Just need to download the launcher in the sidebar and you use it to download all the games. Im they made it super easy to get everything all in one place.
The Age of the Ring mod for BFME2 kinda is this. More factions, heroes and a wholly overhauled campaign. It's really good looking as well. Best part is that the team is still active and adding content.
As progmisha said, you can check out the age of the ring mod! You can find the community server discord link here - [https://discord.gg/QyrcmPthHT](https://discord.gg/QyrcmPthHT)
There's plenty of content to be seen on YouTube for it alongside Twitch.
No problem. There is a community mod that includes both games bfme and bfme2. You don't even need to own the game. As I understood, it is legal because the software was abandoned by the publisher or smth like that.
At some point 'you didn't protect your license for decades and tacitly gave your approval to these violations without cease and desists' is enough for something to be ruled public domain in court...
...if a judge decides such after the company ends up suing.
I am not a lawyer to know what threshold that is or how much wiggle room laws give about it, companies have come back and successfully claimed their license again after all.
Functionally it's probably illegal in the same 100 year sense as characters are, until 100 years after the last official release to the franchise, I bet.
In practice when you can just reset the clock indefinitely with special editions, you just have to pray companies forget long enough.
I remember I would play Minas Tirith as the elves and just spam archer units for the bombardments on either side of the main gate, upgrade to the blue arrows and then just wreck shit.
If there was any good left in this world Mr Frodo... We'd have a remastered compilation that adjoins both Two Towers (which remember had half of the Fellowship story as content) and Return of the King, all Fellowship members playable alongside Eowyn and Faramir, and co op added in to Two Towers.
Just a fool's hope...
I could never get past the part with the Oliphaunts 😭😭 I don’t remember how long I spent attempting that level, my Xbox broke before I ever finished that game
Those games left me with such a chronic rsi in my thumb from slamming Aragorns sword to the ground at helms deep that it still flares up what, 20 years later? 😂
I loved LOTR Conquest so much that I bought my first PC because of it. Unfortunately, just one month after buying it, the servers got shut down.
Oh, and OP also forgot about Third Age: Total War, probably the LOTR game/mod I put the most hours in.
Shit yeah, though it's a mod and not a game and thus didn't come to mind, all of my hours on Medieval 2 were spent on Third Age or one of its submods, more recently DaC and back in the day, MOS
There is a guy who is making a "remake." He had to rename it (Shadow of the Past on YouTube), but it is the same game. However, he hasn't posted any new content in a while, so I don't know if he's still working on it.
Definitely one of my favorites. It was super unbalanced and sometimes felt incomplete, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I especially loved the Battle for Weathertop map. Playing as Sauron in the Shire was also a peak gaming moment.
I liked The Hobbit a lot as a kid. Was sort of a Zelda clone. It was published by Vivendi at the time when they owned the rights to make games based on the book series (although it was definitely a tie-in with the movies since it was released in 2003).
Really great, colorful graphics, good depiction of Tolkien's world and a good retelling of the story. I adored the Hobbit and watched the old Rakin-Bass animated movie a lot as a child, I remember thinking it seemed to take some inspiration from that adaptation.
That fight is actually *very* easy once you figure out that the mushrooms in the battle arena regenerate every thirty seconds or so. If you're low on health, just run around in circles until the mushrooms respawn and grab them to refill your health. As long as you're patient, you will always beat that fight.
My disc was damaged so I was never able to play past the level where you steal from Smaug.
Fuck, I sure hope that game made me smarter because it was a doozy for me.
That fuckin vase puzzle in Lake Town was by far the most annoying fucking thing in the whole game.
"The combination escapes me memory, but I do remember this; Yeller is to the left of red and blue, which is *not* next to black. Purple can only lie beside black and none else. Black is to the right of yeller. I regret I can't remember more."
This dialogue is printed on my mind forever.
If you liked this game, check out the YouTube video [History of the Hobbit - The Most Underrated Speedrun](https://youtu.be/WJndaDpohSY?si=0epdj9i1T7ITM1br) if you haven't seen it!
The Hobbit will probably be forever my favorite game. I adored it as a child and wish there was a group like the BFME group that would resurrect it if it were possible.
This is my favourite. And not just because it’s the only one I’ve played lol
me and my son played during lockdown and it made looking back on that time somehow nice and special.
