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Zelda, step aside... Bilbos Coming to Town

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 53 / 57
Date: September 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is by far the best game based on any of Tolkiens work I have ever played including The Fellowship of the Ring for PS2/Xbox and the two games based off the movies. This isn't much of a fighting game like the others although it does have its fair share of battles. If you like fights and battles get the movie based games, if you're a Tolkien fan (like me) and want a good game based off the books, this is it. It follows the book chapter by chapter and does a great job of it. Each chapter, for the most part, last about 2 hours each (11 Chapters) so it's a good size game unlike FOTR which was like 5 hours long.

There are a number of quests throughout each chapter most of which are optional but if you do them you will be rewarded with lots of Courage Points which appear in the game as jewels. The more jewewls you collect, the higher your life meter goes giving you more of an edge for later levels. The fun stuff I think isn't really doing the quests cause there's not much to most of em, but trying to find ALL the Jewels and Silver Pennies (your currency) in the level. Most are hidden up high somewhere and require some thinking on how to get them. The farther you are in the game the more difficult and fun these puzzle become. Another cool thing in the game is the treasure chests. Instead of most games where you just walk up and open em, here you either need a skeleton key or you can just pick it by completeing a couple of small puzzles before the time runs out. Then at the end of each level you can buy supplies with the pennies you found.

The graphics in the game are great. Everything is nicely animated and the voices are pretty good. Its cool cause sometimes you can climb up way up high and look back and see the whole valley down below where you just came from. No flat backdrobs or anything like that. The music is great and goes nicely with the game. Another great thing is that, again, it follows the book almost exact (adding on some to give you something to do, for example in Lake Town, you have to investigat some strange things going on and get back Barons (sp?) Black Arrow that was stolen). It is very detailed as well as to whats described in the book. For ex., on Flies and Spiders, you eventually climb to the tops of the trees and see thousands of butterflies before sliding down a hollow tree down into the spiders lair.

If you're a Tolkien fan and like puzzle solving, then this is your game. Its awsome. For those who want a hack and slash game, go ahead and try it out but I warn you, many of the later levels have almost no fighting at all and require you to use your ring and stealth to sneak around and go and solve many puzzles.

Tip: Save the game at the begining of every level in one file and then save throughout the level in another file. This is because near the end in Smaugs chambers, there is block that you can push off the edge that is NOT supposed to fall off. If you dont know what you're doing and save after doing this, you will have to start the game all over because you wont beable to complete the level. Just dont try pushing the blocks off and you'll be fine. (I learned from experience :( )

Great features and lots of hidden treasures.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 34 / 35
Date: January 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I played the GameCube version, but it is also available on PC, PS2, XBOX.

The Hobbit is a pretty good action adventure with appealing graphics and a lot of nice features. The game progresses through Tolkien's story, with each level representing a location from the book.

What to expect:
* Although the gameplay consists mostly of combat, platform jumping, and rope climbing, there is a fair amount of stealth and even real puzzle solving as well.
* While there's only one crucial timed sequence in the game, there are lots of little optional ones that can reap all sorts of goodies: Lockpicking is actually a minigame where you must trigger one or more moving mechanisms on a locked chest before the time runs out. While some chests won't fault you for failing, most chests will injure or poison you if you're too slow or make a wrong move.
* Through the course of the game you will obtain different weapons, starting out with the relatively weak but far-reaching walking stick. Other weapons include the shorter, but more powerful sword Sting, and throwing rocks of various kinds.
* You need every skill you acquire in the game. Different levels focus on different abilities (sneaking, jumping, fighting).
* Enemies and quests become steadily more difficult throughout the game.
* The game is just long enough to be satisfying and make you feel you've gotten your money's worth, but not so long that you get bored with it.
* At the end of each level you're presented with a screen that shows how many gems, coins, and chests you discovered as well as the total number available in that level.

