Metareview - LOTR: The Battle for Middle-earth II (Xbox 360) [update 1]

The PC game already debuted in March to decent reviews so, instead of recapping what's right and wrong with the game as a whole, let's get right down to the issue we're all wondering about: the controls.

EA's Los Angeles studio contains the venerable Westwood Studios, well known as RTS pioneers for titles like Dune II and Command & Conquer. So it is, under their watchful eye, that they sought to deliver the heretofore mouse-centric experience of real-time strategy games to the console world. So, how did they do?

• IGN (82/100) is equivocal in their praise saying: "The controls aren't perfect and they're by no means the equivalent to the quick, precision controls of the PC's mouse and keyboard duo, but they do in fact work. I'll even go so far as to say they work better than any other console RTS -- period."
  

• GameDaily (80/100) wonders where the tutorial is (and apparently missed it): "While the control scheme is listed in the manual and through the in-game pause menu, there's no tutorial mode. The control scheme works extremely well once you've adjusted to it, but the moment you pick up the game, you won't know what you're doing. A training mode of some sort (at least as an option) would've been nice for a game of this nature, but Xbox 360 owners should be adjusted to the control scheme by the second or third mission."

• Yahoo! Games (90/100) seconds the manual recommendation and steep learning curve: " So yes, you need to read the manual. You're probably going to want to have it on your knees for the first few hours of play, and within arm's reach for a day or two more. The controls are well thought out and comprehensive, but the advanced functions are not intuitive. Many commands rely on double or triple combinations of face buttons and triggers or bumpers. You'll need to learn them."

So, it sounds like EA Los Angeles has done the impossible; they've delivered a console RTS with controls that are almost comparable to its PC counterpart. For console gamers (many of whom were former PC gamers) this is a praiseworthy innovation. Now that the path has been revealed, will other developers target the RTS-less console gaming world?

[Update 1: whoops! GameDaily missed the tutorial mode, as Major Nelson helpfully points out here. He says, "scroll left on the D-pad from Single Player->Tutorial." Sounds easy.]