Post by Deleted on May 18, 2017 20:13:02 GMT
Here's a topic that doesn't get much coverage these days, and for good reason, actually. You see, most video games that attempt adapting the works of Tolkien to the controller... aren't very good. Tolkien wrote his books with the simple purpose of having them BE books and never really entertained the notion of having them adapted into other forms of fiction (he only sold the rights to help pay some bills, probably thinking Hollywood would never actually be able to turn them into films, anyway). Unlike many modern authors who will write screen-friendly books because they want their works to be bought by Hollywood and turned into films or video games, Tolkien was a traditionalist and did not cater to any other form of media while writing, and it shows. Boy howdy, does it show. If there is a media less equipped to overcome the hurdles of adapting Tolkien than film or television, it's video games. Dev Teams has notoriously just not known how to go about doing it. Of course, it also doesn't help that few top notch development teams end up with the opportunity.
Let's take Interplay's Lord of the Rings: Book 1, for the Super NES, for instance. It quickly and flagrantly broke all the rules established in the books. You Shall Not Pass? Well, not if the player decides to sequence break and beat the Balrog prematurely (and yes, you can) first. Well, that is... if the player actually managed to make it that far. Glitches were abound into that game, frequently causing the mere act of walking to the next area to be fatal. You could also finish the game as two unnamed Hobbit children and Bill the pony due to the poor programming. Yes, really. Before the advent of Game FAQs, if you lost the manual, you were boned — it had all the layouts of the dungeons (all of which were at least fifty screens long) printed it in. Oh yes, there are several caverns, castles, keeps, and ruins to explore, and everything looks the same inside them and you WILL get lost and killed by spiders or bats if you don't have the maps. You will also be forced to enter each and every one of them to go on pointless fetchs, but nothing in the game itself will tell WHICH ONE is the one you need to enter, so you will be hopelessly lost just trying to find the right one without the manual, to say nothing of their confusing monotonous interiors. Oh, and if anyone dies, they're dead permanently. There are no resurrections and if the wrong character dies too soon, you won't be able to progress after a certain point. You'll have to either back go another save file where they're still alive (and the SNES only usually offered about 3-5 of those) or start the game ALL OVER if you don't have one.
Plus, the game had connections to the atrocious 1978 film. The character's head-shots were basically taken right from Bakshi's film. And like Bakshi's take on the book, the game was a shallow, confusing mess of hackneyed plot threads, huge continuity errors, and poorly advised use of... *ahem* ... creative license. However, since no video game can ever truly adapt a book to its 16-Bit realm, the agony doesn't truly start until you begin playing.
The game covers roughly the same ground as Fellowship of the Ring, opening with Bilbo's party and taking the player through Moria before abruptly ending. Like Bakshi's film it didn't get a sequel, and thank goodness for that.
oh, yeah, and you'll only be able to fill in the backstory if you've read the books or seen Jackson's films, because this game tells the story so badly you'll have no idea what's going on, or why Frodo's leaving Hobbiton, or even where to go if you didn't. All the Fellowships members join sooner or later, except for Boromir, for reasons, I'm sure. Oh, and don't think the other Fellowship members stay in Frodo's pocket until its time for a fight, or are programmed to follow him around. They can wander off and die easily, because the A.I. controlling them has a death wish.
This game, sadly, set the trend for most LotR or Hobbit games to follow in its footsteps. With rare exceptions, Middle-earth's entrance into the world of gaming has been unsuccessful.
Let's take Interplay's Lord of the Rings: Book 1, for the Super NES, for instance. It quickly and flagrantly broke all the rules established in the books. You Shall Not Pass? Well, not if the player decides to sequence break and beat the Balrog prematurely (and yes, you can) first. Well, that is... if the player actually managed to make it that far. Glitches were abound into that game, frequently causing the mere act of walking to the next area to be fatal. You could also finish the game as two unnamed Hobbit children and Bill the pony due to the poor programming. Yes, really. Before the advent of Game FAQs, if you lost the manual, you were boned — it had all the layouts of the dungeons (all of which were at least fifty screens long) printed it in. Oh yes, there are several caverns, castles, keeps, and ruins to explore, and everything looks the same inside them and you WILL get lost and killed by spiders or bats if you don't have the maps. You will also be forced to enter each and every one of them to go on pointless fetchs, but nothing in the game itself will tell WHICH ONE is the one you need to enter, so you will be hopelessly lost just trying to find the right one without the manual, to say nothing of their confusing monotonous interiors. Oh, and if anyone dies, they're dead permanently. There are no resurrections and if the wrong character dies too soon, you won't be able to progress after a certain point. You'll have to either back go another save file where they're still alive (and the SNES only usually offered about 3-5 of those) or start the game ALL OVER if you don't have one.
Plus, the game had connections to the atrocious 1978 film. The character's head-shots were basically taken right from Bakshi's film. And like Bakshi's take on the book, the game was a shallow, confusing mess of hackneyed plot threads, huge continuity errors, and poorly advised use of... *ahem* ... creative license. However, since no video game can ever truly adapt a book to its 16-Bit realm, the agony doesn't truly start until you begin playing.
The game covers roughly the same ground as Fellowship of the Ring, opening with Bilbo's party and taking the player through Moria before abruptly ending. Like Bakshi's film it didn't get a sequel, and thank goodness for that.
oh, yeah, and you'll only be able to fill in the backstory if you've read the books or seen Jackson's films, because this game tells the story so badly you'll have no idea what's going on, or why Frodo's leaving Hobbiton, or even where to go if you didn't. All the Fellowships members join sooner or later, except for Boromir, for reasons, I'm sure. Oh, and don't think the other Fellowship members stay in Frodo's pocket until its time for a fight, or are programmed to follow him around. They can wander off and die easily, because the A.I. controlling them has a death wish.
This game, sadly, set the trend for most LotR or Hobbit games to follow in its footsteps. With rare exceptions, Middle-earth's entrance into the world of gaming has been unsuccessful.
