Because of the fact that my PC is an ancient dinosaur, thrown together some years ago from bits and pieces lying around the house of my good friend Nick Brett - thanks Nick! - with a 398MHz Processor, 192MB RAM and a whopping 7GB hard disk (I can hear PC owners everywhere rushing to the loo so they don't wet themselves with laughter), I don't play PC games. Hey, I'm not complaining though - I mean, it was a free PC, and my old faithful has served me well for the Internet, email and Microsoft Office, all that a trusty editor really needs. Besides, I can live without the hassle of graphics card conflicts, installation nightmares and crashes whose source you simply can't pinpoint. That's one of the things I love about console gaming - you put the disk in, you play. Nice and trouble free. Anyway, my point is, because I don't play PC games, I'm an RTS virgin. That's right, I've never played one in my life. Sure, I've seen my buddies back at uni network their PCs up and spend several days Command and Conquering, and I've witnessed my brother pass away countless hours using the Force in the classic Star Wars RTS that he loves so much. However, I've shied away from joining in, partly because I don't really want to know what I'm missing, and partly because I know that these RTS games are such addictive drains on your time. Still, as soon as I heard that The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II was coming to Xbox 360, I made it my mission to get hold of it for review. After all, what better way could there be for a LOTR fanatic such as myself to be introduced to the wonderful world of RTS gaming?

Having covered the events of the movie trilogy in the first game, which you can read about in Kieron's excellent review, the developers turned their attention to the many battles surrounding Sauron's campaign of terror and destruction across Middle-Earth. So, what we have here is two campaigns, one for good and one for evil, each featuring eight increasingly challenging missions, plus Skirmish battles against AI two to four AI opponents, or multiplayer via Xbox Live in a range of modes for up to four people.

Now, all you console gamers out there, I know what you're thinking - sixteen missions, is that all?! I'll be done before dinnertime! However, you're dead wrong - there's a good twenty to forty hours gameplay here, as even the easy early missions take towards an hour to play through, while the epic missions towards the end of the game can take considerably longer, especially if you intend to fulfil all the bonus objectives (with achievements to entice you). Throw in the challenge of getting through both campaigns without a hero falling (again there are big scoring achievements for this) and there's enough to keep you going for a good long while - and that's not even really the main part of the game. The main part, as I will come onto later, is the Skirmish mode, which is fiendishly difficult in Normal mode and very challenging against real opponents online - and that, my friends, will suck up your gaming hours on an Oblivion-esque scale once you're hooked, which won't take very long.

So then, what exactly is a real-time strategy? PC gamers already know the ins and outs, but for many console gamers they probably remain an alluring mystery, or maybe something that you feel is just for nerds who like to think too much (which would be a big misconception on your part). Real-time strategy games pit you against one or more opponents, giving you full access to your own personal army but without having direct control over the actual combat. You build a fortress, raise up structures that gather resources (the form of currency which you use to purchase everything, from buildings to troops), construct yourself buildings from which you can generate units of various nature (swordsmen, archers, cavalry, pikemen and heavy weapons), then you send your army out to destroy your enemy's facilities, ravage their resources and wipe out their army, before striking the final fatal blow of taking out their fortress, all the while defending your own territory.

This might all sound a bit complicated, and for the RTS virgin it can be initially a little overwhelming - but as long as you go for the Campaign mode first, you'll be building and fighting in no time, as if you'd been a fan of the genre for years. You see, these campaigns hold your hand and guide your every move through the first mission, teaching you all the basics (there are two very handy tutorials as well, which are very much worth a play through for the beginner) and taking you step by step through the process of building, harvesting resources, then creating and commanding your armies.

