WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!

i'm in then.

i would have got a copy of it anyway, but now i'm actually excited!!! i can't wait to tell my wife that our co-op nights are back!

Snowblind + Lord Of The Rings = DREAM COME TRUE.

This is awesome news! I was really hoping your next game would be a Justice League Heroes sequel, but LOTR is almost equally exciting!

In the press release, it sounded like this will be a "mature" game, which I'm assuming means an "M" rating. Seems like a bad choice to me. I mean, LOTR isn't an M-rated franchise, so why take it in that direction? Peter Jackson didn't need an "R" rating to make great LOTR films, so why would Snowblind feel the need?

One of my favorite things about Snowblind games is that my wife actually likes them, and we've spent a lot of time playing them together. And from reading up on prefered spouse/girlfriend co-op gaming on other websites, I know that we're not alone in that, and that Snowblind games are pretty unique in that they've had the ability to appeal to women where a lot of other games fail to.

So, given that, just wanted to throw in my two cents and say that I really hope you go for a "T" rating on this one. LOTR doesn't need "M" rated amounts of blood, violence, or sexuality to be appealing, and I would think that you would draw a larger audience with a "T" rating as well.

The ESRB rates game content differently than the MPAA rates movie content. For the most part, the ESRB is a lot more strict when it comes to what goes into a video game. The second a breast appears in a game, it gets an M rating, whereas films can get away with partial nudity to almost full frontal nudity without surpassing the PG-13 rating.

Similarly, violence in video games is judged and rated much more harshly. Where Peter Jackson could have his Aragorn completely decapitate Lurtz and get away with a PG-13 rating, something like that taking place in a game gives it the "Extreme Violence" subtag of a Mature rating. Especially if any realistic blood spray comes out after.

Point being, a game can be rated mature without automatically being in the category of something like God of War or other such flagrantly violent games that are labeled Mature.

I understand gavacho13's point and don't care for '18' stuff myself. I'm kinda concerned that I have something like 2 16 rated games and 3 18 rated games where I've never bought like that before and don't own any films above a PG! But games like throwing in the violence and modern graphics make it all the more grizzly.

Still, games ratings are typically higher as AngeloDeMorte says. Sacred 2 is rated 16 in the UK, and I can't think why. So is Valkyria Chronicles! That's on PEGI ratings. Borderlands is rated 18 and has exploding heads and psychopaths laughing at it all, the other end of the spectrum and yet and yet only a single rating division between them.

Reading about WITN in the official forum, it sounds like it all comes down to violent combat - chopping off trolls' heads etc. If gore can be switched off, that'll bring the theoretical rating down, so basically the gameplay will be there but those who don't want to see gore splashing everywhere can play without. I don't think it's going to be 'mature' in other sense (although do the antics of Hobbits and Longbottom Leaf count as substance abuse?).

If the consumption of mead or the smoking of leaf makes it into the game, it will probably be on the box and contribute to a more adult rating.

Can someone please tell Mike that I sent him a PM on this forum as I'm still unable to log in to the new one?

Yeah, I'm assuming that (based on what I've read & seen so far) this game will be rated M for violence (if it does indeed receive an M rating), and AngeloDeMorte had good points about the differences between ratings in films & games, but I still think it's a bad idea to put in amounts of violence that will get this game an M rating. Does it really need that to be an awesome LOTR game? Of course not.

If Snowblind includes M-rated amounts of violence in the game, I at least hope that they include the option to turn the gore off, because that's been a very nice option that they included in previous games, and made for a more wife/girlfriend friendly co-op experience.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong in assuming that the M rating will be based on violence. Full frontal Orc junk maybe?

Already have doubts about War in the North. It just doesn't sound like the game I've been waiting for Snowblind to make since Return to Arms. From the previews I've been reading, it looks and sounds like a very shallow experience.

I just wish they'd let me onto the WITN forums already.

It's been months now and I haven't heard ANYTHING about my account on the WITN forum, this is ridiculous. Apparently customer support is a thing of the past.

I sure wish I could actually LOG IN to the new forums, but thanks for completely ignoring all my emails and posts, Snowblind.