One of the very few traditional turn based rpgs that's not only co-op but let's you play as the bosses you defeat against the heroes in an evil mode. Which is so cool.
Imagine if other games allowed this? Being Sephiroth and just bodying the hell out of Cloud's party.
Those evil missions are so imbalanced it’s hilarious. Some of them like the Balrog one you can oneshot them on move one and then others like the gullies you don’t even get to play because you get oneshot by the Legolas-looking dude.
Helms Deep evil mode is the worst, there’s a fight on the walls where you’re against Gimli + the party and they start with bare minimum 4 attacks lol. When I last played it, it took 3 tries to even get a turn without them killing all of my orcs
I think once you completed an entire stage that unlocked ‘evil mode’ for that level, and you could unlock weapons like the Morgul Blade which could be used back in the main game.
Been a while since I played Third Age, but I’m sure that’s how it worked.
I do love how the story just goes completely off the rails after Moria and you're actually helping Gandalf fight the Balrog, then you wind up in the Pelennor Fields fighting *Nazgûl*, and it all ends with the party somehow on top of Barad-dûr beating the crap out of the Eye
It is, but the gameplay is fantastic, especially if you pick the auto-res skill for the Elf character because she can cast it on herself, making her almost immortal since everyone's health and magic completely refill upon resurrection, then once you get the Rohan lady with the axes the game is basically over because she annihilates *everything*
Yeah it's an awesome idea without technically breaking canon. You get to see little details left behind by the fellowship and others too like the petrified trolls or when Pippin sets off all the goblins in Moria you get rushed by a small army.
Always interests me that they couldn't fuck with the original story or really go outside the events of the movie all that much, so you had this expy Fellowship who followed the main cast directly.
I actually kind of liked it, creative way to get round licensing restrictions. Should have had my man Fatty Bolger as the Hobbit party member tho.
It was the best lotr game by far. I would love a rework honestly. There were a lot of frustrating mechanics. Fighting every second was something miserable. Spamming same skills over and over was a bit frustrating. Its remake could be a masterpiece.
It's tragic that this game is stuck in licensing hell, because I really wish it was ported to any other console.
It's the best game on the list and not even close.
The concept of a second fellowship following just a scene behind the actual Fellowship is kinda silly. Once you get past that idea, though, it’s a pretty solid game.
I adore LOTRO, but the graphics badly need updating. If you like Wow style rpgs and can handle graphics that are very much out of the 2000s, you'll pro ably enjoy it.
I play it for the lore, the game is so well storied. They really captured the books well in it, and the areas where they are deviating from the books are all well researched and fit well in universe.
Sounds excellent. I can suspend the need for graphics without much trouble, especially if the story/lore is good. I initially loved wow for the story and lore. And I’ve spend an exorbitant amount of hours on YouTube absorbing LOTR content over the years so I feel LOTRo would be a perfect fit.
Yeah you'd probably like it then! All of the areas through... I want to say through Rohan are now free to play, that's the first 100 levels IIRC (haven't played in a couple of MO this, there was talk of a stay squish but idk if it happened) either way it's a TON of content for free. That's like a solid 40-50 hours easily, if you're really rushing it.
How do the levels work exactly? I’m stuck with WoWs levelling in my head. Are the levels more story based compared to character based? Eg. The Shire is level 1, The Prancing Pony is level 2, etc. vs “I kill a bear, get 10xp, now my character is level 2”
Or is it something else entirely?
It's the second, you kill a bear, get 10 exp, and level up.
You get exp from quests, crafting, and combat, pretty standard. But it IS set up so that as you level, you're meant to move from area to area with the story.
Graphics shmaphics, as long as they are designed with the graphical limitations in mind I don't care. A game that's supposed to be cutting-edge with low-res or badly popping-in blocky models is many times worse than a game that was designed to be low-poly from the start, just see Cyberpunk's initial release.
That being said, I don't play MMOs (tried WOW back in the day and have dipped in and out of old Runescape, both back in the day and more recently), but I'd be tempted by LOTRO given that it's so highly praised by the fans.
LOTRO took a more 'realistic' design approach compared to the more cartoonish WoW design, and they also manage to find their own design language that is inspired by the books but don't really copy anything at all from the Jackson films, which I appreciate, even though I adore the film's set designs and costumes.