The Good Campaign begins in familiar territory, as you fend off Sauron's attack on Rivendell, the idyllic home of Elrond and his elven kin. At the Blue Mountains you take back the dwarven mines (which looks very much like Moria from The Fellowship of the Ring) from a dragon that has made its nest there, while in Grey Havens you capture a port and send ships out to destroy an enemy armada. Then there's the defence of dwarf city Erebor against a massive assault of multiple waves of Sauron's hordes, before finally taking the fight to its source in the grim and foreboding Dol Gudor. The Evil campaign switches between Saruman's and Sauron's forces, and you begin by wiping out the elves of the Lorien forest and burning down all the ents. If you don't feel guilty about this, or about decimating the fleeing elves at Grey Havens, I defy you not to feel bad as you scour the Shire, destroying such landmarks as the Green Dragon pub and even Bag End, home of Frodo and Bilbo, while wiping out all those brave little hobbits that try to fight you with sticks and stones (they might as well be throwing insults instead). You might think this would be easy, but you're in for more of a battle than you first thought, with the surprise introduction of another enemy just when you think you have the victory. After this, you take a fortress at Fornost, which is a little like Helm's Deep from The Two Towers, infiltrate Mirkwood, and head through Withered Heath before you get to play Erebor and Rivendell, this time as the aggressors.

There's a real range to the settings of each mission and the graphics are lovely. Now, okay, they might not look particularly next generation, and they probably could have been better, but you have to remember that this is a real-time strategy game that has to deal with hundreds of units upon the map at any given time. The environment and scenery of each area looks lovely, from the quiet farmland of the Shire to the beauty of Rivendell and the quiet mystique of Lorien, forest home of Celeborn and Galadriel. Then you've got the snowy wastelands, the mirky marshes, the lofty architecture of the dwarves' underground mines, the sweeping grandeur of some of the larger cities and the grim desolation of those areas set in Sauron's domain.

The buildings are intricately detailed and totally fitting to the nature of the side you are playing, of which there are seven in total - two sets of dwarves, the men of Gondor and Elves, then you have Saruman's forces, Sauron's armies and the goblins, who have a side all of their own (don't underestimate them though!) So while the Elves use sacred mallon trees to harvest their resources, the men use farms, the dwarves use mines and the evil forces use slaughterhouses, lumber mills and furnaces. The barracks of each side are also different, and each, while similarly balanced, all has a unique set of buildings to construct with subtle differences in their details. Some sides have extra methods of resource gathering, others can build structures that heal nearby forces when not in combat, or enhance their skills. Every side, though, can build the same basic range of buildings to raise troops and weapons, plus stationery battle towers for guarding resources and some sort of forge that can research weapons upgrades for troops, such as more powerful blades or axes, heavier armour, fire arrows and so on. The level of detail, and the amount of thought that has gone into balancing each side out, allowing them all to be familiar yet have their own unique quirks and specialities, is very impressive, and fits completely in with the Lord of the Rings theme. You can enhance your fortress in a variety of ways too, leading to some very powerful offensive and defensive capabilities.

The troops are what look the best, though - watching several units of your soldiers - on foot or mounted - charging into battle against the enemy is a real sight to behold. Every unit is again intricately detailed and looks exactly as they do in the films, or if they never featured in the films, fit perfectly with the rest of the setting. There are subtle differences for troop types too. For example, the dwarves can't build cavalry, but instead they have a single horse-drawn wagon that charges around and they have access to powerful catapults and battering rams for taking out enemy structures. While elves, men and Sauron's forces have archers, dwarves have axe throwers that can damage buildings as well as troops. Men and elves send out riders on horseback, while Sauron's forces send out orcs mounted on the bestial Wargs, or goblins riding giant, poisonous spiders.

On the heavy weapons front, catapults are available to most factions, although not the elves, who instead recruit Ents to stand at a distance and heave huge rocks straight at enemy buildings just as effectively; you can even summon old Treebeard himself! The forces of evil are impressive and powerful in this area, often giving rise to the classic phrase - "They have a cave troll." Indeed, your heart sinks when you see a cave troll or mountain giant headed your way, as these big brutes can throw rocks from a distance, quickly demolishing structures, and they take a lot of effort to kill. Oliphants (the gigantic elephants) can also come trampling your way, as well as giant spiders, with or without riders. The forces of good can summon giant eagles to soar around attacking the enemy, but then the forces of darkness have the Nazgul (dark riders mounted upon fellbeasts) and even a dragon to command.

