Battle for Middle-Earth 2 Demo

LOL

CRC error in one of the files. Goddamnit...

EA Games: YOU VILL CHALLENGE NOTHINK!

I dig it, it's VERY well-presented, great interface, and it looks really good. Great sound design as well, I will buy.

If this is the same as the FilePlanet beta I tried a week or two, then you can expect really pretty graphics... But the gameplay just seemed kind of slow and uninteresting compared to, say, Dawn of War.

EA PLEASE START SUPPORTING WIDESCREEN RESOLUTIONS!
Its the 21st century you know.

what's the deal with the shadows? they were very crude and dithered looking even on the highest setting on my machine. they look better in the screenshots.

Man, I love downloading all day at work only to find that the game wont install on anything other than Windows XP. Thank you.

Downloading it now... >3 hours remaining. :/

WTF, did this demo take a month to extract or was it just me??

This demo, does it have multiplayer?

wow...1.3 GB for only 2 SP skirmish maps?!

Bah crap US servers having 10Mbit and not being able to use it fully sucks.

very pretty - I have a P4 3.2 and an X800 Pro, and this defaulted to 1024x768 with high detail. they don't overuse special effects, but you know they're there and add to it.

I've only tried the tutorial so far, but it's a pretty streamlined interface. I like that they don't feel the need to swallow up a third of the screen with the interface.

People keep seemingly to say it's quite slow, to me that isn't exactly a bad thing. It's annoying how RTS games are getting faster and faster nowadays until they're more like arcade games than strategy games.

Having said that I still did/do like DOW.

1.3 gb for a demo? GEEZUS. Now I KNOW I'm in 2006.

There are also 4 player maps available. Not sure where to download them directly but if you join a game using one then it will transfer to you during the startup process.

2v2 (which is beyond the intentioned use of this demo) has fps issues due to the amount of units on the screen. While the latency links showed green for all 4 players it's also possible that there was latency issues. In very large battles you could experience rubberbanding, very annoying when you are using a one click activation power with a 15 minute cooldown.

The freeform building slows the game pace down unless you're up against a rushing pro. Walls, turrets being able to be built anywhere favor the turtle player. However these are offset by the seige units such as giants and catapults, who can make relatively short work of walls if unchecked.

The epic battles are not nearly as frenzied as DoW, however they do have a distincting and not unenjoyable feel.

Also, while the game can be drawn out longer players will be unlocking more and more power that, unleashed in an alpha strike all at once, could really decimate even the most heavily fortified opponent.

Unit veterancy from common units to heroes adds a nice touch that makes you feel that much more attached to the units.

So how many factions can you chose from? Which are they? Dwarves, Goblins, Humans, Elves, Sauron/orcs?

The demo is basically the beta converted to single player, nothing new if you were in test.

Demo gets you: (no single player mission just skirmish against AI)

1 tutorial
2 skirmish maps

It's plays ok, found the gameplay to be slow paced. I just basically built a ton of units, attacked, won the game. ehh. =( To me it felt similar to Warcraft III if I had to make a comparison. I'll still get it for my collection, but it is not the type of game that will keep me awake late to play.

OH HOLY SHIT

...damn it - its going to be a short while before i get a chance to play this

i didnt know this was coming out already - DAMN!!!!

/stoked

Just finished downloading and had a look in the directory, the movies included are sub 100meg, most of the download size is actual content. Yay