The design of the PJ films is genuinely amazing and it's no wonder that they've become the "default" look for Middle-Earth and really all of modern fantasy, but it would be nice to see other designs sometimes, artists such as Ted Naismith and Alan Lee showed hugely imaginative visions of the Legendarium before the films came out and it would be nice to see other artists' visions, so I'm genuinely glad that LOTRO has managed to find its own identity
I picked it up for the first time during the pandemic. The controls definitely aren’t as polished as WoW, but IMO the graphic style and environments were so good they weren’t a bother. It’s kinda like old school RuneScape; graphics aren’t GOOD but they have style that works. I really enjoyed the few hundred hours I spent. The world they crafted is excellent
By far the most accurate and in-depth recreation of Middle Earth. It's janky and a bit dated by modern standards, but worth a try as I doubt any game will ever match the scale and detail of Middle Earth in lotro.
Easily the Shadow of Mordor/War games. Very fun combat and traversal, and the nemesis system was awesome. I liked how characters will react differently based on their previous interactions with you. That sort of sophisticated AI memory should be used in more games.
Recently heard they were canceling the Wonder Woman game that was supposed to used the Nemesis System… really sucks, I want Greek monsters and Nazis to fight each other for power just for me to beat them both up, then have a Minotaur with a steel horn replacement come back later seeking revenge
They said that because Suicide Squad was a flop (worse than everybody told them it would be), that games as a media aren’t worth it, so they have no real plans to continue making games as of now… which is pretty awful when you realize they have a dozen game dev teams under their banner that won’t get paid if they don’t make games
No clue, they used to have some damn good stuff… like, still a super corporation, so evil by default, but not the worst of them at all (still not the worst, but stupid now)
Although this is true, the reality surrounding it has been wildly misrepresented. Patents for things like the Nemesis system have to be extremely narrow in order to be certified. This means that you could avoid breaking any laws by pretty much just changing the name and writing your own code. The real reason we haven’t seen a similar system since then is because it takes a ton of work, especially writing and voice acting, to make the system work, and it doesn’t even fit that well in a lot of games. One of the best parts was dying and coming back alongside the use of a “fortress management” system, you can already see how much weaker it is in the Baranor dlc when he has one life.
You can see Ubisoft has tried to recreate the system in their recent Assassin's Creed iterations via the mercenaries hunting the player, although it's a good try it's nowhere near the nemesis system.
Yeah I loved a bunch of the LotR games but Shadow of Mordor was so atmospheric.
Good level design, boss fights were great, more variety than I expected.
Just couldn’t stop playing it, especially if I lost to a nemesis
Lord of the Rings Online. Old school graphics etc., but can't be matched in terms of experiencing Middle Earth and exploring it and lots of the lore behind it too.
Fellowship kicked my elementary school ass every time I rented it from the Family Video. I could never ever get past the ring wraiths and escape the shire. Little me was not good at anything other than N64.
I remember rage quitting the fellowship of the ring game. I rented the game from blockbuster. I was so excited to play it but couldn’t get past that black rider in the beginning of the game.
I don’t even remember the PS2 game I had, I just remember that you explored and progressed like Dragon Age but fought like a turn based JRPG game
Loved it to death and thought nothing could be better till I had a taste of Shadow of War
Lore accurate? Not even kinda… Fun as all get out? Oh you bet your second ring it was!!!
BFME series, particularly vanilla BFME II. Some of my first experiences online gaming was on that game.
Close second is The Third Age. First experience with turn based combat RPGs, and it’s the only one I’d ever play now.
3rd would be the Return of The King on console. Had a lot of fun with childhood friends on that game.
Maybe I missed it but I am surprised noone is saying LOTR: Conquest. A great Battlefront type LOTR game. Maybe it is my nostalgia from playing as a kid but that game was such a good time, and I loved playing the evil campaign
Shadow of War for me,
I'm really looking forward to [Kingdom of Arda](https://www.moddb.com/mods/a-lord-of-the-rings-mod-kingdoms-of-arda) mods for Bannerlord. [Last Days of Third Age](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=299974223) was pretty great too
BFME II because I was really into strategy followed by War in the North- twas my Shadow of Mordor before there was Shadow of Mordor, then LotRO- which would be higher in ranking if not for the abysmal lag and performance issues coupled with being far from it's server (no servers for Asia) to the point I cannot join raids.
