7/27/01 - Latest News

Sierra Talks LOTR Game
Xoanon @ 11:52 am EST

From: Wiggy

On the Games Network channel here in the UK, there was an interview with a guy from Sierra Patrick Moynihan talking about The Fellowship Of The Ring Game in production.

He talked a good deal about the game play and stated there was 8 main levels in the game (The Shire, Old Forest, Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien and the River Anduin). He said that Tolkien was a very descriptive author so it gave them an authentic resource, and he said everyone working on the game was a big Tolkien fan. It doesn’t have any rights to images or actors in the New Line Films though so the production and character design is there own style of Middle Earth.

The main character you control in the game is Frodo so you cant chose to be Gandalf etc. Yet you can talk to the Fellowship members and they can help you in battle and combat (he said they used most of the AI on fellowship members too). Each character has different strengths so Sam for example will be good for maybe distracting enemy`s while you stab them in the back. Gandalfs very powerful so he could take on multiple enemy`s.

The game play is non linear because there is side adventures and puzzles to complete in the game, which you can chose to do in any order. He mentioned that in the book Tolkien described Evil creatures lurking round the Shire and in the game you can explore this. He went on to describe the evil of the ring but said in some situations it can be positive and you have to use it. They are trying to encompass the dark side of book as well as the humour and levity. They are shooting for a main audience with a Teen or 11+ rating. He said if the game was successful they would do the rest of the series as well. One interesting point was that Sierra was also working on a "multiplayer" Hobbit game. When the interviewer asked about whether there will be encounters with Oliphants in the south, he said they are staying very true to events in the book, so there will be no adventures in the south. It also shown to pretty cool artwork of Gandalf, Black riders and Gollum as well. This game could be pretty good after all.