Source: Compute!’s Gazette – December 1989
There have been numerous games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s books over the years. Many tend to be role playing games of one kind or another. War In Middle Earth, however, is a strategy war game. In fact, it would be classified as a real-time strategy game. While games like Dune II and later Warcraft and StarCraft may have popularized that genre, it had already been around for a while by the time those games came along.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s War In Middle Earth fairly closely follows the events of the books (or the movies if you prefer). This game combines both large scale battles and individual character battles. Many specific characters can be recognized from the books including Tom Bombadil and Radagast among others.
For Tolkien fans who also happen to be strategy fans, this sounds like almost the perfect game. However, it got mixed reviews. The main problem with it was the fact that actual strategy played a somewhat limited role. Repeated playthroughs will result in much the same experience. So I suppose it is decent enough, especially for Tolkien fans, for at least one playthrough but after that there’s not much point. This isn’t ideal for a strategy game.
War In Middle Earth was released in 1988 for a wide variety of home computers including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX, Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and DOS. The 16-bit versions of the game feature RPG elements that are left out of the 8-bit versions of the game. The 8-bit versions are purely strategy games. So if you are interested in the RPG elements, one of the 16-bit versions is a must. Graphics will also be somewhat better on the 16-bit versions as well. However, the strategy portions are similar enough to not make a big difference.
The screen shots above are from the Commodore 64 version of the game. The ad is from the December 1989 issue of Compute!’s Gazette.
