Lord of the Rings: The Third Age Preview

LoadedInc has put together a fairly lengthy preview of Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, based upon what they saw of the RPG at Electronic Arts' recent Community Day. An excerpt to follow:
First up in the development group was Steve Gray, Executive Producer who showed us some visually impressive film clips of characters and environments. Steve worked on Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve at Square so he brings a wealth of experience in the console RPG space, which is reassuring for such an ambitious project. The environments that were shown included the Throne Room in Minas Tirith, the plains of Rohan, the great hall at Edoras and sections of Moria. The Throne Room was the most impressive as Steve showed the Throne Room from The Return of the King movie and then the same exact shot from the game. I think the most jaded LoTR fan would be satisfied with the visual results. The cool thing about The Third Age is that the team was able to get their hands on the actual models from the actual film production crew and is using them to create the game's environments. So besides battling in Helms Deep, you'll be able to wander throughout it to your heart's delight. During our tour, we saw a large table with various models set up to help plan game levels and battles. These miniature sets were populated with hundreds of characters from the film. I felt like a kid in a candy store with the ultimate Lord of the Rings sandbox right in front of me.