The missions themselves follow some of the RTS conventions you’re used to seeing, but set against a The Lord of the Rings backdrop. For example, early on in the good campaign you’ll find a “move from one end of the maze to another without the heroes dying” mission, although it takes on a more interesting air due to its setting in the mines of Moria. You also find your fair share of “destroy” the other side missions. No big complaints there – this is all pretty much standard for the genre. Things get really interesting though when you fight a recreation of one of the battles from the trilogy. A siege takes on a whole new element when you are attacking or defending Helmsdeep or Minas Tirith.

The gameplay in BFME is designed to streamline a lot of the micromanagement you find in RTS games. First of all, there are no legions of peasants running around chopping wood or mining stone. Instead you build farms (or slaughterhouses if you’re evil) on designated sites and capture neutral structures, and they will automatically provide you with the resources that you need. Bases can only be built at designated locations as well, and there are a limited number of “slots” into which you can place structures. Obviously BFME is not a game that allows you to build giant bases. Well, you can’t build unlimited armies either thanks to the command point cap. This last point can be a bit of an issue late in the campaign when your army can be maxed out but you need to create new units in order to acquire some upgrades. So which veteran unit do you sacrifice?

Another feature that minimizes micromanagement is the game’s organization of units into companies. If you’re playing as Rohan for example, you don’t control individual horsemen but rather small cavalry detachments. This also helps you to manage your veteran units more easily as the entire company gains experience together.

BFME features an emotional factor for its units. After defeating a tough foe they will break out in cheers or cower at the sight of the army or foul creature waiting to crush them. This emotional factor does not seem to have a great impact on play, as frightened troops will still follow your orders into battle without a noticeable degradation in their fighting skills, but it’s a nice touch for a game that’s based on a story with such powerful emotional moments.

Many of the battles in the game ultimately become battles of attrition. While the good side tends to have smaller companies of more powerful units with the evil side the opposite, this balance does not provide a distinct advantage to either side. Thus you end up with a number of slugfests in which you battle back and forth for control over resource locations until one side can tip the balance in its favor. This all makes for some involved and gripping long playing battles which are generally entertaining for those with who don’t suffer from a lack of patience.

The AI in the game is not its strongest suit. It’s not that it is braindead or a pushover; it is more of an issue that the AI pursues some basic strategies to a fault. It seems to know when your armies are on the march and to try and attack the strategic point that you just left. It will still take them some time to win the missions, but veteran strategy gamers will find that they can exploit these tendencies to ambush or outflank the AI’s forces. The other side of the RTS AI coin, pathfinding, works well enough, though, and unlike many strategy games out there you can feel relatively safe sending your forces to a distant location without the need to babysit them every step of the way.

The Lord of the Rings story is one based on heroic and evil personalities and the game tries to capture this with the inclusion of hero units. These units will be old friends to anyone familiar with the books and movies as they include the key players such as Gandalf, Aragorn, and Saruman as well as secondary heroes such as Eomer of Rohan. The heroes are powerful units, but not so much so that they completely tip the balance of play in the game. Heroes gain experience as they defeat enemies, and as they level up they become more powerful and gain access to greater special powers. It certainly adds a lot to the game when you can use the Horn of Gondor or a timely spell from Gandalf to turn the tide of a battle. There is a bit of inconsistency in the heroes in that they can be a bit much to keep track of in their early weaker state. On the other hand, you can’t really keep them out of battle because you need them to gain experience or you’ll find the later missions to be very tough going indeed. You may find yourself losing the occasional mission because the hero you needed to keep alive got lost in the melee.

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