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Game-play
Something
that caught my attention, right off the bat, is the loading
times.
The
game starts and shows some movie-clips of the sponsors and
studios involved in making the game and then it loads the
actual game.
Now
with the games getting bigger, as they do more and more
these days, the startup loading screen usually can take
a bit longer to display and even the loading of a new game
takes a while.
In
this case it takes a bit longer for every loading and saving
action you have in the game and it borders along the line
of annoying.
I’ve
tested this across 3 computers and on all of them the loading
times were quite long. Perhaps
I’m a bit impatient, though when a friend of mine wanted
to see what the game looked like, he concluded the same
thing.
On
with the game, the battles are spectacular and epic.
As
with most RTS games the console is very intuitive and can
be easy to use once you're familiar with it.
If
the game doesn’t feel that intuitive for you, you can choose
to use the battle school option from the main menu.
That
option gives you a series of tutorials to help you find
your way through the game.
It
explains the units, buildings and controls, possible most
of everything you need.
As
you can see from the screenshot, there’s a map to guide
you around.
The
map console also displays the resources you have and the
power points you have collected.
Power
points unlock the spells available to each side, good or
evil.
Some
spells are passive and aid you through each battle you play
and some spells are active only for a certain amount of
time or for a quick fix.
Power
points are awarded with certain levels and with the amount
of experience you gain with in-game battles.
Next
to the map console is a small control console to control
your units with.
There
you can see the rank of your unit or building and the experience
it has gained, but also shows the upgrade, attack and formation
options.
When
buildings increase in experience and in rank, more options
become available and when units increase in rank and experience
they are more resilient to attacks.
Each
hero in the game has its own icon so you can quickly locate
them in the midst of battle.
They
also have special powers or moves that increase with the
ranking they have. Ranking
also increases the damage they do and their health, making
them less easy to kill.
Maximum
ranking for heroes is 10.
When
heroes die, you can recreate them at your citadel or camp,
but of course at a great cost.
They
won’t loose their ranking if you recreate them in the same
level as they have died.
Level
selection is easy and gives you some choices through a map.
The
map is of course situated in and around middle earth as
described in Tolkien’s books.
Here
you can strategically choose which level to do first, allowing
you to build up resources or power points as you please.
The
levels are a mix of “simple” battles and of levels where
you have to accomplish a certain goal.
In
each level are also some bonus goals you can achieve to
score points.
As
you advance in the game the battle will become harder and
bigger. This
is where unit and hero veterancy comes in; with each level
they gain veterancy and become stronger.
Combined
with the spells this should make the bigger battles easier
to win, if you play your cards right.
If
you choose the good side the game will follow the movies
more closely, and it will alternate missions, sometimes
giving you missions where you only have to help the fellowship
of the ring get somewhere, or with missions where you only
have to take back the land from the evil hordes.
With
the bad side the missions will change sometimes too, but
most often you will have to conquer all the good forces
in the region in the end.
All
in all this makes for a good mix and the game has lots of
missions to keep you busy.
As
I mentioned before the units and heroes can gain in experience
and damage points until they reach the highest level they
can reach.
When
you combine that with the spells you have bought during
the game, it makes the bigger battles a lot easier.
Some
say when you choose "easy" as your skill/difficulty
level, the game becomes very easy to work through once your
heroes become level 10. So
this really comes down good strategic planning. Combined
with the right skill/difficulty levels you have a skilled,
entertaining game.
I’ve
tested the game on 3 computer configurations, varying from
somewhat low-end to reasonably high-end.
On
the low-end system and with the bigger battles the game
play slows down quite a bit, in fact it almost crippled
it.
In
one case with Forceware drivers on a Geforce FX 5950 and
AMD Athlon 3000+ XP, the drivers warned me that a voltage
drop was detected and the performance of the GPU would be
halved, after which it informed me the GPU was overheated
and the performance would be halved too.
I
had checked the temperature immediately afterwards and it
was within normal limits, far below the warning trigger.
That
is kind of odd, but demonstrates the resource drain it can
have on your system.
Conclusion
The
3DVelocity 'Dual Conclusions Concept' Explained: After discussing
this concept with users as well as companies and vendors
we work with, 3DVelocity have decided that where necessary
we shall aim to introduce our 'Dual Conclusions Concept'
to sum up our thoughts and impressions on the hardware we
review. As the needs of the more experienced users and enthusiasts
have increased, it has become more difficult to factor in
all the aspects that such a user would find important, while
also being fair to products that may lack these high end
"bonus" capabilities but which still represent
a very good buy for the more traditional and more prevalent
mainstream user. The two catergories we've used are:
The
Mainstream User ~ The mainstream user is likely to put
price, stock performance, value for money, reliability and/or
warranty terms ahead of the need for hardware that operates
beyond its design specifications. The mainstream user may
be a PC novice or may be an experienced user, however their
needs are clearly very different to those of the enthusiast,
in that they want to buy products that operate efficiently
and reliably within their advertised parameters.
The
Enthusiast ~ The enthusiast cares about all the things
that the mainstream user cares about but is more likely
to accept a weakness in one or more of these things in exchange
for some measure of performance or functionality beyond
its design brief. For example, a high priced motherboard
may be tolerated in exchange for unusually high levels of
overclocking ability or alternatively an unusually large
heat sink with a very poor fixing mechanism may be considered
acceptable if it offers significantly superior cooling in
return.
The
Mainstream User ~
The
game is very nice to play. as it
puts you right smack-tab in the middle of all the action.
The
only thing that might give you reservations are the somewhat
long loading times and performance issues that surface in
the later stages of the game.
Trying
to find a bright side, the performance requirements might
keep you playing the game for while, trying the game on
newer computers for the performance boost.
The
Enthusiast ~
The
game is a nice addition for those who have seen the movies.
Now
you can be an intricate part of the epic battles for middle
earth.
In
this case the performance issues the game has in the later
stages are less likely to cause concern because as an enthusiast
you probably own an up to date/faster computer or at least
a computer better geared to gaming than most normal users.
If
you don’t mind the longer loading times and really love
RTS games, then this is the game for you.
We're
always looking for ways to make our reviews fairer. A Right
To Reply gives the manufacturer or supplier of the product
being reviewed a chance to make public comments on what
we've said. They can explain perhaps why they've done the
things we were unhappy with or blow their own trumpet over
the things we loved. It's easy for us to pick a product
apart but sometimes things are done a certain way for very
specific reasons.
Should
EA decide to exercise their "Right To Reply",
we'll publish their comments below:
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