BFME2: Rise of the Witch-King Brings the BFME series back to life and drives it to sky high levels.
First off, I would like to thank EA for the event and of course NVIDIA for all the awesome goodies that were given out. But now let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the entire event. The event kicked off on November 15th and I was the only person at the event who lived close enough to drive, so my trip was not all that spectacular, but the 1 ½ hour drive went by very quickly and I arrived at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Ray around late afternoon. I checked into the hotel room and than headed down to the lobby area to meet up with the rest of the Summit attendees. Being fortunate enough to have been at the BFME2 summit I was hoping to meet up with a few old friends. As time passed and a few delays were encountered, EA Predator showed up and we were off to dinner. The meet and greet was a bit odd at first since they tried to fit 13 of us in an area that really could hold only 8! So, they were forced to semi split us up and shove us outside. Once settled in, David Silverman from Marketing joined us and helped keep the other tables questions to a minimum. After dinner we took our short trip back to the hotel and turned in for the next day’s big events.
As I woke up to recover from the night before, I headed down to the lobby where we meet up with EA Predator once again to head off to EALA offices. The normal check-in process took place while walking past the guard shack, but non-the-less we walked into EA without alarms going off “HeXetic”. As we entered the main lobby we were greeted by a huge banner that sported the cover art for the Rise of the Witch-King. We than headed to the EATS Café for some breakfast. EAT’S Cafe has always provided and awesome meal every time I have visited so the french toast was a great meal for me once again. But enough with the food and the semi tour, lets get to the Rise of the Witch-King information.
We headed down to the training room to get our eager hands on the game, but we were suddenly hit with a delay as NVIDIA sent the summit PC’s to EA Redwood Shores and they were in route to be delivered that morning to EALA, but still haven’t been delivered yet. So in the mean time EA pulled out a bunch of backup PC’s to fill the void. During this wait time we were able to sit down for a presentation mainly done by Producer, Amir Raimi and backup by Lead Development Director, Jill Donald. The presentation kicked off with the entire back story of where EA got the idea for Rise of the Witch-king. Now interesting enough we were able to find out the first storyline for the expansion was not Rise of the Witch-king, but instead was the Battle of the Last Alliance. But ultimately EA choose the story of the Forces of Dark. Which brings me to think, EA might just have another expansion up their sleeves for the Middle-earth series.
As the presentation went on we found that EA was able to get a bit more creative with the overall storyline, as the true story of the Rise of the Witch-king only takes 3 pages at most in the books. For a brief overview the game campaign runs through right after the King of Arnor was killed and his sons split the Arnor kingdom into 3 regions. During this time the Witch-king was able to muster forces and start his rise on the weakened Arnor areas. To read the full presentation notes click here.
After the 1 hour presentation we were able to head on down to the training room to start are in-depth look at the Rise of the Witch-King. Our first task was to play though the campaign. Now take in mind, I started off the campaign thinking it was going to be easy as pie, as the BFME2 campaign was. I figured the campaign would kick off being a tutorial for the most part and the units were just going to be small squads etc… Boy was I wrong! The first mission wasn’t hard per say, but it offered a challenge and told a story in a way that no other BFME campaign has before. The story kicks off with awesome art and then gets into detail about each unit of the Angmar faction. In the first Mission you have 3 objectives which at first glance look to be basic and easy until you actually approach them, the armies are much bigger and the AI is much more intuitive over the BFME2 setup. As I completed the 3 tasks I figured that was going to be the end of the 1st mission, but once again I was very wrong, I was now tasked with more objectives to protect my setup bases against a coming opposing force. Now this wasn’t a 5 squad Army, this army probably had 30 squads along with some siege to counter your efforts. Luckily I built up a semi upgraded army and I was able to push them back but I was only playing on medium settings, I could only imagine what it would be like on brutal.
After I completed the first mission, the story continued and I moved onto the 2nd mission. The bulk of my Army carried into the 2nd mission with 1 or 2 heroes missing as they went off to do something per the Witch-Kings request. This mission started off pretty easy but ended up in being much crazier than expected. Your first objective is to take out a few camps, with the forces you start with this task is not a difficult one. But once those tasks are done you are greeted with a whole slew of new objectives to take over a few castles and 2 massive armies. During this time the Arnor forces also take the liberty to rein havoc on your new base with more than adequate sized armies. The fact they used upgraded units along with Powers to me was a definite improvement over the campaigns we have become accustom to. After the massive battles that took place I was finally able to gain an upper hand and defeat the Arnor Forces and move onto the 3rd mission of the campaign.
Now the 3rd mission starts off by showing you your overall objectives and gives you a nice peek at the massive army and powers you will be facing. I have to say this aspect of the campaign was beyond anything EA has ever given us in a campaign mission. The Objectives in this mission are very complex and offer a challenge to even a well seasoned RTS player. I was able to get maybe 20% into this mission before our time was up on the campaign side of things, but that was when I realized I only completed 2 ½ mission on medium settings in 3 ½ hours. Now this could be because I was not use to Angmar as a faction, but I believe even if I was playing with MOTW I would still have had a good challenge in this campaign. I am very much looking forward to completing the rest of the missions in the ROTWK expansion.
