EA's The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II proves with certainty that the real-time strategy (RTS) genre can not only work in console format, but excel. Well, in new-generation console format at any rate, specifically on the Xbox 360.

With a few exclusive console enhancements (like sea battles), Middle Earth II is basically the same game released for PC a few months back; the native format for RTS games as they usually require a mouse and a whole lot of keyboard to actuate innumerable commands across huge battle fields, swooping back and forth from one real-time skirmish, siege, skullduggery or construction site to another.

But here on X360, you not only get those sprawling, high def graphics, epic surround sound audio and a chance to interact with Tolkien's profoundly elaborate lore incarnate, setting Elves and Dwarves against Sauron's goblin hordes in the War in the North (peeled from the Rings books, not the movies), setting the Men of the West to erect a mammoth castle and stave of the Mouth of Sauron, you do it all with a gamepad. Mind you, there's a whole lot of button combos and double taps to figure out, but once you do, the keyboard convention seems quaint by comparison. A handful, sure, but glorious.