head to head

NCAA Football 12 cover artvsThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth cover art

NCAA Football 12vsThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth

NCAA Football 12 leans Execution (Grand Arena); The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth leans Optimization (Mind & Math).

EXECUTION6 /10READS6 /10VARIANCE3 /10OPTIMIZATION6 /10
NCAA Football 12The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth

Axis by axis

Execution6 vs 5

NCAA Football 12 leans harder on execution: Stick skills on returns, passes and tackles matter

Reads6 vs 6

Even - both lean on reads about the same.

Variance3 vs 3

Even - both lean on variance about the same.

Optimization6 vs 7

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth leans harder on optimization: Build orders and counter units are largely solvable

Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.

full breakdown

NCAA Football 12

full breakdown

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth