The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense

Protect Middle-earth from Sauron's wrath

The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense is a tower defense game based around the movie franchise.

There are two different game modes in The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense. You can choose to play Story mode, in which you play through 18 levels set across seven 3D worlds, in a tale based loosely around the plot of the movie (and the book, of course). Alternatively, there's a Challenge mode where you essentially play until you get bored.

The gameplay of both of these modes is pretty much the same: position your fighters, units and blockades strategically in order to defend your territory from the marauding invaders. There are plenty of characters from the movies in The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense, including Aragorn, Gandalf and Legolas. You can also control Elven Archers and Hobbits.

Although the different scenarios in The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense are varied in their design and layout, we couldn't help feeling a bit restricted in terms of the gameplay. There are only so many places you are allowed to position your characters and objects, so it often feels like the game is helping you too much.

The graphics in The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense are quite mixed. The backgrounds are great and capture those of the film very well. The characters are well drawn but badly animated, and positioning them is often fiddly because of their tiny form.

The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense will no doubt appeal to fans of the movie, but in reality it's no more than an average tower defense game.

Bug fixes and other improvements to game performance