MadCap's Game Reviews - "The Hobbit"

Finally! Getting to something I've really looked forward to reviewing! The Hobbit!



...no, not the Peter Jackson one. That comes lat-hang on a sec. This seems really familiar.


Yes, indeed, it's a video game adaptation of The Hobbit. The rights of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings franchise has always been a little weird going back many, many years. This was one of those instances where Sierra Entertainment had the rights to the literature of Tolkien, but not the Peter Jackson films, which had wrapped up the same year that this came out - 2003. Electronic Arts had the rights to the Peter Jackson films as far as video game adaptations go, something we've covered before and probably will again at some point. So, Sierra had to make an adaptation that had nothing to do with any of the Peter Jackson films.

Let's see how they did.

[record scratch] ...yeah, that's me. You're probably wondering
how I got here...

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit living in the Shire, living a life of smoking pipes and eating cakes and...yeah, basically everything I said in my Hobbit '77 review, including the part where Gandalf the Grey decides to pop up and throw him into an adventuring party because he's kind of a complete asshole.

Like the cartoon, The Hobbit follows the plot of The Hobbit...mostly well. There's some obvious differences in adaptation, namely that Bilbo is pretty much a total badass pretty much from the jump. While in most adaptations (and the original novel himself), he appears to be the only one capable out of the group besides Gandalf (all of the group's major victories until they get to the Lonely Mountain are either because of Gandalf and more often because of Bilbo), this game cranks it up to Eleven. With some rocks from a sling, his mighty walking stick that can pole vault orcs to the flippin' moon, and his mighty sword Sting (which he names right after getting it, for some reason that is known only to supernatural creatures that haunt the night).

It's basically your standard hack n'slash, puzzle platformer kind of adventure game. I've seen it compared to The Legend of Zelda (a series that I oddly haven't covered in my ten years and almost two hundred game reviews on this blog), and it's pretty accurate. You run, you hack, you slash, you have an elaborate time opening chests to get treasure. That itself can be a bit of a pain, seeing as you can be injured or poisoned by trapped chests. To say nothing of the lockpicking minigame...which we all know I'm just the biggest fan of those!

Also, speaking of things I just love - the Lake Town barrel puzzle can go straight to Hell!

There's also the One Ring, which is explicitly called the One Ring in a way that definitely doesn't totally ride off the success of Peter Jackson's then-recent super popular trilogy. Seeing as the Ring was originally just a plot device for Bilbo to get out of Gollum's cave and then use later against the spiders, elves, and Smaug...eh, I'll let it slide. The Ring can only be used for a limited amount of time within the levels, however.

You must choose...but choose wisely...

With invisibility, there comes stealth sections. Some even before you get invisibility. They're just as fun as you think. Not necessarily unfair, just...a pain in the ass, like every time that stealth is not optional for this mission.

There's also another series that The Hobbit takes inspiration from - Sonic the Hedgehog, namely because Bilbo dies the instant he touches all but the shallowest of water. Also in the art style, where everything's kind of like a cartoon and important items appear as 2-D pictures that float around until Bilbo picks them up. It's a little odd, admittedly.

Apart from that, there really isn't much to say. Besides a few new characters thrown in, it pretty much follows the book while avoiding certain subplots or characters like Beorn (at least until the end, where he shows up with no preamble for the Battle of Five Armies). It's a bit of a jumble, but it's a serviceable retelling of the story.  The cartoony art style might put you off a bit, but I didn't think it was too bad a choice for what was essentially a fairy tale. If it were a Lord of the Rings adaptation, maybe I'd find it a bit more objectionable, but not as such.

If you enjoy The Legend of Zelda-style gameplay or are just a big Tolkien aficionado, then this is definitely a good choice and you could do a lot worse.

And with that, my Madmen, we have completed my 199th game review! It's a momentous occasion that really should have happened something like eight years ago! Regardless, though, that means that the next review is going to be the big 2-0-0! I can't believe it! Such a big moment in the history of this blog surely means that the 200th review will be as important as the 100th!

"I will give you a name...and I shall call you...the Master Sword! ...wait, no.
That's silly..."

...yeah, probably. I'm sure by the time this review gets posted I'll have figured out what it is.

The Hobbit was brought to us by Inevitable Entertainment and Sierra Entertainment. Originally for Nintendo Gamecube, it's been ported to several different systems since.

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