The Book of Screed - March 14th, 2008

Finished playing the Good-side campaign in The Battle For Middle Earth II tonight*. Last year I played the original game, which followed the War of the Ring from The Lord of the Rings. I enjoyed the original game, but it took egregious liberties with the plot. Gandalf the White accompanies the Fellowship to Lothlorien, and if you're quick enough, you can save Boromir at Amon Hen, and he'll accompany Aragorn to Helm's Deep, the Pelennor Fields, and the Black Gate.

The sequel is just as unfaithful to the plot, but it's great fun. You can play the Battle of Dale, when the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Dale have to stand against a huge force out of Mordor. (For some reason the Dwarves have four separate entrances into their mountain, and you have to defend all of them to hold the line.) In the final mission of the campaign, Elrond, Arwen, King Dain, and King Thranduil team up to storm Sauron's northern fortress at Dol Guldur. Again, grievously inaccurate, but great fun; Dol Guldur is an insane uber-fortification, equipped with dozens of catapults and arrow towers with interlocking fields of fire, and practically impossible to storm. The only way to win is to build siege camps at each and every entrance, and to chisel away at the defenses bit by tiny bit until you can storm the inner courts in one massive rush. This is all while beating back every sortie from within Dol Guldur, and not to mention the massive counter-attack that arrives after you breach the outer walls.

So; grievously unfaithful to the spirit of Tolkien's works, but still great fun.

-JM

*And, yes, I did do some writing this week.