Firstly, we have finally managed to play a game of Lord of the Rings - the Board Game and managed to get to Mount Doom and destroy the Ring! So you see, it can be done! Even though I still suspect we were doing something wrong...
Today I managed to get a set of Lord of the Rings Monopoly for a knock down price. It looks entertaining, especially as it has a special feature which means the games will not take hours and hours to play! But I was amused that the makers of the game must have just used 'copy and paste' from the regular Monopoly rule book to complete the bulk of the rule book for this version! Cheapskates... The pewter figures are nice, and well, it's Monopoly, you can't go wrong.
I've seen a 'plug and play' electronic game in one of the local bargain shops which involves a plastic 'Mount Doom' which you connect to the TV like a console. You then have a wireless plastic sword which you use to fight Orcs and the like - like the PlayStation eye-toy combined with a fighting game. It looked quite amusing to me, but I wondered if anyone had got one of these and could tell me whether it's actually rubbish or not before I think about buying one.
It looks as though LotR film memorabilia is now becoming cheap in the shops as I also got a set of figures containing exclusives for a cheap price (well, cheaper than buying them individually on e-bay anyway...).