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The new Lord of the Rings video game

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The new Lord of the Rings video game, ‘Lord of the Rings: War in the North,’ takes its cue from J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Return of the King.’ The Warner Bros. Interactive title, developed by Snowblind Studios, was released Tuesday. It features, as you can see, some pretty fearsome graphics.

Our sibling blog Hero Complex talked to the game-makers. ‘The Tolkien story has so much depth to it, and it’s really important to be accurate to that and keep things true to Tolkien’s vision,’ says lead game designer Andre Maguire. ‘There’s a dichotomy with it being an RPG, since they are choice-driven, while the Tolkien vision needs to be a very true and accurate thing.’

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Nevertheless, Maguire explained they had ‘different characters that weren’t in the movies that we’ve been able to visualize and bring in. Also different areas of middle-earth that were never before in a game. So we’ve been able to invent the looks of these places that were described in the books in a unique way.’

Some video game fans have found ‘Lord of the Rings: War in the North’ disappointing. At G4, Morgan Webb writes that it’s ‘an action RPG that fails on many levels.’ Well, if it’s really that bad, they can always check out the action-packed ‘The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of Lord of the Rings’ in its original 544-page version.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

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