The Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth Anthology

by Electronic Arts

Product Features

• Lead the forces of good or evil by controlling 4 unique groups, from the Riders of Rohan to the forces of Sauron
• Forge new heroes and customize their abilities and powers -- lead them into battle where they'll gain experience and rank in their quest for victory
• Be amazed as your army expresses emotion - they'll get angry, fearful or triumphant depending on their surroundings
• All-new intuitive, streamlined Interface gives you contextual control of your forces and structures
• Challenge fellow rulers online in massive multiplayer battles Lord of the Rings - Battle For Middle Earth II features -

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000N4JEN2
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: March 1, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,836 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #60 in Video Games > PC Games > Role-Playing
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Command the legendary heroes and armies of legend in Lord of The Rings: Battle For Middle Earth Anthology. Your goal is to step into a new world, one taken from the books & films. Wage all-out combat against either the forces of good or the armies of evil, controlling troops and managing resources. The fate of a continent is your hands! Includes Battle For Middle Earth I & II, plus the Rise Of The Witch-King expansion.

Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle Earth features: Single-player story campaign takes you to previously unseen Middle-Earth places and battles - Dol Guldur, The Misty Mountains and Mirkwood Control battles with all-new enemy AI, melee combat, and flanking, adding unprecedented tactical fidelity Extend your battlefield with larger than life battles at sea Create your own hero with in-game avatars & customized RTS units Unleash powerful new weapons and abilities - summon dragons, cause volcanoes to erupt, or bring down a cataclysmic lightning strikeLord of the Rings - The Rise of the Witch-King features - Lead an evil faction's invasion of Arnor, home of Aragorn's ancestors Play the new Angmar faction in skirmish, multiplayer, and War of the Ring modes Upgraded Create-A-Hero features - New roll class boasts additional weapons and armor, for more customization War of the Ring - A Risk like meta-game offering upgraded army persistence, a new siege dynamic on the Living World Map and unified territories that serve as major control points All-new content from Tolkien's original stories, delving deeper than ever into the story behind the award-winning movie trilogy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Compatible with 64 bit Windows 7, December 5, 2010

By 

Rhondalynn G. Brown (Pinon, AZ, Navajo Nation) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth Anthology (DVD-ROM)

I was eager to purchase this game, but took the precaution of checking with the Microsoft Windows 7 Compatibility Center and discovered that none of these games will work with 64 bit Windows 7 (though they are compatible with 32 bit Windows 7).

Naturally, I'm running the 64 bit version so I'm out of luck, but glad I checked first!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty good game, a little tedious, October 6, 2010

By 

ghillisniper300 "Seek truth with discernment" (everywhere) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth Anthology (DVD-ROM)

I would like to review all of the games included, but I really don't want to do each one seperately. I may. But for now, I'm reviewing them each seperately within this Anthology review, because that is how I bought them.

I actually got BFME the first as a gift and then later bought the Anthology on sale.

The first BFME was a great game. I enjoyed the departure from many of my RTS experiences where I could keep units between battles, making an "army" that persisted in the world map. I also like having heroes that level up and have various powers. It could get very difficult to upgrade battalions in BFME due to the way buildings levelled up. I often would find myself with a command limit that required me to train single battalions at a time, and then send them to the enemy camp to commit suicide so I could build another battalion. After many of these I could finally purchase upgrades for my single new battalion that I wished to keep. Otherwise, you have to send your veteran battalions to their deaths and start over, which is pointless.

My other complaint of BFME is how tedious some of the battles could become. However, as a general rule, there were enough different battles that it was interesting and fun, and many of the battles were vastly different. I remember steamrolling several maps and then playing another map for 3 nights straight before I worked around the map and was able to finally defeat the enemy. Additionally, the battels such as Helm's Deep, Minis Tirith, and the Black Gate were just really fun to play.

