LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 360 Demo Coming Today

[bapenguin]

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6153941.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6153941) is reporting that a demo for Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 should be hitting XBox Live Marketplace today.The trial will feature both single- and multiplayer and take gamers into the War in the North campaign. Console real-time strategy games will likely be unfamiliar to most, so EA has included a tutorial to show players how to use the 360's controller to direct their legions.

Good news. I've been on the fence with this. I really want to see the control scheme first hand. For the people that already own it...what's the verdict?

[TrackZero]

Yeah, yesterday's demo walkthrough video was kind of strange, as they kept refering to the 360 demo as if it was already out. ;)

[51|RandoM]

penny arcade had a few words to say about it, they might still be on their frontpage.

[TRiLoGY]

cool, I'm thinking of picking this up tomorrow when it is released in the UK.
The Demo will give me the opportunity to decide if i will still pick it up or not.. Although I'm pretty sure I still will buy it :)

[Food Nipple]

Well I got this game in the mail from GameFly yesterday, and so far its been fun. My only gripe is that there's a couple of features that I haven't figured out yet, and since I don't have the manual I don't know if they even exist.

1) Control/bookmarked units takes a few too many steps.
2) I want a way to snap back to my barracks quickly so I can train more units.

The third problem I was going to list, I figured out just as I was typing this. So basically, so far so good :).

[TDiddy]

The control scheme works quite well. It all makes complete sense if you do both tutorials. I agree that the unit bookmarks take too many steps to reach, but I did notice that the D-pad helps with that. As for snapping to the barracks, clicking the left stick brings you to your main castle, so if you barracks is close, that's not too bad.

[MSUStud911]

2) I want a way to snap back to my barracks quickly so I can train more units.

Click in one of the thumbsticks (can't remember which) and it takes you back to your fortress, which I would expect to be pretty close to your barracks.

My verdict after a couple of missions is that the game is surprisingly good. I'm not a big RTS fan, but I like Lord of the Rings and always thought this one looked interesting on PC. The controls are very good, and I expect after a little more practice I'll be able to do things very quickly.

[ldi222]

I was pretty impressed with this game when I played it on 360. The manual was horrible though.

[Mdot23]

i haven't really been into RTS's since red alert, but i wanted to give this a try so i bought it and it's been pretty good so far. controls are about as intuitive as you can get for a console RTS. graphics are decent, good art, but the shadows....ughh.

[HumpYourWay]

Good news. I've been on the fence with this. I really want to see the control scheme first hand. For the people that already own it...what's the verdict?

He bap, the controls are pretty well for a console RTS and the game itself is also nice. However the framerate sometimes really gets unbearable even in the tutorial map where not too much is going on in terms of massive armies.

[Wyrm]

Really though, the fact that you can control an RTS on 360 doesn't mean the game is fun. Download it and give it a try. I'm a huge LOTR fan, and a huge RTS fan, and I got bored of the first BFME after about an hour. It just isnt fun.

[snugglebearofdeath]

I'm very pleased with everything but the frame rate slowdowns and the abundant polygon tears all over the place. What's that you say? Those aren't polygon tears but shadows? Oops, my bad. ;)

[torrefaction]

I'm having a good time with it. It's worth it, particularlly if you passed on the PC version. It doesn't look quite as good as I expected (just shows what the 360 has done to my expectations.), but it's still pretty and has good art design. The game itself is a lot of fun, particularlly in multiplayer. The campaign remains pretty interesting itself.

AS far as the controls, I think they work very well. I agree that it takes too many steps to bookmark, but i've almost got that down by rote now. Let's put it this way. I had just as much fun playing this on my 360 as I did with my marathon session of Rise of Legends yesterday.

Also, the manual was fucking weak.

[TRiLoGY]

I'm very pleased with everything but the frame rate slowdowns and the abundant polygon tears all over the place. What's that you say? Those aren't polygon tears but shadows? Oops, my bad. ;)

Do you think they could fix the Slowdowns with a patch?

[torrefaction]

Do you think they could fix the Slowdowns with a patch?

I do...absolutely. It doesn't happen because of heavy activity, it just kinda...happens sometimes. My gut is it just needs a quick patch, and that we'll see it within the month.

[snugglebearofdeath]

Do you think they could fix the Slowdowns with a patch?

Lordy I hope so.

[Roc Ingersol]

hot damn I love me the XBL. Demos for consoles? Without having to buy stupid overpriced 'buy our shit!' magazines?

Good stuff.

[rjcc]

I do...absolutely. It doesn't happen because of heavy activity, it just kinda...happens sometimes. My gut is it just needs a quick patch, and that we'll see it within the month.


I dunno tho, I hear it happens on the pc version too.

[TRiLoGY]

I hope the Demo is out soon, lol.
I kind of wish that they wouldn't say "the Demo will be out today" as I just end up waiting impatiently for it. It would be better to just say "The Demo is now Available" so I wouldn't have to go through the waiting game.. lol :)

[torrefaction]

I dunno tho, I hear it happens on the pc version too.

Which gives me even more reason to think that it will be fixed :).

[dena miscreant]

Let's put it this way. I had just as much fun playing this on my 360 as I did with my marathon session of Rise of Legends yesterday.


Good to hear! I'm looking forward to playing it. I had fun with RoL, so hopefully this matches up.

I'll try out the demo today... I'm still downloading the NCAA 07 demo, though... and I haven't seen the Mass Effect or new Halo 3 videos, yet... and I haven't done very well in Frogger, yet... but, I'll definitely try it out.

[protojack]

I guess i'm just not into RTS games anymore, because I picked BFME2 the day it came out and i'm just not getting into it. EA did a great job of changing the controls to fit the controller, but I still think it doesn't quite work.

If anyone wants this game for cheap, i'll trade you for a copy of The Outfit or Battlefield 2.

[Pretzel]

Do you think they could fix the Slowdowns with a patch?

I hope so. Also, I hope they fix the shadows. They're all pixel-y and jittery, which looks horrible. I almost wish I could turn them off. I don't understand why they aren't filtered.

Their UI isn't totally obvious, either. I didn't discover the tutorial missions until after finishing the first map, because their main menu only shows one option at a time and it's not obvious that pushing left or right on the D pad selects the game mode.

One thing that's kind of amusing is the 0 point achievements you get if you lose 10 games in a row, or lose to someone ranked 20 below you.

[Tel Prydain]

penny arcade had a few words to say about it, they might still be on their frontpage.

Yeah, I read that - and although I'm normally ready to follow Tyco like a mentally retarded lemming I'll have to disagree with what he said.
To summarise: He thinks the controls are okay, but is disappointed that BfME2 was not created from the ground up to be a more ‘console centric’ experance. Or in his own words he was looking for: " A game that focused on fast-paced tactical combat, with genre twiddlery diminished. Imagine a hybrid of Myth's point-based army creation and the most potent fantasy brand in the known universe."

I think that's just dumb. Sure - I do think that there is room for a console centric RTS, but BfME2 was not that game. If they had dispensed with the ‘genre twiddlery’ we would now be hearing cries of “HAHaaaha, its dumbed down, dood. LOlz! LozErs”.
I think EA made the right call on this – they ported a well-liked PC RTS and managed to keep it 90% intact. They have proven that a console can support a PC-style RTS and thusly opened the door for many, many others.