After the campaign we were able to score some free time for a few multiplayer matches vs. the other community leaders. I of course played a game with Pyros from Planet Company of Heroes. He choose the Angmar faction and I was being curious to see what the other additions in the factions would be like, so I choose Men of the West. I am by no means the greatest BFME player in the world but I like to think I can hold my own in a good game. I will say Pyros and I did share a great multiplayer game and the gameplay was extremely fun and engrossing. I was able to use most of the additions to the Men of the West such as the new Rohan Spearmen and the Knights of Dol Amroth with success, and some failure. One thing I did find out when playing verse the Angmar faction, you have to use almost all your units in a mixture to stop them. They have such a diverse mix-up of units and powers it is almost impossible to attack with just a few unit types, as those Thrall Masters can call out counters to your units very easily and effectively. Irregardless the battle went back and forth into each of our bases and we ended up running out of time as the tournament was kicking off so we had to end our game not knowing who would have won the match.
We then moved onto the next aspect of the summit which was the 1v1 tournament action. Now the tournament ran pretty well for me in the first round as I was able to overcome the match with my Angmar forces and take the win. But than I had to face the Germans… well that put a block wall in front of my hopes to win a full scale Witch-King sword. But during the tournament I realized how much Angmar really adds to the battlefield with each of its units. I was able to play around with the Sorcerers and the different types of units the Thrall Master can summon and was very much impressed with the style of play the Angmar faction will be bringing to the table. I can honestly say Rogash is the most over powered hero in the game as his leap jump is just devastating to an opposing force that is bunched together. Also mix that with Fell Wind and say goodbye to your army. In all the Angmar faction is very well rounded and well worth the cost of the expansion.
EA’s Development team has also added a ton of new units with the new expansion which can be seen here, all of which attribute to the new level of units, which breaks the factions up with Regular Units, Elite Units, Mini Heroes, and Heroes. This unit dynamic offers a much more compelling game as each faction has a much more defined set of units, and allows you to break apart different types of tactics in the early game and late game. With adding this dynamic it really ties into what patch 1.05 did for BFME2. Allowing buildings to withstand attack vs. small infantry and fall vs. the bigger units such as Trolls and Knights. Rushing single type units is pretty hard to pull off especially with the building buffs.
During my elimination somber time I was able to jump into War of the Ring for a bit to see what the new features offered. I started off with one of the Historical setups just to allow a good overall match, and right of the get go the addition of the 1 extra hero and being able to move 2 territories over friendly territories was a clear A+ addition to the game, Much like the reviews and comments over the last few months have said, fighting lines were formed and a more strategic game play is now offered. I wasn’t able to get into the nitty-gritty of War of the Ring, but from what I have seen thus far it already proves itself to be a much more complex Risk style game over what the original BFME2 offered. I will say once again I am very disappointed that EA did not increase the amount of human players allowed in WOTR, but overall I still think WOTR will make a great feature/addition to ROTWK.
The next big feature of the Rise of the Witch-King would be Create-A-Hero. With time constraints pushing down on us during the summit I was not able to mess with the new Troll class, but I was able to see how the cost of powers has changed the face of Create-A-Hero. The custom heroes will finally be able to make there way into multiplayer games without a huge bias as the powers that you assign each hero will be tied to a cost, which will make super heroes cost what they should instead of being offered at a nominal 2000 resources. This feature also allows you to pimp your heroes out with basic powers so you can either create a cheap scout hero or possibly a huge Gandalf type end of game hero. Once I have my hands on the expansion I will write a bit more about the Create-A-Hero features, so stay tuned for more info.
As the summit came to an end, I was able to hang out with the ever famous Witch-king of Angmar which I will have more pictures of in the next few days once EA sends us our Photo Op’s. But after the Summit we were able to head down to Medieval Times in Anaheim California and have a heck of a time once again. There is nothing like a good meal with tons of drinks and massive battles on a real playing field. I honestly think the night overtook me and well I made the Green Knight cry, The poor guy got picked on so much he stated to talk trash back to us, but the fact remains the Blue Knight killed the Green Knight. I think the coolest part of the night was when we found out that the red and yellow Knight and the Princess both play BFME2. Yeah that was a shock!
Once the event was over we headed back to EA where we received a cool thank you package. The package was a nice gift pack that anyone would love to have. It included items such as a NVIDIA 7800GT and a tons of LOTR stuff such as shirts and playing cards "which will be given out in future contests here at MEV", but the crown jewel of the package was the 3 DVD set of the LOTR Trilogy. I have all the sets already but this set was the newest Limited Edition, the discs contain both the regular version of the movie and the extended version on one disc along with another disc full of tons of extra commentary, which isn’t on any of my previous disc’s I own. If you’re a lover of the LOTR series you must buy these disks, they have provided hours of more info about the series.
So to sum the entire Rise of the Witch-King Summit up, we had a great time playing thought the single players campaign “well the missions we got to” the new features such as a more complex AI, useful Siege, War if the Ring, Mini Heroes, additional units for each faction, and the regular hero additions such as Gothmog and Azog offer a huge bonus to the previous BFME2 we loved. If I had to give the game a score between 1 and 100 I would assign it a 92. As the game is by far the best of the BFME series.