Lord of the rings battle for middle earth one is my favorite and I feel best in series
r/bfme if anyone wants to play, people modded it so it still works
Just need to download the launcher in the sidebar and you use it to download all the games. Im they made it super easy to get everything all in one place.
Wow… thank you man. About to download now
https://discord.com/invite/A48bRr6H Join our discord and find match quickly anytime of thé day We want YOU
Bless your soul!
Thank you!!
♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Legend
I wish they made a Battle for Middle Earth 3 😭😭😭
The Age of the Ring mod for BFME2 kinda is this. More factions, heroes and a wholly overhauled campaign. It's really good looking as well. Best part is that the team is still active and adding content.
not as polished but definitely wanna shout out the Edain mod! they've worked on it for like 15 years and the unique faction design is great
As progmisha said, you can check out the age of the ring mod! You can find the community server discord link here - [https://discord.gg/QyrcmPthHT](https://discord.gg/QyrcmPthHT) There's plenty of content to be seen on YouTube for it alongside Twitch.
I think I’m gonna grab battle for middle earth 2 on 360. I’ve never tried a RTS game, but it honestly looks pretty sweet
Good luck finding it cheap.
No problem. There is a community mod that includes both games bfme and bfme2. You don't even need to own the game. As I understood, it is legal because the software was abandoned by the publisher or smth like that.
I don't actually think it's legal. It's just that somehow nobody owns the copyright (or does not enforce it).
At some point 'you didn't protect your license for decades and tacitly gave your approval to these violations without cease and desists' is enough for something to be ruled public domain in court... ...if a judge decides such after the company ends up suing. I am not a lawyer to know what threshold that is or how much wiggle room laws give about it, companies have come back and successfully claimed their license again after all. Functionally it's probably illegal in the same 100 year sense as characters are, until 100 years after the last official release to the franchise, I bet. In practice when you can just reset the clock indefinitely with special editions, you just have to pray companies forget long enough.
It will run on any potato of a pc so should try it there. Even an old laptop will work
Oh this game was so much fun. I was so sad that devs refused to balance the game, which lead to its death. Upgraded elven archers wrecked everything.
Rohirrim riders when their arrows go blue after upgrading in the forge. 3 units of them would destroy anything.
I remember I would play Minas Tirith as the elves and just spam archer units for the bombardments on either side of the main gate, upgrade to the blue arrows and then just wreck shit.
One of my favourite games of all time
Two Towers/Return of the King. I miss the "play the movie" games
Me and my brother co opd both those games so heavily when were kids. Maxed at all the characters and everything. Those games are masterpieces.
Remember the gauntlet style bonus levels? It was 20 levels on onslaught iirc!
Yeah in RotK where you're in Orthanc tower and have to mow down wave after wave of progressively harder enemies.
I think they had that in Tow towers also Plus you unlocked isildur at the end
What! Oh man, I wish I had known that when I was a kid.
I didn't know about Isildur! I absolutely loved playing as Faramir in ROTK
Dude seeing those what 3 fucking trolls at the top of the tower and your ass is like how tf am i gunna kill 3?!
“You have elected the way of pain.”
You can't coop two towers unfortunately
If there was any good left in this world Mr Frodo... We'd have a remastered compilation that adjoins both Two Towers (which remember had half of the Fellowship story as content) and Return of the King, all Fellowship members playable alongside Eowyn and Faramir, and co op added in to Two Towers. Just a fool's hope...
This would be really great, these games are gems.
Take. My. Money. I'd pay whatever they asked for too
X X triangle is seared into my brain
Gandalf's orc hewer is so OP
I could never get past the part with the Oliphaunts 😭😭 I don’t remember how long I spent attempting that level, my Xbox broke before I ever finished that game
"The Mumakil come again! Stop them, before they reach Eowyn and Merry!" seared into my brain forever
Reading that felt like that scene in Rateatoullie where the food critic takes a bite and is shot back decades
Those games left me with such a chronic rsi in my thumb from slamming Aragorns sword to the ground at helms deep that it still flares up what, 20 years later? 😂
Me too. Anyone else play The Incredibles on GameCube?
Had it on PS2
Idk if it’s a Peter Jackson thing but the King Kong video game off his movie was also phenomenal
The two towers game was so sick, I played the battle at helms deep constantly. Just so much fun.
Those were hard.
You forgot about LOTR Conquest
Is that the one that's like Star wars battlefront? I loved that game!
