September 14, 2004

'tis the Season to Be Eager!
Bob Praz

Yes, two of the LOTR-related things I have been most anticipating for some time are soon – well, if a few months could be considered soon – coming to the shelves: LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth (BFME), followed by the ROTK EE.

In response to Sirindu, I imagine you were also referring to BFME in your post. As a rather big fan of RTS (Real-Time Strategy) games, I have been waiting for some years now for someone to develop an RTS game for LOTR. Vivendi (I think), developed several games based purely on the books, and one of them was an RTS. War of the Ring it was called, but it turned out to be an almost identical copy of Warcraft III, save that it was adapted for Middle-Earth. That was a disappointment. However, EA Games has not only developed their own RTS based on the movies, they’ve actually gone beyond merely exploiting the market and have created a game that’s highly innovative and, hopefully, fantastic. So yeah, sorry if I’ve rambled slightly, but I am VERY excited to see it. It's coming out in November.

As for the EE, I also am disappointed that it’s coming out in December, but apparently – and again, hopefully – it’s because they’ve included stuff that wasn’t in other Extended Editions and they had to wait a bit longer. Also, I suppose they might want to take advantage of Christmas time.
By the way, as anyone seen the “bootleg” video of the EE preview that was shown at Comic Con? Quite awesome indeed, though during half of it all you hear is screaming and cheering (and one nearby girl practically moaning, by the sound of it). There are now too many new scenes to add to my list, so I won’t even bother updating it. However, I am looking forward ever more to the taking of the Corsair ships by Aragorn and the Army of the Dead (and seeing PJ fight Viggo!).

Also, just to correct you slightly, Tuor, the dead elves go to the Halls of Mandos, and not merely to Valinor. From that place they cannot escape unless they are reborn. So Valinor is not actually the land of the walking dead, and if elves die there they go to Mandos like the others.