War in Middle Earth

War in Middle Earth is a real-time strategy game released for the ZX Spectrum, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST in 1988 by Virgin Mastertronic on the Melbourne House label.[4]

War in Middle Earth
Box art
Developer(s)Synergistic Software
Publisher(s)Melbourne House
Designer(s)Mike Singleton[1]
Alan Clark
Robert Clardy[2]
EngineWorld Builders
Platform(s)MS-DOS, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS
Release
Genre(s)Real-time strategy[3]
Mode(s)Single-player
Gondorian soldiers and the city of Minas Tirith

The game combines both large scale army unit level and small scale character level. All the action happens simultaneously in game world and places could be seen from the map or at the ground level. Individual characters can also be seen in larger battles (in which they either survive or die). If the battle is less than 100 units, approximately, it can be watched on ground level. Otherwise it will be only displayed numerically. On ground level characters can acquire objects and talk with non-player characters (such as Radagast or Tom Bombadil).

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1989 in Dragon #147 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.[5] Computer Gaming World gave the game a mixed review, noting that, although it faithfully recreates the events of the books, genuine strategy is lacking and the game plays very similarly on subsequent playthroughs.[6] Compute!'s review was more positive, only criticizing an anticlimactic ending to "an otherwise impressive game" that was "faithful to the Middle Earth story line".[7]

The Spanish magazine Microhobby valued the game with the following scores:[8] Originality: 80% Graphics: 70% Motion: - Sound: 50% Difficulty: 100% Addiction: 80%

Reviews

References
  1. IMDB Game Page
  2. Moby Games Game Page (MS-DOS Version)
  3. "J.R.R. Tolkien's War in Middle Earth". AllGame. Archived from the original on 2014-01-01.
  4. "Back Cover Scan". Spectrum Computing. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
  5. Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (July 1989). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (147): 76–83.
  6. Lombardi, Chris (May 1989), "Mordor, They Rode!", Computer Gaming World, no. 59, pp. 10–11
  7. Gingher, Robert (October 1989). "War in Middle Earth". Compute!. p. 134. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  8. (Spanish) War in Middle Earth - ZX Spectrum (1988) - article on Soloretro
  9. "CVG Magazine Issue 089". March 1989.
  10. "ACE Magazine Issue 20". May 1989.
  11. "Commodore User Magazine Issue 67". April 1989.
  12. "Your Sinclair Magazine Issue 40". April 1989.
  13. "Info Magazine Issue 29".
  14. "Crash - No. 62 (1989-03)(Newsfield)(GB)". March 1989.
  15. "ZZap!64 Magazine Issue 048". April 1989.
  16. "Kultpower Archiv: Komplettscan Powerplay 4/1989".
  17. "The Games Machine Magazine Issue 17".
  18. "Amstrad Action Issue 042".
  19. "Alle guten dinge sind". kultboy.com (in German).
  20. "Jeux & stratégie 58". May 1989.


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