After brushing up on the first two Lord of the Rings movies, then braving the cineplex crush for the third installment in the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy, it still isn't enough for some Tolkien fans. Here, then, is even more Middle-earth entertainment, in the form of an RTS based loosely on the four books. Hey, it beats dressing up as a Hobbit for the holidays.

It may seem to be a stretch to fit Gollum, Gandalf and Gimli into a real-time strategy title, but developer Liquid Entertainment managed to pull it off. Primarily, the game sacrifices complexity in production and technology trees for superb balance in the spells and counter-spells that fans of the books will appreciate. Players concentrate on only two resources for production: ore and food. Technology upgrades are crucial, but interesting in that they bring the written pages to life without letting the RTS genre get in the way.

If there is a downfall to the game, it is in the graphics. There probably should have been a lot more eye candy to the individual soldiers and heroes, in order to really bring the units to life. After all, the title is relying on the attraction of the franchise, with known characters helping sell the purchase. The camera doesn't zoom in quite far enough to really study the characters in detail. Similarly, the camera doesn't zoom out far enough either, relying on the small overview map for a top-level view. It would have been nice if the zoom let players go a little further in and a littler further out, but that's probably a limitation of the Battle Realms engine. For me, anyway, the inability to study the face of a familiar character is a key limitation of the game.

A second, more subtle limitation is the tendency to rely on the rote practice of many RTS titles: build-produce-rush. Once you get your encampment constructed and start churning out the most powerful units, the level is essentially complete.

A final nit concerns a bit of lag as the complexity of the levels increased. The mouse got increasingly sluggish and it was annoying. That could be pilot error, however, with a system badly in need of a tuneup.

Anyway, back to the positive points. The tutorials are excellent, with a light banter between elf and dwarf accompanying the first three lessons. These three "good" tutorials show the basics of the game, and the single "evil" lesson contrasts the slight differences when playing for Mordor. The tutorials are well done, forcing newcomers to the RTS world to learn how to direct traffic and build technology. The game waits for the correct mouse-click or unit placement before proceeding, which is always apprciated.

The technology tree isn't very complex, which is probably a good thing, and in the earlier levels you can just keep clicking away on all the different structures looking for anything that is ready to upgrade. In the later levels, there is more pressure to choose a correct upgrade path and stick to it. For example, the ability to detect hidden elven archers can be critical to success for the forces of Mordor; otherwise, arrows can pick off orcs uninterrupted. Players know they are under attack, but cannot stumble upon their foe without the right powers.

One nice feature is the use of Fate points, which result from success in skirmishes. With enough Fate points, players can cash in and activate certain spells and powers or summon heroes. It's a nice reward for battle savvy. There are five Heroes per side: for Middle-earth, you can summon Frodo Baggins, Gimli son of Gloin, Legolas, Aragorn and Gandalf the Grey. Heroes of Mordor are Gollum, Grishnakh, Saleme, Lord of the Nazgul and Saruman.

Another positive to the game is the use of Places of Power. By occupying certain portions of the map, forces acquire special abilities. Even in single-player mode, the computer AI feels compelled to battle for control of such areas.

Two battle campaigns of 10 sessions apiece will string you along in Good or Evil mode; after that, it's skirmishing and Internet play or adjusting the difficulty setting. There are five fairly standard multiplayer modes:

Razing - The player must destroy all enemy buildings. Survival - The player must destroy all enemy buildings and enemy units. Catapult - The player fights for control of a giant catapult, which can level enemy bases. Famine - The player has a given amount of resources with which to compete. Control - The player must control Places of Power

With LOTR fever sweeping the world once again, it's nice to see an RTS released to coincide with the publicity tsunami. While the production values are high and the game has a nice polish, it isn't an epic leap forward, nor is it particularly deep. But it is more than enough to satisfy your Middle-earth cravings until the next Deluxe DVD set comes out.