Westwood is no more, the Las Vegasbased outfit now sadly closed, much to the chagrin of many a press trip veteran. Of course, talking about Westwood Studios, the official originators of the genre and developers of the long-running Command & Conquer series. In the hectic world of RTS games, one name stands head and shoulders above the rest, resonating down the years on the success of a flurry of quality titles. This includes the exclusive voice over services of the real actors, as well as actual footage from the three films, ramming home the game’s official status. To EA’s advantage is its exclusive agreement with New Line Cinema, affording the developers invaluable access to the movie assets.

It's actually something of a surprise that no-one thought of it earlier, although Vivendi is working on a similar concept based on the original books. The more you think about it, the more obvious a genre the RTS is, with the LOTR universe boasting an array of different units and a slew of readymade scenarios, such as the battles at Helm's Deep, Ithilien, and Minas Tirith, for instance.

Who hasn’t watched the epic battle at the end of The Two Towers without wanting to click on a few orcs and send them to a bloody death? Around this time next year, that dream willīecome a reality, as EA unleashes another LOTR game on what they hope will remain a Tolkien-crazed public. But a real-time strategy game? Of course. Littered with heroes, quests, battles, hacking and slashing, the scope is vast, and has, of course, already been liberally exploited. It’s hard to watch the Lord Of The Rings films without thinking of them in terms of a game.

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