Lord of the Rings Games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_Riders_of_Rohan

J. R. R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan is a cult computer video game from 1991 based upon the fictional War of the Ring set in the Middle-earth world created by J. R. R. Tolkien, centered in the Lord of the Rings novels. The massive-scale simulation takes part in the realm of Rohan and the player controls the forces of Good during the onslaught of the forces of Evil, namely centered on the conflict with Saruman of Isengard. It was published by Konami and Mirrorsoft.

In terms of gameplay, it is very similar to the 1988 War in Middle Earth, except the setting was downsized from the entire world just to the land of the Rohirrim, engulfing mostly the storyline from The Two Towers, and to a small extent ending in The Return of the King. In a combination of a single-unit adventure, small-scale battlefield tactics and broadscale campaign warfare, the player must coordinate the Fellowship and Rohan's troops in order to fend of the invasion of Saruman's Orcs and save the Rohirrim lands, as well as mounting enough forces to push the war on the fronts in the east in order to contribute to Sauron's defeat.

At the beginning, the player can in the starting menu choose to start a new game, load an old one, quit, access encyclopedias dealing with featured units and characters, or practice. The practice folds down to tutorials in single-fighter combat: - Archery: the player takes control of Legolas attempting to shoot down (18) Orcs from a wall, while crouching from their spears - Dual: the player chooses between four Heroes: Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Eomer, to fight either an Orc or a Dunlending in melee combat - Magic Duel: the player takes control over Gandalf fighting a Nazgul flying mounted on a Felbeast

The game begins just before the Battles at the Fords of Isen, with the player taking control over Rohan's western armies (an army consisted of an infantry unit [Westfold Militia], a light cavalry unit [Outriders], a horse archers unit [Harrowdale Bow] and three heave cavalry units [Helms Deep Guards and Edoras Guards, the Grimslade squadron being under Theodred's personal leadership]). The main army is led by Theodred, while there is a separate unit of heavy cavalry [Harrowdale] that is still behind on the road. The game ends when Sauron is destroyed after the Battle at the Black Gates and Frodo and Sam reach Mount Doom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Fellowship_of_the_Ring_%28video_game%29#References

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2002 cross-platform video game developed based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. WXP developed the game for Xbox, while Surreal developed the PC and PlayStation 2 version, and Pocket Studios delevoped the game for Game Boy Advance. All three versions of the game are published by Black Label Games, an imprint of Vivendi Universal Interactive.

A sequel was planned for this game, and was to be titled The Lord of the Rings: The Treason of Isengard, which was a discarded title for the book The Two Towers. The game was in development, but was cancelled before its release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Two_Towers_%28video_game%29

Two Towers allows players to portray Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas (although Isildur is playable on he first level then unlocked once players complete the Tower of Orthanc level), (Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf, Frodo or Éowyn in the GBA version. Gimli is also unlockable in multi-player mode) in a series of missions, many taken directly from either The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring or The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Other missions, such as Fangorn Forest, are original pieces within the films' setting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_%282003_video_game%29