This brings me nicely to the subject heroes, of which there are a huge range, including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Elrond, Arwen, Boromir, Berethor, Wormtongue, Saruman, Galadriel, Celeborn, and many more… Dark Riders can be summoned on horseback, along with the Mouth of Sauron, there's a Goblin King riding a giant scorpion and various other lesser-known elves and dwarves, the ugly, mutated orc on a Warg, as well as the vicious Uruk-Hai that slays Boromir in such a cowardly fashion. Even Shelob herself puts in an appearance, the monstrous spider that Sam has to face in The Return of the King. Fans of the book will be delighted to know that Tom Bombadil is available too - he skips and dances around, humming, singing and attacking with a sonic song that slays his enemies! He is a jolly fellow! All units and buildings have levels to work through, and as your heroes battle they can move all the way up to level 10, unlocking a range of abilities along the way, some of them passive (like healing or enhancing the stats of nearby allies) and some of them to be activated, often special attacks directed at one enemy, but there is a real range of powers available here too.

Each side also has access to a range of powers that take a while to recharge, so use them wisely. Summon creatures to your aid (including the massive and deadly Balrog), barrage an area with arrows or smite your enemy's buildings with an earthquake, flood or scorch the battlefield, heal or enhance a group of units, spy upon the enemy, hide your forces in a mist, convert the surrounding area to boost your forces' stats, the list goes on… these powers can't be used that often, due to the recharge time, but if you purchase and use them wisely, they can save the day.

All this sounds wonderful, and it is, but the game unfortunately has one fairly annoying flaw - the camera. The problem is, you can't zoom out very far, and the map that shows the distribution of forces across the battlefield is not easy to use, so you often find yourself scrolling all over the place while trying to find all your troops. You also can't zoom in far enough to really see just how great the detail work is, and so you feel constantly limited, like you're not seeing things as they were meant to be seen. It's not a game killing problem, but it is significant and will at times really annoy you. Also, the game is prone to slowdown at times, when there are a huge number of enemies on screen, although this doesn't happen too much.

At least the controls are very well implemented - although different buttons for attack and select would have been nice, as you can end up selecting your own troops instead of attacking the enemy, or vice versa, which is frustrating. Still, the controller is used very effectively - the left trigger and shoulder buttons allow you to select multiple units on screen, while the right trigger brings up a menu that you navigate with the d-pad and it soon becomes second nature to whip through the helpful picture icons (backed up by text descriptions) and hand out orders to builders, select units (you can bookmark five different combinations of your own forces for easy selection), find heroes and use powers. And don't expect to have an easy ride just because this is a strategy game - when you're in the heat of the action you'll be co-ordinating multiple units across the map to engage in battle or assault buildings, while you direct the builders to continue erecting structures, queue up more troops for generation, select upgrades, fortify and defend your fortress… it can be seriously hectic and multi-tasking is most definitely required!

The presentation is excellent throughout, as we've come to expect from EA's LOTR games - the cut scenes use the game's graphics engine to great effect, changing from still paintings to moving graphics in a very smooth transition. All the voice acting is excellent, and some of the actors have come on board to reprise their roles from the movies, while the rest are generally done with a very good sound alike. Every bit of dialogue in the game has a purpose, notifying you when your forces are under attack, when a building or upgrade is available, and generally what's going on, and each sounds authentically Lord of the Rings, as does the music, most of which is taken from Howard Shore's incredible film soundtrack, but there seem to be a few original orchestrations in there too, each of which fits in so well with the rest of the music that you barely notice you haven't heard it before. The themes are different for the good and evil campaign too, another nice touch. The sound effects are also superb - the yells of men and monsters in battle, the clank of sword on shield, the snarl of a warg, the moan of a falling cave troll, the crash of a crumbling building… it all really adds to the atmosphere.

