LoTR: Battle for Middle Earth 2 Preview
While it is clearly very hard to get Sauron or Galadriel, you can use BFME2's hero builder to create your own cool hero. With it, you can choose your hero's class (good melee hero, Istari Wizard, etc), its name, its subclass (such as Captain of Gondor or Shieldmaiden, each getting a different model, abilities, and stats), and its weapons. In addition to that, you can change the hero's colors and its powers. A hero can have a maximum of 10 powers, gaining access to a new tier of powers as they reach the 3rd, 7th, and 10th levels; you may not want to get all 10 powers for your hero, though, because they do cost more as they gain powers.
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If only I was pretty as elven architecture...
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The Living World Map provides the game with a completely new style of gaming for the series. It's not the stage for the singleplayer campaign anymore, rather it's the board for a Rise of Nations-like mixture of turn-based and real-lime gameplay. You manage your civilization on the living world map, training units and constructing buildings, but the battles for the individual territories are fought in real-time maps, with each terrain representing the territory fairly well. Those battles can be deal with by autoresolving them, where the computer figures up the size and strength of each army and calculates which side will win. It's good for doing battles that a clearly one-sided, but the real-time gameplay is always good in battles where greater skill can prevail. A 1 vs. 1 multiplayer version of this is being considered, but the implications of a game that could potentially last days or weeks is certainly something that won't be taken lightly.
Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth 2 is a huge project. It has a ton of new things that look like they could be fantastic in the finished product. Most people don't realize, however, that that is a double-edged sword. A game as big as BFME2 could be executed poorly where none of the additions really fit together to make a seamless, quality game, and none of those additions could really get the polish that they need. Certain things like the true relevance of the living world map and the hero building to the rest of the game come to mind, and the game will only feel complete and polished if Electronic Arts can execute it properly. The fact that they are getting essentially as much time as they feel they need on the game is a great indication that they will, but in the end we'll just have to see how the game turns out. I only wish the best of luck to the team, because it'll be a great game if it fulfills everything that it promises.
Additional notes:
You get to play in Rivendell, the Shire, and other major locations from the story.
There are around 80 base units in the game.
Visually, ships and buildings get incrementally damaged.
The dwarf resource building is the mine shaft.
Hordes have 3 times as many units as in the original game.
Isengard has access to the Wild Men; similarly, Mordor has access to the Corsairs.
Inns are neutral buildings that allow you to recruit adventurers such as Corsairs.
Outposts are neutral buildings that increase your income.
Docks are neutral buildings that are the only way for you to build ships.
You are able to tribute to your allies in BFME2.
The following are the currently known new powers in the game:
-Watcher of the Water - Goblins
-Earthquake - Dwarves
-Undermine - Dwarves
-Rain of Fire - Mordor
-Dragon Strike - Goblins
-Flood - Unknown
Links
HeavenGames BFME2 Scenario Design/Modding Preview
HeavenGames BFME2 Screenshots
HeavenGames BFME Preview
EA's Official BFME Site
EA's Official BFME2 Teaser Site
Middle Earth Vault
Middle Earth Center
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