• Bilbo: The main character. Also the only playable character. His weapons include Sting, a walking/fighting stick, and collectable rocks. Bilbo's stick can be quite powerful against enemies that can't block. It is most effective against blood-thirsty but vulnerable spiders. It can also be used to pole-vault across wide expanses. Throughout the game, Bilbo collects scrolls that give him new or improved attacks. He appears in all levels.
• Gandalf: The wizard, who organizes the Quest of Erebor with Thorin. He is not a playable character, but gives Bilbo different jobs and helps him against the goblins at the end of Over Hill and Under Hill. He appears in a few levels.
• Thorin: An important dwarf. Also King under the Mountain. He gives Bilbo some of the tasks, like investigating the mysterious fire-light. He gives Bilbo instructions on opening the doors to the great rooms of the Kingdom under the Mountain. He also tells Bilbo to retrieve the Arkenstone from the locked treasury. He appears in most levels.
• Bard: The Captain of the Town Guard. He appears in Lake-town and the Battle of Five Armies. In Lake-town he gives Bilbo jobs to perform in service of Lake-town. The main problem that he wants Bilbo to help fix is that there are thieves and goblins causing mischief and even plotting to take over Lake-town. Bard wants Bilbo to track their moves and eventually to find the thieves' hideout. In the Battle of Five Armies, Bilbo must warn Bard of a goblin attack that Bard doesn't know of that is advancing on him from behind.
• Lianna: An elf of Thranduil's Hall in Mirkwood, Bilbo must heal her in the Troll Cave. She eventually helps Bilbo escape from Thranduil's Hall. She was not in the book.
• Corwin: A sad, heartbroken woodsman from Laketown. Bilbo meets him, and he says he is the only survivor of an attack of the spiders on his camp. Bilbo must retrieve an item for him. He then helps Bilbo get through an immensely thick web. He was not in the book.
• Balfor: A dwarf of the Iron Hills who has been made a slave of the goblins. They force him to work the dwarf-built mining contraptions. Once Bilbo frees him, he kills the goblin guards, and tells Bilbo how to escape. He was not in the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Battle_for_Middle-earth_II

BFMEII is a real-time strategy game. Similar to The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, the game requires that the player build a base with structures to produce units, gather resources, research upgrades, and provide defenses. Units are used to attack the enemy and defend the player's base. Players win matches by eliminating all enemy units and structures. Unlike the first game, the player can build an unlimited number of structures anywhere on the map, allowing for more freedom in base building and unit production. Players can build fortresses to defend their base. They can also construct arrow and catapult towers on building plots around a fortress to provide defensive support, and build walls adjacent to fortresses in any direction and length to provide basic protection. The game's HUD, called the Palantír, shows the player's hero units and their abilities, a mini-map, and objectives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_Conquest

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest is an action game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Electronic Arts. It is based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, and borrows many gameplay mechanics from Pandemic's Star Wars: Battlefront games. The game allows the player to play as both the forces of good and evil, but unlike The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, the latter option is based around Sauron stopping the One Ring from being destroyed and using it to regain his lost power. On December 23, 2008, the PlayStation 3 demo was made available on the PlayStation Network while the Xbox 360 demo was released January 2, 2009.

Pandemic was aided by Weta Digital in developing the game. They provided many of their digital models, including the fell beasts. Pandemic also used elements that were cut from the films, and have taken inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien's original fantasy novel, such as a level based loosely around Balin's conquest of Moria, in which Gimli attempts to retake the dwarven city from the orcs. Some inspiration was less direct: the armies of Rohan and Gondor decide not to attack Minas Morgul in the novel, but a level in the game is based on what might possibly have happened if they had. The game uses Howard Shore's score to the films as its soundtrack.

On March 16, 2010, the online multiplayer modes of The Lord of the Rings: Conquest were shut down for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Narnia from Books to Films to Games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children written by C. S. Lewis. It is considered a classic of children's literature and is the author's best-known work, having sold over 100 million copies in 47 languages. Written by Lewis between 1949 and 1954, illustrated by Pauline Baynes and published in London between October 1950 and March 1956, The Chronicles of Narnia has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage, and cinema. In addition to numerous traditional Christian themes, the series borrows characters and ideas from Greek and Roman mythology, as well as from traditional British and Irish fairy tales.

The Chronicles of Narnia presents the adventures of children who play central roles in the unfolding history of the fictional realm of Narnia, a place where animals talk, magic is common, and good battles evil. Each of the books (with the exception of The Horse and His Boy) features as its protagonists children from our world who are magically transported to Narnia, where they are called upon by the lion Aslan to help Narnia.

Tolkien's World from Books to Films to Games

How I think Lord of the Rings is Coherent.

Books
J.R.R.Tolkien, born on January 3rd, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the high fantasy classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This book became the second most read book after the bible. Also Tolkien was friends with C.S. Lewis the creator of Narnia, the two would talk and influence each other for their stories however I think Tolkien's work, worked much better and was much more in depth. However just before The Silmarillion was published Tolkien died on September 2nd, 1973.

