The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth

I've never been particularly good at real-time strategy games, despite my strong affinity for StarCraft and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. Like, I understand the mechanics but as far as any skill goes, the greatest proficiency I developed was typing 'power overwhelming' really fast.

Fortunately for this Lord of the Rings fanboy (in all media), The Battle for Middle-earth is a little easier to handle than the big RTS names. Hardcore players of the genre would doubtlessly see this is a bad thing, but as a byproduct of the films, I don't think this game was meant for anything short of mass appeal.

True to the nature of its source material, this RTS doesn't reset your resources and army between missions. At the beginning of a mid-story mission, the army you built up in the previous mission marches onto the field with all of their upgrades intact. For me, this raises the stakes a little; when the bad guys on level 9 kill the Rohirrim squad who's been kicking ass for me since level 3, it hits a little harder than if I'd just churned those horsedudes out of a stable two minutes ago. On the bright side it provides a continual sense of accomplishment. When my maxed-out Rohan army arrives at Minas Tirith, I see the result of all of the effort I'd put into the game thus far—even if that effort doesn't quite match what you'd have to put into a higher-tier RTS.

The campaigns are fairly okay at keeping the balance up, even as your forces grow. Like, if you build up a huge army that survives a mission, you're likely to beat the next one—but it's not a guarantee. That's my one criticism; 'normal' mode should've been a little harder.

I'm also unabashedly a sucker for alternate timelines and what-ifs, like Gandalf not falling off the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, Boromir surviving Amon Hen, or running the evil campaign so you can kickfuck the fuck out of the Fellowship and get your mitts on the One Ring. So the game is marginally neat for that kind of thing.

It's not at the hours-upon-hours level of fun, but it's good in short bursts. Especially if you enjoy the brief dopamine rush of watching a million fucking horses trample a squad of orcs to death.