONDS!

It all boils down to where you want to issue blame. Can you really blame the title when it’s obviously a hardware issue that’s causing the problem? Should you blame Microsoft for not realising that progression suggested this sort of title would be appearing on their console, and not reacting appropriately? The SNES had a mouse. It came with Mario Paint. It’s not difficult. Or maybe it’s EA who is to blame for releasing the title now, when the machine can’t handle it as well it may do in a year’s time?

To be honest, it doesn’t matter. The bravery has paid off. The game suffers for this reason, but it manages to come out of it fairly well. Sure, it could have been better, but nothing can take away the fact that the Battle For Middle-Earth II is a fine title that gives us the chance to sample one of the best RTSs on the market without shelling out £2,000 on an adequate PC. Nobody complained when Lemmings was brought to consoles and failed to perform as it did on the PC. It was a quality title and players were thankful for that. Tolerance may be needed, but you’d be foolish to pass this particular Lord Of The Rings title by. Let’s just hope that further adjustments are made in the future and we can soon enjoy the genre as it’s meant to be played.

Rick Porter