SparkyDino: Toa of Swordsmanship

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Yeah, I had that

Behold, my new "After Post" :

If you have Battle for Middle Earth, please P.M. me

This is my review for Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 Micellaneous Information The game was released on March 2nd 2006. It was published by EA (Electronic Arts), and is set in J.R.R. Tolkein's Fantasy World, Middle Earth. For this game, Electronic Arts have managed to obtain the rights to the books, as well as the films, so the events are set on things that happen in the books. General Story Unlike its predecessor, the game is set mainly in the northern regions of Middle-earth, and focuses on the events on the war there. Factions include the Elves, Dwarves, Men of the West (Gondor and Rohan combined) and the Goblins, along with Mordor and Isengard. For the Good campaign, the story starts in Rivendell where the Goblins from the Misty Mountains are poised to attack, while the Fellowship of the Ring journey south. For the Evil campaign, it begins with the siege of Lórien from Mordor's stronghold of Dol Guldur. The story highlights some of the events of the novel which may be unfamiliar to audiences of the New Line films. As Electronic Arts had acquired a license from Tolkien Enterprises as well as one for the films, they used the battles in the north as the focal point, which are only briefly hinted at in the Extended Edition of The Return of the King DVD, and noted in the Appendices of the novel. In the novel, it is explained that while the front of the war that the members of the Fellowship of the Ring are experiencing (which is directly depicted by the films) is the primary one, it is in fact a war fought on many fronts across Middle-earth. However, the game and its version of the war in the north should not be seen an accurate record of what Tolkien actually wrote, since many liberties have been taken. Type and Genre This game is obviously set in the fantasy world of Middle Earth, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books. It is a real time strategy game, and plays a lot like a lot of other real time strategy games, but one of the most important (and cool) features is the "Build Anywhere" Feature. Players cannot build on uneven terrain or in trees. Players start with two builders and can use them to create any structure they can afford. This allows more freedom and faster troop production. The Citadel that was the centre of a base in the first game has been removed, and replaced with a fortress. The fortress is much more important than the citadel, as it can be upgraded with many defenses, including up to 6 catapults, arrow towers, walls, and faction exclusive upgrades (like mines for Isengard) that can branch off it. However, these walls can not have troops sitting on top of them. While this was considered in production, it was decided they were too bulky. Resources have now been changed, as when originally, all resource gathering structures would generate an amount depending on their level, they are now more influenced by the terrain surrounding them (although they can still gain levels). To prevent players from creating large amounts of resource buildings, for the resources as well as command points, any resource generator too close to another will receive a substantial loss to income. Generators grant an initial 50 command points, as well as 25 more for each level, totaling a possible 100 command points. Gameplay The objective of the game is quite obvious. You build as big an army as you can afford and you destroy the enemy's buildings and men. One of the fun features in this game is the "Build Anywhere" Feature (explained above), meaning that you can build a base anywhere, which is really cool . The game runs on the click and drag method, you select units and tell them where to move, what to attack, etc. Locations and Maps The game has LOADS of maps to choose from, over 40 in the Skirmish Mode. These include: Mithlond (the Grey Havens) The Lonely Mountain (Erebor) Dol Guldur Caradhras (the Redhorn Pass) Ettenmoors Minas Tirith Mirkwood The Shire (specifically Hobbiton) Rivendell Fangorn Forest Dunland War of the Rings Mode The War of the Ring mode was not unlike the Campaign from the previous game, but with major changes that benefit gameplay. You choose one of the six races and battle throughout Middle-earth, capturing domains controlled by your enemy until you or your enemy controls the entirety of Middle-earth. You can garrison troops in territories you control, making it so that if your enemy attacks, you have soldiers there to defend. Once attacked or when you are attacking an