Articles
By Dfnz
Published: Mar. 4, 2007 10:17 PM
Expectations. Before even beginning to play a game, we inevitably bring with us expectations about what a particular title will offer. It is important to realise this, as one of the reasons we play games is to have these expectations met or challenged. Just by looking at the title data for The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for-Middle Earth II, a number of expectations have already been raised. Is this realisation of Middle-Earth one people will recognise? How will this type of game play on a console? These questions appear to have been of particular interest to the developers too, and the strong focus on the areas of artistic direction and control schemes, have had a significant effect on the overall direction of the game – perhaps sometimes to the detriment of other areas. But, on the whole this approach has paid off, and despite suffering some jarring technical issues, the game remains highly enjoyable, and – importantly – highly playable.
The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-Earth II (BFME2), includes both single and multi player game types. Single player consists of a Story mode, and the standard Skirmish mode, in which the player faces off against up to three computer controlled opponents. Story mode, which is split into two separate campaigns of Good and Evil, concentrates on the so-called, War in the North. Previously keeping within the comfortable market created by the recent Lord of the Rings films, the events portrayed in this game will be completely new to the majority of players – although they’d be forgiven for not noticing. You see, by recently purchased the game rights to The Lord of the Rings literature, EA have placed themselves in a unique position. By leveraging the art assets from Peter Jackson’s hugely successful trilogy, EA have managed to popularise what would otherwise be considered niche Tolkein mythology.
Maintaining this level of familiarity is important, and helps the game overcome a number of significant barriers to entry. Consider that many console gamers may have been under exposed to real-time-strategy (RTS) games in the past. At its core, the game involves the mechanics typical of the RTS; building structures to form a base, harvesting resources, and of course constructing an army. There are two resources in the game: Resources and Command Points. Resources represent a single currency which can be spent on structures and units and technology upgrades for structures and units. They can be gathered by naturally or by destroying enemy structures. Command Points dictate the maximum size of your army, and are gained by the types and position of structures you build. Some structures are used for defensive purposes, while others need to be built in order to construct your army.
The player’s army generally consists of a number of different types of units, each with different areas of effectiveness. Each of these units is made up of between 1 and 15 troops. As you can imagine the size of an army can quickly become immense, and this immediately presents a question of how to effectively control such a large force. Of course, the question of control was always going to be an issue when implementing a RTS game on a console. Interestingly though, arguably the first example of the RTS game-type was Herzog Zwei, published in 1990, for the Sega Genesis console. Since then the RTS has found its stride on the PC, where the mouse and keyboard proved a far better control solution than the console’s humble control pad. BFME2 attempts to overcome this problem by implementing an innovative control scheme, and simplifying some of the management aspects of the game. Importantly, micromanagement has been largely removed. Entire units are controlled as opposed to individual troops, and resource buildings operate independently, rather than having the player assign workers.
The selection cursor is fixed to the centre of the screen, which elegantly suits both the purposes of navigation and selection. Unit selection and movement is controlled via combinations of the A button, Left Trigger, and Left and Right Bumpers. This expertly provides one-click access to a single unit, all units of the selected type, all units on screen or the entire army. In addition, combinations of troops can be selected and book marked for easy access. Moving your units to an area of the map is achieved by a single press of the A button, while a double press will command them to attack any enemies they encounter along the way. The right trigger is reserved for the Palantir, or command menu, which provides access to special abilities of the selected unit or structure, access to researched spells, and selection of book marked units. The developers have done a fine job of ensuring that few commands are more than 4 button presses away.
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