JRR Tolkien is considered by many to be the father of modern fantasy novels. According to Deutsche Welle, his novels “The Lord of the Rings” became the blueprint on which all contemporary fantasy writers base their work.
While it’s good to read about the adventures of the Bagginses and the Fellowship of the Ring, putting their adventures in a video game format allows viewers to take an active role in the story rather than a passive one.
Here are some of the games that people have made that are based on “The Hobbit,” whether they are based on Peter Jackson’s book or movie trilogy, “The Hobbit.”
The Hobbit (1982)
Let’s start with one of the first games that tried to bring the magic of Middle Earth to gamers. This particular game, based on Tolkien’s book “The Hobbit,” was developed and published in 1982 by Beam Software for the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS), according to The Gamer.
The game was described as “revolutionary” and it shows. It was surprisingly detailed for its time, with three-dimensional NPCs and an “ever-changing world.”
My Abandonware added that aside from the graphics, the game played host to a “large vocabulary”[,] and surprisingly robust NPC interaction.”
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies – Fight For Middle Earth
Modern gaming is a time when mobile games are at their peak, and some companies have video game developers making mobile games that people can play as a marketing strategy for the main show – the movie the game is based on.
This is how The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies – Fight For Middle Earth came to be.
The mobile game is based on the final film in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” trilogy, which focuses on the events before, during and after The Battle of the Five Armies.
Read more: Revisiting Lords of Magic: Special Edition – Is it worth playing in the 2020s?
Although Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s take on a digital representation of Middle Earth during the film’s events is commendable for its time, barely giving players the freedom they need to become active participants in the game, per Pocket Gamer.
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug – Orc Attack
From mobile games to web browser games, movie companies like Warner Bros. will do everything in their power to bring a movie as big as ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’.
Instead of a mobile game, Warner Bros. however, the command to create a game based on the movie that can be played in web browsers.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug plays as Angry Birds, with the player taking the character of his choice aiming at the orcs, either standing, walking or somehow trying to harm you. Successfully shooting down all orcs with arrows and health to spare will usually give you an average to great score.
If you’d like to try out the game for yourself, visit The Hobbit’s website, which is surprisingly still working at the time of writing.
The Hobbit (2003)
Even before Peter Jackson made his “The Hobbit” movie trilogy, game companies were looking for a way to deliver Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” to a modern audience. After the 1982 game, Sierra Entertainment took it upon themselves to do just that, even though the game didn’t get very good reviews.
Sierra Entertainment’s the hobbit feels more or less like a bad clone of Nintendo The Legend of Zelda. The game is loosely based on Tolkien’s book, according to the One Wiki. It includes a lot of platform mechanics over combat, which is a good thing because the game’s players found the platforming puzzles easy, allowing people to progress through the game faster.
The game received an IMDB score of 62 based on 12 critics’ reviews and a user rating of 7.3 from 24 user reviews.
LEGO The Hobbit
Who said Tolkien has no place in the world of LEGO? Lego The Hobbit is a game set during the events of Peter Jackson’s “An Unexpected Journey” and “Desolation of Smaug” films, according to Warner Bros.
The game offers gamers of all ages the experience of being in Thorin’s Company as well as the chance to take part in the retaking of Lonely Mountain. It also allows younger players to learn more about Tolkien’s novels that don’t involve too much reading.
However, it is not without flaws. The game turned out to have slow combat mechanics, and the simplistic puzzle takes a lot of the joy out of the game, per Gamespot.
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