War in Middle Earth
1988 · Strategy · PC/DOS
Overview
War in Middle Earth (1988) is a real-time Tolkien strategy game, designed by Mike Singleton with Alan Clark and Robert Clardy, that runs armies and individual characters at once.
Deep Dive
Armies move and fight on the world map while individual characters travel the same map. Battles of up to about 100 units can be watched at ground level, while larger ones show only numbers. On the ground, characters pick up objects and talk to figures such as Radagast and Tom Bombadil.
Developer Story
Synergistic Software built it on its World Builders engine, and Virgin Mastertronic released it on the Melbourne House label for computers from the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 to the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and MS-DOS.
Did You Know?
- Computer Gaming World praised its faithfulness to the books but found little real strategy in it.
- Compute! faulted only its "anticlimactic ending".
Sources & further reading
- War in Middle Earth — Wikipedia
