LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE PRO

To them fell the task of making good on the promise of Tolkien's imagination of bringing these environments and creatures and characters into being in a way which feels consistent, looks beautiful or grotesque as required, and combines to create a world in which you'll be happy to spend countless hours. Without downplaying the achievements of the programmers who brought this artwork to life, it's probably fair to say that the art team was presented with a tougher job. LOTRO boasts almost uniformly excellent artwork, and it is this - the imaginative creatures, the glorious environments, the superbly detailed equipment on your characters - which really sets the game apart from its rivals. Much of the credit for the visuals goes not to the technical accomplishments of the game, however. The lovely environmental effects still look great, and even the busy, bustling towns in the game don't hammer the framerate down too badly.

LORD OF THE RINGS ONLINE PRO

Our test system is an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ with an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro card, which sits somewhere in the mid-range of PC systems produced in the last year or so, and LOTRO runs comfortably at settings a few notches down from the top. Surprisingly enough, the game's visuals don't take as much of a toll on your hardware as you might anticipate. It's far and away the most graphically accomplished MMOG we've played to date, and playing with the high definition client for the game offers lighting, models and environments which really tick all the boxes for this kind of experience. That much is certainly undeniable - LOTRO is very, very pretty. First, you'll think to yourself, 'damn, this is pretty.' You'll probably have two reactions to Lord of the Rings Online when you first fire up the game. How did it all go so right? Three for the Elven-kings under the sky Which is why, sitting down to write about Lord of the Rings Online as it finally launches worldwide, we're thrilled, delighted and in no small measure surprised to be asking ourselves this It certainly didn't help that the developers of the original iteration of the game, called Middle-Earth Online, blabbed about crazy features like 'permanent character death', which instantly turned whole legions of gamers off the idea. It didn't help that in the wake of the success of Peter Jackson's movies, the game had the sense of a cash-in product about it. Given the myriad ways in which Lord of the Rings Online could go wrong, it's perhaps unsurprising that a lot of people approached the game with a heavy sense of pessimism.

Bunny-hopping humans called 4rag0rn-LoL bouncing through Rivendell shouting 'rofl elfs r gay'. The much loved world of Middle Earth, mutilated beyond recognition by the clumsy hand of a developer who needed to bludgeon Tolkien's narrative into a levelling grind. From the very outset - from the first announcement of a Lord of the Rings massively multiplayer title, nine years ago - we had terrifying visions.

Lord of the rings online