What's good:
* The graphics are colorful and intriguing. A decidedly different look from the live action LOTR films and the older animated ones.
* Level design is generally good; each new location has a unique atmosphere and presents new challenges.
* Purple "journey gems" that guide you to important locations. These gems often appear when you reach new phases in the main quest, and are indispensable at times- especially during the final sequence, which is timed.
* There are goodies scattered all throughout the game, some out in the open, many hidden or locked in chests. What's great here is that you only have to walk in the general proximity of these items and they magically come to you. (Likewise when you dispatch enemies and they drop loot- even if they're across a chasm!) This is much nicer than games where you must make physical contact with all loot in order to retrieve it.
* All dialog is spoken, and the voices are pretty good.
* There's a very nice quest log that clearly identifies optional and required quests, and checks tasks off as you complete them.
* After completing each level you get to visit a store where you can use coins you collected to buy potions, rocks and upgrades that allow you to carry more items.
* Like most console games, you can't save wherever/whenever you want; you can only save at various "save pedestals" scattered around Middle Earth. What's nice is there are plenty of pedestals to be found, and they're almost always located right before particularly dangerous areas.
* When Bilbo does something that affects another area (for example, flipping a switch that opens a door in another room), the game always quickly cuts to the other location to let you see what just happened. This feedback is helpful and important.
* Some replay value, in that you may feel compelled to go through the game again just to find all the goodies you missed the first time.

What's bad:
* I encountered a clipping issue where Bilbo became permanently stuck on a mushroom. I loaded a saved game and avoided that mushroom after that.
* While camera control is usually pretty good, there are numerous tight spots where you simply can't get the camera at a good angle, or worse- when the camera keeps moving when you're trying to do something.

My rating (from Very Bad to Very Good): Very Good

You will probably like this game if you liked these: American McGee's Alice, Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

A Brick Foundation with a Hay Roof

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 27
Date: November 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game has a lot of potential, but there are a number of little things that are interfering with my enjoyment of the story and gameplay. I am very frustrated by the courage-point/treasure and saving systems in particular.

Regarding courage points and treasures, there are a specific number of each per level. Courage points can be collected to increase your maximum health capacity, and treasures sometimes hold essential weapon upgrades. This sets a challenge which takes away from the story and enjoyment of the game; you have the added pressure of getting every last treasure chest in each level, many of which are well hidden.

Getting every last item isn't a requirement, but judging from posts on various gaming message boards, I'm not the only person who feels inclined to get perfect scores. What's worse, most levels actually set road-blocks along the way so you cannot backtrack if you miss a chest. Plus, once you complete a level there's no going back. This game is unusually linear for an action-adventure title, perhaps due to the designers desire to stick to the confinements of the book. One level is equivalent to one chapter in the book.

The courage-point system is further complicated by the limitations of the saving system. You have to save the game very frequently because it's terribly easy to die, (especially by falling to your doom ... I guess poor Bilbo has a weak bone structure). If you die, you automatically start off at the previous save point, and any progress you had made, enemies you killed, or points you collected are all lost. Thus I find myself acquiring one courage point in a tricky location, and then rushing back to a crystal pedistal and saving the game, and then repeating the process one courage point at a time. It's just not fun playing in such an obssessive manner.

From reading reviews I was expecting more of a Zelda atmosphere, where you could at least backtrack within levels to explore, and you wouldn't have to be paranoid about loosing all your hard work every few seconds by misjudging a jump barely 3 feet off the ground due to the unfortunately-limited control of the camera angles.

If you enjoy the challenge of thorough hide-and-seek, or if you're relaxed enough to let missing treasure chests slide, then do check out The Hobbit. It really has some great elements, combined with a Mario meets Link design of sword slinging and platform jumping. The retelling of the book is an enjoyable touch (though certain artistic liberties were definitely taken throughout), with illustrations and narration bridging each chapter. Plus the soundtrack is one of the most amazing and unique I've ever heard. There are a couple accoustic guitar tracks, some Celtic music, and a bunch of other songs and instruments you've probably never heard in a game before Bilbo came to town. It is fully orchestrated, and well timed with the scenes and events of the game. I wish they would release a CD of the game music!

I hope my ranting review helps,
R.P.

Great Game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 14
Date: November 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game last (11/12/03) night, and I have to say it's really good. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien's work, and this game is a tribute to his book. The cinematic sequences are fantastic, the in-game graphics are superb, and the game play is loads of fun. The music is great (it doesn't sound repetitive like other games), and the voice acting is spot on. I've been waiting for months for this title to be released and I wasn't disappointed. This game is a "must have" for any Tolkien fan.

