5/18/01 - Latest News

NOOOOO!!!!!!!
DarthCaeser @ 2:02 am EST

WARNING! Not for the faint of heart!

Tolkien Online got to see the demo of Sierra's new LOTR game, the Fellowship of the Ring, at E3. After reading their report, I promptly curled into the fetal position and started weeping. Some three hours later, I am now stable enough to write a report of my own. ::Shudder::

OK, now for my report: NOOOOO!!!!!!! It has to be some kind of sick, twisted, cruel joke. I just can't believe it. Take a look at part of what Ted from Tolkien Online wrote:

A rather small humanoid was on the screen in front of me he had a sword drawn and a cape flowed behind him. A squirrel scurried across his path and the leaves were falling from the trees. ( A nice touch as this was the Old Forest and it was approaching fall when the Hobbits walked through it in the book, If I remember it right.)

The forest was a lush green with bushes and trees of all sort, large Stones blocked the passage at certain points. The animation was good and the feel felt right. Soon off in the distance I noticed two creatures approaching. The person demonstrating the game said that in order to bring magic to Frodo, they had to implement a rune system of magic which would activate on Frodo's sword. Frodo activated his fire rune and Sting started to leave a fire trail when he swung it.

As Frodo approached the two creatures, it became apparent that they were badgers. Frodo quickly dispatched the giant badgers, but not before having his rune magic ran out.

Up ahead was a rather large log which ran across a stream. Frodo crossed over to the other side where but the path was littered with spore puffing mushrooms. Frodo quickly timed his approach and whacked off each of the mushrooms heads.

After a bit of walking Frodo encountered a couple of spiders and he pulled out his sling, armed himself with fire ammunition and proceeded to lob glowing balls of fire at the spiders.

Next came a couple of Orcs and at this point Frodo decided to call out for Aragorn's help. Strider quickly dispatched the Orcs and that was the end of the Old Forest section of the demo.

::An hour or so passes:: Sorry, I collapsed into a heap and started weeping again. I sincerely hope this was some kind of joke, the only thing that keeps me from losing all sanity is that Ted said "The game feels a lot like a newer version of Zelda" (Zelda: Ocarina of Time) Zelda: OoT is one of the greatest games of all time, I guess a Zelda clone based on LOTR isn't the worst thing that could happen. But still... NOOOOO!!!!!!! [More]