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Without a doubt, one of the best books ever to appear was Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings' [Oh, undoubtedly Tone - Ed] a massive four book (including The Hobbit) epic that spanned the entire story of the acquisition and eventual destruction of the One Ring. I won't go into plot simply because we haven't the space, but in a nutshell, the One Ring was the most powerful of a group of twelve magical rings, forged many years ago, within the fires of hell itself (or home sweet home as I like to call it).

As the fires of hell are pretty hot, the metals were forged in such a way that the only way they can be broken down is through the same hell fire. Eleven of the rings have been discovered and destroyed. Only one remains. The One. The same one that Bilbo Baggins found as an adventurous young hobbit.

The One Ring is special because whoever wears it has complete control over the other eleven rings, pointless as that would seem. It also grants the bearer with the gift of invisibility, if the ring is worn. Now the bad news, the evil forces of Sauroman (an evil wizard) are after the ring.

To get the ring, he has sent out his Black Riders, known as the Nazgul. The Nazgul have an irritating habit of being able to sniff out the ring whenever it's used, and The Nazgul are after you.

In War In Middle Earth, you are god, insofar as you are in control of all the 'good' people, including Frodo, Sam and Pippin, the trio of hobbits who are the initial ring bearers. What you have to do is get the ring from the Shire (Frodo's home) and get it to the other end of the map of Middle Earth to a place called Mount Doom, an opening to hell itself.

The game is icon-controlled and set over three scales. The first is the battle map overview. With this, you too can cry "How goes the battle?". This shows you the entire map with all friendly units marked.

The next view is a semi-close up of the map. Ground detail is now visible, as is the definition of what units are. A unit can comprise of almost anything, from one singular important character, such as Gandalf, Gollum or Frodo, to small armies of a hundred or so men or dwarves.

The final level of the map is the animation level. It's at this level that you participate in battles. In this mode, you can also watch your units go to wherever they want to go, first hand.

The battles are visually enacted by the characters jumping about, swinging weapons. You can leave it for the computer to fight it out, or you can lend your hand to a bit of barbarian swordplay by selecting what you want each character to do, you have the choice to charge, fight, defend or run.

Getting the ring from The Shire to Mount Doom is bloody difficult, despite there being many ways you could do it. You can try and amass one huge army and storm across the land, obliterating anything that comes near you, or you could go silently and try and sneak it in. Either way, it's a challenge.

The graphics are wonderful, especially in the animation mode. I sat and watched Frodo and company walk across the Shire and into Mordor for hours. All the backdrops are exquisitely drawn and every one is different. Rivers are animated, leaves fall from trees, the works. Every so often, Frodo and the lads camp down for a while and sit around chatting for a bit, before finally laying down and going to sleep. Sweet.

The sound consists of a nice intro tune and some fairly basic in-game effects. Different selection sounds, along with battle noises are so far as WIME's forte goes.

WIME is fab. Graphically wonderful, fun to play, challenging and involving. If you've got a brain in your head and you want to use it, or even if you are a fan of the books, buy it. You won't be sorry.