The Hobbit

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 14
Date: November 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is pretty cool! The levels, gameplay, story-line, and graphics are brilliant! There is a lot of adventuring and fighting to do in The Hobbit. But be warned!!! This game is not too easy. The Hobbit gets frustrating at times and it is pretty strategic. But I can handle all of that kind of stuff (sorta). I highly recommend you buy The Hobbit for the PS2. It is wonderful!

A True Triumph . . . .

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

"The Hobbit" is the best RPG I have played yet. With only a few flaws, I recommend the game to everyone. It does have some violence, but there's no gore or blood. After you defeat an enemy, they disapear, turning into "Courage Points". Once Bilbo collects enough Courage Points, his Health Meter increases.

The graphics are much better then Mario and Zelda combined. The characters give realistic expressions (some of which I got a kick out of). Everything is very detailed, even down to the water running down the side of a rock.

This is truly an Action-Adventure game. Bilbo explores a total of 11 levels, and eavh level is HUGE - two times the size of the biggest Mario level. When it comes to the Action, there's a lot of it. You can have atleast 20 battles in each level (except the Shire), and in some levels you can have 40. You fight wargs, goblins, spiders, spirits of the Necromancer, and a few wierd creatures I don't know the name of.

The cool thing about this game is that the characters speak audibly; you're not just reading words on a screen. Also, the characters don't blab on and on for like ten minutes. They usually just say a few things, but if the conversation is getting to long for you, you can just hit the Start button to end the whole thing. Very handy.

The game follows the book pretty well, but in a few places the game changes the story a little. For example, a whole part is added between when Bilbo loses the group in the goblin tunnels and meets Gollum.

The only problems in this game are that you can't go back to previous levels, and it was a little easy. I beat it in two weeks, playing about an hour a day. Other than that, this game is almost perfect.

Very satisfying

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Unlike Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers this game actually makes you think. In other words it's not just a button mashing game to get from level to level. Excellent game play. Just the right mix of combat, puzzle-solving and exploring. Great graphics and decent voice acting and nicely follows the book though it does take some liberties. Also I loved the music: very much fits the theme of the game.

Overall a wonderful purchase. The only RPG for the Cube that was better was Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Great Role Play Game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: November 28, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is Great!! I bought it on sale not expecting much,but was pleasently surprised.It is not to easy and not to hard.It has lots of hidden items so after you beat it you can go back and try to get them all.It has cute characters and is lots of fun!!It does have some long cut scenes but has wounderful graphics.I reccomend this game to any person who likes role play games.5 stars in my book~

This sword is going up your_ _ _when i'm through with you, -

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: January 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

-Smaug (That finished the title) This is one of the best games i've ever played. The graphics are sweet. (especially right after you get the ring and the wolves surround them around a tree) I read the book and I was so exited when I found out that this was coming out on GCN. My favorite type of video game is action-adventure so I thought that this would be a great game. I was right. This is a really fun and awesome game. It's exactly like I expected it to be. It follows the book extremely well which is what I hoped for because The Hobbit is one of my favorite books. It's also a long and not too easy, un-like some of the games I've played.

The Hobbit

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 54
Date: May 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

"The Hobbit" will be a wonderful video game for the Nintendo GameCube when it is released in stores! It will have great graphics, sound, and game play. It is expected to have a very good storyline and should go by the author J.R.R. Tolkiens book "The Hobbit or There and Back Again", which I have read, very well. Many fantasy characters are to be braught to life in this game. And those fantasy characters will be: trolls, orcs (also called goblins), huge spiders, wargs (another name for wolves), a dragon, a hobbit, a wizard, dwarves, elves, and more. I am going to buy this game the first day it will be released in stores because I am a huge fan of the book and the fact that this game will have a lot of action, adventure, and fun makes it very exciting! "The Hobbit" video game for the Nintendo GameCube will be a brilliant treat for children (and adults as well). Oh! And don't forget that "The Hobbit" book is a prequel to the fascanating "Lord of the Rings" book trilogy by the author J.R.R. Tolkien. That means the "The Hobbit" video game for the Nintendo GameCube will be a prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. And anything that is, or is based on, "The Lord of the Rings" book or movie trilogy is always something to marvel at!

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