OPERATION:

"Nothing Has Seemed So Grievous As The Treason Of Isengard"

DATE: 2003-04-30 11:45:07

Let's be honest - Surreal's last Lord of the Rings game, Fellowship of the Ring was a less than stellar entry last year. It was an interesting title, but it came off as a title lacking in both style and substance. Not to be discouraged, Surreal has gone back to the woodshed and hopes to redeem themselves in the eyes of Tolkien fans with their newest entry - Lord of the Rings: Treason of Isengard.

Based around the events in The Two Towers, Treason of Isengard looks to combine the magic of Tolkien's works and fuse them with a fresh, new gameplay style. Unlike Fellowship, which was more of an RPG, Treason plays more like a hack-and-slash action game combined with a little stealth action and a third, secret gameplay style. I know what you're thinking 'Great, it's just EA's Two Towers game again - right?' While at first the two share similarities, there are a few notable differences between the two. Whereas EA's game followed one character through the game, Treason will require players to use particular characters for certain levels. A few levels will even require players to switch characters mid-level as well as hook-up with a friend and play through the entire game in two-player co-op action. The game will also feature a larger selection of characters to play as, including: Aragorn, Sam, Boromir, Gimli, Legolas, and Gollum.

Okay - so if it's based after Two Towers, why not just call it that? While I'm sure a few legal issues are involved - the title is actually derived from the original subtitle for the first novel in the series. Gandolf also mentions this title in the books when describing the acts of Saruman. By using the original title, VU Games (as well as Surreal) hopes to hit home their license to produce games based after the literary works of Tolkien.

Get ready to slip on your hobbit feet and step back into the world of Lord of the Rings once more this Fall for both the Xbox and PS2.

Starscream aka Ricky Tucker
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