By Brian Crecente, 5:31 PM on Fri Jul 7 2006, 315 views (Edit post, Set to draft, Slurp)

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Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth II hit stores today and if you were lucky you got yourself one. I'm sure there are going to be plenty of hardcore computer RTS fans out there who will say you can't do real-time strategy on a console, but I think this game proves you can.

Sure there were a few hiccups, like moving around the map quickly, but overall Electronic Arts figured out a way to present a full-bodied RTS without having to strip away all of the nuance that makes this sort of game so much fun to play.

I gave the game a B+ in the Rocky Mountain News today, and it looks like I'm not the only one who liked the game.
I hope to spend a lot more time playing online in the coming week or so and then writing up my experiences here. Have any of you purchased the game yet for the 360?

Hit the jump for the review round-up.

Game Radar
Whether you're a fan of the property, a real-time strategy buff, an Xbox Live warrior, or some combination of the three, this one is definitely worth checking out.
Grade: 8/10

Gamerfeed
The PC has generally been home to Real-Time Strategy titles, but EALA has done a superb job in recreating the RTS genre on a console platform. If you take a few missions to get used to the control scheme, you'll be able to do anything a PC gamer can do with minimal effort.
Grade: 4/5

Rocky Mountain News
...this Xbox 360 game, with its deep tactics and masterfully crafted interface, may do for the real-time strategy genre what Halo did for first-person shooters: prove they can be played well on a console.
Grade: B+

Team Xbox
Let's face it: there's only so much you can do with a simple Xbox 360 controller. I think EALA has really taken advantage of the peripheral in question, and has also tweaked the gameplay enough so that micromanagement is less of a need.
Score: 7.9/10