enemy, you can choose to either simulate it, and let the computer determine the outcome, or fight it out while actually commanding your units, playing just like the normal skirmishes in the game. It should be noted that you will more than likely lose more units simulating when attacking than if you simply fought it out RTS style. Collectors Edition Besides the normal edition of The Battle for Middle-earth II, Electronic Arts released a Collector's Edition of the game exclusively for the PC-version. This edition has five additional maps (including Weathertop and Argonath), new monster skins and models, slightly changed special effects and in multiplayer games the "Create-A-Hero" gets a star on top to identify Collector’s Edition gamers during on-line play or Skirmish. It also contains a bonus DVD with e.g. Making-Of Videos, an Artwork-Viewer, the game music or the complete ingame videos. People however, found the slogan advertising the Collector’s Edition, "Control the Dragon", somewhat misleading, because it implied only Collector’s Edition owners could control the in-game Dragon. But in reality, the Collector’s Edition owners only gained several more skins and a different model for the Dragon. X-box owners can also "control the Dragon" Many people though, did not make a giant issue out of this controversy, seeing as in some countries the Collector’s Edition shipped for the same price as the normal game edition and the Collector’s Edition was regarded as a good buy. Original Charachters Gorkil the Goblin King Goblin society is violent and anarchic. Would-be rulers are deposed soon after they come to power, and only the most ruthless and scheming Goblins rise to power for any length of time. Gorkil first rose in status in Moria, and by the War of the Ring has become absolute ruler of the Goblins in the North. Under his rule, all manner of foul creatures, from spiders to Mountain Giants, have been pressed into the service of war. One of the reasons is that he rides a rare Giant Scorpion in battle. He wields a curved sword with a serrated edge and a special totem pole in the form of a short staff with three skulls dangling from it. Drogoth the Dragon Lord Drogoth, who is named the Dragon Lord because of his likeness to the great Dragons of old, is one of many dragons that originate from the Withered Heath in the Grey Mountains in the far north of Middle-earth, and is one of the few who still seeks power openly. Before the War of the Ring, Drogoth slept undisturbed. But he was persuaded by Sauron to help in his campaign in exchange for one of the Dwarven Rings of Power, four of which were destroyed by dragon-fire and the other three held by Sauron. Drogoth flew to the Blue Mountains and drove out the native Dwarven clan, and turned it into his new lair. The survivors sent a lone messenger to get help. This messenger made his way east and was captured at the Ettenmoors by the Goblins. He is later rescued by an Elven army under Glorfindel and Glóin and tells them what has happened. The heroes set out for the Blue Mountains and with the help of a small Dwarven army made up of the survivors of Drogoth's devastation, they retake the mountain halls, drive out the Goblins that have infested them, and kill Drogoth. The Dwarven ring is recovered and the Blue Mountains reclaimed. Drogoth is perhaps the strongest units in the game other than ring heroes, capable of wiping out clusters of archers and a match for any Nazgûl with his fell beast. His level 10 incinerate is a formidable assault. Characters from The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age Other than the heroes of the book and the films, four characters from the role-playing game The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (also published by Electronic Arts) also appear in the game: Hadhod, a Dwarven warrior Berethor, a captain of Gondor Morwen, a shieldmaiden of Rohan Idrial, an Elven archer They do not play a part in the campaign, since they were following the Fellowship, but can be found in skirmishes. Online Play For online play, you need to register an account with EA. Then, you can log onto the server through the program. The setup is just like that of a Skirmish, but people join, instead of you setting AI Bots. then, you commence, and play! You can play Skirmishes, War of the Rings mode, or join a tournament. The tournament trys to match you with a player of your rank, but you can choose just to be paired with anybody. System Requirements 1.6 GHz CPU 256MB RAM 6.0GB Hard disk space 64MB GPU (GeForce3 or greater) In all, Battle for Middle Earth 2 is a GREAT game, and I really recommend it! 10/10

Oh, OK. That's great, I'll do one now.

