I was recently invited to attend a Battle for Middle Earth 2 for Xbox 360 summit, sponsored by Electronic Arts and hosted by Microsoft. The event was held in beautiful Seattle, Washington, and was quite the adventure! Touring Xbox headquarters, getting to know some of my fellow gamers, and trying my hand at the final build of BFME2 all combine for an unforgettable experience.

Upon arriving in Seattle, I made my way to the hotel where I met up with fellow journalists and members of the gaming community. I was first introduced to Aaron Kaufman, the EA Community Manager for the event, and my roommate, Chris Paladino from Dreamstation.cc.

As gamers we all naturally had a lot to talk about, from our favorite games to what site we were representing. Chris Godfree from gamertagradio and myself spent a lot of time discussing such issues, and seemed to form a pretty good bond. These guys were very down to earth and accepting of the opinions of other gamers. Throughout the entire trip we spent a lot of time just sitting back, relaxing and discussing the world of gaming!

That night we all gathered for dinner, where I was able to meet up with the rest of the group, including more representatives from other gaming sites, like Nate Kramer from gamereplays.org and Michael Halford from Xbox365.com. We were also introduced to Lay Amritz from EA Marketing, Tony Hynes, Community PR Manager for Xbox, and Raj Joshi, the Associate Producer for BFMEII.

The last individual we were introduced to is someone that many strategy fans probably know well, Louis Castle. For those unfamiliar with Louis, he’s the man behind the Command and Conquer series, and co-founder of EA’s Westwood studio. As an RTS enthusiast, it was Loui’s vision to bring The Battle for Middle Earth II to the consoles.

After introductions and discussion, we headed out to fill our empty stomachs with pizza. Mmmmmm. The night of enjoyment continued on as we drank, discussed Xbox, Battle for Middle Earth, Strategy Games, our Xbox Live names, and pretty much anything else you can think of. While this event was focused on The Battle for Middle Earth II, EA was sure to point out that us gamers are the core of the gaming world, and they really value members of the gaming community. We all had a great time just getting to know each other and hearing the different perspectives on gaming.

We ended the night with a podcast for gamertagradio.com and dreamstation.cc. The two sites teamed up to do a joint podcast where we interviewed Louis Castle, talked about the game and gave our expectations for the day to come.

The next morning started off early, and after a brief breakfast, we were off to see our host, Microsoft! We started the day off with a bang! Peter Moore stopped by for a quick visit and took the time to answer some of our questions. Make sure to check gamertagradio.com and dreamstation.cc to listen to their podcast, which includes some questions by the attending journalists and community members (including myself). Meeting Peter Moore was really fascinating, and he seems like a very honest fellow. He gave us insight into some upcoming games, Microsoft’s plans to lure Japanese developers and his impressions of the Wii and PS3. Peter was only able to stick around for a brief while, but we all really enjoyed the time he spent with us, and I’d really like to thank him for it!

Next up was a presentation by Louis Castle about RTS games. While I consider myself a pretty big RTS fan (Starcraft rules!), I learned a lot from this brief presentation and found it very entertaining. As Louis discussed some of the failed RTS to console ports, I couldn’t help but grow weary of The Battle for Middle Earth. A GOOD RTS on a console? I mean, come on…. Could it really happen?

As the presentation wrapped up, we were given a quick tutorial and a chance to play a portion of the first campaign. At first I was really confused by the controls, and I continued my skepticism of the game. I’ll admit, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to play it. The last RTS game I had played on console (Alien vs. Predator: Extinction) was a total stinker, and it happened to be from EA as well. Just as I was starting to learn the ropes of the game, it was off for a tour of the building.

We were guided through the Xbox campus and show everything from the labs to where they run Xbox Live! The tour was lots of fun and very educational for game nerds as myself. Unfortunately, the tour had to end as we stopped to grab some food in the Microsoft cafeteria. We were joined at the event by Laura Foy, who many gamers may remember from G4. She was there with http://www.on10.net, a fairly new but exciting site. During our break she took us each aside and interviewed us about our site. I talked briefly about Strategy Informer, so make sure to watch the video! I haven’t seen it yet myself, so I hope it turned out ok.

After that it was back to business… and perhaps the highlight of the day… hands on time with The Battle for Middle Earth II! We were each given an individual station to sit and play BFME2, and our friends from EA were right there answering questions and guiding us along. However, it didn’t take long before we were moving along on our own without help from EA. Learning to play the game is pretty simple, but it’s obvious that it’ll be a hard game to master. Make sure to check out my impressions of the game to get a lot more information.

The hours flew by quickly as I was enthralled by the game, and soon came the multiplayer portion of the day. I got my butt kicked by Chris Paladino, who decided to rush me early on with a couple of Heroes. We were both fairly new to the game, unfamiliar with the map and the unit abilities, so the match went pretty quickly. Our second match was much more intense as we both built up massive armies. My forces were large, but spread rather thin across the map. While Chris had a smaller army, he managed to find a weak point in my base and inflict some heavy damage before my army could rally and retaliate. The battle was chaotic, epic, deadly and exciting… everything you witnessed in the battles from the Lord of the Rings movies. Slowly but surely I managed to push Chris back, and eventually I claimed victory! Ok, so now I have a big head.

There were two gamers who were already experts with the PC version of BFME2, and played the game online on a regular basis. With the 2 vs 2 tournament up next, we were all scared to see those two gamers paired on a team. I was joined by Godfree from gamertag on “Team Jedi”, and we were opposed by “Team Pop Tart”. The Pop Tarts put up a really good fight at first after drawing first blood, but with the bulk of their forces trying to take down Godfree, I was able to build up a huge army. Together Godfree and I pushed them back and won our first match.

Sadly, we got slaughtered in the next round by the experienced players, but there’s no shame in losing to the best I guess. Congratulations to Karen and Nate, the jerks who beat us and walked away with the first place award. Godfree and I managed to get second place.

That concluded the gaming part of the day. We headed out for a great dinner filled with lots of drunken gaming discussion, laughter and fun. The ended the night with a really long, deep discussion about our thoughts on The Battle for Middle Earth II, and gave EA our impressions. We told them what they did right, what they did wrong, and whether or not we would buy the game. Of course, I would have bought the game before even attending the event, but this is definitely a game I would recommend to Xbox 360 owners. Even if you’ve already played the PC version, the added multiplayer modes and the immersive experience you can only get from playing on a console, are enough reason to pick it up.

Late that night we headed for bed, and early in the morning (waaaay too early in the morning) we parted ways and headed home. I miss the place already, but I have a lot of fond memories from the experience, and can’t wait to play more of The Battle for Middle Earth II. I’d like to thank Aaron Kaufman for inviting Strategy Informer to the event, and Jamie Davey for choosing me to be the lucky one to go! Also a big thanks goes to everyone at EA and Microsoft for putting on such a great community event.