NEWS - Monday, January 14, 2002

LotR Quick Update
As you all know, Vivendi Universal Publishings games division Sierra Studios, in cooperation with seattle-based developer WXP, are developing a Lord of the Rings video game for Xbox based on the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Fellowship of the Rings. Well, like another New Line Cinema movie (i.e. Harry Potter), more than company has licensed rights to this franchise we hail as the best epic novel ever written by one of the greatest novelists of our time, J.R.R. Tolkien.GamesRadar.com, the site that we now depend on in place of Daily Radar for news from the Future Network, reports Universal Interactive would also like a piece of the pie as it also has plans to release a Fellowship of the Rings game for Xbox. The games official website includes information and screenshots to visually portray the concept behind another LotR prodigy, an adventure game played from the third person perspective featuring Zelda-esque gameplay with a plot that sticks true to the series storyline. In addition, Universal Interactive hopes to release eight, if not more, video games based on their license for multiple platforms. The first game, Fellowship of the Rings, brings to life the lush forests and towns of Middle Earth, a setting in which youll embark on a series of sub-quests to get to the next throughout eight distinct areas. The game also includes sequences that were dropped in the cinematic film by its director Peter Jackson.
Apart from an Xbox version, owners of Nintendos handheld machine Game Boy Advance will be receiving a 32-bit 2-D version. Who knows, instead of reading the Hobbit as part of your High School curriculum, you can propose the idea of being allowed to bring GBAs into English class and play the game instead! Conversions of the game to any other platform have not been announced, nor have details on its possibility been released. Fellowship of the Rings from Universal Interactive is expected to release in Autumn, not too far off. So for some early artwork, click on the link in the paragraph above.
Source: http://voodooextreme.com