From the Vault — originally published January 19, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
So for the past couple of days I’ve been thinking about The Lord of the Rings games. First of all, when they released The Two Towers and Return of the King back on the PS2 when the films were released I was surprised at how great the games were. Since then though, games carrying the “Lord of the Rings” brand name has been somewhat disappointing, Lord of the Ring Conquest Lord of the Rings The Third Age for example has not lived up to what could have been.
However, there is a Lord of the Rings online MMO that was released on PC to great fanfare and it makes me wonder why they don’t bring something like that over to the consoles. If I could I would make it a PS3 exclusive to take advantage of the extra space that Blu-ray can provide and I would create a massive open world epic of Lord of the Rings.
Consider this. It would be an action RPG in which you could take control of one of the fellowship or create your own character and enter story based missions and side quests which would take you through the events of the the books. You level up your character, increase their stats and all that. Also of course you could take the game online and play with friends.
Now, Middle Earth is one of the most vivid worlds ever brought to life on paper and with the size of the Blu-Ray disc you could create a a massive world like there is in Oblivion and Fallout 3. There would not be a lack of color in the game. You would have the beautiful vistas of the Elven Kingdom of Rivendell, the green fields and blue rivers of the Shire, to the dark and dingy Mines of Moria and the fires of Mordor.
With everything you could do in the game based on the books and lore there would easily be 100+ hours of game play. If done proper and ran smoothly then the game would definitely sell because it carries the Lord of the Rings brand name, and all the Tolkien fan boys will rush out and buy it. I know I would. Developers listen up and take note. PLEASE MAKE THIS GAME!
