Not so long ago it was Star Wars, now it’s The Lord of the Rings that gets the real-time strategy (RTS) treatment. In many ways, Tolkien’s battle-heavy Middle-earth makes for an even more appropriate setting for the genre than Lucas’ galactic conflict. As the title suggests, this is EA’s second stab at a The Lord of the Rings-themed RTS game. The original Battle for Middle-earth was a highly enjoyable but in some ways limited strategy game that focused squarely on the epic combat from the three film adaptations. [More]

We at TORn, and on behalf of EA Games, would like to thank all the writers who entered this writing contest. We had entries from all over the world who eagerly put words to their thoughts and imaginations and sent us some outstanding entries. It was the sheer quantity and quality of these entries that caused us to delay announcing the winners, but we are now ready to do so. And don’t forget to check out EA Games latest venture into the world of the Lord of the Rings – The Battle for Middle-earth II, in stores now! Winners will be contacted via email in the next few days. [Winners] [Battle for Middle-earth II]

Ramen, Community Relations Specialist for The Lord of the Rings Online writes: We’re in the midst of another action-packed week on the LOTRO community site! Tuesday saw the arrival of our new High-res Screenshot Gallery, full of beautiful desktop-worthy versions of our LOTRO screenshots. [More]

Our traditional Thursday update this week is a nice, meaty Developer Diary from Systems Designer Heather Sinclair talking about the playable classes for LOTRO and the process behind their creation. Hot off the press! [More]

Ostadan writes: Fantasy Flight Games’ page of ‘rants’ has two items of interest to Tolkien fans; both are expansions of existing games. Lord of the Rings: Battlefields: “In August, Reiner Knizia gives us a new expansion for the classic Lord of the Rings board game. Each of the boards from the main game has a corresponding battlefield, and players maneuver heroes and villains on these battlefields to improve their position in the fully integrated main game. We’ll have more information from Reiner on this expansion at the end of this month, so stay tuned!” [More]