Hobbit : The

Copyright : Melbourne House | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit is arguably the most famous text adventure of all time and is fondly recalled almost as much for its bugs as it is for the gameplay itself.

An absolutely crucial step in the evolution of the text adventure genre, The Hobbit was the first game to introduce a basic form of independence for its non player controlled characters.

Graphics

Most of the main locations have their own drawings to accompany the text and they are, for the most part, very good in a simplistic way. Drawn in Mode 0, they are full of colour and certainly add to the game. The draw rate is a little slow but this can be fixed for emulator users by bumping up the speed of your preferred emulator (ah the wonders of modern technology!)

Mode 1 black text on a grey background, the text input does the job fine and again the speed of response can be raised with the emulator speed but it?s not so slow as to cripple the game or make it unbearable. The descriptions are a little disappointing to be honest when you consider the source material and perhaps a few less pretty pictures and more of a rich text content wouldn?t have gone a miss in some areas.

The picture on the title screen is a very good rendition of the game`s cover and some pre-eighties editions of the book and is worthy of note.

Sound

Nothing.

Gameplay

Capturing the essence of Tolkien?s Middle Earth pretty well, The Hobbit is a faithful recreation of the novel with one or two surprises of its own thrown in for good measure. The narrative being so carefully with the book is a good thing as it was given free with the game in early editions and proves to be the ultimate hint and tip resource for struggling adventurers.

For those of you living in a hole in the ground for your entire lives - The Hobbit concerns Bilbo Baggins? reluctant quest to recapture the mountain home of the elves and rid it of Smaug, the great dragon currently refusing to budge. You are joined in your quest by the Elf Lord Thorin and his loyal band of followers not to mention the wizard Gandalf - both of whom appear in the game and both help and unintentionally hinder you at different points.

Although primitive by later standards, the artificial intelligence on display was impressive at the time and an innovative leap for adventures in general. Don?t expect any real in depth conversations and chances are you?ll soon grow sick of Thorin spontaneously bursting into a rousing song about gold but full credit for trying in the first place and I believe this may be the first game where you have to rely on a non-playable character at certain points of the game to be able to complete certain tasks. The freedom can be a little too much at times though and occasionally the game will be ruined by stumbling over one of your comrades? corpses, forcing a reset if you want to complete the game. Gandalf in particular can be a little random in his wanderings but c?est la vie.

This bug is one of many to be found in the game and for a time it was a bit of a sport in the pages of Amstrad Action to find and report as many as you could find and certainly the program was riddled with them but it is and was possible to complete it? apparently?

Although off putting, obviously, perseverance does pay off and some of the problems like escaping the goblin?s dungeon and deciphering Gollum?s riddles (which are different to those found in the book) are real head scratchers but when you do work them out, the feeling of satisfaction is unlike anything else you can experience in computer games.

As mentioned previously, this first computer interpretation of Middle Earth is both faithful to the original source and a fairly convincing game world in its own right. The plot is perhaps a little linear but this criticism can be extended to the book itself and the game is merely following suit.

The parser used in the Hobbit was also a step forward as instead of typing the usual two word command structure (get coat, drop key etc) Melbourne House introduced their concept of INGLISH which basically meant you could communicate using basic sentences. Doesn?t sound much but it?s a big improvement in a lot of what came before it.

In terms of influence and importance, The Hobbit is an essential game to play and has surpassingly not aged as much as you would have expected and although it?s no longer cutting edge it is still fun to play especially after a gap of a number of years. The bugs though, which can effectively ruin your game, do have a large impact on the overall quality of the program and for this reason, and this reason alone, I have to mark the game down somewhat. I do urge you though to give this a try if you?ve never played it.