So then, beyond the two campaigns, you have your Skirmish mode. Here you select from a huge range of two player maps and a slightly smaller but nevertheless impressive range of three to four player maps, pick your sides, define the AI and off you go. Pretty much every location from the films is in here - all the ones from the campaign, plus Minas Tirith (the city of Gondor), Minas Morgul, Osgiliath, Mount Doom, Moria, Helm's Deep and many more, including a number of locations you probably didn't even know the name of! So, you pick your location and dive in. Each team begins with a fortress, two builders and a specified amount of resources, then off you go, building your forces up from scratch and trying to come out the victor.

This is where I had my most frustrating experience with Battle for Middle-Earth II - the Skirmish mode AI is very tough. I had it on normal, I got on with building my resources up while boosting my defences and creating an army, but time and time again the computer swooped in and defeated me with an overwhelming force. I spent seven hours straight - yes, seven hours! - sitting through defeat after defeat, until I finally got a win! Oh, how happy I was. Oh, how much I gesticulated offensively at the TV. Oh, what profanities I uttered in victory! The problem was, my gaming pride stopped me from walking away or moving down to Easy and my need to retain the shreds of sanity that still remain prevented me from even contemplating Hard, but for sure there is a range in there enough to challenge a gamer of any level. And for those of you who aren't RTS veterans, I recommend you swallow that pride and go with Easy! This, I hasten to add, was a two player battle - moving up to four players, it's a bit easier to triumph, as you can take advantage of two factions attacking each other and just keep on fortifying while they wipe out each other's resources, buildings and armies, or just sneak in and help finish them off while they're weakened. The real challenge, though, lies beyond your living room.

Take the game online and, while you may need to wait a little while at times for someone to join the game you've created, there is a range of modes, all of them a lot of fun. Versus is all about crushing your opponent's fortress and troops, King of the Hill requires you to have control of the flag of one structure for a set time, Capture & Hold gives you multiple strategic points to capture and then, um, hold for a set time, while Resource Race is all about who can reach the target resources amount first. Finally, Hero Vs. Hero pits four heroes of two sides against each other, in a fight to the death! Each of these modes is a lot of fun - even Resource Race, which sounds dull, can be a very strategic battle - do you keep building mines and hope you reach the target first, or do you build a barracks and send out troops to tear down the enemy's resources, as well as capturing outposts to speed things up? Hero Vs Hero meanwhile can be a tough one to win as well - you have to know the ins and outs of your hero characters, and it's a good plan to send them out to attack the many dens of wild creatures to gain experience - cave trolls, spider nests, warg dens, goblin caves, even wight barrows (yes, I know they're called barrow wights!) - there's a range of creatures to find and destroy for precious experience points.

The one main problem with the gameplay - and this applies to single player skirmishes as well as online multiplayer - is that the winner is almost always the one who builds their troops first. The temptation is to build up your resources, fortify your defences and then create an army, but if you do that then the opposition will be all over you in no time. And so it's almost always the first one to build up an army who gets the upper hand, which is a shame, as it would have been nice to be able to use a range of tactics to gain a victory. Perhaps some people can, but as for me, I'm sticking with what I know works! Those seven hours of getting my arse kicked paid off when I took the game online though - I won five out of my first six games hands down, one of each mode type (I lost at Heroes then won it my second time). So at least the tough computer AI does harden you up for the real world!

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II is unique - an excellent real-time strategy game that has been successfully implemented on a console. Sure, the camera can be a pain and the map isn't in any way natural to use, but you get used to these quirks and they don't get in the way of the very engaging gameplay, while very authentic renditions of every aspect of the LOTR world, both visually and aurally, are spread across the various campaigns and multiplayer game modes. It's nice to see, after all these years of Dungeons & Dragons style RPGs and RTS games that finally we have something based upon the father of the whole genre that actually does it justice. I sometimes wonder if J.R.R. Tolkien is looking down on us, bemused and astonished at the incredible success his landmark trilogy is still reaping, now more than ever with the hit movies. And just in case he's reading this review, I'd like to offer him my thanks for giving me some of the greatest hours of entertainment I've ever had from books, films and games!

Reviewed by Geoff Holland for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).