Graphically the game is great. Sometimes the maps get a little repetative but they are well made and look good. The gameplay is amazing, and I love how cavalry can just run over archers and even swordsmen to do damage to them without actually "attacking" but suffer great damage when they charge pikemen. Likewise, arrows and especially flaming arrows can do great damage to large beasts such as mumakil and trolls, sometimes causing them to "rage". There are also nice little combinations like explosive "mines" that can be set off with flaming arrows. For instance, I once piled "mines" completely around a Gondor fortress. It took a while but was worth it when I set the first one off and the entire wall exploded along with several of the buildings inside the wall.

Battle for Middle Earth 2 had some improvements over the first game, and in my opinion left a few things out that should have been included. And I have to admit, I could be wrong on some of this because I quickly got confused about the different game modes.

If I'm not mistaken, you no longer get to keep battalions from one battle to the next in the campaign. I do NOT like that. It is much easier to upgrade however, because you simply pay resources to upgrade buildings. It is odd that I would prefer the upgrade methods to be switched between the games because in BFME2 you don't start with masses of troops so you have more command limit to use up, and in BFME1 you would have a much easier time upgrading if you just had to pay for the upgrades to level the buildings up. That is really my one major complaint about the sequel.

Also, the story seems a bit disjointed to me, but it could be because I am unfamiliar with the stories being told in the campaign of BFME2 and Rise of the Witch King.

What I like is the ability to purchase boats, although they rarely come into play (they need an island hopping map), and the ability to create your own hero. I also love War of the Ring mode, at least in RotWK (I admittedly haven't played it in BFME2).

Another great addition is the ability to build anywhere on the map. I also love being able to construct walls, at least as some factions. The walls are a bit odd because sometime the enemy can simply pass through them, but that is not normally the case. Some enemies can climb them which is cool. The resource structure system is improved as well, allowing you to build them just about anywhere but they are vulnerable and only give a proportion of their potential depending on where you place them.

War of the Ring mode gives you a world map, and allows you (in single player) to select your team and your enemies and their starting locations. You can even team up the Men with Mordor if you wish. Then it becomes a "Risk" style world map game with teams taking territories, building structures, and training troops. When you attack or defend, you can chose auto resolve or RTS. In RTS, you go into the map and play as normally, with forces persisting from the world map. It is actually very fun though it can be a bit tedious at times. I enjoyed it more than the actual campaign. My only real fault of that is that it isn't very intuitive and takes a bit to figure out how the armies are allowed to move and group up, and you can use one created hero but that hero can not lead an attack. Nor can any purchased hero. This is actually to keep it balanced and force you to only attack 4 regions in a move with your original heroes, but it can get frustrating.

Graphics: 90% all across the board
Gameplay/Physics: 100% (I'm combining them because there isn't much in the way of physics other than what is included in the gameplay)
Maps: 85%
Replay Potential: 85% (you can play as different factions, or set up War of the Ring with different starting rules)
Artificial Intelligence: 65% (they can get very stupid at times)
Detail: 90% (not much to detail but they do it well, I would rate the first game slightly lower than the second if I seperated them)
Story: 85% (a little light, but if you know the story prior to playing it is fine)
Interface: 80% (can get confusing but not bad).

Total Rating: 85%....not bad.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets better & better, August 18, 2008

By 

Aron G. Sebastian "agsebastian" (Greensboro, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth Anthology (DVD-ROM)

Expands on LOTR Battle For Middle Earth by expanding the capabilities of the original, including the ability to create Heroes from a variety of races with a large variety of powers. Battle For Middle Earth 2 is pretty difficult compared to the original, but my 13 year old has mastered it and loves it for it's creating capabilities. The last episode is Rise Of The Witch King which is exciting, has great graphics, and a cast of characters new and a few familiar.

I have never been much of a fan of RPG before (Role Playing Games), but I have really had lots of fun with this LOTR Anthology. It is great fun and never ceases to challenge and frustrate. All in all - 5 starts