Graphics of the Ring
Vivendi’s Lord of the Rings game comes out shining
Do you have an HDTV? No, probably not, unless you're reading this from the good ole' US of A, but should you be one or indeed other of the several people in Europe who happen to own one, Vivendi's forthcoming Lord of the Rings will soon become the lord of your lounge. HDTV support isn't the half of it. And for some of the rest of us, the game even offers a Halo-esque widescreen mode to dazzle and delight. Furthermore, if you want the cutting edge of pretend cinema then you can also take advantage of the game's built-in Dolby Digital 5.1 support.
Vivendi is keen to stress - no doubt because it fears the wrath of the Dark Lord EA's alternative version - that this Lord of the Rings will be visually spectacular. Just like the movie. So to this end we have all sorts of technical tomfoolery to excite, astound and confuse, from full scene anti-aliasing and multi-pass per-pixel lighting to dynamic geometry variation. Which means it's smooth, shiny and interactive.
As if one needed reminding of just how powerful the NVIDIA-made Xbox graphic controller is, Vivendi has furnished us with a selection of widescreen, HDTV screenshots taken from the latest build of the game, which you can find here.