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First Looks at LotR - Return of the King

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the gondor-and-beyondor dept.

I was perusing Gamers.com this morning and saw that they've posted a couple previews of the next Lord of the Rings game, Return of the King. There's a preview of the console version, as well as a look at the PC version. The producer of the games comments that: "The two key areas we wanted to make sure we nailed this time around were the addition of co-op and better interaction with the levels... If last year's game was Golden Axe meets Lord of the Rings, then this year's game is Gauntlet meets Lord of the Rings."

7 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Co-Branding? by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 3, Interesting
    What I think would be an excellent branding idea is to sell the various movies with their game counterparts in a bundle. So when RoTK comes out in theaters, sell it standalone, but when the DVD comes out, offer a package deal at a slightly discounted price. I'm dumbfounded they haven't done this yet, especially in an age where synergistic marketing efforts are the next big thing.

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    1. Re:Co-Branding? by fireduck · · Score: 3, Interesting

      i seem to recall some synergy in games recently. maybe tomb raider or matrix game had a free ticket for the movie offer? google turns up a now defunct link for a free on-pack movie ticket if you buy the finding nemo game. so some of this synergy is there. actually searching "free movie ticket" + name of game in google turns up lots of deals, one for pirates of the caribbean as well.

      but, then again, you don't want too much synergy or you end up with the "new tomb raider game brought our movie down" logic.

    2. Re:Co-Branding? by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 2, Interesting
      "What you're talking about won't happen unless some of the media/movie companies start to buy out video game publishers, or video game publishers start to buy out movie studios. They are separate licensing agreements. The game publisher would have to make a deal witht he movie studio (and probably with the people they bought the rights from) to do a joint distribution of game and dvd."

      And why couldn't they do this exactly? This kind of stuff happens all the time. They both want to sell their product, and this would be a great deal that should be fairly easy to negotiate in Hollywood terms. Just because products are owned by two seperate companies and have different licensing agreements doesn't mean they can't ever bundle a product together. You would be correct if there were a specific clause in the licensing agreement that forbade them from doing this, but other than that you are completely wrong.

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    3. Re:Co-Branding? by Daetrin · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The Scorpion King game last year did exactly that. The game was released at the same time as the DVD, and if you bought them both you got a mail in rebate or something similar. The game also had a trailer for the DVD, and i believe the DVD had one for the game as well, though i'm not sure on that last bit.

      They're probably less likely to do this with big titles though, since they figure those will sell on their own even without the incentive. There will certainly be pleanty of cross-over advertising though.

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  2. How about creating something unique? by NetDanzr · · Score: 2, Interesting
    If last year's game was Golden Axe meets Lord of the Rings, then this year's game is Gauntlet meets Lord of the Rings.

    If I want Golden Axe, I play Golden Axe. If I want Gauntlet, I play Gauntlet. In neither case I feel like I need to spend an additional $50 only to play a game I already have, with the LotR logo on the box. What happened to originality? How about at least pretending that the games are unique?

  3. Co-op by Sylver+Dragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At least it seems like they have fixed the co-op bug that was in the Two Towers game. If ever there was a title that screamed for a co-op mode, LotR is it. I mean, come on, its the fellowship of the ring, and almost never was anyone alone. Samwise rescuing Frodo, and looking for him again in Mt. Doom was about it, but other than that there were usually several of the heros traveling and fighting together. Heck, consider the battle at Helm's Deep, Legolas and Gimli were keeping score! Ok, so this didn't get played up as much in the movie, but it still made a bit of a showing.

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  4. Nifty by JolieBlanc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Two Towers was one of the finer action games I played last year; difficult enough that I had to work at it for a while, but quite entertaining. Personally, I really liked the way they integrated the story of the movies into the game via flashbacks and cut-scenes, and some of the transitions between rendered motion and film was really beautifully done. Not to mention the voice talent was extremely good. And the fact that your prize for completing levels was bonus footage and documentaries from the movie...Count me in for Return of the King. :)