lord-of-the-rings-conquest posts

Electronic Arts continues to shut down its online multiplayer servers for games that have little online users. This week the publisher released a new list of games that will have their servers closed on March 16. Two of them are for the PC and perhaps ironically both of them come from the already shut down Pandemic Studios.

Both the PC version of the open world action game Mercenaries 2 and the action game Lord of the Rings Conquest will be unplayable online after March 16. EA says those games and the other console titles on their shutdown list "represent less than 0.3 (percent) of all peak online players across all EA titles." Mercenaries 2 was released in August 2008 and Lord of the Rings Conquest shipped in January 2009. The latter game's online shut down comes just 14 months after it was released.

It's the start of a new work week and more importantly it's also time for another PC game available on IGN's Direct2Drive download service to be put on sale as part of their 24 Days of Christmas promotion. From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Tuesday you can purchase and download Lord of the Rings: Conquest for just $9.95.

This is the last game in EA's series of titles based on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies and the second-to-the-last game developed by Pandemic Studios. The action game pretty much got buried and forgotten when it was released by EA in early January of this year.

Hobbits had a good multi-year run at Electronic Arts but it appears that is finally over. Variety reports through unnamed sources that EA's rights to make console and PC games based on the movie version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy have now expired and have reverted back to the movie's owner Warner Bros.

EA made a number of games based on Peter Jackson's fantasy film trilogy (itself based on the J.R.R. Tolkien books) but it seems that after the movie trilogy had run its course gamers lost interest in playing games based on the films. EA managed to release one more title in January, Lord of the Rings Conquest, before their contract expired but both sales and reviews of the game were poor. This decision does not affect the Turbine MMO game Lord of the Rings Online which is just based on the Tolkien books.

GamersGate continues to add new titles and publishers to its lineup and today the company announced that it will be providing a number of Electronic Arts titles to its library of titles. Games like Spore, Command and Conquer: Red Alerrt 3, Warhammer Online and Lord of the Rings Conquest are now available to download.

In fact, Gamersgate currently has a special deal on Lord of the Rings Conquest, The fantasy action game from developer Pandemic can be downloaded and purchased from GamersGate for just $31.99 for this weekend only. Also on sale this weekend is the historical strategy-sim game Anno 1701 which has a 50 percent price cut this weekend to just $14.99.

Normally GoGamer.com's 48 Hour Madness weekend sales are for older PC games that have been released for a year or even more. Not this weekend, however. The online mail-order retailer has put in some more recently released PC games on the price cutting block this time.

For this weekend only GoGamer.com offers up the PC versions of Rise of the Argonauts and Lord of the Rings: Conquest for $24.90. They have also put Perimeter 2 and Saints Row 2 on sale for $19.90 and Pirates of the Burning Sea and Everquest II: Rise of Kunark can be bought for just $9.90. Again these bargains are for this weekend only.

If you have been waiting for a playable demo for the PC port of Lord of the Rings Conquest, you are officially out of luck. Big Download has learned that the Electronic Arts fantasy action game, due for release next week, will not see a demo released for the PC platform unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.

Big Download contacted EA's spokesperson for the game at developer Pandemic Studios who told us flat out, "There is no plan for a demo on PC." The spokesperson did not elaborate on why the PC version will not see such a release. A multiplayer demo for the game was released for PS3 owners just before Christmas and the Xbox 360 console got the same demo the day after New Year's Day.

EA has been notoriously stingy of late in releasing PC demos for its multiplatform games. Two such games released in 2008, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, had demos for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles but not for the PC version. And of course neither the PC nor consoles got a demo of EA's 2008 driving game Need For Speed Undercover.

One of the first big games due out in 2009 is Lord of the Rings Conquest, the multiplayer oriented action game from developer Pandemic and publisher Electronic Arts. Pandemic's official message board has revealed the PC system requirements for the game:

FOR WINDOWS XP SP2 or Windows Vista
2.4 GHz Core Duo processor or equivalent
1 GB RAM
A 256 MB Video Card, with support for Pixel Shader 3.0 - Nvidia 7800 or equivalent
The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
A DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
At least 6 GB of hard drive space for installation

Meanwhile Xbox 360 and PS3 owners can download a demo for the game that will be released to stores on Jan. 13. However, here's been no word at all from either Pandemic or EA if PC owners can expect a demo as well. Pandemic' official forum has been flooded with messages from gamers asking about such a demo. Big Download will attempt to see if anyone is working at Pandemic or EA today to get an update on their pC demo plans.

Yesterday we started our look at the PC games of 2009 with a ton of various upcoming action and FPS titles. But there are so many of these type of games due out in the next 12 months that we had to split that preview up into two parts. This entry not only contains a number of traditional action titles but also has some fighting games and flying action game titles as well.

Check back on Monday as we will next take a look at the various strategy-RTS based games due out in the next year.

Click on the picture above to read more on the 2009 PC Game Preview: Action-FPS Titles Part 2

Earlier this month we noted that Lord of the Rings: Conquest, the upcoming movie-book based action game from developer Pandemic and publisher Electronic Arts, might be delayed from its originally planned fall 2008 release. Online retailers began to show an early January 2009 release date.

Now it appears those speculations are justified as EA has officially announced a Jan. 13, 2009 release date for the game in the US (internationally the game comes out a few days earlier on Jan. 9, 2009). It's a tad unusual for a game with as high a profile as this to get an early January ship date. Hopefully this decision won't bode too badly for the game.

It's looking like another game slated for a fall 2008 release has been pushed back out of the year's holiday schedule. The Gamestop retail web site now shows a Jan. 13, 2009 release date for Lord of the Rings: Conquest, the upcoming multiplayer oriented action game from developer Pandemic and publisher Electronic Arts.

The delay is being shown on the site for not only the PC version but the console ports of the title as well. Since there hasn't been much new news on this game lately news on this title's delay would not be much of a surprise. Big Download has contacted EA's PR rep for comment and will update as soon as we hear something.