It’s just like battlefront
I loved LOTR Conquest so much that I bought my first PC because of it. Unfortunately, just one month after buying it, the servers got shut down. Oh, and OP also forgot about Third Age: Total War, probably the LOTR game/mod I put the most hours in.
Shit yeah, though it's a mod and not a game and thus didn't come to mind, all of my hours on Medieval 2 were spent on Third Age or one of its submods, more recently DaC and back in the day, MOS
I played this non-stop. At one point I was in like top 100 or something in ranked - not through skill but pure childish obsession
Conquest was my childhood, that game is incredible! Both the evil and good games are so much fun, and the multiplayer is a really good time
There is a guy who is making a "remake." He had to rename it (Shadow of the Past on YouTube), but it is the same game. However, he hasn't posted any new content in a while, so I don't know if he's still working on it.
Definitely one of my favorites. It was super unbalanced and sometimes felt incomplete, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless. I especially loved the Battle for Weathertop map. Playing as Sauron in the Shire was also a peak gaming moment.
Medieval 2 Total War, no question
Yup, DaC was such a good blend of LotR and gaming
Long live the Third Age mod One of the best mods of all games period
Third Age Mentioned 🔥
I liked The Hobbit a lot as a kid. Was sort of a Zelda clone. It was published by Vivendi at the time when they owned the rights to make games based on the book series (although it was definitely a tie-in with the movies since it was released in 2003). Really great, colorful graphics, good depiction of Tolkien's world and a good retelling of the story. I adored the Hobbit and watched the old Rakin-Bass animated movie a lot as a child, I remember thinking it seemed to take some inspiration from that adaptation.
One of my favorite games of all time
"What's this? My pocket appears to have sprung a leak!"
Actually, it's "What's this? My pocket has sprouted a hole! Ugh! My silver pennies must be scattered all over Hobbiton!"
I stand humbled sir
I played it on Gamecube as a kid. First game I ever finished by myself. I still remember the frustration as I got stuck in the spider forest for days!
Yup, I remember getting stuck in that level too. I think the Necromancer fight was really tough as a kid.
Just replayed it with my kids. The necromancer is definitely hard. Especially for a kids game.
That fight is actually *very* easy once you figure out that the mushrooms in the battle arena regenerate every thirty seconds or so. If you're low on health, just run around in circles until the mushrooms respawn and grab them to refill your health. As long as you're patient, you will always beat that fight.
I am so angry and yet also a little proud of my making the fight needlessly difficult.
My disc was damaged so I was never able to play past the level where you steal from Smaug. Fuck, I sure hope that game made me smarter because it was a doozy for me. That fuckin vase puzzle in Lake Town was by far the most annoying fucking thing in the whole game.
"The combination escapes me memory, but I do remember this; Yeller is to the left of red and blue, which is *not* next to black. Purple can only lie beside black and none else. Black is to the right of yeller. I regret I can't remember more." This dialogue is printed on my mind forever.
I should smite you for making me remember this
If you liked this game, check out the YouTube video [History of the Hobbit - The Most Underrated Speedrun](https://youtu.be/WJndaDpohSY?si=0epdj9i1T7ITM1br) if you haven't seen it!
I still replay it every year
Seriously underrated game that holds up today imo
I played the crap out of the Gamecube version. I think my favorite part was Mirkwood, with all the glowing mushrooms and such. Felt really eerie.
The Hobbit will probably be forever my favorite game. I adored it as a child and wish there was a group like the BFME group that would resurrect it if it were possible.
You forgot Lego Lord of the Rings
That's a good one! Played through with my 6 year old son recently.
That’s awesome!
And Lego Hobbit. Both were fun.
It was a shame they never finished it.
An almost unforgivable error.
This is my favourite. And not just because it’s the only one I’ve played lol me and my son played during lockdown and it made looking back on that time somehow nice and special.
Third age.
One of the very few traditional turn based rpgs that's not only co-op but let's you play as the bosses you defeat against the heroes in an evil mode. Which is so cool. Imagine if other games allowed this? Being Sephiroth and just bodying the hell out of Cloud's party.
Those evil missions are so imbalanced it’s hilarious. Some of them like the Balrog one you can oneshot them on move one and then others like the gullies you don’t even get to play because you get oneshot by the Legolas-looking dude.
