“Middle-Earth Games – In Memory of Christopher Tolkien”

“Though here at journey’s end I lie 

in darkness buried deep, 

beyond all towers strong and high, 

beyond all mountains steep, 

above all shadows rides the Sun 

and Stars for ever dwell: 

I will not say the Day is done, 

nor bid the Stars farewell.” 

-J.R.R. Tolkien, “In Western Lands”

Recently, Christopher John Reuel Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, passed away at the age of 95. In his lifetime, he helped edit and publish some of his father’s posthumous work. We have Christopher to thank for some of the earliest maps of Middle-Earth, as well books like as The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. Christopher was a lecturer, tutor, and academic besides. Because he was publically critical of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptations, I can’t fathom what his opinion would be on some of the Middle-Earth games we’re about to mention, but I think we’ll attempt to honor his memory in our own way. There’s little doubt about Christopher Tolkien’s contributions to a fantasy world which has meant a lot to many people in many different ways.

In memory of Christopher Tolkien, TWRM presents “Our Favorite Middle-Earth Games!” And there’s no mention of Shadow of Mordor, just to be clear. Don’t send me angry emails.

The Hobbit (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox)

The Hobbit for the PS2 is a pretty obscure game, which is sad since this piece of interactive media is a beautiful adaptation of the novel. It’s an absolute gem and one of the very first games I played back when I first got my PlayStation 2. It was also my first introduction to Middle-Earth since 6-year-old me had never seen the LOTR movies, nor had I read the books yet. The Hobbit movie wasn’t out either, so this game had full creative liberty with the book, and the developers approached it beautifully.

Filled with crafty platforming, beautiful music, visuals and fun combat; this game is a hidden experience of J.R.R Tolkien’s world and deserves a play from every Tolkien/Fantasy/Adventure fan. It was my first dive into Hobbits, Orcs, Wizards, and Dwarves… and of course, the snarky Gollum as well.

More than Sting, Bilbo’s walking stick is a weapon to be feared!!! The developers, and the Tolkiens of course, have my warmest thanks for exposing me to their world that impacted me in ways unimaginable. I am forever grateful. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to finding my silver coins scattered across The Shire while I twirl my stick around like a mad hobbit. 

 –The Z Note Mage

Guardians of Middle-Earth (PS3/360/PC)

I’ve never been particularly attracted to MOBA (multiplayer online battle arenas) games, but when I saw one had been made for console play and it used major characters (and some minor ones) from the 3rd Age of Middle-Earth, I had to check it out. After an awkward ramp-up period, I started to get the hang of this type of game, and really enjoyed experimenting with all the abilities of the wide array of playable characters. While it’s online presence was relatively short-lived, and it was plagued with a number of frustrating bugs when it actually worked, it was very fun. After all, it’s not often you get to defend a lane as Eowyn side-by-side with The Great Goblin king or assault a tower using a Barrow-Wight and Thorin Oakenshield!

-The Slipstream Mage

The Lord of the Rings – The Third Age (PS2, Xbox, GBA, GCN)

This is one of the best games that have come out from the many video games created in the Lord of the Rings franchise. The now defunct Visceral Games created a game loosely based around Peter Jackson’s trilogy, in which we follow a cast of characters not part of the main group you follow in the movies. However, we get to follow along with the stories of the main cast from the sidelines.

The story itself wasn’t anything great but being able to play and walk through the stories we know from the movies, as a child there couldn’t have been a greater feeling. Combine that with the fact it was an RPG very much akin to Final Fantasy and at least from my perspective you have a game that hit you so hard in the nostalgia brain it embedded itself as a game to be remembered.

Not only were you able to play as the good guys in the game, but after having completed a chapter. You could go back and play it in evil mode, so if you always fancied how to slay your foes as a Ring Wraith, now you got the chance to beat the main game’s characters.

I really love this game. I will always go back and play it when I can to remember the good times of it. And I honestly hope that a good company could revive the series and take it even further.
By Valar, I would even settle for a complete remastered version to come out on this generation’s platforms. So many new people can be introduced to what I believe, to be one of the best games in the Lord of the Rings franchise.

–Triform Trinity

LEGO Lord of the Rings (PS3/PC)

The LEGO series is one of those marvelous things that lets you become part of your favorite stories with new humorous visuals, slapstick, and, of course, hours and hours of building your favorite places as your favorite characters. While they’ve always been buggy and crashy, they’ve still always been fun, and LEGO Lord of the Rings is probably the high point of the series. With eighty characters to unlock, including many who never appeared in the movies despite their existence in the books, and voice clips directly from the movies, LEGO LotR is a love letter for fans of both, which I was (and still am, but we don’t talk about The Hobbit movies).

I still remember the moment I started the game and the characters started talking with those familiar words and voices, something I had never encountered in a LEGO game before. It was also the first open-world LEGO game I played. It was as if I was there, exploring Middle-Earth and watching the story happen on the side. I had truly enjoyed the first few LEGO games, but LEGO LotR was one of the first ones that really felt magical to me. It’s also the only one I’ve gone back and completed 100% a second time, and with very good reason.

 –The Wandering Mage

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (PS2)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a far, far better game than it has any right to be. A hack-and-slash featuring various scenes from the final installment of Peter Jackson’s vaunted trilogy, RotK puts the player in the shoes of different members of the Fellowship: Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli hit and shoot things; Gandalf is a regular boss; Frodo and Sam just sorta hide from stuff. It’s nothing groundbreaking, gameplay-wise, but somehow it captures everything that makes Tolkien’s epic a powerful experience. You can’t play RotK without feeling that you’re really taking part in something bigger than yourself.

 -The Sometimes Vaguely Philosophical Mage

JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Volume 1 (SNES)

To everyone who has ever started a book with great aspirations and has never finished it: this is the Lord of the Rings adaptation for you! Canny readers will observe that the game’s title indicates it’s the first volume. What it actually means is it is the only volume. Volume solo. No direct sequel ever appeared on the Super NES for this plodding, ponderous adventure. The road literally went on and on, without end.

In the spirit of the game (and even in the spirit of J.R.R. himself), I didn’t finish what I started. I never beat it. It is, however, a good analogy for one’s first trip through Tolkien’s books as a kid: that feeling of being immensely lost among the richness in this rather serious universe, something that grows in appreciation as an adult; the awareness of spending 20 minutes re-reading the same page about the description of a copse on a down on a mountainside without comprehension; the desire to want to “get it” and feel very “grown-up”, and so forcing oneself to keep turning pages until coming upon the oasis of a drawing or painting of Mirkwood or Gandalf; the sense that this is part of something bigger, something valuable, meaningful, significant, and poignant without ever being able to fully describe why. That was Tolkien’s work to me as a child starting with The Hobbit, then Lord of the Rings, then Silmarillion, but I’ve only come to appreciate their literary magnificence as I’ve grown older. The songs I say from the Rankin and Bass adaptations are now secured in the context of the books.

So maybe it’s time to revisit this Middle-Earth game? Don’t tempt me, Frodo. I’ll go back and play Two Towers hack and slash, first.

-The Well-Red Mage

Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, Mage Cast, or Story Mode.