Amazon is running a promo right now for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on Blu-Ray. The film comes out on March 19th - just over two weeks away and you can pre-order it for just $26 for the regular version or $30 to include the 3D version. Those are already pretty good prices for the combo packs - but there's an added bonus if you purchase LEGO Lord of the Rings too.

If you decide to snag the two player local co-op LEGO Lord of the Rings with your Hobbit pre-order you'll immediately save $15 off the purchase price of the Blu-Ray - bringing it's cost down to a mere $11/$15. LEGO Lord of the Rings is currently marked down to $35 for the 360 or PS3 versions and just $25 for the Nintendo Wii version.

Be sure to check out our co-op review of LEGO Lord of the Rings where it was deemed as one of the best LEGO games to date scoring a 4 out of 5.

There's a new survival map available for Left 4 Dead 2 on PC called Helm's Deep Reborn.  It's based off the fortress featured in the second Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers.  The map is available via the Steam Workshop and you can play it via official Valve servers.

In the map, players start inside Helm's Deep and ready up with traditional Left 4 Dead weapons, or if they choose, they can grab a sword and a shield for that authentic fantasy flair.  Once outside it's time to head up to the wall and look out into the battlefield.  There's various heavy machine guns you can use to repel the invading zombie horde and there's a handful of AI guys on the wall as well.  Eventually the zombies will breach the wall and it's up to your co-op team to figure out what's next.

We’ve been growing thin and stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread, waiting for the release of a great looking Lord of the Rings title to pass us by. Luckily for us, the LEGO Lord of the Rings release date has officially been announced, exciting us to try the new couch co-op relatively soon.

As the first in the highly anticipated series of movies based on Tolkien's The Hobbit approaches, so too does the marketing onslaught, like a horde or orcs and goblins invading the land. Later this fall, a video game tie in, LEGO Lord of the Rings, is headed to your Xbox 360, PS3, or Wii. Frodo, Gandalf, and the rest of the game look suitably adorable in glorious animated LEGO form.

Chalk up another rumor that has now been confirmed.  Today Warner Bros and TT Games have announced LEGO The Lord of the Rings coming to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Wii, and Nintendo 3DS.  The game looks exactly how you'd expect it to look, that's not really surprising.  How it sounds though?   Well that is.

Previous LEGO games never use voices for the characters.  Instead they relied on the expressions of our blocky little friends to convey things.  In LEGO The Lord of the Rings, the dialog and voices are straight from the films.

If our gut is correct, we believe that Warner Bros. will more than likely release a widely-expected version of LEGO The Lord of the Rings: The Videogame. The title has been hinted at being on its way, according to the packaging for the new line of LEGO Lord of the Rings toys, based off of the three Peter Jackson movies inspired by the books.

Snowblind Studios was behind the much-celebrated co-op titles Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath. As far as a lot of us are concerned, these are the console dungeon crawlers to beat. Those are pretty big boots of striding to fill, though, especially after such a long time. The question tha's on the tip of everyone's tongue is: is LOTR: War in the North up to filling those boots - and our expectations?

Publisher Warner Bros Interactive has appeased lore-hungry fans with some main character information and Belgian gaming site 9lives.be has gotten its hands on a boss battle trailer for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, the Snowblind Studios co-op action RPG coming November 1st.

The Human and Dwarven characters - Eradan and Farin, respectively - are Rangers of the North, and are privvy to the details of their mission. The Elven, Andriel, has close ties to canonical figures Gandalf, Elrond, and Aragorn. She will learn the secret of what the Rangers are protecting during the course of the game.

This trailer for The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is, as they say, "doing it right."  This is an accompaniment to the Power of Three trailer we brought you earlier this week.  The developers discuss some of the benefits of co-op, including some of the character abilities as well as a challenge mode.  Looks like Snowblind built some extra replay-ability into their latest action RPG.  

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North will be out on November 1, 2011 on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.  It supports two player local co-op, three player online co-op, and combo co-op.  This is another title begging for the Co-Optimus Co-Op FAQ treatment.  We'll keep you posted.

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has new trailer out.  It concentrates on the new fellowship of the three, and the whole "sum is greater than the parts" thing.  Basically, when you get a dude, a dwarf, and a female elf together, things get awesome.  Like we didn't already know that.  Still, the trailer is pretty cool.  It uses opera singers, spinning camera angles, and buckets of blood to great effect. 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North launches on November 1st for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.  It supports two player local co-op, three player online co-op, and combo co-op.  (Two players can play locally with a third online.)  Check out our hands-on preview for more details.

In "Didn't we see this a month ago?" news, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has officially been dated for a November 1st release.  The game was originally scheduled to release this month.  Hopefully the added time will allow for a little extra polish.  I like my games shiny.  In a recent interview with Eurogamer Snowblind Producer Ruth Tomandl made comparisons to Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.  Let's hope the co-op experience is comparable to that classic.  The game will focus on a human, dwarf and elf who  weren't important enough to be in the original Fellowship of the Ring.  That's okay, there seems to be plenty of evil to go around.

LOTR: War in the North will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.  It supports two player local co-op and 3 player online co-op.

The latest trailer for the Lord of the Rings: War in the North focuses on the three heroes.  It's actually just a cool slo-mo battle with an overlay of Gandalf talking about how righteous and important the three unnamed warriors are.  Still, it looks good.  You can ooh and ahh at all the bloody violence, or tremble at the sight of the "cruel master of dark sorceries," Agandaur.  There's also a giant electrified castle in the background, which is always a plus. 

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North should be out this year on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.  It will support 2 player local co-op and 3 player online co-op.

Warner Bros announced today that the three player co-op title, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North was getting a new party member to join the fellowship of the Dwarf, Elf and Human.  While not a player controlled character, Beleram the Great Eagle will join you on your quest and assist in many ways.  And by assist I mean generally being badass and tearing things apart.

It seems as though this limited ability allows you or anyone in your party to call in the great eagle when your fellowship is in its most dire state, taking out the likes of not only goblins and orcs, but forest trolls and other giant creatures.  

A modder with too much time on his hands has lovingly created a Left 4 Dead Survival mode map that allows the Survivors to defend Helm's Deep - as seen in Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

This map was actually created over a year ago, but has recently come to light via a YouTube video of some friends playing it. Complete from the outer wall to the Deep itself, the map is impressive in scale and even more so in detail. Keep reading to see the YouTube video, or go here to download the map itself.

And no, you can't actually blow the horn. Sorry.

We've been just a bit distracted this week, for Spartan-based reasons, so forgive us for the late notice on this one.  One of the first co-op games for the Playstation Move, Lord of the Rings Aragorn's Quest, is now available.  Wii owners get a port for the original waggle console, as well.  The game has been in our crystal ball for quite some time, and we are anxious to hear if it was worth the wait.  We've got a behind-the-scenes trailer featuring the authentic voice acting talent for you to check out as well.  Any early Move adopters planning on picking this one up?  If so, use the box art link above and help support Co-Optimus!