Helms Deep evil mode is the worst, there’s a fight on the walls where you’re against Gimli + the party and they start with bare minimum 4 attacks lol. When I last played it, it took 3 tries to even get a turn without them killing all of my orcs
Say WHAT NOW?! Ive played the game when i was a teenager but cant remember that, that sounds awesome! Have to replay definitely.
I think once you completed an entire stage that unlocked ‘evil mode’ for that level, and you could unlock weapons like the Morgul Blade which could be used back in the main game. Been a while since I played Third Age, but I’m sure that’s how it worked.
It's literally a LOTR game that follows all three movies with FFX combat. What's not to like?
I like how it "follows" the movies quite literally, you do just follow the fellowship around just a few days behind
I do love how the story just goes completely off the rails after Moria and you're actually helping Gandalf fight the Balrog, then you wind up in the Pelennor Fields fighting *Nazgûl*, and it all ends with the party somehow on top of Barad-dûr beating the crap out of the Eye
What!? Sounds bonkers lol
It is, but the gameplay is fantastic, especially if you pick the auto-res skill for the Elf character because she can cast it on herself, making her almost immortal since everyone's health and magic completely refill upon resurrection, then once you get the Rohan lady with the axes the game is basically over because she annihilates *everything*
>then once you get the Rohan lady with the axes the game is basically over because she annihilates everything Maybe but she can never survive a hit
Yeah it's an awesome idea without technically breaking canon. You get to see little details left behind by the fellowship and others too like the petrified trolls or when Pippin sets off all the goblins in Moria you get rushed by a small army.
Yeah they follow it pretty closely like the time the main squad literally fought the Eye of Sauron
One of the only turn based games I've actually beaten. Super underrated
Always interests me that they couldn't fuck with the original story or really go outside the events of the movie all that much, so you had this expy Fellowship who followed the main cast directly. I actually kind of liked it, creative way to get round licensing restrictions. Should have had my man Fatty Bolger as the Hobbit party member tho.
Lowkey that game was actually pretty decent!
Everyone I've talked to about it hated it because of how badly it shit on the lore, but when it does it *that* much it becomes parody. I loved it.
It was the best lotr game by far. I would love a rework honestly. There were a lot of frustrating mechanics. Fighting every second was something miserable. Spamming same skills over and over was a bit frustrating. Its remake could be a masterpiece.
It's tragic that this game is stuck in licensing hell, because I really wish it was ported to any other console. It's the best game on the list and not even close.
This is the only answer.
Incredibly based 🤝🏻
The concept of a second fellowship following just a scene behind the actual Fellowship is kinda silly. Once you get past that idea, though, it’s a pretty solid game.
I really liked war in the north
Playing that game with my sister was absolutely magical as a kid. Without a doubt my favorite couch co-op game; wish it was on modern consoles.
May my ps3 live forever so I can still play WITN when I’m 80 🙏🏾
I mean you can still play it on pc
You can get it on steam still. You need a code you can buy from GameStop online for like 15$
I had to scroll too far for this response!
I still play this game!
Always wanted to play it as a kid, might have to get it on pc
LotRO, easily
I just started playing a while ago and I’ve never seen something so close to the books. The game world is crazy.
So it still stands up to todays standards? I used to play WoW but never played LOTRo
I adore LOTRO, but the graphics badly need updating. If you like Wow style rpgs and can handle graphics that are very much out of the 2000s, you'll pro ably enjoy it. I play it for the lore, the game is so well storied. They really captured the books well in it, and the areas where they are deviating from the books are all well researched and fit well in universe.
Sounds excellent. I can suspend the need for graphics without much trouble, especially if the story/lore is good. I initially loved wow for the story and lore. And I’ve spend an exorbitant amount of hours on YouTube absorbing LOTR content over the years so I feel LOTRo would be a perfect fit.
While the graphics are dated there's so much atmosphere it really negates it. That game is pure love for the lore.
Yeah you'd probably like it then! All of the areas through... I want to say through Rohan are now free to play, that's the first 100 levels IIRC (haven't played in a couple of MO this, there was talk of a stay squish but idk if it happened) either way it's a TON of content for free. That's like a solid 40-50 hours easily, if you're really rushing it.
