EA hasn't neglected multiplayer in the Xbox 360 version of the game, especially since Xbox Live offers a much stronger foundation for multiplayer gameplay than anything found on the PC. It's one thing to crush the computer in single-player, but it's far more satisfying (and challenging) to go online and battle friends and strangers. Of course, when you talk about real-time strategy, you have to talk about multiplayer, which is one of the most popular aspects of these games. Multiplayer real-time strategy arrives on the Xbox 360 with The Battle for Middle-earth II. The big difference, of course, is that EA spent a lot of time and effort translating the controls to work on a gamepad. The result is the upcoming Xbox 360 version of the game, which is remarkably similar to the PC version in terms of content.
However, when EA developed last year's The Lord of the Rings, The Battle for Middle-earth II for the PC, it also designed the game to work with a gamepad in mind. Real-time strategy is the one major PC genre that still hasn't translated successfully to the consoles, thanks to the fact that these games seem designed more for the keyboard and mouse rather than the gamepad.
