The Lord Of The Rings BFME 2 Rise Of The Witch King - Full of exciting content, including an entirely new faction, completely new single player campaign, and additional units for all six existing factions, The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Rise of the Witch-king, allows players to explore the evil side of Middle-earth.

The all new single player campaigns innovative units will help to tell the story of the evil Witch-kings rise to power, domination of Angmar and invasion of the great kingdom of Arnor, home to Aragorns ancestors. To fully experience the evil side of Middle-earth, gamers can now play as the Angmar faction in skirmish, multiplayer, and War of the Ring modes. Experience a whole new depth of strategy and upgraded War of the Ring and Create-A-Hero features.

Create-A-Heros entirely unique Troll class boasts additional weapons and armor that will allow players to have even more freedom in customizing their game play War of the Ring, a risk-style meta-game, offers upgraded army persistence, a new siege dynamic on the Living World Map, and unified territories that serve as major control points. (Electronic Arts)

The Lord of the Rings - Battle for Middle Earth 2: The Rise of the Witch King is the latest expansion pack in the extremely popular Battle for Middle Earth 2 series that contains new gameplay features and a storyline to keep you immersed on the computer for days upon end in the mythical universe of Middle Earth, created by scholarly genius J. R. R. Tolkein.

For those that are unaware of the series, the developers allow the gamer to play a variety of the races from Middle Earth that include Dwarves, Elves, Goblins and the races of man (Isengard and the West) with the denizens of Mordor also included.

In its essence, this expansion is your traditional real-time strategy where the player must manage and collect resources (e.g. mines for Dwarves and trees for Elves), create units and annihilate your opposition. This type of genre was made popular by the Warcraft series, however, since then, the genre has become quite detailed. Needless to say, The Rise of the Witch-King has everything that you would expect to find in a quality RTS from stunning graphics, addictive gameplay and a great storyline.

With the rich world of J. R. R. Tolkein, the developers have created their own spin on the mythos that sets the game during the rise of the Witch King with the introduction of a new faction called the Angmar which gamers will have the pleasure of experiencing.

With that said, the developers have not only improved the artificial intelligence of the title but also added a variety of new units, weapons and armour for your different races. The issues with the previous title have also been addressed and this latest incarnation of the series offers a thoroughly enjoyable and challenging romp through Middle Earth. The missions are are extremely varied and whether it's a hero mission or a mission where you must be conquer the entire map, it is nicely broken up to ensure an intensive gaming experience.

Features

- New Gameplay Features
- Improved siege weapons
- Revamped artificial intelligence
- New Faction (Angmar)
- New weapons & Armour
- New micro-economy featuers
- 14 new terrotories
- 8 missoins
- New powers and spells

The Angmar faction is quite different than your traditional races and gamers will enjoy their dark origins. For instance, Angmar sorcerers actually drain life-force from their followers in order to cast spells or the thrall-masters that recruit different units on demand.

The game also contains a plethora of new and existing heroes that include Khamul (second in command of the 9 ringwraiths), Morgomir (another wraith), Wormtongue, Sharku, Azog (Orc who killed Thror), Brand (of Dale), Rogash, Hwaldar and Gothmog. Other interesting facts is that each faction gets a mini-hero or a hero in a unit as follows such as the knights of Dol Amroth, Noldor Elves, Dwarven Zerkers, Uruk Beserkers and fire drakes and black riders. Guaranteed to please all lovers of Tolkein or fantasy.

Graphically, The Rise of the Witch King is oozing with Tolkein lore and you really get a sense that you are part of this universe that contain highly detailed background environments and realistically modeled characters with great texture detail. The battles are simply amazing and witnessing dozens and dozens of units all on screen at once is something to be impressed by. Match that with an orchestral musical score and all the battle sounds of Middle Earth with a healthy dose of professional voice acting and this is as close as you can get without actually starring in the Peter Jackson Lord of the Ring movies.

Even when you have completed the new missions in the title, the gamer then has the option of either challenging opponents online or playing skirmish battles that will lengthen the longevity of this game. In conclusion, Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch King is an extremely worthy successor to the previous game that I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the series.