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The first battle for middle earth was cool, but the second one looks amazing! It brings in just about everything that the first one left out - you can play as Goblins, Dwarfs, and Elves. The game brings back all the maps from the first game, but they are re-done so they look more like they did in the movies. Characters and events from the books are also added. The unit cap is no longer 200 - it's going to be over 1000 I believe. The beta version of the game let's you play with 700! You can also do things like create your own fortress so your not stuck with the lame standard one. There's more that I forgot. Anyone else getting this game when it comes out March 2nd? Want to start a clan or something?

Am not overly impressed with the units listed for the goblin army - seems to be a lot of units that 'would be cool' to have on the map, but don't really seem related. Why would the giants be on side with goblins? Why would the self-serving dragons be on side? I'm liking the fact that they've got the rights to do stuff from the books, I'm also liking the ability to build your base whereever you like for a change, but since I won't be able to run it on my laptop, I don't think I'll have to worry about it.

El Moose Monstero wrote:Am not overly impressed with the units listed for the goblin army - seems to be a lot of units that 'would be cool' to have on the map, but don't really seem related. Why would the giants be on side with goblins? Why would the self-serving dragons be on side? I'm liking the fact that they've got the rights to do stuff from the books, I'm also liking the ability to build your base whereever you like for a change, but since I won't be able to run it on my laptop, I don't think I'll have to worry about it.

I don't even know what the system specs are, Lol. About the giants - why couldn't the Goblin King just recruit them like how Elves recruit Ents? Ents and Elves share a love for the forest, and perhaps Giants might share some passion with Goblins.

I suppose so, Saruman was able to summon a Balrog in the first game, I'm probably being too pedantic with regard to game vs book universe. Although I wonder how justified we are in being pedantic with these sorts of book/film conversions anyway - whether it's better to demand total purity or good game mechanics (or both ).

El Moose Monstero wrote:I suppose so, Saruman was able to summon a Balrog in the first game, I'm probably being too pedantic with regard to game vs book universe. Although I wonder how justified we are in being pedantic with these sorts of book/film conversions anyway - whether it's better to demand total purity or good game mechanics (or both ).

This is true. Having a game that is 'pure' might not be as fun as having a game with an un-expected surprise or two - as long as it doesn't cripple the movie and book storylines.

I highly enjoyed the first game and will probably pick this one up eventually (there are a lot of games coming out this month and in March that I want to get my greedy little hands on, so I'm not quite sure when I'll get around to purchasing this one).

That said, I'm not as excited about it now as I was when I first started hearing things about it. I was originally under the impression that each race would have it's own campaign, hence there would be a Men of the West campaign, an Orc campaign, a dwarf campaign, an elf campaign, etc. Now that I've learned that there are just two campaigns, a good guy campaign and a hero campaign like the last one, I'm less eager, but not so much so that it's off my list.

Trogdor wrote:I highly enjoyed the first game and will probably pick this one up eventually (there are a lot of games coming out this month and in March that I want to get my greedy little hands on, so I'm not quite sure when I'll get around to purchasing this one).

That said, I'm not as excited about it now as I was when I first started hearing things about it. I was originally under the impression that each race would have it's own campaign, hence there would be a Men of the West campaign, an Orc campaign, a dwarf campaign, an elf campaign, etc. Now that I've learned that there are just two campaigns, a good guy campaign and a hero campaign like the last one, I'm less eager, but not so much so that it's off my list.

I don't understand the campaign thing - you can only play as the good guys, or as hero's? What does that mean.

Ah, sorry, that was mistake. I meant as good guys or bad guys.

Trogdor wrote:Ah, sorry, that was mistake. I meant as good guys or bad guys.

Oh ok. Lol. The first game was the same way though - but you did get to play as all the factions: Rohan, Gondor, Isengaurd, Mordor. I suspect this game will be exactly the same, except for the fact you will get to be the Elves, Dwarfs, and Gobblins in addition to the above.

Gamespot released the demo yesterday, but my laptop quit about halfway through. Anybody successfully download or going to give it a try?

As for the Giants and Goblins being allied, in The Hobbit it speaks of the mountain orcs as 'goblins', and comments on there being giants in the mountains as well, throwing stones at each other. That's probably where that comes from.

Trogdor wrote:Gamespot released the demo yesterday, but my laptop quit about halfway through. Anybody successfully download or going to give it a try?

I'm downloading the demo as we speak. It's only going at 100K/s . The demo is 100% free, and 1.36GB. I can't wait to play it.

The demo was ok. All I got to play was skirmish on 1 map - but I did get to play as the Goblins and the Dwarfs. With the Goblins, I captured the One Ring, and summoned Sauron, which was cool. The game plays a lot like the first one, but it is cleaned up VERY nicely. The command limit goes as high as you want - on the original game, you only had a command limit of like 350 or something; but even in the demo, my command limit grew to over 2150 (you build certain structures to increase the limit).