The Hobbit
- The Hobbit (1982 on ZX Spectrum, 1983 on PC Booter, Commodore 64...)
- The Hobbit (2003 on Game Boy Advance)
- The Hobbit (2016 on TRS-80 CoCo, Dragon 32/64)
Description official descriptions
Third-person platformer adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's famous book. Players control Bilbo as he's taken from his safe little hole in the Shire by a band of Dwarves to confront the dragon Smaug while picking up a glowing sword, an invisibility ring, and coins and crystals.
Spellings
- Хоббит - Russian spelling
- ההוביט - Hebrew spelling
- 哈比特人 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
Groups +
- Fantasy creatures: Dragons
- Fantasy creatures: Dwarves
- Fantasy creatures: Elves
- Fantasy creatures: Goblins
- Fantasy creatures: Halflings / Hobbits
- Fantasy creatures: Trolls
- Inspiration: Author - J.R.R. Tolkien
- Inspiration: Literature
- Middleware: Bink Video
- Software Pyramide releases
- Symphonic Orchestra: Northwest Sinfonia
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (PlayStation 2 version)
214 People (161 developers, 53 thanks) · View all
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Creative Director | |
Game and System Design | |
Level Designers | |
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Character Animation | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 63% (based on 42 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.3 out of 5 (based on 31 ratings with 5 reviews)
The Good
First off, the Hobbit has been my favorite book since childhood, so this game was a no-brainer for me. Happily, the game is a good game on its' own merit.
The game plays much like a fantasy version of Tomb Raider or Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver as Bilbo Baggins helps thirteen dwarves to reach their former home by pushing blocks and climbing vines.
He can pick locked chests (he's being sold as a burglar after all) and collect 'courage points' (those are gemstones to you and me) by slaying bad guys.
The Hobbit is fairly linear and the designers have remained faithful to the book, but they also remembered that game play makes or breaks a game. While the meat and potatoes of Mr. Baggins quest are present, there's plenty of extra side quests to keep you busy. Sure they take a little license with the story from time to time, but never too badly. Some things happen out of order (Bilbo names his sword Sting as soon as he gets it and he doesn't meet Beorn until the Battle Of The Five Armies), but at least they're all there.
The graphics are beautiful. Not state of the art, but very artistic, with detailed environments and intricate design on the characters. Running around a fully 3D Shire at the beginning of the game is a childhood dream come true. That's also about the point you realize that the designers haven't totally screwed-up a story you've cherished forever.
Voices were very well done. Thankfully, everyone in the game has a British accent. No American actors trying out accents here! The music is also good and appropriate to what's happening around you.
The controls are very smooth. Bilbo generally has no problem hopping around, climbing ropes, pushing boxes and fighting with his sword/walking stick/stones.
Special mention should also go to the Fizz Factor who did an outstanding job on the PC port. The Hobbit runs smoothly on my mid-level PC with all the details maxed out.
The Bad
My biggest disappointment is the way the story is told. When you aren't in a playable section, there are a few well done CGI scenes, but much of the story is told through static drawings in a story book. Many of my favorite scenes (the showdown with the goblin king and the riddle game with Gollum) are just sort of glossed over. If you haven't read the book before playing the game, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. More CGI scenes would have solved this I think.
Also, a lot of the depth of the book disappears. This isn't the designers fault. How do you describe the inner feelings of a character in a video game? Still, Bilbo's hardly out of the Shire before he's knee deep in man-eating (hobbit-eating?) plants and hungry wolves. These are gripes about the conversion of book to game and not necessarily about the game itself.
My other problems have to do with it being a console port. Instead of saving where you want, you are cursed with save points. Confusticate and bebother save points!
I do wish everybody who creates third-person games would be forced to sit down and play Rune to see how to get camera movement done right. Even all these years later, the Hobbit had an occasional (very occasional, I'll admit) problem with the camera zooming way in or way out. Why are console third person games so far behind their PC brothers on this?
Also, there's no option for full time mouse look. To look up or down, you have to hold down Caps Lock while moving the mouse.
The Bottom Line
Overall the Hobbit is a very well done lite-RPG action/adventure game. Highly recommended.
Windows · by Atomic Punch! (186) · 2003
The perfect game.. for my girlfriend.
The Good
To be honest, I never actually played this game myself. But I sat next to my girlfriend while she played it from the beginning to the end, and I must say I was most impressed by both her and the game. The Hobbit boasts extremely colourful graphics, large, detailed levels and a well known story skillfully translated into a computer game. Strangely enough the game revolves a lot around the action sequences as Bilbo battles his way through hordes of goblins, orcs and spiders. The fun part about the game is the puzzle solving though. There are plenty of levels, plenty of secrets and plenty of puzzles to keep you occupied for hours on end.
The Bad
Sometimes it looked like there was just too much action going on, and after you've played the first level (which is very good, with lots of small quests) you're kind of disappointed by the next few levels that are a whole lot more action oriented. Also, the hair on Bilbo's head looks like it's made of some sort of shiny plastic. Not good!
The Bottom Line
An excellent action oriented platformer with a few adventure and role playing game features thrown into the mix. A lengthy game with lots of variety and plenty to see.
Windows · by Mattias Kreku (413) · 2004
The Good
It was nice to see the characters and places from the book in a videogame, the places are all beautifully made, Hobbiton with all it's lively colors, Smaug's lair with all its majesty, etc. The team artists did an splendid job on what ambientation concerns.
The gameplay it's ok, I liked a lot how well some puzzles were implemented with the action (very easy puzzles if you are used to adventure games, being this my case, but they are ok).
The game has some very interesting bits, I enjoyed a lot traveling around lake-town, the dwarves mountain episode and Smaug's lair.
The music it's also cool, with some medieval and irish influences.
The Bad
Some of the scenes from the book have been reduced just to some cut-scenes with a few pictures sliding and explaining everything, it wouldn't have hurt to have some more videos.
I would also loved to have some more RPG-ish stuff, like levels, abilities and some other things.
Also they took a very few liberties while narrating the story that hardcore fans will notice.
The Bottom Line
If you liked the book, get this game quickly, but if you disliked it I don't think you are going to enjoy this game.
PlayStation 2 · by Depth Lord (934) · 2005
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Related Sites +
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Sierra: The Hobbit
Official website
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Atomic Punch!.
PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox added by clef.
Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Corn Popper, chirinea, Xoleras, Crawly, dvdeus, GTramp, fakk3.
Game added December 12, 2003. Last modified March 13, 2024.