A journey through Middle Earth

21/11/2013

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, although I don’t think The Hobbit should have been stetched out to 3 epic length films, but nevertheless I’m a long time Tolkien fan boy, and this Google web project, A journey through Middle Earth, excites me more than anything I’ve come across online in nearly 20 years.

Click on this link: http://middle-earth.thehobbit.com/ (I could only open it in Firefox) to begin an interactive story, illustrated with stills from Weta’s first film of The Hobbit novel.

The images are a layered 3D, in very high quality, the map glorious in detail and contours.
3 mini games await


Trollshaws

First, only due to it been the first sequential location offered… wow!

After reading a brief intro, we’re then invited to explore deeper, then a mini game begins.

Avoid and dodge the trolls long enough for dayl;oght to arrive to be given a reprieve… I’ll admit it took me 4 attempts, although 2 were to figure out what I was meant to do 🙂


Rivendell

Where it describes Elrond as an elf… swear I remember him being an half elf? (half true, at 6,000 years old, he chose to be Elven)
More 3D animated images that match the pull of the mouse laterally across screen, we read of Saruman the White (highest of the wizards, not meaning he’d been smoking the Hobbit’s Pipe Weed , and Galadriel (eldest of Elves, gifted with foresight, had a soft touch for those that were out for the meek of Middle Earth)

Control a leaf’s flight down river, acting as the energy for plants to grow… Cartman would describe it as hippy bullshit, I found remiicent of Journey, although not sure why?


Dol Guldur

Home of the spiders, and Radghast the Brown nearby in Rhosgobel (funny though, I remember it been more East into Mirkwood than South?)
*Hint don’t hide the mouse cursor, it’s hard to figure out where you’re going when you die
I couldn’t get the vision to track the mouse, so the final level proved impossible for me, but I wasn’t going to waste too long trying.

This is a fantastic memorial to a great tale, it doesn’twork perfect, at east on the browser I tried it on, but I’m still looking forward to the iminent release of the next 3 mini games, that will coincide with the first showing of The Desolation of Smaug.
Also sure there’s room on the map for 3 locations for the final Hobbit trology part