EA Trails New Lord Of The Rings Games For 2004

Thanks to EGM for their article discussing the latest Electronic Arts games based on the Lord Of The Rings movie franchise. In talking to executive producer Neil Young, previously creator of unconventional online title Majestic, the existing, well-received Return Of The King game is dissected, but there's also information on further LOTR games due in 2004. Young discusses the already unveiled "[PC] RTS game we're developing called The Battles of Middle-Earth, which is being developed by our Los Angeles studio by the team that did Command & Conquer Generals", but also talks about "a new game - currently entitled The Lord of the Rings Trilogy... due out by the end of next year." According to Young, this multi-platform action title strives not to be a sequel too far: "The idea isn't to just take you back through the fiction again, but to give you some other characters who you might not expect to be able to play, and really extend the multiplayer features.. [and] develop the online feature."

Comments

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The team in L.A. = the artists formerly known as Westwood?

Re:Oh Goody

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, nobody complained about that in Neverwinter Nights...

ROTK

[captainstupid]

I really didn't like the ROTK game. I loved TTT, but ROTK fails miserably for only one reason.

The camera.

Most of the time while playing the game it is difficult to even see your character. Many enemies will gather around you and beat the living daylights out of you with little chance for you to retaliate because you have no idea where you are. Even if you know that you're in a general area, timing attacks is nearly impossible because your character is COMPLETELY HIDDEN. Even if you're doing relatively well, one enemy can completely obstruct your viewpoint and render your fighter invisible.

I really wanted to like this game because TTT was so much fun, but ROTK is a perfect example of how an otherwise well produced game can completely fail (IMO) because of a single problem.

Re:ROTK

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy I played this coopratively with had the same problem. I didn't really because they made parrying so easy. Just keep tapping parry until you can figure our where you are, and if you have the move, follow up with an orc/man/uruki bane and booya, damn skippy mode: ACTIVATE. The only time it was something of a problem was when my buddy would space out and drag the camera so that me and my mob were off screen.

If you play it on the xbox, go to a mission, get through the cinematic, pause it, hold L and R while entering X,B,X,up or X,X,Up,B or B,down,Y,A (L and R must be released and re-pressed between each code) you might have a little more luck.

Re:ROTK

[meta-monkey]

The Two Towers game was okay. The graphics weren't that great, and some of the levels were boring. However, I thought ROTK was great. I'm not done with it yet...I'm still trying to beat the Pelennor fields. My only real complaint is when it switches to a game-rendered cut scene during the middle of the action, so you can't move, but it lets your enemies have a free swing at you when you get control back. It's like they started the game a half a second before they put the camera back on you and gave you control. Now that's annoying. Other than that, great game!

Re:ROTK

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried it that way the first time. HARD. Took like a half hour. If your near level 7 and have the sweeter projectiles. It's quick.

1) The side the Oliphant appears on is somewhat random.

2) The winning strategy seems to be the minimum number of trips (obviously)

3) Warrior bane is your friend.

4) When you run to the witch king ignore the first guy. Let him rush you. Just fling shit at the king.

5) When he get's close, parry to set up the bane move. Which is long, but it kills him instantly.

6) This will perfect you up for more damage dishing.

7) You may wish to stack the perfect mode with your characters 'badass aura.'

If you don't have uruki bane, orc hewer it is.

Re:ROTK

[meta-monkey]

That's about what I figured. My guys are all level 7, and have the projectile upgrades, and I tried the sauron's bane/warrior bane move to get perfect, but I just thought it took too long. I forget about the aura, though...I'll give that a try next.