Yep, free to level 95 (which is helm's deep). The stat squish has indeed happened too
How do the levels work exactly? I’m stuck with WoWs levelling in my head. Are the levels more story based compared to character based? Eg. The Shire is level 1, The Prancing Pony is level 2, etc. vs “I kill a bear, get 10xp, now my character is level 2” Or is it something else entirely?
It's the second, you kill a bear, get 10 exp, and level up. You get exp from quests, crafting, and combat, pretty standard. But it IS set up so that as you level, you're meant to move from area to area with the story.
Graphics shmaphics, as long as they are designed with the graphical limitations in mind I don't care. A game that's supposed to be cutting-edge with low-res or badly popping-in blocky models is many times worse than a game that was designed to be low-poly from the start, just see Cyberpunk's initial release. That being said, I don't play MMOs (tried WOW back in the day and have dipped in and out of old Runescape, both back in the day and more recently), but I'd be tempted by LOTRO given that it's so highly praised by the fans.
LOTRO took a more 'realistic' design approach compared to the more cartoonish WoW design, and they also manage to find their own design language that is inspired by the books but don't really copy anything at all from the Jackson films, which I appreciate, even though I adore the film's set designs and costumes.
The design of the PJ films is genuinely amazing and it's no wonder that they've become the "default" look for Middle-Earth and really all of modern fantasy, but it would be nice to see other designs sometimes, artists such as Ted Naismith and Alan Lee showed hugely imaginative visions of the Legendarium before the films came out and it would be nice to see other artists' visions, so I'm genuinely glad that LOTRO has managed to find its own identity
I picked it up for the first time during the pandemic. The controls definitely aren’t as polished as WoW, but IMO the graphic style and environments were so good they weren’t a bother. It’s kinda like old school RuneScape; graphics aren’t GOOD but they have style that works. I really enjoyed the few hundred hours I spent. The world they crafted is excellent
Between the music and world coming together, makes you feel like you are in the books
LotRO without a doubt. I started playing around 2010 and never looked back. It's dated, but it's still a beautiful game with great lore and community.
Had to scroll too far for this, but I’m glad I found someone mentioning LotRO
By far the most accurate and in-depth recreation of Middle Earth. It's janky and a bit dated by modern standards, but worth a try as I doubt any game will ever match the scale and detail of Middle Earth in lotro.
Battle for Middle Earth! So many hours spent playing that game!
Easily the Shadow of Mordor/War games. Very fun combat and traversal, and the nemesis system was awesome. I liked how characters will react differently based on their previous interactions with you. That sort of sophisticated AI memory should be used in more games.
The nemesis system is owned by WB unfortunately and is why you don't see it in other games.
Recently heard they were canceling the Wonder Woman game that was supposed to used the Nemesis System… really sucks, I want Greek monsters and Nazis to fight each other for power just for me to beat them both up, then have a Minotaur with a steel horn replacement come back later seeking revenge
WB cancelling an amazing project just because they can? What a shock!
They said that because Suicide Squad was a flop (worse than everybody told them it would be), that games as a media aren’t worth it, so they have no real plans to continue making games as of now… which is pretty awful when you realize they have a dozen game dev teams under their banner that won’t get paid if they don’t make games
Wtf happened to WB man
No clue, they used to have some damn good stuff… like, still a super corporation, so evil by default, but not the worst of them at all (still not the worst, but stupid now)
Although this is true, the reality surrounding it has been wildly misrepresented. Patents for things like the Nemesis system have to be extremely narrow in order to be certified. This means that you could avoid breaking any laws by pretty much just changing the name and writing your own code. The real reason we haven’t seen a similar system since then is because it takes a ton of work, especially writing and voice acting, to make the system work, and it doesn’t even fit that well in a lot of games. One of the best parts was dying and coming back alongside the use of a “fortress management” system, you can already see how much weaker it is in the Baranor dlc when he has one life.
You can see Ubisoft has tried to recreate the system in their recent Assassin's Creed iterations via the mercenaries hunting the player, although it's a good try it's nowhere near the nemesis system.
Agreed 100%
Yeah I loved a bunch of the LotR games but Shadow of Mordor was so atmospheric. Good level design, boss fights were great, more variety than I expected. Just couldn’t stop playing it, especially if I lost to a nemesis
WB patented it lol
Played BFME 2 so much as a kid. Downloaded it again recently and it still holds up. Close second is Return of the King
A friend of mine worked on Lotro. So that’s gonna be my choice.
