War_In_Middle_Earth_SEX-INSTRUCTORS Commodore 64 game

War in Middle Earth is a real-time strategy game released in 1988 for various platforms including the ZX Spectrum, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, MS-DOS, Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Atari ST by Virgin Mastertronic under the Melbourne House label.

The game uniquely combines both large-scale army unit-level and small-scale character-level gameplay. All actions occur simultaneously within the game world, with locations viewable on the map or at the ground level. During larger battles, individual characters can be seen, and their fate depends on the outcome. Battles involving fewer than approximately 100 units can be observed at ground level, while larger battles are displayed numerically. Characters at ground level can collect objects and interact with non-player characters like Radagast or Tom Bombadil.

Reception The game was reviewed in Dragon #147 in 1989 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column, receiving a rating of 3 out of 5 stars. Computer Gaming World provided a mixed review, acknowledging its faithful recreation of book events but noting a lack of genuine strategy and repetitive gameplay on subsequent playthroughs. Compute!'s review was more positive, praising the faithfulness to the Middle Earth story but mentioning an anticlimactic ending as the only criticism in "an otherwise impressive game".

The Spanish magazine Microhobby rated the game as follows:

• Originality: 80%
• Graphics: 70%
• Motion: Not rated
• Sound: 50%
• Difficulty: 100%
• Addiction: 80%