The Lord of the Rings is the most well known of Tolkien's books because sheer size of what happens and what needs happen. Such as the struggle between man kind and their ignorance & greed when dealing with the Ring, who'll do anything to return to it's master with also the vastness of the geography with every country, city & building described in great detail. Within this world the reader learns about the grand history of the Elves, the dieing history of the Dwarves and Ents, the peaceful history of the Hobbits and finally the dark history of Sauron and his forces as well as many others. The book is also describing a war, a seemingly hopeless war, and every one's thoughts and believes are on this one hope to destroy the Ring and ultimately Sauron at last.

Films
To put Lord of the Rings in a film however is a hugely difficult task, because if Peter Jackson the Directer was to have page by page filmed and ordered that way, it'll be a mess and wouldn't make sense at all. So in a sense Lord of the Rings had to be rewritten to a script format, also because Tolkien had described each culture intimately the art crew could design almost everything to historic detail, this in the book may take up a couple of pages but in the film it may be seen for less than a minute and be then embedded in the views mind throughout the length of the film. The animation for the films had to evolve to the point that the view couldn't tell if it was real or not. WETA digital was born because of this film, what started off as a small group of 4 or 5 people grew towards the end film to 20 - 30 people, their work brought the art work of cultures and the acting of the actors together to create this world so real that will feel that this is history at it's greatest.

Another very important piece that made the film work was the sound effects and music, Howard.L.Shore composed, orchestrated, conducted, and produced the trilogy's music. Shore composed a main theme for The Fellowship rather than many different character themes, and its strength and weaknesses in volume are depicted at different points in the trilogy. On top of that, individual themes were composed to represent different cultures. Infamously, the amount of music Shore had to write every day for the third film increased dramatically to around seven minutes. The sound effect people spent the early part of the year trying to find the right sounds. Some, such as animal sounds like tigers' and walruses', were bought. Human voices were also used such as Fran Walsh for the Nazgul Scream, other sounds were unexpected noises: The Fell Beast's screech is taken from that of a donkey, and the Mumakil's bellow comes from the beginning and end of a lion's roar, the sounds for Moria were re-recorded in abandoned tunnels for an echo-like effect.

Games
There has been many games since the films releases and a few before Jackson's film, the first was The Hobbit 1982 which was mostly a text based story adventure game, despite the graphics being poor by the end of the the 80s over a millions copies were sold. The playability of these games increased with the game J. R. R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan 1991, which focused more towards The Two Towers, the graphics and sounds were much better so the player was more intense to the game.
However it wasn't until after the first film release in 2002 that the art and animation for Lord of the Rings skyrocketed with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with the narrative of the game being roughly divided into four parts, The first part deals with Frodo's journey to Bree and finding the other 3 hobbits, part 2 starts in Bree with Merry missing & Aragorn joining the journey. Part is when the Hobbits follow Aragorn to the summit of weathertop, Part 4 is the joining of the Fellowship and traveling through Moria to Lothlorien. Within a year over 4 million copies of the game were sold mostly due to the huge success of the film, The Two Towers & The Return of the King games soon followed expanding Tolkien's Middle Earth.
The Hobbit game was re-released in 2003 with better graphics, animation and easier following storyboard, it is closer to the book with a few short video adaptations. The Lord of the Rings games have expanded to the point where Frodo was no longer the most important character, in some ways this ruined it as it is no longer as much about the ring but about different cultures fighting against one another but it also means the player can explore the history of other characters that mentioned in the book but not in the film.

In conclusion
Tolkien's World is not explored in one day but rather over a series of days, weeks and years, and it seems to me that it is constantly expanding; sometimes within the games other times it's fan fiction. Tolkien's work to me is definitely coherent, the books, films and games all connect together fluently. The only that could go wrong for such a massive historical like fantasy world is if all of Tolkien's culture and characters are forgotten.

World Building

http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy/
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1519418
http://hiddenway.tripod.com/world/
http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldbuilding