LOTR: War of the Ring Real-Time Strategy Game

DiZASTiX writes "Just saw this on Gamespot about LOTR: War of the Ring a Warcraft III like LOTR game: "The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring has only been in development for around seven or eight months, but at a press event in Berlin this week we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the game in its current state. The map itself was relatively featureless at this stage of development but boasted some great grass textures and trees, which were occasionally shadowed by the suggestion of clouds passing overhead. More impressive still were the character models on display, which, although unfinished, bore more than a passing resemblance to the colorful, stylized units of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.""

Comments

The curse of 'Tolkienism'

[asramchusak]

Why must people constantly drool over Tolkien's blatent racism? Even the supposedly 'culturally enlightened' film-makers saw fit to portray the enemies of the (white) Free Peoples as Men of Swarth.

Tolkien is disgusting childish fantasy. There is only one book that needs to be read, and we ALL know what it is.

Re:The curse of 'Tolkienism'

[CLyde640]

I thought all people of the Muslim faith were terrorists.

appropriate?

[Boromir son of Faram]

I am of course incredibly interested in this game. It takes quite possibly the greatest war epic ever written and makes it interactive. This is the future of fiction and art in general.

However, I'm a little concerned about the timing. The Lord of the Rings (the first two installments anyway) have been incredibly succesful at the box office. This in turn has sparked a huge revival in the books' popularity, as mainstream folks who normally eschew such geeky reading, are seduced by the interesting characters and awe-inspiring scope of LOTR. This same phenomenon might bring those people, who would normally never partake in an activity as asocial as videogaming, to the play (and love) the game in question.

So what's the drawback? I feel that it risks glorifying war. As the civilized nations of the West teeter on the brink of war with terrorists, the simple black and white portrayal of the War of the Ring borders on propoganda, especially when charged imagery like "the two towers" is used. The bookish geeks who normally consume video games are smart enough to separate reality from fiction, but I doubt the general populace will be able to avoid mapping the fictional events in the game onto the present world crisis.

The LOTR RTS seems a great burden.