Black Label Games, a studio of the games division of Vivendi Universal Publishing, has shipped The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for Xbox and GameBoy Advance.
Based on the first installment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings literary saga and the new feature film trilogy, the game is part of VU Games’ exclusive, long-term agreement with Tolkien Enterprises.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for Xbox was developed by Seattle-based WXP. The third-person, action-adventure title features Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf, as playable characters with their own special abilities. Gameplay faithfully follows the storyline in an adventure that goes from the peaceful Shire, through the dark depths of Moria and all the way to the River Anduin — with Orcs, Black Riders, the Balrog and more than 20 other types of formidable enemies popping up every step of the way.
Taking advantage of Xbox hardware capabilities, the game features volumetric fog, multi-pass per pixel specular lighting effects, bump-mapped textures, dynamic realtime shadows and widescreen gameplay.
U.K.-based Pocket Studios developed the title for GameBoy Advance. The single player, light role-playing works on a turn-based combat system and lets players control the actions of up to nine characters at once during battle sequences.
Black Label Games plans to publish The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for PlayStation2 and PC later this month.
