The Games of my Life

Do you like “Lord of the Rings”? Tolkien’s epic, the best known fantasy book in the world? Do you like Peter Jackson’s fantastic movie adaptations? If so, isn’t the idea of living the epic, even if “just” in a video game, tempting?

If you want to re-live the movies, the best choice is Electronic Arts’ two games, “The Two Towers”, and, especially, “Return of the King”. They’re fantastic, whether on a console or on the PC. But they’re movie adaptations - basically, you “play” the movies’ main battles. Those two are great action games, I’m not trying to diminish them in any way.

But if you want to re-live the books…

… there’s not a better choice than Mike Singleton’s 1984 classic, Lords of Midnight.

Nope, it’s not “Tolkien-licensed”. It’s not an official LotR adaptation in any way. And Mike actually wrote a short novella, which was included with the game, and was a joy to read.

But the game, a mix of adventure and strategy, was, 21 years ago, and is, right now, the best way to re-live Lord of the Rings - not an exploration of Middle Earth, not a meeting with Tolkien’s characters, but, instead, what Gandalf - who orchestrated the entire strategy - must have felt, and the challenges he had to meet.

Lords of Midnight is the perfect, still unequaled blend of grand strategy - defeating, or stopping, or at least delaying the Dark Lord’s might by force of arms - with high adventure - a heroic quest of a brave hero who attempts, without an army behind him, using only stealth and courage, to destroy the Dark Lord’s main source of power - which, obviously, can only be done deep inside the Dark Lord’s territory. Sound familiar?

Really, play this game. There’s a reason it still has an active community, with enhancements, remakes, multi-player versions and so on… after 21 years.