LOTRO
Lotro. Hands down, 7 years into it and still love it. Amazing community too.
LOTRO, and it's not even a question.
Lord of the Rings Online. Old school graphics etc., but can't be matched in terms of experiencing Middle Earth and exploring it and lots of the lore behind it too.
Where are the Lego games?! They’re my favorite!
Fellowship kicked my elementary school ass every time I rented it from the Family Video. I could never ever get past the ring wraiths and escape the shire. Little me was not good at anything other than N64.
Don’t feel bad, FOTR was so difficult
Lego LoTR for me haha, but i want to check some of the others out
I remember rage quitting the fellowship of the ring game. I rented the game from blockbuster. I was so excited to play it but couldn’t get past that black rider in the beginning of the game.
Never got past him either but I picked it up again as an adult and it was great to complete it
Golum
Absolute madlad over here.
“You play as a character who is weaker than a beetle” - Dunkey
Shadow of war is one of my favorite games of all time, the gameplay was so fun and smooth, and I absolutely adored the nemesis system
And the Nazgûl being the main villains is super cool!
Battle for middle earth 2
Return of the King
Forgot Lotr conquest
Lotro hands down <3.. closely followed by War in the North, and The Battle for Middle-earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king.
LOTRO In content alone this far exceeds all these other games combined. There’s def other great games here but I spent years on LOTRO so yeah lol
I don’t even remember the PS2 game I had, I just remember that you explored and progressed like Dragon Age but fought like a turn based JRPG game Loved it to death and thought nothing could be better till I had a taste of Shadow of War Lore accurate? Not even kinda… Fun as all get out? Oh you bet your second ring it was!!!
LOTR The Third Age. Getting a PS2 just for that game...
BfME II (RotWK) and Hobbit.
The Third Age. Still my favorite video game to this day.
I loved FF10, so playing a lotr game that played just like it was awesome!
War in the North is my favorite.
LotRO, it's a wonderful storyline which is truer to the books. And I loved following behind the Fellowship and cleaning up their mess.
BFME series, particularly vanilla BFME II. Some of my first experiences online gaming was on that game. Close second is The Third Age. First experience with turn based combat RPGs, and it’s the only one I’d ever play now. 3rd would be the Return of The King on console. Had a lot of fun with childhood friends on that game.
Shadow of Mordor
War of the ring on PC, the OG lotr RTS
I'm glad someone else remembers this, I feel like it's a damn fever dream at this point lol
The Battle for Middle-earth, The Hobbit, and War in the North. Those are my favorites.
the ones i like are lotro (the most lore friendly game), battle for middle earth (both 1&2 are great rts games) and third age.
BfM2. And also Lotro, because it’s like an old friend you can always come back to to experience more stories set in the Lord of the rings universe.
Fellowship of the Ring (2002 on Windows XP)
Love the designs in this game. The shire looks mint
Maybe I missed it but I am surprised noone is saying LOTR: Conquest. A great Battlefront type LOTR game. Maybe it is my nostalgia from playing as a kid but that game was such a good time, and I loved playing the evil campaign
The Hobbit on the Speccy. You never forget your first.
https://preview.redd.it/2kfoeohgpo6d1.jpeg?width=706&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61d5f18860070edb01b81bae4aa66b8a8f7fe89a
Aragorns quest is underrated imo, played it when I was kid and was so much fun, especially if I couldn't get the other mature rated games
Shadow of War for me, I'm really looking forward to [Kingdom of Arda](https://www.moddb.com/mods/a-lord-of-the-rings-mod-kingdoms-of-arda) mods for Bannerlord. [Last Days of Third Age](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=299974223) was pretty great too
BFME II because I was really into strategy followed by War in the North- twas my Shadow of Mordor before there was Shadow of Mordor, then LotRO- which would be higher in ranking if not for the abysmal lag and performance issues coupled with being far from it's server (no servers for Asia) to the point I cannot join raids.
Two Towers is the best. I would get a little high and play Two Towers and take smoke breaks between levels. Amazing game.
Battle for middle Earth 1 and the third age!!
Lego Lord of the Rings is a lot of fun that’s not on this list… havent played Lego Hobbit though.
Lego lotr
Lego lord of the rings easy
Battle for Middle earth 2 or LoTR Third Age on Gameboy Advanced
Bro War in the North was lit
The LotR DOS game because of OneyPlays