Good news for Tolkien fans: the demo for Pandemic’s latest venture, Lord of the Rings: Conquest is now available on Xbox LIVE. The game is essentially Star Wars: Battlefront with orcs and wizards instead of Jedi and clones, and it’s been a long time coming, but we’re pretty excited for the opportunity to bash hundreds of Hobbit heads in as an Uruk Hai.

Originally set for a fall 2008 release, the game was delayed in October with no official explanation. We know the game was having trouble with frame rate issues in the past, so lets hope Pandemic has taken the extra time to smooth out debilitating bugs. Conquest will only work if it can handle the large number of combatants necessary to create the environment the developer is looking for. Hopefully the demo will give us a good idea as to whether or not Pandemic has used its time well.