Actually, I was thinking I might just not bother trying to kill the oliphant before attacking the witch king. It takes awhile for the oliphant to make it all the way to merry and eoywn, and the witch king comes on a timer independent of the Oliphant. You can probably shoot the king, then go kill the oliphant when it's most of the way to the end. You won't have to run as far, and you won't have to worry about losing hits on the king because you were still running along the cliff after killing the Oliphant. Thanks for the advice...I'll give a try when I get home tonight :)

Re:ROTK

[Reapy]

Yeah, that's what worked with my friend and me in co-op. As soon as the witch king appeared we ran up there and took him out with both of us firing the bows. It also pays to make sure you are fully charged up on each bow shot, since it does damage quicker then if you fired as fast as you can.

Great game though, one of the best movie licensed game's I've ever seen.

Here be logic!

[Anonymous Coward]

Books, written after decades of contemplation of the history of middle earth, just don't stack up against hacking trolls and orcs in a video game churned out in a few months. Why? Because the book is linear and the games, well, pretty much are too.

A few changes....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been a while since I read the books, but I'm not sure I remember Aragorn having, "a devastating upgrade that allows him to swing his sword and sets enemies on fire and shoots out fireballs in eight directions."

The Rangers apparently know how to kick some serious ass.

Can yo u say "too many games"?

[JFMulder]

Am I the only way to think that EA is looking like it's going to milk the LOTR cow too much, driving the video game franchise into the ground? There's bound to be a sucky LOTR game soon. (if there wasn't one already, I haven't played any so far) They can't be all good. Already FOTR was a crappy game (not developed by EA though). TTT and ROTK are supposed to be good. I played the War of the Ring demo and wasn't impressed a lot, it look exactly like Warcraft in MiddleEarth (did they license the engine or what???).

When MMORPG based on the LORD of the rings story will come out, that's when we'll know that the Tolkien family will have totally sold out.

Re: Can yo u say "too many games"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The tolken family shouldn't have any say about it. His innovation is done, he had an extended period of time to milk a monopoly based on that creation, and now he's dead. It's time for the living to pick up the torch, and this generation shouldn't be punished for having been born 100 years too early.

Re: Can yo u say "too many games"?

[WWWWolf]

EA is definitely a bunch of Evil Capitalist Pigs[tm], and have been so for a looong time. I have no love left for them after what they did to Bullfrog and Origin.

And they have the game license to LotR movie, which naturally has one problem: EA is in position where it doesn't matter to them if the game is any good, they'll still make tons of money. Just a little twitch in the marketing muscle and they're set...

The movie trilogy has been a success so far: The makers actually cared about the book, and it shows. Now, as for the game licenses, those things always end up being snatched by people who can only say "hey, this is a profitable license".

Then again, if the license ever did happen to fall into the hands of a caring team of developers, it's always easy to ask if a "LotR game" even could be done. Book is a story in written form, movie is an interpretation of a story for another medium, but game is nonlinear and interactive. If they ever handed the license to me and gave me a bunch of artists and code slaves and plenty of budget, I'd definitely think of the thing for more than a while. How not to do a watered-down adventure game or a mediocre strategy game? How to be loyal to the original work without following right on the master's heels?

Let's just ask, "What Would 'Betrayal at Krondor' Developers Do?"

(End of a "want to be a NNirvi in place of the NNirvi" ramblerant. =)

Re: Can yo u say "too many games"?

[Matrix272]

When MMORPG based on the LORD of the rings story will come out, that's when we'll know that the Tolkien family will have totally sold out.

First, there already IS a MMORPG based on LOTR... but that's already been mentioned.

Second, no offense, but FUCK THE TOLKIEN FAMILY. Especially Christopher Tolkien, the old piece of shit. It's HIS FAULT that Peter Jackson won't get to make The Hobbit. Although that article doesn't mention it, I've read other places that JRR's grandson, the son of Christopher Tolkien, DOES like the new trilogy, and wanted the movies to be made. Unfortunately, that probably means that if The Hobbit will ever be made into a movie, we'll have to wait until Christopher Tolkien dies.

Re:Games like this are better than the books

[martinthebrit]

I disagree. You are free to read the pages of the book in any order you like. Granted, it may not always make much sense, but how more non-linear to you want.