I've come to the decision, after looking through my blog so far, that my entries (apart from a few), have really been rather short and pointless. So from now on, they are going to be less frequent, but much longer, as I'll take my time to write them. Now I'd like to point you back to the post where I asked whether advertizing was allowed in blogs. I'll now ask it again, but in a different context. I got Battle for Middle Earth 2 a few days ago, and I'd quite like to do a review in my blog. If I say it's really cool, does that count as advertizing? If it does, is it allowed? Half term has just ended, and I'm back for a revision week before my end of year exams. In our school, in every year, 1-4, you take an exam for every subject (Excluding RST, which you only do in first year, and Art/Design, which you can't really do an exam for. The new headmaster of the school has decreed that instead of, like the old headmaster decreed, giving us just the one week holiday to revise, and having to do exams the week that we come back, we could have a week of revision after we came back, to go over any problems. That's where I am now, and it's REALLY BORING! I got Grand Titan on Thursday, meaning I now have 9 Exo-Force sets. As I speak type, we are sitting in our quiet school library, Machine758 is doing a flash animation, and I am typing this. This afternoon, we have English first, then Maths (the most boring lesson ever, on account of our teacher, Mrs. Peacock), and then DOUBLE BIOLOGY. Now I'll just start by saying that the teacher that we have is bad enough, and the fact that we're REVISING means it's really boring. But we've just come back from the holiday, It's a Monday, it's the end of the day, and it's a DOUBLE LESSON! I really hate it! My new phone is working fine, and is now feeling a bit more like a normal phone. It's pictures can be taken either in Single Photo, Panorama, or Burst. Single Photo is quite obvious, and is taken in 2 Megapixels. Panorama lets you join three photo's onto eachother, blurring them out at the corners, so you get a panorama of, say, a landscape. Burst takes four photo's in quick succession, letting you capture, say, four points of a person jumping. The music is also quite good quality, but the headphones/handsfree set that they give you with it is really annoying, as to get the earphones to stick in your ears takes half an hour of careful balancing. Then, when they fall out again, after, say, the bus that I get home goes over a bump, it takes another half an hour to get them to stick in again, and by that time I'm home anyway. Speaking of buses, why do they always seem to take the most roundabout routes? The bus that I get is the 62, from Crosby. Now, I get it to West Derby, Liverpool, and instead of just going down a few straight roads and avoiding the places with the traffic jams, they pick the route that goes first, straight away from the destination, then in a series of swerves towards the destination, and then gets stuck in a traffic jam for a mile, meaning that instead of a 20 minute bus journey, it turns into an hour's bus journey. Now, sitting on the bus for an hour gets not only exceedingly boring, but also exceedingly hot, and exceedingly tiring. So when I get home after a 10 hour day, and THEN have to do Homework, AND Music Practice, it really gets annoying. I think that's all I've got time for now, as I've got to go for lunch, or I'll miss it. SparkyDino: Toa of Swordmanship Signing out...

Yes. You may have noticed, but Exo-Blunders has now fused with Exo-Battles, to form... *Ta-Daaa!* Exo-Blunders & Exo-Battles!

So it was Double-Comment deleted, Makra. I don't mean I think Driving is scary, just the fact that I've only got 3 years until I can is scary

We are Thanks

I already know Any I'm very grateful to have such a good friend

There we go. Congratulations to all the others! I got this... The Sony Ericsson K750i It's really cool, but I can't use it until it's charged for 8 hours (or something like that) the first time. I'm in school anyway, so it kinda works out... Now, the problem with my birthday. On Thursday, we have CCF. Combined Cadet Force. I'll explain that sometime later. But today, because I'm part of the Navy, we're going sailing, and we don't get back until 8:00. I have a further half an hour's drive home, and I had to leave home, like, straight away in the morning. So on my birthday, I only get 1:30 hours of time at home. How unfair is that? But It's still my birthday. Woohoo! I'm 14! (Just 3 years 'till I can drive - scary )

A new phone.