battleformiddleearthii
Latest
EndWar controls to be nothing like Battle for Middle-earth II
EGM has secured some hot new details on the fourth pillar of the vast Tom Clancy empire, the RTS EndWar. The game is being headed up by Michael de Plater, a familiar name to fans of the Total War series, who said he's taking a different approach to the console RTS. In fact, EGM quotes him as saying "[The Battle for Middle-earth II] was a test case for exactly what we didn't want to do." Oh, snap!Reporting from the EGM info, CVG says the game will pit the U.S. Joint Strike Force, Russian Spetsnaz and European Enforcers against each other on fully-destructible battlefields, with fights limited to 12 squads at a time. With all of the questions that it does answer, EGM leaves the most important one on the table: Has no one realized that if this is, in fact, the "end war," it'll leave Tom Clancy slinging curly fries at Arby's? Hopefully we'll find the answer in next month's issue of the mag.
Today's TGS Marketplace content
The first batch of Marketplace content has (mostly) gone live. For your downloading pleasure, the following is now available.DOA X2 E3 Trailer (Japan)Project Sylpheed Trailer (Japan)Tenchu Senran TrailerHalf-Life 2 - Episode 2 TrailerTGS Picture PackTenchu Senran Demo (Japan)There are also map packs available for BFMEII, though one of them -- Aragorn's Journey -- is supposed to be free, it's not working correctly right now. Don't download it or you will be charged. The other pack -- Northern Badlands -- is not supposed to be free so, you can grab it for 350 MS Points if you want. Also, as of this writing, the Half-Life 2 - Episode 2 trailer doesn't seem to be up. We're not really sure if this counts as TGS content, but several XBLA games have been updated to take advantage of the Vision camera.360 at the Tokyo Game Show:HD-DVD for $170, $250 Core w/ Blue Dragon1080p for 360!
New BFME II maps
EA has released some new maps for Battle for Middle Earth II on Marketplace. There are three in total: Argonath, Umbar, and Weathertop. Fans will recognize Argonath as the location of the giant statues from Fellowship, and of course Weathertop is where Frodo was stabbed by the Witch King's Morgul blade. Sniff, sniff. Man, does it smell like nerd in here?[Via Into the Mind of Gerlach (no, really)]
Fear the power of The One Demo
If you haven't noticed, there is now a Battle for Middle Earth II demo available on Marketplace. It's available for every region, too -- and it's the perfect complement to the recently released walkthrough video. So, yeah, go get it.Cheers.[Thanks, Luis and KingOfGods]
Metareview: LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II
Our overlords friends at Joystiq have posted a metareview of the RTS that would be king, LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth II. Most of you are probably sick of hearing how the controls are going to revolutionize the RTS experience on a console, but it looks like EA managed to pull it off -- you'll probably have to get cozy with the manual for a while, though. And make sure you check out the tutorial because somebody seems to have missed it.Overall, the game averages out to an 84/100. Not bad at all. Hit the read link to see excerpts from major reviews. I plan to pick this up just as soon as I've got the scratch. Anyone care to join me?
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.]
