The Lord of the Rings War in the North Collector's Edition

Middle-earth rarely gets the collector's treatment it deserves, but Warner Bros. went all in here. The Lord of the Rings War in the North Collector's Edition on Xbox 360 is a hefty package built around one of the franchise's more underappreciated games, and it delivered physical goods that still hold up on any display shelf.

The exclusive snowtroll figure is the centerpiece. A chunky, detailed sculpt of one of the game's signature enemies, it's the kind of figure that non-gaming Tolkien fans will notice sitting next to your Weta Workshop pieces. The steelbook case gives the game itself a premium home, which matters when you're filing it alongside dozens of standard green 360 cases.

Then there's the art book, packed with concept art spanning characters, enemies, and the sweeping environments of Middle-earth. It's a proper behind-the-scenes look rather than a flimsy pamphlet. The music component rounds out the package beautifully: an inside look at composer Inon Zur recording at Abbey Road Studios, footage from the E3 2011 concert event, and three tracks from the game's soundtrack. Abbey Road and Middle-earth in the same sentence is the kind of crossover collectors live for. This edition captures a specific era of mid-cycle 360 releases when publishers still believed in loading physical boxes with actual stuff.