Recently, EA released it's latest The Lord of the Rings game, The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, developed by Pandemic Studios, and the word I hear is that it's smeh. I tried the Xbox 360's demo, and personally, I was not impressed.
Honestly, while there have been some good The Lord of the Rings games released, I have yet to experience an exceptional one, which is rather sad considering how well put together Tolkien's universe really is. Which begs the question: Why hasn't EA commissioned BioWare to make the greatest The Lord of the Rings game ever made?
Think about it. BioWare makes exceptional action RPGs, and many gamers agree that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the greatest Star Wars game ever made. It's the game that not only brought me further into the Xbox fold, but also really earned my respect for the Star Wars franchise. BioWare and Pandemic Studios are already one larger company, and EA owns them as well as the rights to make games based on The Lord of the Rings franchise, both films and books, so why hasn't BioWare been set the task of creating an exceptional single player aciton RPG set in Middle-earth?
All they need do is follow a similar formula to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and I'm speaking story-wise as well as gameplay. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic worked so well because it was set long before Lucas' bastardizations, it kept that classic Star Wars feel, and it presented it maturely. So, set the game during the Dark Years of Middle-earth, the hugely unexplored Second Age, but set it before the War of the Last Alliance since we've seen that enough already. Heck, set it during the First War against Sauron, which we've never seen.
There'd be Men, both Numenorian's before their fall and other men, High and Silvan Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls, Wargs, Dragons, etc., etc., etc. The Middle-earth that could be crafted! I mean, perhaps we could actually see Numenor itself, the fabled isle that we've barely seen but heard enough about.
So much potential, so much opportunity, all of it wasted because EA is not using it's own resources to their fullest, and insists on re-hashing the films over and over and over again. Middle-earth is a big place EA, why not let us explore it in all it's glory?
1 comment:
The more I think about it, the more I'm agreeing with you. This is a great idea.
However, I may be a little biased since I am a Bioware groupie and fawn over their games. Still, there is so much potential in a LOTR game.
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